Another newborn w/midline defect- what can I do?

[Nosy]

My oldest DS was born with a tongue tie. He has many allergy related issues today, including severe asthma. My 2nd child had no tongue tie and is pretty healthy. My 3rd child (3 weeks) was also tongue tied. He's also already had thrush, and I didn't have any antibiotics during labor (homebirth) so I worry about his immune system. What can I do to keep him from developing the same issues his oldest brother has? I'm already giving him probiotics because of the thrush.

Where can I learn more about midline defects & what they mean?

[tanyalynn]

http://mothering.com/discussions/sho....php?t=1111179

The mod re-organized the forum a while ago and put up a new Resources sticky that has links to a lot of threads. Several are midline related, you can see from the title, and that seems like a good place to start.

My husband and I are very different, in terms of the health problems we're prone to, and our two kids show issues very differently. Is it possible the 1st and 3rd kids are taking more after one or the other of you? Or do you think it's possible your nutrition was a lot better for kiddo #2, but worse for #1 and #3?

One of the more helpful things for me is looking critically at my own health, and the nutrient deficiencies that go along with the health problems (even relatively minor ones) that I've had. My kids both have the same, though they show them differently. In the very short-term, I'd say a high quality vit/min supp, since pregnancy is so darn draining. Vitamins will pass on to baby, and if you're really low in minerals, that'll pass on too, else it'll just help with your stores.

[Nosy]

Thank you for the link to the sticky, I hadn't seen that & it was much better than using the search function! So it looks like tongue tie might be a Vitamin A or folate deficiency? Other than making sure we both get enough I wonder if there's anything besides all the normal gut healing stuff I should do.

[tanyalynn]

Folate deficiencies have detoxification implications. Folks who need extra folate (800mcg vs 400mcg) often build up something of a toxic load. I've seen my son's food intolerances wax and wane depending on how his detoxification is doing. whoMe's odyssey through all this has been fascinating to watch. My progress is slower because we have global, significant, long-term detoxification issues, but whoMe's changed things fairly quickly.

So looking at her pages...
http://www.detoxpuzzle.com/folate.php

is a good place to start. In general, nutrients needed for detoxification are important, here's a good discussion of liver function and detoxification, it gets a bit detailed at times, but feel free to skim.

http://www.tuberose.com/Liver_Detoxification.html

To me, it seems like deficiencies usually happen in clusters, and figuring out which clusters are yours, and which aren't, is helpful. Since minerals are minerals, if mom doesn't have enough, baby won't either.

Reading threads whoMe has started is always fascinating, some, I'm sure, are in the Resources sticky too.

[Theloose]

It's also important to remember B12 - it's needed to absorb folate from food, and it's used in conjunction with folate for methylation.

I think part of what's made our progress relatively quick is that, for reasons I still don't fully understand, I don't *think* I've accumulated too many toxins, so there's no huge backlog for us to work through.

But yeah, as a long term thing, it seems like it'd be helpful to figure out where the particular weaknesses are, so that you can keep supporting those pathways.

[Nosy]

Originally Posted by TanyaLopez

http://www.detoxpuzzle.com/folate.php

Thanks, very helpful link! My health issues only seem to manifest in my kids' health problems. I did support my liver with organic liver & milk thistle while pregnant because my chiro kept telling me it was weak but not until after the tongue tie issue would have developed.

My biggest health puzzle is my 5 yo's asthma, so I was thrilled to see more information on that. I have not looked at a molybdenum deficiency or sulfate issues for him. I know he has low stomach acid, he also had a tongue tie, so it makes sense.

One of the reasons I'm so worried about DS3's tongue tie is that I don't want him to develop asthma as DS1 did.

I guess I should do a hair test or some sort of other toxicity test...I don't have any amalgam fillings or mercury exposure that I know of, not sure what is causing me to be toxic.