Pediatric Airway Problems Explained: Mouth Breathing, Cavities, and ADHD‑Like Symptoms

When sleep is fragmented by mouth breathing or a restricted airway, the ripple effects can show up as cavities, restless sleep, drooling, picky eating, speech concerns, bedwetting, and ADHD-like behavior in kids. Speaking of Women's Health Podcast host Dr. Holly Thacker interviews Dr. Rachel Rosen, DDS, a board-certified pediatric dentist and a Breathe Institute affiliate in Ohio, to connect the dots between airway, oral function, and whole-body health from infancy through adolescence.

They talk through what modern pediatric airway screening should look like and why a quick glance at tonsils or a single referral often misses the bigger picture. Dr. Rosen explains how mouth breathing dries the mouth, drives tooth decay, and why the end goal stays simple: tongue up, lips sealed, and healthy nasal breathing.

You’ll also hear practical, parent-friendly guidance on what to watch for at home, why symptoms can peak deep in REM sleep, and how inflammation, allergens, and diet can worsen the cycle. If you’re looking for more information, follow Dr. Rosen on Instagram or Facebook or visit greatbeginningspd.com.

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Transcript

Welcome And Meet Dr. Rosen

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Welcome to the Speaking of Women's Health Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Holly Thacker. I'm not exactly in the Sunflower House today. I'm in my office in the Center for Specialized Women's Health. And I'm so happy to be joined today by a special guest, a recurrent guest, uh, that you might remember from season two. I'm speaking with Dr. Rachel Rosen. Dr. Rachel, as her young patients uh fondly call her, is a board-certified pediatric dentist, and she is the owner of Great Beginnings Pediatric Dentistry in Twinsburg, Ohio. And she's the only Breathe Institute affiliate in the state of Ohio, which is a pretty big state. And as I mentioned, Dr. Rachel joined me back in season two, and I'm so thrilled to welcome her back in season four to talk about all the latest in pediatric airway health, an area that's rapidly evolving and impacting how we care for children's health. And as you might remember, I met Dr. Rachel Rosen when I was so upset that my um first grandchild, and now I'm expecting my sixth, when she was two and she jumped off a couch because she thought she was a superhero and smashed in her teeth. And I'm happy to report that she's now starting to lose teeth and get her adult teeth, and her smile is beautiful, and I really so appreciate Dr. Rachel's excellent care. And I was so enamored when I went into her practice, um, it was so child focused. And I had never, and I had three of my own kids and took them to the dentist to get all their dental care and never experienced anything like that. And even though most of our listeners and we're in a hundred countries and we were in the top 25% of uh podcasts on Buzz Sprout, um probably are past the pediatric stage themselves. Hopefully, they have some little ones in their lives. So welcome, Dr. Rachel. Thanks for coming back.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be back and to talk about. I mean, I know it's been a few seasons, but a lot has changed and evolved, so it's exciting to be here.

What The Breathe Institute Does

SPEAKER_01 2:39

And I understand that you returned from a conference at the Breathe Institute. Uh, for those of us unfamiliar, um, tell us what the Breathe Breathe Institute is and why it's become such a hub for innovation in airway health.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

So the Breathe Institute, it's an institution, it's out in Los Angeles. It was founded in part by Dr. Susagi, who's a sleep ENT, and it's a pioneer globally for everything airway breathing, and they're looking at infancy through adulthood. So I'm really as the um affiliate there learning how to care for the entire person, which I think has been huge, but they're putting out research, and we haven't had medical-based research on a lot of this stuff, and that's one of the biggest goals is to actually get this in the hands of providers who want research, and they're doing that every single day, which is amazing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

And so, what what are some of the um highlights, or how has it changed your practice? What things have you brought back?

SPEAKER_02 3:39

So, when I I just came back, like you've mentioned from out in Los Angeles, I was actually there doing part of my affiliate training, and part of the affiliate training is that I'm actually to be able to go in the clinic one-on-one and see everything from how they operate to how Dr. Zaghi is doing procedures to the day in and day out. I actually was watching them like publish publish research while I was sitting in there. So instead of sitting in a group of people like you do it a course, I'm getting hands-on one-on-one training, which was amazing. And I'm able to kind of cherry pick and bring things back home and apply it into the practice and hopefully one day a larger airway center where we have that in Cleveland because there's such a need for it. Um, so it was it was fascinating, eye-opening, and really had the opportunity to learn one-on-one from the expert in this field. Um, which was amazing. It was, I have no words because I came back having a thousand things in my head that I want to do to bring that type of care here. Um, I'm practicing that way in the practice, you know, at doing the releases I do and the comprehensive care, but having the providers under one roof and the ability to have those collaborative conversations was so nice. And it's what we need.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

I see so many overlaps with what I did when I opened up this center, which I'm physically in for specialized women's health. I realized to take care of a patient, you need perspectives from different specialties, and we're all kind of so siloed by gender or age or organ system, and really each person is totally connected in this one person and may need a lot of different perspectives.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Is this so this airway institute, is it both for children and adults or everyone, everyone and I think that like even though I'm running a pediatric office, right, and I'm seeing children day in and day out for their routine dental hygiene and things like that, but on the airway side of it, um, it's everyone, right? And we're looking at parents who are saying, This was me as a child, and no one corrected it, and we actually have the opportunity to do those things at the Breath Institute. They are they're seeing kids through adults, there's sleep medicine, there's ENTs, there's um orthodontics, myofunctional therapists, pediatric dentists. So, like it's like it's a very collaborative approach, which I don't think that I don't I don't think we have here. And just like you're saying in medicine, we tend to treat things very in isolation, but the airway is such a huge piece of it and connecting to our entire body. Um so I'm working with different providers. I'm working with orthodontists and speech language pathologists and occupational therapists and myofunctional therapists. Um, when I'm doing the work I'm doing, it's just not in my office.

Hands On Training And Team Care

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. And you made the comment that you do a lot of releases. Is that when you clip the bottom part of the tongue? Is that for breastfeeding or breathing or all of it?

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Right. So, so ultimately where where I play the biggest part is I'm almost the quarterback of these kids' lives, right? They're coming into me, um, potentially like having worked with other providers or having not worked with other providers, and their symptoms and figuring out where these symptoms are coming from. Um we are all tongue-tied and lip tied, we're all connected, it's part of our fascial system. So when I'm looking at things, I'm looking at function and how is this functionally affecting things and where are the symptoms? Because you could look really poor to the eye on a grading scale, but be functionally quite fine, and you may look not the worst on a grading scale or not function the worst on a grading scale, um, and have all these symptoms. So then it's figuring out who is the teen that needs to be involved in this, and then ultimately, yes, I do what's called in a baby, it's just a release, right? It's it's very minimal to the fascia, but as we get into an older kid into an adult, it's functional framuloplasty, where we are going in and we're addressing this in a very with with a with a holistic functional approach to get the most out of that. Um but that comes from having the right space and the right oral motor function.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

So it's there's a lot of players, right? And so what are some of the symptoms that that parents or the children come in with to present with to make it?

SPEAKER_02 7:51

So when I'm seeing like infants, right, like that that's the mom who's having breastfeeding symptoms or body feeding symptoms, right? Um, and that's where there's a diad. So I'm not treating the mother per se. I do have red light in my office, which I will offer to a mom if need be. Um she's really uncomfortable, but I'm looking at the baby symptoms.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So are they tell me about the you red light to the mother? Is that red light to the breast? Yes. So I did a podcast earlier on red light, and it's like it seems like it's all the rage for so many things.

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SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yes. It's I have a SUMIS medical grade red light in my office, which is phenomenal, and I'm able to help improve healing outcomes when I use it. Um, in a mom who's uncomfortable, we're doing um just red light on their breasts and whatever area, the aerial or the breast tissue, whatever's most uncomfortable, and it's it's pretty instantaneous where they can actually then, you know, I've had parents who are like, I can't even put a shirt on. Like the mom's like, I can't, I have protection between this, and we do the red light therapy and it's gone. So being able to offer that for the infants that I release is huge because I want them to be able to feed after um and then have and be able to, you know, continue that relationship. If that's what if that's what they're trying to go for. I do have parents who come in that are strictly bottle feeding and I help them figure out that. Um, again, with the lactation specialist, with the body work specialist, like it's a whole team of us, but when I do releases, I'm also doing using the red light on those babies um preoperatively to help with the release, decreasing the pain, and then also post-operatively as we need in terms of trying to improve the healing outcomes and the inflammation, which is it's been it's been one of the newest things I brought in that has been, you know, I can use it dentally across the board with kids with trauma. Um, like you meant with your granddaughter, like had I had that, I tend to do it, um, you know, if it kids in a lot of pain. But when it comes to my releases, that's why I initially bought it on. But I'm finding a lot of other dental ways I can use it in the practice, which has been really nice.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Interesting. And do you use local anesthetics as well?

Tongue Ties, Releases, And Red Light

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah. So when I when I'm releasing a baby, absolutely. Um, I use topical. When I release older kids, it's you know, it's topical and injection, same thing with an adult. Um, but it's the the infants what we're looking at is are they coming in, are they having reflux? Are they um is the mom uncomfortable? Are they having spitting when you know sp frequence spit up? Are they dripping out of a bottle? Is the lip pinching? Is there curling? Can the tongue not lap, like is the tongue movement not there? Is the function not there? And a really young infant, I can test this function. Umce you're a little bit older, we have different ways to look at that. Um, so that gets into, you know, then then how does transition to solids go? Can you transition to your solids well? Are you pocketing, spitting things out, choking, gagging? How are gross motor skills? You know, you talk about the whole body, the fascial system affects the ability to transition to crawling and then to walking. And you know, the AAP just got rid of crawling as a milestone, but uh from a functional perspective, and I'm looking at that's such an important piece of how we integrate everything. Um, and oral motor is so tied to that. So we're looking at, you know, are you reaching those milestones? And then we're looking at how speech's developing.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Pickier eater, pickier eaters usually slower to reach their milestones motor-wise.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

I think there's there's definitely a correlation, right? Because you're looking at the fascist system. If you're tight, if your fascist is tight, your gross motor skills are gonna be tight. We're gonna see that, you know, that there's and and I'm not an OT, but I work with a lot of occupational therapists, right? And physical therapists who are looking at that and where they're seeing the tension in the body and how that's affecting everything else. There's actually um a lot of a lot of new push for looking at all the planes, the eye plane, the cluzal plane, the pelvic plane, the um the plantar plane. And and and I um there's a group, I'm actually in the middle of another um masterminds program, and one of the conversations we had was with podiatrists, with um ophthalmologists, with um pelvic floor PTs, and looking at all those things, which is fascinating because we talk about how this affects us for a lifetime, and there's actually adults that have had releases, and I've done them where they're having pelvic floor issues, and then you do a release, and it's you know, it really it releases the tension. Not to say that that's the release, the release is icing on the cake, right? They're doing all this other therapy and all this other work, but it's like let's get rid of that fascial tension.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

That is so fascinating. I have done other podcasts with uh minimally invasive surgeons, gynecologists that specialize. Dr. Goobel's was on where we talked about chronic pelvic pain and the role of physical therapy, and they deal so much with fascial release post-surgery. I know I dealt with my husband had major spine surgery, and you know, you don't get that in traditional medicine, like, and it's not taught. And then I went we went and saw the physical therapist who also I'll have on the podcast, who said, Yeah, we're in business because of surgery and the need for fascial release. Yes, yes, you know, and and I do think it's hard for patients. I saw a lady the other day in the office who came to see me for my concierge program, um, which, you know, they pay some money up front and then they get more time and and uh the nurse involvement, and she said, like, I had to come here to have someone listen to me instead of just go to ten different subspecialists, and everybody has their tiny little piece, and then you have this person who's kind of like left out in the cold, and then if you are not medical yourself or don't even know the lingo, it's overwhelming. And then I guess if you add a child to it who may not even have speech yet to even communicate what their issues are, I can see why the more integrative, the better it is.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Absolutely, and and that's one of the biggest things. Like, I have parents come to you and they're like, I have seen so many other providers. I've been through so many systems and no one's listening to me, and I know something's wrong. And until you know what to look for, you don't see it, and it's not necessarily that individual provider's fault, they just don't know any different. Um, but now that I I see it, I can't unsee it. And I've formulated an amazing network of providers in, you know, even outside the greater Cleveland area, patients that come from all over, and we're just getting those teams together and providing them comprehensive care. And I think that's what's so important.

Infant Feeding Signs And Milestones

SPEAKER_01 14:38

That's fabulous, and I think it's good advice for parents or anyone who's taking care of someone who they have to be in charge of the their medical care and overall care. That at a gut level, if you think that there's something wrong and you've been told it's not. I went through that with my middle son in um elementary school. He wasn't progressing in reading, and he still was a smart student and doing very well. And the teachers, he had no behavior issues, they were fine. I knew there was something wrong. And they even brought the psychologist in to talk to me to say, you know, each child's different, and you know, you have a very bright older son, so you can't expect him to be like the second son. I'm like, no, I I I'm not. I think there's something wrong. I think he needs extra testing. They were really irritated with me. I finally found an optometrist who did testing of eye tracking, and he had very weak eye muscles, and he had to do three-dimensional care. Luckily, you know, we had computers and you know, he could do it at home, but in the old days, I guess they had to keep bringing the child in like every day to the office, which would have been very hard for me running my medical practice anyway. Well, I was it to say he did this three-dimensional um uh therapy and he jumped up like three reading grades, and he and he said he didn't have headaches anymore. And I I said, I didn't know you had headaches. He's like, Well, I told you I did, which he didn't really tell me that way, but again, he's a child. And then once the muscles were tracked, it was great. But even to this day, and he's you know, postgraduate level, very successful, he's got his family, very smart guy, ranked at upper level chess levels. Um he still prefers to listen to audiobooks as opposed to read. And I really think that just the delay of a year or two from first to second grade and me figuring that out uh, you know, affected it. So I'm sure you have so many stories. And you are listening to the Speaking of Women's Health Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Holly Thacker, a woman's health specialist, but care about all ages, all people, all problems. And we're talking to pediatric dentist, Dr. Rachel Rosen, who is an expert in the airway, and the um the main one in this area, she's quite quite a trailblazer dealing with being very multidisciplinary and functional in looking at the airway.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you, Dr. Thacker. Yeah, I it's just and going back to what you were saying a minute ago, like it's I always tell you know, you we can fix this, fix any of these at any age. It just gets harder the older we get. So I had, you know, one time I heard someone explain it. We talk about hours old, days old, weeks old, months old, now years, and our body is slowing down. So when I have the opportunity to see babies within the first days of life, that's my you know, almost somewhat of the easiest because they haven't formed all the bad habits and we get a great team together. Can you fix an adult? Absolutely, but that that's fire. I call that fire. You know, we have smoke in kids, we can put out the smoke. Um, it just gets more complex. But you know, coming from someone as an adult, like I'm in the middle of my airway journey. I had what's called a MARPY placed, it's a um custom expander and opens up your jaw as an adult to open up airway space. Um, and then I'll go through some myofunctional therapy to train my tongue and I'll look at that. I'm doing pelvic floor therapy, I'm doing chiropractic work. Um, so I'm I I like to do these things too, so I can speak to my patients about it. Yes, yes, you know, and so it it's it's getting the whole team, but I agree with yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

I certainly, you know, thought of myself as being an educated parent. I never brought my newborn in to a pediatric dentist. I didn't even think you needed to start to see a dentist until they start to get teeth.

unknown 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Well, and listen, in when we look at it, right? A the AAPD, which is the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, by year one, you want to see a dentist. Like that's what you want to do. Uh-huh. But if you have any concerns, just like you said, I always tell my parents, like, your mommy got, your parent got, it is right. Trust it, and I would rather see you and follow you and watch these milestones than not. Um, there, the American Academy of Pediatrics says that every child should be screened for airway health within their first year of life. But no one's screening their airway health. So I have become that person, and I love being that person when I can see babies right by a year and they I love when they haven't had issues before, but every single exam, we're looking at how is your palate growing? Because the roof of the mouth is the base of the nose. We're looking at how what is your tongue function? Um, what do your tonsils look like? I cannot see adenous clinically, but I can see tonsils. And when tonsils start to get inflamed, it's telling me a story. You know, are your kids chronically getting strepped? Are they breathing with their mouth open? Are they drooling on the pillow? Is their hair a mess? Um, are they having, you know, ADHD-like symptoms? So we're asking these questions in our health questionnaire at every single appointment to try and just, you know, screen, number one, and then also bring your awareness. And if a parent is like, I don't know, I'm like, go home, let's watch for these things. Because a lot of it's not happening until deep into the REM sleep cycle, which can be 2, 3 a.m. And who's not who's up at that time? Right. And I I as a parent, you know, my my older son is three and a half. I was the first person to say, he doesn't sleep with his mouth open. I happen to be on the West Coast, turned on the monitor at home, so and I was like, oh, okay. Because I got to see him at a time that I normally would have been sleeping at home. And from there, you know, his symptoms started spiraling. So I think, especially my patients, I'm able to talk to them as a provider, but also as a parent who's been through this and figuring out the journey too on my own with my own kids.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Uh-huh. Which has been really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Um what are some of the symptoms that manifest in old older children that make you worried about the airway? Like, oh my god, yeah, absolutely.

Older Kid Red Flags In Sleep

SPEAKER_02 20:36

So fingers in the mouth, the lower the tongue. So when you think about in older kids, so like when I even run into dentistry, cavities, cavities are a symptom. Why do we have these cavities, right? Um, mouth breathing is the number one cause of cavities. You can brush, you can floss, you can do a really good diet, but if you put air in the mouth, and we know this, we know that dry mouth and adults put you to higher cavities. Right? It's the same concept in kids. It's dry mouth when you mouth breathe, when you think about it, right? Um, you know, I have older kids who still are having speech concerns. Wetting the bed. Wetting the bed has been one of the biggest ones lately. I'm seeing these kids who are like 9, 10, 11, 12, and the parents are, you know, driving two, three hours to me going, they're still wetting the bed, and I help me. And I look at them and they have these really high palates, their tongue has low tone, and they're not sleeping well. So there's no regulation because when you're a mouth breather, you're at a sympathetic state. And that sympathetic state, the way I explain it to you know, a kid, I'm like, right before you have to take a test, right? And you're like, oh, the pee, I'm about to take a test. It's the same concept. You're at that state during sleep, and then you you have no bladder control.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

So I I also wondered if disrupted sleep affects the antidiuretic hormone, which allows you to concentrate your urine.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

A thousand percent. Absolutely. Uh-huh. Yep. Uh-huh.

unknown 21:57

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

And you think about when all those, when you get into that REM sleep, which you probably know a ton about this from you know, patients you treat, how much of your systems have to be regulated then? Like your growth hormones being released, you know, all of your digestive tract like that's when your body recovers. Yes. You have to have good sleep. You have to have restorative sleep. And these kids are not having restorative sleep. So at the end of the day, like, you know, and this this is a model straight from the Breathe Institute, and I preach it every day. It's tongue up, lip sealed, healthy, breathing through your nose. Like, that's what we gotta do.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

We can get that to happen.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

Tongue up. Tongue up. Lip sealed. Healthy breathing through your nose.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Through the nose, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

And that's like a breathe institute. Like that's a motto. Like you, you, you know, and as an affiliate, like I live by that. Like, that's from the infant through the adults that you know that I'm seeing, it's like we we gotta, that's that's our and end goal is nasal breathing. How do we get there?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

And it just seems like a lot of children that have any kind of sleep problems or breathing problems, it they're taught taken to the ENT and they automatically have their tonsils out. And that's major surgery. It's painful. Absolutely. You lose lymphatic tissue, and it and and I'm not a pediatrician, and this this pod this podcast is not medical advice, it's for edutainment, education, awareness, um, to get people thinking about things. We have a lot of medical people who actually listen to the podcast as well as our lay audience, but it didn't intrinsically seem like the right thing to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

It's a band-aid, right? And I'm not saying there are kids that need tonsils. I work with phenomenal ENTs that do partials, and I'm very pro partials because you're leaving lymphatic tissue intact, it's not as invasive. When I have a young kid who like they just can't breathe, and I'm looking at these tonsils going, okay, you're you're two and a half. I can't even get you into an expander. I can't even guide you to my airway orthodontist I work with to do this. What are we gonna do? But having a less invasive procedure or trying other things, you know, decreasing the inflammation around the household, going to a low inflammatory diet, clearing out the nasal system. Like we we definitely go through like things to consider before you do tonsil surgery, um, doing doing things, you know, home environment checks, airway checks, diet checks, um, sleep hygiene checks to kind of do the do the best we can. Um, but at the end of the day, kids who have had tonsils, adenoids, ear tubes, that is a red flag to me that they don't have a healthy airway space, which typically means we don't have jaw space, which means we're gonna have to do something with that function. So interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Now, what about prolonged um thumb sucking? I I'm thinking about my my oldest granddaughter who the only time she sucks her fingers is at night, and I always thought it was to pull her tongue down to open up her airway.

Tonsils, Inflammation, And Better Options

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Absolutely it is. No, you're absolutely uh like yes, there's there's the non-nutritive, just like you know, you're you're giving that kind of reaction. The roof of the mouth has that little papilla area that gives a lot of sensory input. But most of the time when it becomes prolonged, it's because you now have narrowed that upper upper jaw and your tongue has a little your thumb is a happy home. So your tongue, again, we talked about tongue up. If the tongue doesn't have a home to go to, it's gonna want to go low. So what's the solution to nasal breathe? Great, I'll put my thumb in, I'll put a pacifier and I'll put fingers in because that that'll house in that space. So it is an airway thing at the end of the day. Um, and those are the patients that you can work through it. You can do what's called oral myology, myofunctional therapy, train the tongue. You can also do expansion and create more room and then train the tongue. So it just depends on how we can get a kid out of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Uh interesting, because her mother was a long-term thumbsucker and apparently had a very high palate and had to have palate expans expansion. So maybe if you intervene sooner, you might be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

In theory, absolutely. The sh the shorter the time we do those habits, the better we're gonna have. But like there's also like genetics that play into it. And um, there's a really awesome book by Western Price, who he's a um dentist and he's going out and look at looking at skulls, right? From back, you know, 1870. Right, and and we didn't have these problems. We were well developed, we had room for all 32 teeth, our tongue had space, we had beautiful airway space, we didn't have chronic diseases, we weren't on medications. Um, and it's how it's it's a lot of things, right? But it's how our diet was. It was our the toxicity in our environment. But you look at you look at the skeletons and they had these gorgeous broad smiles, and we're seeing kids now, and I will tell you probably 98% of my patients have an expander. Like it's we'll we'll get one or have one. It's everyone, but that that's because we're shrinking as a human population. How many of us we don't have wisdom, don't don't have room for wisdom teeth. So, like my generation, everyone got their wisdom teeth out. Now I'm seeing the next generation that don't even have them because we're basically evolving so quickly, it's so fascinating. Um, so our jaws are shrinking, so our body's like, we don't need these teeth.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Wow, and I know, right? It is dietarily that our jaws are shrinking.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

We're not chewing. Kids are going around eating pouches there, and these are. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

I see these parents like squeeze stuff in the kids' mouths, and I'm like, I didn't do that. Only one of my three sons has all his wisdom teeth, and he's got that big jaw. Does he have the beautiful paw? Absolutely. Yeah, he's got a big smile and a big jaw. He's he's been on our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah, that's right. And that's so it's so rare.

SPEAKER_02 27:22

So what's so rare to see that? It's so important. I mean, it is. It's the pouches, it's the ease of life. It's you know, I think there's there's in it's an interesting, you know, there there's been question around why we're seeing more releases than we ever had. And I think that's definitely some controversy, but we're also having a push of a population, a generation that wants to breastfeed. You know, my generation, we were most of us were bottle fed. It was formula because that's what the push was for. And now you have back a generation that wants to breastfeed. But if you can't do it functionally, it's it's fascial restriction at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

So there's better oral and facial development if you've got to work for it harder and breastfeeding.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Absolutely, right. You have to chew. You have to put your tongue in the right spot. Your tongue has to be able to develop, you have to be able to bring you right, it's all of it. Um, there weren't pat I mean, there were there were thumbs back in the day. We didn't have pacifiers, we didn't have the, you know, those things. Um, we we chewed. And that chewing, that chewing power develops all of that. But if you can't chew because you don't have the space and you don't have the function, you're gonna that those those evolve into those picky eaters who never learned how or couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yeah, so that you don't want to like give your young child like too soft or too easy a food. I know my granddaughter's I mean, listen. I don't want I don't want the meat, it's too hard to chew.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

That's one of the biggest questions I'll ask. Yeah. I mean, I pay that's one of the like my screeners are like, tell me their diet. What are they eating? Are they eating not crunchy, because they'll eat a goldfish, they'll eat a you know, a veggie straw. It's the meat, it's the steak and the chicken. Or they're like, well, they'll eat a chicken nugget, but they won't eat chicken. A chicken nugget's pre-chewed. We you know, you don't have to work so hard for that. Um, so that's one of my big red flags of like, oh yeah, they're pocketing, they're spitting out, they refuse to eat it. Um, that that's not that's not typical picky-ness. And I think also what happens a lot, and you probably hear this too in the medical field, common is not normal. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

We have a lot of things that get written off because it's amongst all the kids, but it doesn't mean it's normal, and we shouldn't.

Thumb Sucking, Diet, And Shrinking Jaws

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Right, that's true. That's true, and there's just so much more childhood illness now than there are more allergies, uh, so much more intolerance.

SPEAKER_02 29:37

I yeah, we go through every patient every morning, and I've been practicing in pediatrics for um, this is my tenth year, it is night and day from when I started, even in the past 10 years of what's happening in these kids' medical histories. But if you think about it again, what's the most nasal breathing? 70% of your nitric oxide is stored in your nasal passage, and your nitric oxide controls most of your systems in your body. So if you're not distributing that, you're gonna have way more chronic illness. And the answer is the answer is a pill or medicine, right? But you know, we have kids that I've treated in with with an amazing group of other providers, and I'm lucky to be a piece of it, where they're off ADHD medication, off their um, I had one the other day that's no longer as asthma medication. Wow. Um, that's great. Asthma's inflammation of the lungs. So if we can get nasal breathing, get more nitric oxide, and decrease your body's inflammation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

It's and and certainly there's that push for um anti-inflammatory diets, anti, you know, absolutely inflammation in our environment. And we've had a prior podcast on ADD with an ADD specialist, and I've always been interested in um, you know, not just going straight to medicines, and some of the medicines have been associated with uh reductions in growth and height by putting on these psychostimulants um to get them focused. And I just thought that, you know, a more holistic way is better. You know, we've had podcasts on functional medicine. For those of you suffering with allergies and asthma, if you haven't heard the podcast I did on, you know, how to reduce allergens in your home, go back and listen to that one. Yeah. Yeah, that's huge. You know, people with pets and dust mites and these.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

I go through a whole checklist and that's one of the biggest things. Like get pets out of the bedroom, put an air filter in. Um we need to all get together on a podcast because you sound like good people. It's but that's what it is, right? Like you even I did my clinical research on the overdiagnosis of ADHD with sleep disorder breathing, and I'm not saying that there's not ADHD out there, but how much of this is worsened by because our sleep quality is so bad.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Yeah, so that whole link with the sleep and the behavior, dental and facial development, restricted airway, like you say, it affects everything, right? Their growth, their sleep quality, their their functioning in school and at home.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Yeah, and and we know this. We know this from 18, you know, 1800s. There's there's books that show the the long faces, those adenoid faces. Like we have this in textbook. We know there's like a visual appearance of these people who aren't sleeping. Um but we can correct that and we can change that.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Well, that is like so exciting. But um, I understand that one of the most concerning statistics I've read is that 95% of airway disorders goes undiagnosed in children. So, what should parents and pediatricians be looking for? And um, how can they catch it before it's chronic? And and since we have listeners all over the world, how can some of our faraway listeners find someone like you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:47

No, these are all fabulous questions. And I and I believe that statistic to be so true because unless you're seeing someone like we talked about that knows what to look for, they're not gonna ask. Um, I think it goes back to parents need to be their advocate and start searching. And if you're questioning any of these things or you're noticing signs and symptoms, like we have so many resources of just even going, it sounds ridiculous, but go put your questions in a chat GPT and they're gonna say, Yep, this is airway. Like I have had patients find me that way. Oh, yeah. They're like, what? Oh, my kid is doing this and they're finding me. Um pediatricians, and you have to ask the questions. We should be doing sleep questionnaires. We should be, but it's it's unfortunate because a lot of the um public medicine, like they don't have the time, and that's not an excuse, but it's what happens.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

They're looking at full body that's on the checklist or that's incentivized or a particle, the the the medicine.

ADHD, Asthma, And Nasal Breathing

SPEAKER_02 33:37

So and they don't know what more to do besides send you to ENT or sleep medicine. And at the end of the day, just like we talked about, that's not a solution. That that's a band-aid. Um, so I think the best thing as a parent, like if you're look seeing kids with sleep issues, digestive issues, speech issues, behavioral issues, like go start putting their symptoms into any chat, I don't see chat GPT, and just being like, is this correlated? The Breathe Institute has a whole hub of providers, like um, there's ambassadors and there's there's affiliates. I encourage you to find an affiliate. Truthfully, I've been through both programs. I mean, I respect everyone that's taken any of their courses, they're fabulous. If you can only find an ambassador, go for it. But affiliates just have a higher level of training through them.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

And how and how can someone go about doing that?

SPEAKER_02 34:24

So you go to the directory, they have a whole directory on the breatheinstitute.com. You can look for a provider in your area. We'll have that in the show notes. And it doesn't have to be a pediatric dentist or a general dentist, it may be a myofunctional therapist who has done training with them that you're able to.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Interesting, interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:39

I mean, there's other providers. It may they they've had ENTs do pr trainings with them. They have they have had um occupational therapists. I mean, there's other providers besides dental providers that are great in. I mean, I work with a ton of myofunctional therapists and they're looking at oral motor function, and and if they they can help guide you as well. So look look for someone that has that has the expertise and knowledge that they're mentioning these things. You know, look on a website, look what they're talking about airway, and ask the questions.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

And then how is this getting integrated?

Finding Trained Airway Providers

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Like, you know, do you do educational like CMEs or presentations to pediatricians or other healthcare team members that might overlap or there's and I think that's one of the biggest goals out of the Breathe Institute, truly, is just to get the research out. As a provider who's working, you know, four to five days a week, it's hard for me to do that. I have it when if I'm invited to something, I will happily go. I've gotten invited into general dental offices to give it um an Ohio accreditations funky, so I can't go give I can't give CEs, but if I'm invited to someone who holds that, I absolutely could. Um but it's pediatricians are are I have I've had had good coffee dates with them and they're and I have some, you know, especially the integrative, the holistic ones, I have a ton that are phenomenal that are are listening. I think that's the other thing. Like I've had parents go, like, I'm finding someone integrative medicine. Um, it's it's those providers, and I think it's gonna take one at a time, but there's there's a powerhouse in Cleveland that's really trying to push it. Um, some really good ENTs that are trying to get pediatricians to listen. So, um, and getting other healthcare providers and getting general dentists to ask these questions and getting, you know, it's it's all of us, but it's gonna take just teaching them one thing at a time.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Well, that is so exciting to know that we have such an innovator and trailblazer like you here in Northeast Ohio. Tell our listeners how people can follow you on social media, get an appointment.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

So, yeah, we're we're in Twinsburg, um, right at the kind of soul in Twinsburg border. It's called Great Beginnings Pediatric Dentistry. Um, our Instagram is GBP GBPD smiles. So Great Beginnings Pediatric Dentistry Smiles.com. There's some good content on there. And we were really trying to get the great content. I'm really trying. Listen, my my my boys are my guinea pigs. These they're all over, they're my little models, but I'm really trying to get the information. Oh, thank you. You're so sweet. Um, try for a girl though. Listen, um, they're they're phenomenal. They but you'll it's a group it's a great place if you're looking for information um to get we our website is the same thing, gbpd smiles.com. So, and we I always take new patients. If you have questions and you, you know, my email is dr Rachel at gbpdsmiles.com. Feel free to reach out. Um, I'm always happy. This is my passion. I'm happy to talk about it. I'm happy to help answer questions. I've had parents call me from other areas and I try to help guide them and find them providers. So I'm happy in any way.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Well, you are so terrific, and we'll have to have you back in another future season because there's so much to talk about. And I just want to thank our listeners for waiting us.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Remember, you're waiting and cares it. I guess anybody in your friends or circle, and remember, thumb up, help close, and breathe through your nose, and be strong, be healthy, and be in charge. And join us next week in the Sunflower Hell.