Latest / Motherhood Alliance Podcast / How to Optimize a Child's Airway Development w/ Dr. Marli Leist | 413 Dental
Transcript
- Britney Suttner: Hi, this is Brittany from MotherhoodAlliance.com, and today I'm joined by Dr. Marley Leist, a doctor of dental surgery who offers general dentistry with a holistic approach. Her passion for dentistry started as a teenager when she volunteered at a free dental clinic for kids, eventually leading her to earn her dental hygiene degree from the University of Minnesota and her doctorate from Indiana University. After becoming a mom, she realized she wanted her professional approach to better align with how she viewed health in her own life. That led her to pursue holistic dentistry, where she focuses on a least invasive, least toxic, and more biocompatible approach, while looking beyond symptoms and asking bigger questions about the connections between oral and overall health. Her clinic, which is located in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is a dye-free, mercury-free, and fluoride-free clinic. Dr. Marley is also a graduate of Airway Health Solutions and has developed a particular passion for airway development and helping kids grow into healthy adults. Outside of industry, she is a wife and mom of two young boys and enjoys working out, reading, listening to podcasts, and spending time with her family. We're excited to have her on with us today. Hello everyone, welcome back. We are in episode two with Dr. Marley. And y'all, if you missed episode one, I know we're talking two different topics here. Episode one was about mercury and fluoride, and a lot of questions that I think a lot of health conscious families have nowadays around these because they're just hearing from traditional dentists, you have to do this in order to maintain your teeth. And then we're hearing from more holistic side of like, I don't know, there's some some stuff going on here. And Dr. Marley blew my mind with episode one and I if you have not listened to that, you have to go back and listen to that episode. But I digress. We have a whole new topic in this one. And I'm excited to continue the conversation with Dr. Marley because she is just a wealth of knowledge. So we're going to be talking airway. And we have talked airway a bit on this podcast before with other guests, but I'm excited for your take and your perspective being a dentist with so much training in this arena. But let's start high-level How would you define the airway? Marli Leist: So the airway, it's starts in your nose and it goes into your nose and behind here and then down into your throat. So it's the the pathway for air to get from your nose into your lungs. Britney Suttner: Okay. Why are we talking about this when you are a dentist? Marli Leist: Because, and I'm gonna say it again, mouth breathing is the number one cause of cavities. So if you have an airway that is small here and you end up breathing through your mouth, that is a huge, huge contributing factor to cavities. Britney Suttner: Okay, what is airway dentistry? Marli Leist: So airway dentistry is dentistry that is focused on making sure that the airway development is growing properly. So that we're opening up, making sure that we've got nice wide growth so that kids can breathe through their nose properly. Britney Suttner: So on that note, how does the airway form? Is this something that you are helping to shape as a dentist, or is this something where you're just monitoring how a child is forming and then teaching them new habits? Marli Leist: The airway forms while we're developing as a baby in in utero, but the majority of its development happens in those first four years of life. So about seventy percent of the airway is developed by the time we're four years old. Britney Suttner: Okay, so then as a child is growing, 'cause I think about oftentimes people are not even bringing their kid out to the dentist until they're closer to one. When should okay, that's your question right there. When should people start bringing their kid out to the dentist? Marli Leist: So I think you can bring them to the dentist as early as if well an airway dentist is gonna look at their tongue. So first week of life. Britney Suttner: Just to check for tongue ties. Marli Leist: If you're going to an airway dentist and you're not seeing a lactation consultant or or someone who's looking at that baby's tongue, then you should be first week of life. Or if you're having struggle breastfeeding or anything like that, if you're seeing indications where maybe the latch is isn't as ideal as you'd want it to be, if you have an airway dentist around, that is a great place to start. Britney Suttner: Okay. Side note, since you just brought up tongue ties or lip ties or just ties in general, there's there's scissors, there's laser, like what are your thoughts on tongue tie revision in general? Marli Leist: Tongue tie revisions are, depending on the severity, are a good thing. there's some ties can be fascia related where you need a cranial sacral therapist to get in there and really start releasing some of that fascia. Some ties are very severe and affecting the way baby is is latching and that little tie needs to be should be cut. not with the scissors. A laser is definitely the the most beneficial for the tissues because it's less aggressive. The healing immediately starts. It's cauterized right away. So laser is definitely the the way to go if you're thinking about releasing your baby's lip lip or tongue tie. Britney Suttner: Okay, and side note, I will say adults can have their ties revised as well if they are s if they still have them. My husband had one revised like five years ago. And so adults listening, this is a big thing for you too, if you're experiencing any symptoms that might indicate that a tie is an issue for you. Okay, Marli Leist: Yep. Yep. Britney Suttner: so returning back to the airway topic though, you said 70% is developed by age four. When we when I think about the mouth shape and potentially a dentist helping to mold the airway area, like typically with jaws and teeth and all this stuff, hardware in the mouth and changing what's happening in the mouth doesn't happen until an older age. So are there things that you can do when these kids are young, but before age four, to help them shape their airway naturally in a good way? Marli Leist: Yes, yes. so let's let's bit kind of back up. I think I jumped over your question of how the airway develops, but so let's talk about what's going on and how we need to how our mouth and the start of our airway can be affected when we're a baby. So the roof of our mouth is the floor of our nose. So if you have the roof of your mouth is starting to develop very arched. Look at the underside of my hands here. If this is the roof of your mouth, then the nose that is also really tiny. But if you have a nice wide palate, then the nose can be really wide and you can get better airflow here. Now, if you have a small vaulted nose or small vaulted palate, and your nose is also the floor of your nose is very, very tiny like that, the developing septum. doesn't have a nice wide base, it has to find its way onto this very narrow base, and that's how we can get a lot of deviated septums, and that's when you can feel people or hear people talk about, well, I can't breathe through my nose because I have a deviated septum. If we look on the inside, their mouth is likely like this. So what's going on there? The tongue is what shapes the roof of our mouth. So the natural parking space for your your tongue is the roof of our mouth behind your front two teeth. If your tongue is reaching that roof of the mouth, then the roof of your mouth starts to grow wide and and broad. If your tongue is tied to the floor of your mouth, it can't get to the roof of your mouth. So it the roof of your mouth starts to develop very narrow. So babies, babies who are breastfed, their tongue is making this very specific motion so that they're learning number one to swallow the right way, but they're also learning to pull that milk in and start shaping the roof of their mouth. God designed us very perfectly. The breast tissue, when a baby is latching, the breast tissue is also pulling, you get a little bit of force coming from the breast tissue and also going into the baby's mouth. So the breast tissue is helping form the baby's mouth. So for kiddos who have that tie and are having a hard time making that latch, their tongue is never getting the exercise and learning the motion that it needs to make sure that the roof of our mouth and the start of our airway grows wide and broad. that is like the earliest, earliest thing we can do to start showing or to start affecting the way that airway is developing and help. help the airway growth. Britney Suttner: Okay. So even if you even if your child doesn't have a tie, are there things that you can do to help them encourage that development? you you didn't like with bottle feeding, is there something that you can do for those babies that's gonna help encourage them to make sure that their tongue has that proper placement? Or are there certain foods that they can eat, or even leaning into the conversation of thumb sucking and stuff like that. What are some other arenas to be watching for to help them encourage that seventy percent development is really good? Marli Leist: So we need to chew. We need to chew our food. I'm gonna kind of go into little nerdy sound here, but if you look at our ancestors and or if you go into a in like an indigenous community. You will find that the skulls, the heads of people in these communities, or the skulls from our ancestors, have these really wide jaws, all 32 teeth, and all 32 teeth are aligned perfectly, and there's really no incidence of decay. Anthropologists have found that if you take a person from an indigenous community, And put them in a Western society where we're eating things like chicken nuggets and hamburgers. We just have a very soft diet. 50% of that next generation will already start seeing tooth crowding and a smaller, smaller jaw and a smaller airway. So chewing is very, very important. And if you can get your baby to chew on something. like this and I'm I'm holding up what's called a myomunchy this is what's gonna help your baby practice chewing and it also has these little guides that help the the arch development so doing this having your baby chew on something like this even from you can they there's this size for adults too but just chewing getting the muscles to chew form follows function so In the same way that if I don't ever lift my arm up, my muscle is going to atrophy and not function. It's going to get smaller. This is the same thing that's happening with our mouth. If we aren't chewing and using our muscles here, the bones aren't going to grow. The muscles aren't going to develop to be, the muscles aren't going to develop, so the bone won't have that same growth to it. So if you want a wide airway, chew. Britney Suttner: I feel like even if you look at pictures of people around the world today and these different tribes that are in different areas, a lot of times even if they are having other challenges with health, their teeth are oftentimes straight, which is interesting that you're mentioning that. are they ch what are they chewing so much? Are they just is it like meat? Like what is what is the difference in our diets? And obviously they don't have chicken nuggets, but like what else is happening? 'Cause they they are eating like probably a lot of berries and seeds and those things are not hard to chew. So what are they chewing on that we're not? Marli Leist: Yeah, usually like their meat, I mean old cold older societies, they were chewing on raw meat, dried meat now. It's just a tougher food that they're chewing. They're also breastfeeding longer. so it's you know, getting that that development, like I was saying, where the breast tissue is also helping develop the mouth. Britney Suttner: Yeah, makes sense. Marli Leist: what a lot of parents will ask me, you know, like my baby's having a hard time sucking or getting rid of this pacifier or he's still sucking his thumb. pacifiers are a wonderful tool, right? I mean, they're a wonderful tool when you need them, but they are one of the most efficient little appliances to change our jaw shape and not in a good way. What that pacifier is doing, and I'll talk about a little bit about the anatomy here. So behind your two front teeth, there's a little like bump. That little bump has nerve endings in it. And those nerve endings, when they're stimulated, release oxytocin, which is our happy hormone. Our tongue is supposed to rest there, right? So that's what's pacifying us. So when we have A baby who has that right tongue mobility to get to the roof of their mouth, they can pacify themselves with their tongue. The pacifier is doing the work of the tongue, the thumb, the finger, the blanket. It's all doing the work that the tongue can't, because the tongue is likely tied to the floor of the mouth, or it hasn't had the exercises that it needs to function and get to that roof of the mouth and and learn how to how to pacify themselves. So the ADA says that pacifiers are okay up until the age of two. I think that is way too long. Way too long. I mean, if you're thinking about that the mouth and your jaw is 70% developed by the time someone someone is four years old. Two years old, I mean we're already seeing severe crowding and that growth of their arch that develops like this. Six months. Get that pacifier out six months. And if that baby ha is having a hard time getting the tongue to the roof of the mouth, maybe we need to look at something like cranial sacro therapy. Get that tongue moving, get the fascia released. Get the maybe there's a tie in there that you know, their baby was okay nursing or those first two weeks were really hard, but then you guys got used to it and you you toughed it out. Have it have that baby evaluated for a tie because if that tongue can't freely get to the roof of the mouth, it it's not gonna be able to help stimulate and and pacify on on its own. It's always gonna rely on something else to do the job. Britney Suttner: Okay. This is great. I love that it's giving parents like actionable tips, right? Like for n step number one, it is to make sure that they have adequate tongue mobility so that their tongue can reach the top of their mouth. Now I'm guessing that we just have this innate sense of knowing what to do. It's just like when a baby is born and you put them to breast, they just kind of know how to suck Marli Leist: Mm-hmm. Britney Suttner: already. If their tongue has the mobility to go to the roof of the mouth, I'm I'm hoping that it doesn't need all that much training, that that things will just kind of progress normally, right? But let's talk about whether it's babies, toddlers, kids, or adults, or maybe all four. I don't know if there's different things with each type of age group, but what are some symptoms that the airway is not functioning properly? Marli Leist: Yes, symptoms, snoring, mouth breathing, night terrors, restless sleep, cavities, prolonged bed wetting, ADHD, ADD, sensory issues, speech issues, piggy picky eating, headaches, grinding your teeth. There are so many issues that start here and not having a a proper airway. Mouth breathing I is just so how mouth breathing starts. If you if you have that small nose, right, or that small n small nasal passage, but then also if your tongue is low or tongue is tied to the floor of your mouth, what happens is that it goes like this. And then your muscles become strong and This direction instead of this direction. When your mouth is open, it's really hard to breathe through your nose. You have to physically move your tongue to the back of your throat and take a deep breath. So Mouth breathing is is huge with with oral development because it's training our muscles to do this. And again, when you're doing this, it's pushing on that form follows function, right? So it's pushing on pushing inside instead of letting that tongue have space so that can park at the roof of your mouth and be wide. Hope that makes sense. Britney Suttner: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of like an A frame house, you know, where it's it's Marli Leist: Yes. Britney Suttner: like the A frame house is the the the bad house where it's inflicting up into your no nasal cavity, taking up some of the space of the nasal cavity, whereas proper development would be a little bit more of like a flatter roofed house, right? Marli Leist: Mm-hmm. Britney Suttner: Okay, so let's say that somebody's listening and they have kiddos past the age of four. They're identifying some of those symptoms that you just said. What are the options once a kiddo is past age four, maybe even heading into the teens that whole time frame? What are the options for helping to expand or widen our mouth and get that A-frame down into a lower roof so that we can breathe properly? Marli Leist: Yeah. So four is actually a really great age because at four years old, you're able to just communicate a little bit more eff effici efficiently with kiddos. They can do exercises from myofunctional therapists. they're just, I feel like four four is a great age for a growth guided appliance. If you're starting to see crowded teeth or any of the symptoms that I had talked about before. See an airway dentist because we're gonna evaluate the width from right to left on your on your roof of your mouth to see if it's constricted. Then we can start intervening passively, very passively, very easy to start guiding that growth to be wide. So for a four-year-old, we could use something like a growth-guided appliance. There's a company called Tooth Pillow or Myobrace or Vivos. It's all the same product, just different companies and different kind of procedural differences, but it's all the same product. So I'm holding up a little tooth pillow right here. It's a growth guided appliance, but kids as young as four years old can use this little appliance at nighttime. To help training their mouth muscles to chew, to be away from their teeth, not pushing any forces in, we want them to be out, and to help guide their growth so that their jaws are developing to the ideal distance or the width. once we get to the age of like eight, nine, the rate of growth of our jaws has really slowed down. It's not developing so quickly. So when we're four, our jaw is the most of it's developed, but it's still developing at a pretty rapid pace. and we can intervene some with something really passively, like this little mouthpiece that a kidding can bite on. After the age of seven or eight, the speed of our growth or the rate of our growth really slows down. So a lot of those kids, if we're seeing some restricted growth in the roof of their mouth, those are the kiddos that would benefit from something like an expander. but these little appliances are great for four, five, six and and even after a kiddo gets an expander to go back into a tooth pillow or mile brace or vivo or healthy start is another one. Britney Suttner: Okay, so an expander and then a mouth appliance, which for those of you who are listening, it can't it looks like a mouth guard that you'd put in your mouth, like if you're gonna Marli Leist: No. Britney Suttner: go play soccer, that the item that she was holding up. But an expander and then one of those like mouth guard type appliances, they both finish with the same end result of expanding the mouth to be wider so that that A frame is coming down out of the nasal cavity. Is that correct? Marli Leist: Yes. Britney Suttner: Okay. What are the different options for expanders? Because I've also seen different types of hardware. Honestly, I mean my kids are almost 11 and 8. And so they have a ton of friends that are getting braces now and expanders. And then we've we've actually done the Vivos and the tooth pillow programs in the past. And so I'm familiar with a lot of these, except for my kids have not had expanders. So what are there different types of expanders or is it pretty straightforward with how expanders work? Marli Leist: definitely lots of different types of expanders. but the gist of what they're doing is widening the jaw. So it it sounds very archaic. there is the way our the roof of our mouth develops, it comes in two plates. So literally just like my hands here, the two plates form and they fuse where my fingertips are touching. That fusion is When you put an expander in, we start to widen the jaw from that that fusion or that little place where those my fingertips would be meeting. It's widening that way. So it sounds really archaic. They're they're very expanders are very helpful with kids who are at that slower growth rate because now something simple and as passive as a toothpillow or the myobrace, it it's not going to show the same growth. as an expander does. you can have a fixed expander, which is something that's permanently put in someone's mouth, or you can have a removable expander, something that comes in and out. They're a lot to clean around, but they're very, very effective because with the fixed expanders, you don't have to worry about compliance. You know, with with these appliances, you have to rely on your kiddo to eat to to chew at nighttime and to hold them in their mouth. and Some kids just it's hard, it's hard. I I mean I am I'm a mom myself and it's really, really hard to get your kid to be compliant in a lot of things. So if you know your kiddo is not a not a very compliant kiddo and it's gonna be really challenging, you know your lifestyle, maybe an expander is is the first step. but it's also not the first step until we get to a certain age. So if we can intervene early, around four years old, where we can do something passive like this, like a little tooth pillow or a myobras vivo's, we can catch that growth curve where it's going the fastest, and we can help assist that growth to be wide. Once those kiddos become eight, nine, ten years old, they're so far into their growth curve already that the growth has slowed down so dramatically that. this passive tooth pillow is it's not gonna do the same. It's not gonna do the same. It's not gonna you're not gonna see the the wide growth that we need anymore. So at that point then you you should have an expander in to help get that that wider palette. We need a little extra Britney Suttner: Okay. Marli Leist: assistance. And as far as what types to go, it a lot a lot of times it's based on provider. the airway health solutions that I was trained under trains with fixed because then you don't have to worry about compliance. and and I I would agree with that. As a mom, I I would agree with that. Compliance is Britney Suttner: Mm-hmm. Marli Leist: really hard. Britney Suttner: This is all very helpful. I feel like if I was if if my kids were just babies right now, I would be so jacked that I have this information in my back pocket. There are a lot of people Marli Leist: Yeah. Britney Suttner: coming in though where they're just they're they have teens or they themselves as an adult are listening to this and being like, Hmm, I'm not quite sure what my options are. So Marli Leist: Yeah. Britney Suttner: what would an adult do if they really feel like they could benefit from some of this conversation? Marli Leist: So for adults, adults are more complicated because that fusion between those two palates of our upper mouth, they've already fused. so for adults, the treatment is often longer and slower. So pretty much the same thing though, you'd want to be evaluated for a tongue tie to make sure that your tongue has the capability to reach the roof of your mouth and not be tied down to the floor of your mouth. So evaluate for a tongue tie. You go to an airway dentist and they would do a full evaluation here. For most adults, what ends up happening if you have airway restriction, you would go into an expander. So just like a kid, you would have that expander that you're opening. You'd have to go into usually a braces to move the teeth around because once you go into an expander, it widens your jaw. But now the teeth will get spaces in between them. So you have to put braces on to idolize that space and and move the teeth where you where they function. And then from there, for a lot of adults that I see that have these issues, they had teeth taken out when they were going through braces. So now we have to make room for that tooth again. So Usually it would involve for adults an expander, braces, and then usually some sort of appliance to replace the missing tooth or the extra space that you've gained. But for adults, you a lot of times we see a lot of really positive changes in health history. medications, high blood pressure goes down, no longer using sleep apnea machines, just i it's crazy sleeping well, brain fog's gone. it's wild. You know, we know that you're supposed to get a good eight hours of sleep. And some people lay down for eight hours and they most lucky people, they get to lay down for eight hours. But if that sleep is interrupted if you have sleep apnea, if you have a tongue that's tied to the floor of your mouth, you're not sleeping good. Your brain is not getting that moment and that that natural sleep cycle to refresh, to get your memories, to detoxify, to to learn and and solidify the things that we did for throughout the day. the brain just can't function if it's not going through that that sleep cycle, that proper sleep cycle. Britney Suttner: So it sounds like it might be a two to three year process for adults for sure. Okay. But it sounds Marli Leist: yes, yes. Yep. Britney Suttner: like it would be worth it. Like to live well for the rest of your life. Marli Leist: Yes, yes, it is. you know, and I I I I say it is because I I look at the I look at the results. And I don't I don't treat adults at this point. It's not I I wa I have to do a little bit more training to treat adults, but you just see, you see how kids, unhealthy kids, so these kids with breathing issues now, they're not they don't change. They s they just compensate for it. and then they come become an adult who's got this laundry list of things on their medical history that they're taking medicines for now. That if we breathe right, we don't have to we don't have to be on those medicines. Breathing is so important. I know it sounds so silly, it sounds so basic, but when we aren't doing it properly, it's truly, truly affects every organ in our body. Britney Suttner: Do you have any websites or books recommend that you can recommend for people to continue to learn about this topic? Marli Leist: Yes, yes, breathe by James Nestor is fantastic. Tongue Tide is another really good one. There's one called whole body dentistry that I think is great. it's all in your mouth. Those are all just there there's so much good information out there. yeah, we just have to find it and take the time to to learn about it. Britney Suttner: Yeah, I'll I'll link to those in the show notes as well for anyone that wants to dig in and really learn about it, especially if you're an adult being like, ooh, I feel overwhelmed about having to think about doing an expander embraces, but I think this could really help me or I have sleep apnea and I don't want to be on that darn machine anymore. Like there are there's options for those people. All Marli Leist: there's actually a product through Vivos, which Vivos uses something very similar to Tooth Pillow. It's the same product but for adults. But they came out with a an appliance that adults can wear very similar to toothpillow, but it it helps open up their jaws as well. So I think there's only one provider in Wisconsin that's using that. It's a Vivos, yep. Britney Suttner: Do you know what that product is called? it is. Okay. Marli Leist: Yep, V I V O O S. Britney Suttner: Okay, so even if people are not living in Wisconsin, they could probably go to that website and find providers Marli Leist: Mm-hmm. Britney Suttner: that are supporting that. Okay, cool. These I love these two episodes. They were fantastic. I am so appreciative of you coming on. I do have one final question for you. Marli Leist: Yeah. Britney Suttner: What do you think the future of holistic dentistry is? Do you think dentists in general are starting to become open-minded? Do you think they're gonna start teaching some of this stuff in school? Where do you see the future going? Marli Leist: I really hope so. I know since I started doing this, my classmates they've reached out to me and said, wait, what do you know? Because they're all becoming moms too. They're all doing the research that I'm doing. you know, maybe not the same research, but they're they're looking into what are you what are we feeding our kids? What are we what are we doing for our kids? I think post-COVID world, there are so many more people who are interested in looking into our health and what we're putting into our bodies I I hope dentistry changes. I really do. And I I think there's going to be more people as the years goes on, there's going to be more people who are looking for this kind of care that those people are also going to become dentists too, right? I mean, there's whole generations that are that are growing up right now looking, you know, to figure out what they're gonna do for their life. And I think as the years goes on, I really do think that we're going to see more people, more dentists leaning towards the holistic side or the biological side because they're growing up that way. yeah. Britney Suttner: That's encouraging. Well, anyone who is local to the Green Bay, Appleton, Wisconsin area, head up to her clinic. It's in Green Bay. Is that correct? Yep. Marli Leist: Yep, green bay. Britney Suttner: Head up and you can visit Dr. Marley, bring your kids in, get an evaluation, all that jazz. And then we will link to all the information about you in the show notes as well, your website, social media that you have, anything else. So if you guys want to just continue to stay in contact with Dr. Marley or f check out any of those resources she mentioned, you can find all of that in the show notes. Thank you so much Marli Leist: Yeah. Britney Suttner: for Dr. Marley for joining us. Marli Leist: Thank you.