Meet Wren. 👧🏼
A child’s birth story can be an incredible window into their world, 🪟 and Wren’s is no exception. Despite it not being written as we had hoped, she and I share this birth story nonetheless. 📖
On Wren’s birthday, 🤰🏼 we labored throughout the morning and were ready to welcome her into the world 🌎 when her heart rate started to decelerate unexpectedly. 🫀When it continued to drop we knew that time wasn’t on our side, 😣 so Wren was born with vacuum assistance.
As soon as she was earth-side, Wren cried, 🤱🏼took beautiful, big breaths 🫁 and received her first adjustment within minutes. ⏰ She latched, she napped, she pooped. 💩 Oftentimes with vacuum or c-section babies there are immediate and obvious health challenges, but Wren was simply crushing it. 💪🏼
It wasn’t until she turned a year old that we noticed that Wren wasn’t showing any signs of pulling up on furniture and cruising. 🚼 She didn’t start walking consistently until 15 months old and when she did, we noticed that she would often fall flat on her back when simply standing still. And no, big brother didn’t push her! 🤪 The girl was just unbelievably clumsy. 😳
When Wren was 18 months old, Kyle took her down a few slides 🛝 and she would have spastic, seizure-like movements. 😖 She hated swings, riding in wagons or being tossed in the air. 😬
Wren was a classic case of Sensory Processing Disorder at play. She didn’t have sensory aversions or sensory seeking behaviors with touch, taste, smell, sight or sound, but her ability to perceive and coordinate movement (Proprioception) was severely challenged.😕
Wren was one of our first patients to receive Insight Scans and her results were not pretty
She had severe stress and tension in her upper neck that were indicative of brainstem injury, a most likely from axial torsion from the vacuum delivery.
Don’t get me wrong, the vacuum helped me do exactly what needed to be done, but it’s important to note that those interventions rarely go without repercussions. The brainstem, cerebellum and Vagus nerve all originate from that upper cervical region and act as the body’s “Air Traffic Control Tower” to process and integrate all sensory information from the body to the brain and back to the body. It was no wonder she was so clumsy and cautious!
Wren got her very own custom care plan and we increased her adjustment frequency significantly.
She’s closing in on 3 years old now and has recently started walking down stairs upright, on her feet. She climbs, she somersaults, and she’ll even let Daddy toss her in the air now. Huge wins!
There’s still progress to be made, but it’s so good to watch Wren take risks and simply enjoy playing like a child should.
We’ve got this kiddo
