Nicole Edwin on How Oral Function Shapes Feeding, Posture, And Health

Ever wonder why a baby struggles to latch, a four-year-old snores like a grown-up, or an adult wakes with jaw pain and a headache? We go straight to the source with Nicole, a clinician who blends speech-language pathology, lactation consulting, myofunctional therapy, and craniosacral work to restore oral function and protect the airway across the lifespan. We share the real signs that matter, the myths to ignore, and how small, strategic changes can transform feeding, sleep, posture, and overall health.

We walk through the basics of tongue ties and oral tethers—what they are, how they form in utero, and why they don’t simply “stretch out.” Nicole explains how restricted tongues and tight fascia push kids toward mouth breathing, enlarged tonsils, and restless sleep, and why dental crowding is often a late-stage clue that oral function has been off for years. For adults, the pattern looks like TMJ pain, grinding, neck tension, and snoring. You’ll hear how gentle bodywork prepares the system for change, how myofunctional therapy acts like PT for the mouth and face, and why the best outcomes come from coordinated care with dentists, ENTs, OTs, PTs, and IBCLCs.

We also get practical. You’ll learn red flags you shouldn’t ignore—noisy breathing, snoring, upside-down sleeping, open-mouth chewing, hand-in-mouth while eating—and green flags that suggest a phase of normal selectivity. We cover what a release procedure involves, how to choose a skilled provider, and when to prioritize nasal breathing training or ENT evaluation. Most of all, we focus on plans that fit real family life: fewer, smarter exercises, clear goals, and compassionate coaching that honors mental health. If you’ve been told to “wait it out,” this conversation gives you tools, language, and next steps to advocate with confidence.

If this resonates, follow and share with someone who needs it, and leave a quick review to help other families find trustworthy, whole-body solutions.

Here are the links for the clinic. 

Nicole Edwin, M.S., CCC-SLP, IBCLC

Integrative Oral Functional Therapist & Lactation Consultant

https://abeillespeechandfeeding.com/

https://www.facebook.com/share/1Ju75fPjpV/?mibextid=wwXIfr

https://www.instagram.com/stl.feedingclinic?igsh=dG45amplY2c0NGx0

And our podcast link 

https://www.instagram.com/spillyourmilkpod?igsh=MWo5b3gwdGw1cDZqZA==

https://open.spotify.com/show/3uFYW95CRBZsp8NT3ArMpd?si=WPNLfBHbTmKxI9jmIpL6UA

Transcript

Meet Nicole And Her Integrative Lens

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Podcast. This is season two, episode five, and today's guest is someone who lives and breathes whole family, whole body care. Nicole is the co-owner of Abe Feeding Clinic. She's also an integrative oral functional therapist, a licensed speech language pathologist, an international board-certified lactation consultant, a myofunctional therapist, and a craniosacral therapist. She has dedicated her adult life to understanding how the body and oral function are deeply connected, how feeding, breathing, and oral development can impact everything from sleep to posture to overall health. What makes her work so unique is her gentle integrative approach. She weaves body work, orthodontics, functional medicine, and medical providers to offer truly comprehensive support. Nicole works with patients across the lifespan, newborns with complex breastfeeding challenges, toddlers with airway concerns, school-age kids with tooth crowding and oral dysfunction, and adults dealing with TMJ pain, head and neck tension, and also snoring. Her journey began with two tongue-tied infants, inspired by her own feeding experiences with her own babies, and now she has expanded to caring for entire families because not all oral ties are caught in infancy. Outside the clinic, Nicole is known for her big, beautiful family, her deep roots in her local parish and self-sufficiency lifestyle that includes homeschooling, caring for her animals, collecting honey and eggs, processing meat, and cheering her seven kids on for the side from the sidelines of various sports. Faith, family, and serving her community are the heart of everything she does. Nicole, I am so excited to have you on the show. Welcome. Well, welcome, Nicole. I'm so excited to have you here. So reading all of these lists of things that you are with the integrative oral functional therapist, licensed speech, language, pathologists, all these lactation consultant, myofunctional therapists, craniosacral. Well, how do all those fit together and what does all that mean?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

I think a lot of people look at that and they're like, oh, you do all these things, but it's that's not true. The way I've added all of my different skill sets, if you will, over the years have really just helped me to laser focus on what I do.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Okay. So basically you're focusing on the babies and the swallowing, or all of that just related to swallowing?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

All of it related to yeah, oral function, and it's such a bigger picture than that. Okay. And it allows me to see what's going on, but not get lost with all the other things that are factors.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Okay. So you take these and you focus in on the education into your practice of oral function.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Right.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Oh, like you hear the phrase, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Love it. Okay, so you got into this because you had two babies. Well, I have had five. But two that were tongue-tied. I thought you had seven. So two stepkids. Okay, okay. So if seven total children, you've had five. And how many of your babies were tongue-tied? Like all of them. All of them. Okay, okay, okay. So tell me like what that is, how you figured that out, and how that like got you into this.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

It was my second one was definitely the catalyst. I was young, I mean older, but young in the field, new in the field as a speech pathologist and pediatrics.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Okay, so you already had that going for you.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Okay. But never in swallowing. You know, it's like you don't learn that in school. It's one of those things that they don't teach that, or they do, they it's like a one-day long class. Okay. You know. So you really have to do a lot of continuing it in order to be a feeding, be a feeding specialist, regardless really of the age, but especially pediatrics. And so I ran into so many issues feeding him and not even knowing that he was tied. I just knew that we were struggling and I was in a lot of pain. And I was in rural Missouri and there was just nobody there to help me. And you know, we figured it out. Eventually, he had a lip tie release, and there's a like a long story to him. What's pretty cool about our podcast that we do is one of our episodes is dedicated solely to that. But what I realized, and really how I always think, is like I can do this. This isn't my scope of practice. I just don't have that skill set yet. And so he was definitely the catalyst, and he is 12 years old now. So he was the catalyst that sent me into lactation because I really just wasn't finding much of anything in the tongue tai world as a speech pathologist. Like it exists now more in our field, but I it was talked about so much more in lactation. I'm like, okay, well, lactation obviously there's a lot of components to it that it are outside of the infant. But when it comes to a breastfed baby, speech pathologists at the time knew nothing about them, you know. So we could never take the breastfed baby and apply the knowledge that we had for swallowing because the it's just so dynamically different, and there's just so many variables that I was like, okay, well, as a speech pathologist, I'm gonna learn about pediatric feeding, and then I'm gonna get lactation trained. And eventually that led to me becoming an international board certified lactation consultant long before it was popular. I mean, it was only five years ago, but the speech pathologist becoming a lactation consultant is becoming more trendy now because more of us understand that that we need to understand both.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

I was gonna say, but it sounds like they're like what a great like naturally, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:24

They really do. And then you know, you go to the hospital setting and those two fields are fighting each other when you could just work together.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, yeah. My my most of my experience with speech is I work up in a neuro ICU nurse, so it's always like stroke swallowing after a stroke. So that's a lot of what we do. I would never like in my world connect all these things. So before we get past this, I do want to ask you for people that may not know, because I don't think I know exactly either. What does tongue tied mean? I I think there's probably different ways to be tongue tied, but what does it mean when a baby's tongue-tied?

From Baby Feeding Struggles To Lactation Expertise

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah, and there's there's more than just the tongue. You know, we can we can have tethers, we just call them oral tethers, would be like a generalized term. So it's structural restriction. So we have most free we have frenoms in the body, much more than just the mouth, but one, you know, obviously that I'm working with is going to be the lip, the buckles, and the tongue most frequently. And so when somebody says tongue tie, you know, they might also be referring to another tether, but it's structural restriction, and it's something that happens in utero that is supposed to happen and doesn't. So it's called apoptosis. There's like a ton of information on it, you know, and so that tissue is supposed to basically go away, and sometimes it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

And my husband has like extra tissue in the roof of his throat, and he likes there's certain foods he won't eat because he has like stuff will get stuck there. He hates it. And I'm like, he's dumb tight of it, he doesn't even know it.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

He could be well, and that's kind of like how I got into working with adults too, and older kids, because not everybody's caught as a baby, like we love working with babies because, like, can we resolve all of these issues and get optimal breastfeeding? Because that is what like leads first to so much success in growth and development, like neurologically, structurally, all of these things, and so not everybody gets caught. So it's like super common for me to be working with a baby in a family and like dad's in the corner, like shrinking a little bit, like, oh, that's oh shit, that's me, or right, or like I'll start. Some families not to get a release, too, which is fine, and we can kind of talk about what that means later, too. And we definitely support families, right? I've always very much supported families to be like, hey, if you're not comfortable with this, I totally understand. Like, we're gonna make feeding work the best we can, whatever that looks like. Now, these are the things you want to look for as your baby becomes an older child that might lead to us needing to revisit this or at least just checking back in with me because like we don't want these things to get worse. So it's it's so common then as I'm talking about those symptoms, and I'm working with a baby and a mom, and they're like, Oh my gosh, that sounds like my four-year-old, or that sounds like my seven-year-old. Like, bring them in when we're done with baby. Bring them in. I the amount of fan whole families I see is I don't know, it's pretty significant.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And it's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Not uncommon for me to be like, see a dad and a daughter, or a mom and a son, or how does it manifest in like thing in um ages that aren't babies that they would know? The biggest thing I I work with as a myofunctional therapist, so that's just what that is is specialized training in oral and facial and and really even neck and respiration. I mean, it kind of all gets tied together. But as a myofunctional therapist, you're working with an older child, generally speaking, somebody who's gonna be able to follow directions. Like, we're not doing myofunctional therapy on a baby. We're working on oral function for swallowing, for speech, for breathing. But what I'm seeing usually at like the four-year-old age is gonna be enlarged tonsils because a lot of those kiddos are also mouth breathing. A snoring child, you've got a noisy breather, you've got a kiddo that has symptoms like age, maybe is actually sleep disordered breathing. Mmm, yeah. So that and then like seven and eleven is like the next two age ranges I see a lot that are usually it's dental crowding. It's like that's a huge, oh, okay, we're getting ready for orthodontics because they have a really narrow palate and there's not enough room for their teeth. So now they're gonna go see the orthodontists. But the root reason of why they have a crowded mouth or like their teeth are crowded, is because oral function was impaired for one reason or another. Whether it was a time or not, there's other reasons too.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Interesting. I'm learning so much. I had no idea about any of this stuff. I love it, it's so interesting. But that's I mean, it's a different population, it tends to be just more pain because, like, when you have dysfunction all of your life, it leads to chronic migraines, head and neck pain, snoring, grinding your teeth, all of the things that just lead to interesting that they could all be have related to this kind of issue. Is there any like myths or misunderstandings that come with this kind of work?

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Absolutely. Like what? If you release your tongue, your throat's gonna or your your tongue's gonna fall back in your throat.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Or it'll stretch out and it doesn't tissue, like think kind of tendinous tissue, tissue, it's really fibrous.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Oh, yeah, like usually gets tighter when you hurt it, not looser. That's the very end.

Signs In Older Kids: Sleep And Dental Crowding

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Exactly. And like that's the difference between being able to loosen up fascia. So, like, that's such a huge component of working with any age, is we want to make sure that the fascia is as receptive to change as possible. You obviously need more, I and body work is obviously a component. Like when you read the list of all the things that I do, I'm also a cranial sacral therapist. And that you see, even more rarely, especially in the speech pathology world, I've been doing that for almost 12 years now. And that was brought on, oh, excuse me, 11 years. That was brought on by my third son. And so what I love about craniocral therapy is I'm able to help bodies, regardless of the age, release tension that might be inhibiting them, that might look like a tie. Because it's not always a tie. There can be restriction and there can be dysfunction that's actually so it helps to be able to like filter out those different components that, you know, like I said, if we go back to the hammer and a nail, if you think everything is a nail, or if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Okay, so sorry, my dog is whining at the door. She's such a little turd. But so what kind of when you're working with people, those like hands-on, are we doing like what kind of things are you doing with people to help with these issues? What does that kind of work look like? And even with babies, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, it looks different for each age population. I specialize in infants for a long time. And what's really fantastic about the team that we've built is we've also trained our providers to also become really dynamic in being able to utilize bod or be therapists and lactation consultants, you know. So I don't treat babies as often as I used to because we have a really, really good team. And so whenever somebody's like, hey, I need my hands, you know, I need your hands on this baby, or I need a second opinion, or I'm struggling with this baby, that's when I'm gonna be seeing those babies. And then we don't have any other myofunctional therapists on our team right now. Hopefully we will at some point. And so then I'm seeing the adult population, the older children. And so myofunctional therapy with child and an older adult will also almost look think PT for the mouth, the face and the mouth. It's kind of like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

So you're giving them kind of exercises, things to do at home and continue. Okay. But like the way that I'm different from any other traditional myofunctional therapist is that I incorporate bod. And so it's really common to be like, oh, okay, do you can't do this, so do these exercises. But I'm gonna look at it through another lens of being like, okay, you're really working under a lot of restriction because of this much tension. Let's resolve some of this tension, let's soften things, and then slowly build you up with less exercise because you're not working around other tension patterns.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Okay. So, what is like so if you if you are to find out this is you at an older age, because I'm reading like things like TMJ, pain, snoring can all be from oral issues. What are people's options? So, like this kind of work when you were talking about releasing, what is that? Kind of is that only for babies, or do adults find ties and get them released?

SPEAKER_00 16:27

I had my tongue tie release at 36.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

What is that like? Do they go snip it? That's what I'm imagining.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Like a laser, so our best providers, you know, I'm not married to any specific laser or tool because to be very fair, you can have a release provider that uses the scissors and does a beautiful job, and you can have a provider that uses a really big expensive laser and they do a terrible job. So just making sure that you're working with a provider that's very skilled and knowledgeable is what you want. But most often we're working with release providers that are most commonly dentists, and they have a lot of extensive training because most dentists really aren't taught anything about the tongue. So don't be surprised when you go to your dentist and say, I think I have a tongue tie, and they're like, That's not a real thing.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yeah, because you'd think he would have told you before now.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Exactly. Or why are you grinding your teeth? Or why do you have all this? Yeah, why do you have TMD? So why don't you have TMJ dysfunction? You know, yeah. Unfortunately, just like the speech pathologist world, there's not a ton of training in ties. And just like in the medical field, whether it's mental or it's physicians, they don't have a lot of extra training in that unless they really specifically seek it out, which those of us that are in the world of oral dysfunction have really sought that out.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

So if someone is listening to their this and they're like, This is might be like I maybe this is what's going on with me. Like, are well, are there any other signs? I guess before I ask you this question, are there any other signs people should look for? Like, I mean, I know I tried to said my husband has like an extra piece of skin he's aware of. I don't think he knows what that means. He just like lives with it. But are there other things like that that people just have that maybe they've like gotten used to?

Myths, Fascia, And Craniosacral Basics

SPEAKER_00 18:13

So the yeah, the biggest thing like with babies is just difficulty feeding. Like, if there's ever difficulty feeding, and it doesn't matter if it's breast or if it's bottle, like you want to find somebody who is a local skilled provider and trust your gut as a parent, regardless. Trust your gut because there are so many people that I work with are like, I said this, and we ended up bottle feeding because we couldn't make it work, and I thought that's what was going on, but I just kept getting told that's not a real thing, or it'll stretch, or it'll break on its own, or it'll get better with time, and it just never did.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

You know, it's the same thing with picky eating because we were I was gonna ask you if picky eating was a sign because I like my his son is a super picky eater, and so in my head I'm like, have we ever really looked in his mouth?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Well, it's totally possible. There's so many different layers to like why somebody might be a selective eater, you know. Sometimes it's how it smells, how it looks, how it tastes, but how it feels.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Yeah, his is a lot of sensory, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

And like, so in and like my very first pediatric feeding training was more sensory based, and I think it's so important because if you don't address the sensory component, like you can't even get to the motor component because like they don't want to look at it, so yeah, they're like already done.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

No, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Right? Exactly. So that was really like a key component into like learning, like, oh, there's a lot of reasons why somebody chooses not to eat because it's a it's not yeah, it's a choice in the sense that like like I don't want to, but there's there are things happening in the body that make them truly not be able to as well, and so sometimes selective eating comes from the inability to be able to control that food, which is where feeding therapy and myofunctional therapy come into play. Sometimes that dysfunction is because the tongue is tied and it can't move the way it needs to to hold the food in their mouth in a safe way to swallow. So then it becomes really unsafe. So it's super common for like little kids to like always have their hands in their mouth when they're eating because they're their fingers are using the job of their tongue.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Or oh, so they're trying to like control the food. Interesting. These are all things that you would totally know. Like a moms are probably like I know that kid.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

Yeah, exactly. Or like the open mouth chewer, the the kids that like super messy and foods everywhere, or like you can't sit at the table. Yes, right? Like, oh my gosh, will you just close your mouth? Like that sounds yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

I've like, I can't think of a specific kid, but I know exactly what you're saying, where they're like breathing open mouth breathing while they're trying to eat. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

And now that could that be a tie? Absolutely. Could it be sinus stuff that's happening and they're literally physically unable to breathe through their nose, so they've got to breathe through their mouth when they're chewing or swallowing or sleeping or any at any time. So that's you know, that's why I work so closely with other types of providers, and that's also what I love working with middle, you know, age children, even in adults, is like I'm open mouth breathing at night, but I can breathe through my nose during the day, what's going on, or I can't breathe in my nose at all. I'm like, okay, let's we're going to ENT. You need to get scoped and figure this out. Or we are capable of nasal breathing, and we've just created this habit where it's really hard to breathe through your nose because it's kind of like this use it or lose it type of situation. What happens with kids as they're growing, if they're not breathing through their nose, it affects their health, it enlarges their tonsils, it makes breathing harder in general, and then it also is affecting their face and their shape and how they're breathing in their teeth.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Interesting. Well, great. Well, dude, who who was? I had a physical therapist on here at one point. She specializes now in like pelvic floor therapy, but we were kind of talking about how like your shoulders are actually like connected to your breath. And like, you know, like there, it's interesting how like one small thing at the beginning of your spine, you know, like one misalignment up here affects the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Well, exactly. And like when it comes to pelvic floor, all diaphragms are connected. So if we have in the diaphragm, which is the floor of the mouth, oh, it's really common to have tension in the pelvic diaphragm as well.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

I wonder how common anxiety is in these people too, because that's like the beginning of your vagus nerve. So if it's stimulated, then you're anxious all the time. You know what I mean? I'm like, my husband and his son are anxious creatures. Like exactly. Go after this episode. I'm like, everyone's getting checked out.

unknown 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

When our tongue is not properly stimulating the roof of our mouth to like with full range of motion, that affects our accessory muscles, would also, which also. Causes tension in the neck, which also affects our vagus nerve, which then affects our nervous system.

What Therapy Looks Like At Different Ages

SPEAKER_01 23:15

So are we breathing and everything falls in line with that? Exactly. Interesting. How cool. I mean, just you know, like this whole circle thing. It's all the like holistic stuff is really true when you get down to it. And then, like, when you live with these chronic things, then you start adding more problems. If you can get to the root, you can do a lot of work. I love this. So the you have more than one clinic, right? There's you have a couple locations.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

I actually have three locations. So our primary location is in South County. Hi, baby. This is my youngest. He's about to rip all the cords up so you can come thinking. He comes to work with me every day.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Oh, hi, baby. I love it. Modern woman taking the babies with her.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Hi, baby. Do you want to take him?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

You stink. You're very cute. Very cute.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Thank you. He's in most of our podcasts, too.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

I love it. That's where they should be. I know my dog usually lays next to me, but I didn't give her enough time to calm down, so I kicked her out.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah. So our primary location is in South County. So we've got a pretty big feeding clinic right there, right off of 270 and Graboy. And then we opened up another location down in St. Robert, Missouri, right outside of Fort Leonardwood. And then we also have a space inside the new mom school in St. Louis in the city.

SPEAKER_01 24:36

How cool. How cool. So if so if someone's listening to this, okay, well, me and my questions here. So is this kind of thing available other places? So people that might not be in the St. Louis area.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Absolutely. Yes. Yes, there are.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

So this you should just have what would they look up if they're one of looking at looking?

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Well, you might be more likely to find individual providers, maybe a lack lactation consultant who is also a cranial sacral therapist. You might find a speech pathologist that's also a myofunctional therapist. You might find OTs, speech, and PT that are doing body work or they're doing oral function. You know what I mean? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

So looking for people that have like a mix of skills in this area so they can really have an understanding.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Exactly. And there are different like websites that you could go to, like Upledger is who I'm trained with for cranial sacral therapy. So you can find a wealth of of providers like across the world who are provided by starting there. That's smart. Are they trained in pediatrics or not? Because you don't want to go with somebody who's a visceral therapist, you know, working on the organs for your baby. Right? No.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So that's cool. I love that. Okay, that's great advice. So if um someone's listening, they're in the St. Louis area and they're like, we're gonna come check you out because someone's struggling, what can they expect at uh at the clinic? Like the whole like the experience, like what it like, you know, yeah, what's gonna happen? Like they should just like call you up, make an appointment, come like you know, is it hands-on? Are we doing an assessment? What kind of like what are the options of who they might see?

SPEAKER_00 26:13

For sure. And we're you know, we just live in the world of a lot of texting, so texting works for us.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Love it, that's very functional for most people. Nobody wants to talk on the phone. I don't. Ew, I don't like it. I don't either, I dread it.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Isn't that funny? Yeah, um, yeah, so and also people can go through our website as well. You can do like an inquiry, and even if you do like an inquiry for one of our locations as well through the website. But yeah, if and I know in the bottom of the notes that we'll have all of our links. Yeah, I'm gonna put all of them on there. You get a hold of our office, and honestly, she's gonna talk to you and find out what you need. That's the really great thing is like Jill is gonna be like, Hey, what's going on? Tell me what's going on. Sometimes people are like, Hey, this is what's going on. I know this is what I need. And if you don't know what you need, all you have to do is tell her what's going on. She's gonna know exactly who you need to see and what you need. Okay, and even personality-wise, like we just have different providers that we all have a different vibe, and it's super common for our patients to see multiple providers, just because we all do have very different skill sets and strengths, and sometimes you might be with Rachel, who is just so incredible with our brand new babies, and then you're going to move on to Teresa, who's our IBCLC dietitian, because we've got some gut stuff going on.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

I love it. You've guys got a bunch of different people there, so that's great. So you don't have you're not like just chopping around trying to find that's great.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

Under one roof, exactly. And that's the goal. And you know, we've got a physical therapist who is an incredible body worker. We've got a massage therapist. She doesn't do traditional massage, she just does cranial fascial therapy and she just and cranial sacral therapy. We've got OTs, PT speech, dietitian, massage therapist.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Oh my gosh, how cool! This is so cool. I hope this catches on more places because what a great service.

Adult Releases, Providers, And Tools

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Well, and that kind of speaks to I've never been a person to stay in a box or be in the norm, you know, and that's kind of what brought me from the middle of Missouri to St. Louis because when you're in a more I don't want to say narrow-minded, but just limited resourced area, it's so much the Midwest is just slow to acquire things. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 28:39

And I'm from someone who's lived on both coasts and is from and returned to the Midwest, I totally understand what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

Like, I love the Midwest, but we catch on way late to the game in a lot of things. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

So related specifically.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So when I started working with a chiropractor, this was with my third baby. And so I was in Roland, Missouri, which is my connection down to St. Robert, which is why we're down there. So that was when I was already a speech pathologist and lactation because I was a CLC, I wasn't board certified. And I started working with this mom and baby car who was amazing, and she was a homeschooler, she had a thriving practice in her basement, and it was just like, oh, I love this. Well, she moved, she had the audacity to move, but we were working together, and we had figured out that we could literally treat babies at the exact same time, and it would help both of us. And what we did was so incredible, and she would do cranial work as I was a sex assessed suck, and I'd be like, there it is, that's it. Like, you know what I mean? So, like, I don't know if you're familiar with cranial work, but it's really light movements, and babies are so easily manipulated, and you know, I mean, they're mushed through the birth canal, and sometimes birth causes trauma, yeah, and alignment that affects feeding, like like you said, with the vagus nerve, like all of that's interconnected. And so when we have tension patterns or trauma associated with something as simple and complex as birth, that that's why we can still have feeding issues with babies, even though under you know, they have the this perfect goal birth, we still run into these issues. And so I was working with this chiropractor, and we're like, we're grooving and we're found that like when we work with each other, these babies are just flying and they're off. You know what I mean? They could work quickly and then they were where they needed to be, and they could be nursing with mom. So then she moved. I'm like, what do I do without you? And she goes, Go get CST trained. I was like, What's CST? Like, I don't know what this is. And so I looked it up, found it. I think she probably sent me the link and signed up for it immediately. And I went and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is incredible! This is really weird. Like, my speech medical self is like struggling with some of this stuff, but like, I think I'm home. I think this is it. And the more training I got, and the more training I got, I was just like, this is life. Like, we don't have to work harder. We smarter exactly. We can facilitate healing because the body wants to heal.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Oh, I love that. I love that. I know we just have to learn how to listen, really. But it's the magic of figuring out how to listen.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

I love that. And that's the biggest thing about cranial sacral therapy. And I even incorporate it into all my assessments, or almost depending on what's going on, is my hands can listen. They can tell me things that my eyes can't tell me.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

Yeah, that's so cool. Okay, so for parents that might be listening, thinking, like, I'm having my my child's having feeding, breathing, sleeping issues, some of the things. What are some red flags that like maybe they should not ignore? And maybe some like green flags of like that's pretty normal. Don't freak out.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Green flag would be like normal picky eating. That's like, I don't like that today. And then next week they like it. Like that's normal. That's normal, right? Noisy breathing at any time, genuinely, and snoring, especially, is gonna be a red flag, massive red flag. Okay, yeah. Restless sleep, you know. You think about your your kiddo, regardless of the age, that's either like hanging their head off the bed and sleeping in crazy positions, or you put them to bed in one position and they're like spinning around and the blankets are gone. You know that kid.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

Yeah, the one where they end up with their head at the foot of the bed. Yeah.

Red Flags: Snoring, Restless Sleep, Selective Eating

SPEAKER_00 32:38

You can't find them at you know, in the morning, or like really frequent waking. Of course, I mentioned snoring, like those components. That's gonna be a red flag for airway. It's not always airway. There are other components to that, but that's usually one of the biggest things is airways. They're having a hard time breathing and they're hard having a hard time getting, like we said before, like in rest and digest because there's dysfunction.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

How interesting. Okay, I love that. What great advice. Okay, what else do you what do people need to know from you from listening to this?

SPEAKER_00 33:14

I think one of the biggest messages that I can take to anybody with so much experience of working with these families that trust your gut. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

I love that because I feel like that's what a lot of us are trying to teach people to do is like learn to listen to their gut because there's so much information there when you can learn to listen. What a great advice.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

And when you get told that that's like normal, or you're told, like, don't worry about that, but it's just not sitting right. Just find your people. Oh my gosh, find your people.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

Oh, yeah, we've given that advice a lot too. If you're if they're not taking you seriously and they are professional and they're not like giving you that respect, they're not your people.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

And like that is our team is going to listen to you. And most importantly, not only are we gonna listen to you, we're going to take your goals seriously. And it's it doesn't, I don't care what your goal is, that's what we're gonna do, and we're gonna adjust if we have to, because mental health is such a component. Like if it doesn't feel right to be exclusively breastfeeding because this is something you can't handle, and you need to lighten the load, we lighten the load. It's not an all or nothing thing, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 34:31

It's just like you know, what works for you? That's that whole holistic approach. What works for you, what works for your life, what works for your family.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Well, and like you said there, what works for your family like that goes into feeding therapy or even myofunctional therapy. Like would we love for everybody to sit down and prepare a meal all together every single night and sit around the table and have a family-style meal so you all get that social exposure to food and all these wonderful things? Yeah, that's sounds nice, yeah. Dick, right? Yeah, a family that like you're just always on the go. Well, we're gonna have to figure out this feeding therapy goal that's gonna fit for your family.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yeah, this is a fast-paced world. People rarely make time to sit down and do that anymore. It's a very good, like, good point.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, yeah. And it's just like what we make it work, it's just life. You know, I'm a mom of so many kids, and it's just like and animals and it sounds like I love it, it sounds so amazing. You gotta be realistic, you genuinely just have to be realistic about your not just your goals, but like how you're going to do these things. Like, I'm not as a myofunctional therapist, I'm not gonna give you 10 exercises to do every single week and come back next week so I can give you 10 more. I despise that approach to be very honest.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Well, because it's setting you up for failure, and that's like you gotta set yourself up for success, baby steps here, people. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Less is more.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Oh, I love that. I love that. Well, so I've loved this, absolutely loved this. I wish we had more time to talk about your personal life because that also sounds interesting. But so I ask everyone that comes on this, but what is your like go-to when things in your life get overwhelming, get stressed? What do you do for yourself to bring things back?

SPEAKER_00 36:21

So my faith is what's gonna bring me keep me connected and rooted forever. And body work, my my body workers, my energy workers, like yes, like really, because I give to people so much, not just to my family, but you know, clinically speaking, I give to so so many people. So uh, and if any other providers are listening, like you've got to give to yourself too.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Yeah, that's such great advice for people like because I don't I'm a nurse, so I have a lot of nurses that listen to this, and that's like a good way to think about that for yourself. It's like you're always giving so much of yourself at some point. You have to let allow yourself to start receiving, which is the last time I had Reiki with this awesome hands-on lady. She told me that my giving hand is over giving and my receiving is down and I need to receive more. So, but that's true. I love that. That's I love the way you you phrase that though.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Well, and I've I've listened to some of your stuff, and so it sounds like you kind of had an experience where you ultimately couldn't give any more. Oh yes, I got burnt out so bad at one point. Yes. So, like if we can start to have healthier boundaries and respect that I'm doing too much or I'm giving too much, or you know, trying to live in this lifestyle that always has everybody, like you said, in burnout because that's the expectation. That's bullshit.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Right. Yeah, yeah. The hustle culture that we're in right now, like be everything to everyone, be the perfect mom, like do everything. Like you do a lot of things, but it doesn't sound like you put the same pressure or the same shame on yourself. That is really what's killing us all. I feel like, and that with breastfeeding, especially, that's like a I know we're changing our mind, but there's a lot of shame involved in that. And even I've heard people horror stories about lactation consultants.

Building A Multidisciplinary Clinic

SPEAKER_00 38:14

Oh, oh yeah, oh yeah. It's about that, yeah. So, yeah, absolutely. I don't know. I think imperfectly perfect, right? Yeah, like we're all perfect, and we are so so imperfect. Like, stop putting all of in in most of it, like especially as women, is there's just such strong, innate drive to do more and be more, but we just we don't need to be right.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

We give a lot of that back to ourselves. I love that. This year I've been like really trying to try a lot of these like adjunct kind of therapies, and I love that because that's what like you're combining all this stuff to me. I'm like, that is like health is come finding all the little things that work for you, and they're not these huge shifts, you know, they're small little shifts, and then you know, and that changes over time, but finding the things, the people that work for you in your way, so like with your family, with your kids, that's the same thing moving forward, right? How are we gonna work with them in a way that works for their issues?

SPEAKER_00 39:15

Exactly. And honestly, and if we can raise our kids this way, we're only setting them up for more success as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Right, yeah, with that like outside these rigid standards, like letting people be people and learning to work with that. I love it. It's so beautiful. It's like what we all need a little bit more of.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Yeah, absolutely. No question about that.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

This has been so awesome talking. I absolutely love it. I love what you're doing. Anything else you want to share before we get we're gonna put all the links to all of her stuff in the show notes so you guys can find it. But anything you want to share on here or for people that are just listening that don't want to like get on here and find the links, an easy way to find you.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Oh my gosh, our website is www.abe speechandfeeding.com. You can also find us on social media. Like, I'm super bad at remembering all these things, but the feeding baby S T L is one of the things that, like, if you're ever like, hey, oh, that's easy to remember. Because yeah, feeding baby stl.

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Okay. Abe is spelled A B E I L L E. And I lectured how to say that.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

I say completely perfect. Yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

There you go. Yeah, that's right. We're human, it's okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Human, I'm about as human as they come, but oh gosh, me too. Like helps people feel more comfortable coming and being like, oh my gosh, you're not messing up. You're you're coming here because you know you need help, you know. Yeah, we're all struggling, we're all struggling.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

Isn't that the truth? I love that. I saw this like thing where Obama was talking about that recently. He's like, You think all these like super high up people are so smart, and then you get in a room and you sit at a table with them, you're like, These are not special people. He was like, They're just like you and me. So I love that because it's like it's true, we're all flawed and secure, right? Do the best we can with what we have. Exactly. I love it. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. Season two.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Well, I've really appreciated you coming on. We're gonna have to have you back on just to tell us about your homesteading life. So I I called it that. I don't know if it really is, but I'm like, it sounds like it. You do so much cool stuff. So or anytime your clinic is doing an event, I would love to hear about it. This is so awesome. So thank you for having me. Yes, I hope you have the like best rest of your evening. Thank you. It's gonna be with the kiddos. Yay, I know I'm gonna go get my writing dog from under the door and give her some love.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

All right, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Yeah, you too.