Empowering Women in Chiropractic -The Why, What, and How of Primitive Reflexes

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Once again, Elizabeth and myself would love to thank ChiroSecure for always having the backs of the chiropractic profession and for allowing us to enlighten the world about kiddos and chiropractic. So Elizabeth is gonna take a short nap while we hang out and have some fun. Okay. Goodnight girlfriend.

Okay. I'm Monika Buerger and I am going to dive in to another hot topic today. One that's been floating around social media quite a bit in the last few months that I've been ping dong. And we are gonna cover the roots do of primitive reflexes. So let's get our shovels out and dig in and dive into the why.

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The roots behind why primitive reflexes stay active after the first year of life. What might that be indicating and how you can use this information in everyday practice. I do have to digress for a minute and tell a kind of funny but not funny little story. So I've been doing this work, I've been in practice for over 34 years and I've been doing this work probably close to 30, 30 years.

And along with other more advanced work. And the other day I was talking to a friend and I said, it's so weird how. In the nutrition world, there's these, new fads going on. And in the neural world, everybody's talking about primitive reflexes. And I'm like, that's so old news. And she looks at me and says Monica, you do have to remember how old you are and that there's new generations behind you.

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And I'm like, oh. But she was right. Okay, so I want to I'm gonna go back to my early years in my career and hopefully simplify things that you should understand about primitive reflexes. That was my point behind that story. Why are they, why are we seeing these stay active now? I want you to, first of all, first Pearl is staying active.

Versus the term not integrated. And we'll get to that in the how section. So why are they staying active? For many reasons Now, one is, okay, as from a chiropractic lens, we are gonna think vertebral subluxations throughout this whole little lecture that we're going through right now. So always keep in mind vertebral subluxations, that's a given.

But we know from the literature that. Aberrant, abnormal, insufficient experiences during the critical window of neurodevelopment is key. Now, the critical window of neurodevelopment, is it fetal maturation fetal growth, and the fetal years and the first two years postnatally. Okay, so in the womb, the first two years, postnatally.

They, in order for the nervous system to mature and neuroplasticity to happen, we need good experiences, especially sensory motor experiences. So we know that the little fiddle fart, going through proper progressive motor milestones in that first year of life is imperative to. Deactivate those primary slash primitive reflexes.

So remember, primary reflexes are brainstem activated. They're a, they're reflex without cortical involvement once, so I say they're the roots of the nervous system. Okay, so we're digging into the roots of primitive reflexes. They're the roots of the nervous system As we evolve and mature to higher cortical areas, and at maturation of higher cortical areas and higher cortical circuits, that puts the kibosh on those primitive reflexes being activated.

Okay, so we have to have proper sensory motor experiences in order for the brain to evolve to the higher cortical circuits and mature in order for those areas of the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, to put the brakes on the primitive part of the brain, the brainstem. Okay. So we know that they have to, for example, going through a corkscrew rolling pattern helps to integrate or deactivate the spinal glot reflux, okay?

Proper progressive tummy time patterns can help to deactivate. Morrows Tnr, A TNR, tonic Labyrinthine. Okay. But there's other things that shouldn't happen in order for the nervous system to not be under such a load and allow for those heder cortical areas to develop, to put the kibosh on the activity of those primaries.

So yes, sensory motor experiences, proper progressive milestones are critical. But one of the key things associated with neurodevelopmental disorders is maternal immune activation syndrome, MIA, and prenatal stress. So both of those are associated with neurodevelopmental struggles. Gut dysbiosis is associated with neural struggles.

And all of those are showing a connection into why primary reflexes are not integrating. So neuroinflammation, chronic inflammation, stress in mom, stress in the baby, an insufficient sensory motor experience in the early years of life. Those are all going to have a pull. On the developing nervous system, put a kibosh on the higher developmental order of the brain and neuroplasticity, and allow those primary reflexes to stay active.

So I need you to think out of the box, and that's gonna require a, what I call red flag history of really diving in and digging in to what our next. Thing we wanna address this today. What can these active primary reflexes mean? It can mean that there is a, that nervous system, whether it's a kiddo an adult, a high schooler, that person in front of you, if you're seeing these primary is still active or active at the time they're in your office.

That means you need to dig for what is causing them to be there. Is it vertebral subluxations? Let's think about that. Chemical, physical, emotional mental stressors lead to vertebral subluxations. Vertebral subluxations are associated with a nervous system and maladaptive nervous system.

That essentially is what these primary reflexes are showing you. That person in front of you, at that point in time when they're in front of you, they are having a hard time adapting to their environment. So digging for what is causing that, that's key. Is it a an inflammatory load? Is it gut dysbiosis?

Is it poor motor control? Is it stress within the household? Is it stress at school? Is it are they being bullied? Digging to the roots of why those reflexes want to reactivate? It, and it's not always as clear cut as it's a sensory motor issue because these neuroinflammatory loads chronic infectious loads and gut dysbiosis is a big one, can lead to poor sensory motor responses.

Poor neurodevelopment of the higher. Areas of the brain. Now, the one thing we need to really take into consideration in this day and age is everything post COVID. We know that from other natural disasters, other stressful periods, and we're seeing it post COVID, is that those moms under a high level of perceived.

Perceived stress during the fetal development that we're seeing. Cortical ar areas of the brain that are, vol. The brain volume is not developing as needed. The cerebellum is a big area, the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex. So if there's been prenatal stressors that are pulling down the developing of the development of that nervous system, of the brain centers regions, that's a key thing we need to take into consideration with these active primary reflexes.

And the reason I'm bringing this up. Is because there's been a lot of talk on social sites regarding why are we seeing these active? What does it really mean? I'm doing primitive reflex exercises, but the kiddo's still having enuresis or behavioral issues or what reflex do I do for this for a DHD?

What reflex do I do for sucking the thumb? It's not that cut and dried. It's really understanding why they didn't integrate. What is the root cause? Being able to dive in and figure out what's causing that nervous system to be pulled down. And then how do you use this information in your practice in everyday life?

Obviously active primitive reflexes. I have a saying that active primitive reflexes are a neurological indication, an expression. Some other underlying cause of that nervous system to be under so much stress. So it's really being able to find out the cause of why they're staying active, how to use this in everyday practice.

Use it as some people want to dive in and do primitive reflex exercises that may not be necessary if you take the stressors off the nervous system. You can help those reflexes, that part of the brain, the higher sophisticated areas of the brain to come online and innately it will kibosh those active reflexes.

So let's talk about active versus integrated. Back in the day when I started this work, we were talking about integrated reflexes because again, they're the roots of the nervous system. They're in the lower primary parts of the brain located and they get deactivated when higher sophisticated parts of the brain come on board.

Okay? Primitive reflexes will become activated again. Be expressive in times of increased stressors puberty. GU in the fall when school starts back up, more stress on this nervous system. Parents are getting divorced, head trauma, TBIs, concussions, falls, sports injuries, you name it. So when you evaluate these in your offices, I want you to come from the lens of why is it active, why is it expressing itself?

At this particular time, when this person's in front of me, oh, they just had a head injury. Okay. What are the things I need to do to help the nervous system heal from that head injury or from that strep infection, or mom and dad are getting divorced? Are there some tools we need to help the parents with?

Are there counseling sessions that need to be had come from that lens rather than I'm just gonna do these exercises. Because oftentimes, especially in the older kiddos, ages five, six, and older, they don't wanna do them. We need to think of what their nervous system is telling us. So in your practice, use these reflexes as a gauge to evaluate the neurological integrity of their nervous system at that point in time when they're in your office.

Are your, it, are your treatment plans working, how well are they working? You have them coming in for chiropractic care twice a week for six weeks. After six weeks, you see those reflexes start to, to mitigate, not become as active, do a reevaluation. What is their life stress or status at the time? They cleared an infectious load, they got into school's going better, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You can use this as a documentation tool and to to re recalibrate your treatment parameters. Okay? They're less active or they're not active at all. That means that we can titrate down your treatment plan, because right now your nervous system is adapting to your environmental needs. If they become reactivated, that means we might have to up your treatment protocol in this office back to twice a week or once a week for the next month or whatever in order for us to recalibrate the nervous system so it can handle its life stressors.

It's a great critical biomarker. To help you know how well your treatment is doing. Do you need to help? Do you need to add treatment? Do you need to look at maybe some gut dysbiosis markers? Do you need to add some probiotics? Do you need to look at foods that might be stressing them out? Do you need to suggest they go to ot, PT counseling?

How well can you formulate a recommended treatment protocol based on how well these reflexes are either activated or not. Now, the next tool I wanna just bring up before we before we're done here, is the closer a reflex mimics the infantile response, the more active it is. For instance, Palmer, okay, if you do a Palmer on a 3-year-old and they have a full Palmer grasp that is showing you that reflex is highly activated.

It's more towards that infantile phase. That means that the higher cortical centers are having a really hard time, they are very weak, and they are not able to put the kibosh on that reflex. Now, if it's only slightly, they just have a little curling of the fingers or so you can surmise, you can, that you can think that high, those higher, more sophisticated areas of the brain are not that weak.

That maybe they're just, that person at that time's more tired, they're having a little harder time adapting, they're coming down with a cold, et cetera, et cetera. Okay, so you look at it from a spectrum of the lowest cortical involvement to the highest. Okay. So those are some biomarkers, some ways you can use these, the looking at reflexes in your office to understand the neurological integrity, the neuro adaptive processes that the nervous system is able to do at that point in time.

It doesn't always mean that you have to do X exercise for y reflex. You can if you want, but there's a lot of other things you gotta look for. Bottom line. I want you to step back, take a breath, and think why might these reflexes have stayed activated? What might that mean for my clinical recommendations, for my my treatment protocols?

How can I use these as biomarkers in my office and how can I use them as benchmarks to recalibrate treatment protocols and maybe. Other adjunct therapies that may need to be added in order to help that nervous system adapt properly If you want. To learn more about this information, scroll down below, dive in, dig in.

It is all covered in our foundations in neural development course. If you want to be the master of this work and be the go-to in your community, you gotta jump in now because we lay it out for you step by step. So scroll down, jump in, get involved. Once again, Elizabeth and I want to thank ChiroSecure for always being there for us, for giving us this platform and enlightening the world on Kids in chiropractic.

We will be back next month in August for more incredible information. We'll see you then.

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