Hi everyone, and welcome to the
Airway First, the podcast from the Children's Airway First Foundation. I'm your host, Rebecca St. James.
My guest today is Dr. Lawrence Kotlow, a board-certified pediatric dentist and a specialist dedicated to treating
children from birth, infants, and toddlers since 1974. His practice specializes in preventative
dentistry, newborn and infant care, and the use of lasers for restoring decayed teeth and oral
surgery. His work with mother and infants when it comes to breastfeeding and tethered oral tissues,
tongue ties or lip ties, is respected worldwide. From his practice based in Albany, New York,
he is a recognized international expert and lecturer on the use of lasers in treating children and
pediatric dental care. Over the course of his career, Dr. Kotlow has written more than 35 articles and
authored chapters on pediatric dentistry and lasers for three laser textbooks. He's also the author
of the book SOS for Tots, exposing the myths about breastfeeding and healing the heartbreak to
make breastfeeding a joy. You can find out more about Dr. Kotlow at kidsteeth.com. And now let's jump
into my interview with Dr. Lawrence Kotlow. All right, good morning, Dr. Kotlow. Thank you so much
for being on the show. My pleasure. I appreciate the invitation. Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm
just gonna let all of our listeners know you're gonna be on with Airway Health Solutions and
we'll put a link to that webinar series in our show notes. So if anybody wants to register and
catch that as well, it's gonna be, I'm sure, a phenomenal webinar. And we're gonna do a little bit
of both today for anyone listening. You can also watch this episode on YouTube. We're gonna be doing
some slides as well as some questions. So with that, if you would like to take it away, sir.
Well, again, thank you for the invitation. Trying to condense everything into an hour,
which is really a seven hour lecture is it's gonna be a challenge, but we'll get through it.
If you're interested in the entire presentation on Friday, I think it's February 7th, whatever
that first Friday is, we'll be doing the SOS for TOTS course. You can go to my Facebook page and
register for it or send me an email at kidstkiddsteth.com. So to start with, we've been dealing with
pandemics with COVID for the last four or five years, but the reality is the tongue-tie is also a
pandemic. I have lectured all over the world, the Middle East, Europe, Canada, the United States,
South America, and it's a problem in every country that I go to. It's not just United States or
Albany, New York. It's a global health emergency and it's not a fad. We have more women today,
breastfeeding than ever before, and it crosses all socioeconomic barriers. We've pretty much shown
that formula is not the best source and that breastfeeding not only is important for nourishment,
but for a variety of other reasons which I'll try to touch on. Medicine is our biggest problem
because they really don't understand what we do or why we do it. They think it's a fad. They think
it's used to pay for our lasers. Therefore, so many infants are being told there's nothing wrong
by lactation people as well as ENTs as well as physicians. So when they say it takes a village,
everybody in the village to do something well, you need an educated village. Hopefully today,
I'll give you as parents some understanding. But if we look at the barriers we deal with,
the biggest one is evidence-based medicine. And with children, toddlers, and infants,
it's almost an ethical to have control studies because we have enough articles and enough research
to show that when we do release the tongue and the lip, it improves in most cases almost immediately.
As long as the parent follows the directions and that means they utilize the entire breastfeeding
team, which is the lactation person, the chiropractor, the body worker, and older kids,
the malfunction of therapy. But if we look at scientific method, what that says is if I do
something and you do it, that person does it, we get similar results, it's no longer anecdotal.
That's what we have to fight. The benefits of correcting our tots are restricted to other
oral tissues. What I kind of get upset about when people lecture is they talk about tots.
Every one of us has a tethered oral tissue. We have cheek printout, we have tongue printout,
we have lip print. We need to be concerned when it becomes a problem. What can it cause? Well,
obviously, to start with, when that baby is born and put on mom's chest, the baby crawls up to the
breast and tries to latch. Maternal bonding is important because if that doesn't occur,
their mothers can go into postpartum depression. We wear many hats. This is where the medical
community kind of rejects what we do because they're rather put a mother on drugs than say,
are you having nursing problems? Proper mother-child bonding will benefit from good nursing.
They don't go into postpartum depression unless there are other insinuating circumstances.
Babies prefer home cooked meals. It has better food in it and manufacturers
cannot reproduce the milk because the mother's milk is different in the morning,
the afternoon, and the evening. So if you do pump, make sure that you identify what part of the day
that saved milk is so you can give it at the appropriate time. So we want successful breast
feeding. Another big one is air-induced reflux where physicians are treating again with drugs
rather than looking at the source. So reflux in an adult is a disease. Reflux in a child is due
to the fact that the restricted tether oral tissues are causing the baby to click on the
breast and swallow a lot of air. They get distended bellies. They arch their back and a whole bunch
of other problems which we'll talk about. In addition to that, we have obstructive airway
disease. So when that baby's tongue is blocking the airway, we're actually reducing the oxygen
flow to the brain and long-term effects go into adulthood with cardiac disease, strokes, etc.
Short-term effects, kids tearing apart the schools. You know, when I was in school years and years
ago, in a practice 52 years, we had kids that were kind of funny kids in the class. We didn't know
anything about sleep apnea and how it could cause problems, ADD, ADHD, or the Asperger's
and the other parts of the spectrum. Today we do. Mother's hormones, okay? When that baby is born,
the brain says produce milk. When the baby starts to cry, the mother brings the baby to the breast
and the milk is ejaculated. It's not compressed, okay? But that endocrine system is messed up
and they go into postpartum depression and increased story production. That will,
in effect, studies show reduce milk supply. Speech, growth and development of the jaws,
these all are important. So ignoring these restricted to the oral tissues can last a lifetime.
Okay? And you don't want to do this in adulthood. So we wear many hats when we release that tongue
and lip and cheek if necessary. So why are we here today? What do we want to know? Well, first of all,
we want our infants to grow up healthy with good oral, facial, and physical development.
Plus, equally important, we want- It's amazing the difference that makes immediately. No, no
way that you just spread away. It's amazing. So that occurs most of the time after surgery. There
are some examples where it can take a week or so. But again, if you process what we're doing
and go to the appropriate members of the team, it can be fixed quickly.
And she was referring to just for clarification, the milk flow and the latching or just the latching?
She had just released her child and she put her right on the child, right on the breast.
And she had complained of pain and discomfort. We get her off the nipple onto the areola and
it was instant for her. And this is the usual taste. This is an adult. It was just a huge relief when
you did it. Okay. And she had brought, I don't do adults, but she brought two children in and she
was having all sorts of problems. And that's a slide that can take five minutes for me to go through.
Okay. Do you see it a lot in families just to kind of touch on that? It's hereditary, yes. Okay.
At least 50-50, I would say. Okay. For me, there's nothing I'm going to do in dentistry that's going
to provide me and my staff more satisfaction than helping families because we help the mother,
the baby, and the father in long-term society. And it's amazing. That's what parents will say
every time. So this is an example. And I want you to listen to all the failures of the medical
community, the healthcare community, by this parent who sent me this letter after we released it.
So listen carefully and pick out. If I was to give you all an exam, I would just put this up there
and say, tell me what's wrong with this. I first heard about Dr. Colo in October 2017,
when my nearly three-year-old has significant speech delays. I was doing research on how I could
help her improve her speech after being dismissed by my pediatrician, speech therapist, and occupational
therapist, that there was not a thing wrong with her. They claimed her speech was delayed because
her two older sisters probably did all the talking for her. After learning about Dr. Colo and tongue
ties, I went to our pediatrician and dentist and asked them to check her. Both said she was fine.
After additional research, I determined she had a posterior tongue tie and made an appointment
with Dr. Colo to confirm. Sure enough, she had a posterior tie. We had it revised in the office
that day. On the way home, my daughter was moving her tongue around, and in two days, she was saying
words she had never said before and was clearer. Her face looked more relaxed and her disposition
changed. Prior to being revised, whenever my daughter had a pediatric appointment, I asked them how
I would know if she had an underlying problem and her crankiness was just personality.
After she was revised, she was a happier kid, and I think it was frustrating with nobody able
to talk and now able to communicate. I visited my family out of town in August, prior to her
revision and again in December, after the revision. I purposely did not tell them anything about the
tongue tie to see if they noticed a difference. Within two hours of arriving, I started getting
comments about how my daughter was totally different kids since she saw them in the summer.
They commented how much better she was talking and how much happier and personable she was.
I know some of this could have been natural age development, but the night and day difference
I saw prior to revision and a week later was confirmed by my family. And we go to the second,
but baby. My second success story is with my now seven-year-old who was five years old at the time
of the revision. She has sleep apnea, which I only figured out when I was doing research on my younger
daughter's sleep delay. I kept coming across how tone ties can cost sleep issues and signs of sleep
apnea. The signs fit my five-year-old to a T. Since my daughter was one and a half, I would mention
to the pediatrician at her annual checkups about her odd sleeping behavior. I was told it was night
terrors. Now learning three and a half years later that this is actually sleep apnea. Seeing the
success with the tongue ties revision of my three-year-old had, I scheduled an appointment for
my five-year-old. One of the issues which was most embarrassing to my five-year-old was nightly bed
wedding. We tried all the tricks to stop her from wedding her bed and nothing worked. Within one week
of the revision, my daughter stopped wedding her bed. In the first year, she might have wet her bed
only five times in the second year, one time. She now gets up during the night if she has to go to
the bathroom. Her journey with sleep apnea still isn't over. Last year, her tonsils and adenoids
were removed. These two successes led us to have our new baby revised. At six weeks, I noticed her
exhibiting the same nursing behaviors as her older sisters. Their tongue ties, like the baby, went
undiagnosed because their waking was good because I have a strong letdown so they did nothing,
did not have to suck for milk. I am being proactive and I am thankful that my baby will
avoid the speech and sleep apnea issues the older sisters experienced. Thank you, Dr. Kotlow.
So you can see all of the missed diagnoses. Here's another one. Thank you a million times for the
assessment and treatment of my twin baby's lip and tongue ties this past July. We immediately
noticed change in their ability to transfer milk after surgery. I truly believe that we'd still
struggling if we had not sought out your expertise. I am now able to tandem breastfeed, which means I
no longer have to pump and bottle feed. You see better and are generally happier babies these days.
Can I tell you how much stress has been lifted? The bond we've created through my ability to feed
them is profound. You're an integral part of saving this breastfeeding journey. Thank you again.
And this is typical of the emails I get and comments I get a week later. What does this occur?
In utero, it's normal. It's a normal process, pre-program. We don't know why it doesn't happen,
but basically we're supposed to take on our fingers, our toes, and other areas of the body.
These frenem are supposed to resorb and disappear. Apoptosis is a funny word meaning to fall off
like a leaf falls off a tree and a leaf falls off a tree when it's dead. And apoptosis refers to a
process of what's called programmed cell death, where the cell is actually in a funny kind of way
committing suicide. And when this happens, there's a whole scripted choreography of pathways and
proteins within a cell that get activated to actually kill the cell and without making too much of a
mess. And this happens normally during development, for instance, in the development of the hate,
and that normally to begin with the hand looks very much like a duck paddle foot and the webs
between the fingers, those cells apoptose giving you the fingers. And there are human conditions
where that ceases to where apoptosis doesn't happen and people are born with web feet.
So it's a normal process that may not happen. If you go to my website, kittst.com, again,
k-i-d-d-s-t-e-e-t-h, there are all sorts of symptoms or what are really called comorbidities.
And you can see on the mother's side, I'm not going to read it to you, you can download it,
you can look at it, and on the infant side. So when the parent comes in, they've already filled
this out. So before I see that child, I have a good idea that there's some kind of ties going in
there because it's rare for anything to cause all of these symptoms in a normal healthy child.
Okay. And parents are led to suffer because they don't go after the causes. So one of the most
important things for you as a parent, download this from my website and bring it to your doctor.
If he's intelligent and understands, he will be able to make a decision to refer you, not pick
up a pair of scissors and try to take care. You can also bring it to your lactation person,
who you should have seen before me, but she may not or she may have sent you to me because she
also has the form available. The tongue itself is not a simple muscle. It's complicated. Okay.
It has five cranial nerves. These are nerves that come from our brain and impact the tongue.
It has eight different muscles for intrinsic and for extrinsic. It's attached to
a couple of bones and a high-oared bone by itself. And throughout our body, we have body
fasion. And that's why the tongue, even though it's coming out of the mouth, is pulling on the
spinal cord and can cause T and J headaches, back pain, plantar fasciitis, all sorts of things,
which in the short time, we don't have time to get into. But the tongue is important as part of
the differential diagnosis when you're looking at systemic problems. It's a complex order.
How it affects our body? Now, I'm going to show you this. Again, there's physical effects,
and there are systemic effects. Development of the hard jaw, hard palate, maxillary arch,
mandibular arch, occlusion, our sinuses, the size of the tongue, breathing, orthodontic problems,
speech, posture, T and J, facial development, dysfunctional breathing, SIDS possibly,
and toe walkers. These are just 15 possible adverse physical. We talk about systemic.
It infers with successful breastfeeding, reduced milk production, postpartum depression,
air-induced reflux, enlarged T tonsils and adenoids. Let's talk about tonsils and nods
through a little bit. When my kids were going, we're taking out left and right. Then the physicians
and the insurance companies decided it was coming up too often. They stopped doing them. All of a
sudden, we had kids with ADD, which they never saw before with the number. They blame on everything
from injections of vaccines. But really, is it go back to ENT and pediatricians and insurance
companies who stopped doing the TNAs? Today, other than infected stuff, most of the TNAs,
or a great deal of them are done because of air blockage. Sleep disorder, breathing. I could
hit another 30 symptoms of comorbidities, behavior, GI problems, failure to thrive,
social and sexual difficulties, dental decay, bedwetting, grinding of teeth, thumb sucking,
knife ears. Look at, there's over 30 different potential problems if you don't get that tongue
released. Before we go off, can we go back for a moment? There's a couple that we haven't touched,
but one, I want to just touch on really quickly because we're talking about childhood development
and the new section of our website. Why is toe walking on here? Well, I had a couple of chiropractors
send me their patients who could never walk on their heels. If you go back to body fascia again,
if I had to slide in here, the fascia is attached to the tip of your tongue, to your toes, and to
the top of your head. When I release the tongue, it released the stress on that body fascia,
and immediately that child walked on her heels. Wow. Now, this is from the chiropractor referring,
you've seen this a couple of times with patients. Is it anecdotal? I don't believe so, but I don't
see enough patients to do a whole study on. So we're talking about ankle oglossia or tongue
tide, lip ties or a tight maxillary phlegm, and chica buckle ties. So these are the ones primarily
that I treat. The mandibular, the lower one and the mandibular buckles, if I've treated it's rare
in children and toddlers. I will treat it in older kids because it can lead to gum disease and
periodontal problems. Okay, so that's what all the fuss is about. Family dynamics, okay. We've talked
about mother baby bonding. We've talked about mother's exhaustion, but we haven't addressed the fact
in this culture today, fathers are involved. So the concept of breastfeeding and being a dyad
needs to be changed. It's a triad, especially in this day and age. I don't go along with all of this
walk stuff myself, but in this particular area, parents come in all the time and I'm treating
three people, the baby, the mother, and the father. So we should call it a triad. The window of
opportunity here is not weeks to play around with a tie because it affects lots of things. And we
have different people involved. It starts with the OBGYN or midwife. Then you have your physicians,
your pediatric dentists, myofunctional therapists, feeding specialists, okay, body workers, lactation
people, speech. And we only need to work together. And again, if I talk in my seven hour, we go
deeper into this about the benefits and how it works. Here, I'm just mentioning all the people
who are part of the team. And each one of these I could talk to for a half an hour. So obviously,
it works. But if any one of these people get involved until apparently there's nothing
wrong when there is, it breaks down. So under the idea set of its circumstances, we have a set of
chain links here, the birth of an infant. Now, this is my philosophy. Those of you, your parents,
listen to it carefully because you may find people who couldn't disagree with me. I've done over 40,000
laser surgeries in the last 25 years, and it works. So what happens at the birth of a baby,
okay, you've got the OBGYN and family doctors, the first ones who really are going to see that newborn.
And you have our midwives. So this is where the chain can be broken if it's ignored. I find the
midwives pay much more attention than I find the physicians do. So I have a classification of class
one, two, three, and four tides. And it's depending upon where this particular attachment to the tongue
actually is. So when you have a class one or two, it doesn't appear severe. And I don't like to use
the word posterior tie, because too many people think it's insignificant. So I use class one or two.
But remember, the evaluation and diagnosis is not just on appearance. So that baby would see the
hospital based IV CLC if they're allowed to make a judgment. And this is where we have a breakdown
because the IB CLC can't make a diagnosis. But when they say there's nothing wrong, in effect,
they've made a diagnosis. So what I would like to see is all IB CLC is licensed by the states that
they're in and be able to make an assessment, which is a diagnosis to help these children out. But
that goes back to their organization. The midwife does the same. Now, that IB CLC in the hospital
may not be able to say anything because of the politics in the hospital. So her job is to say,
you know, I'm not sure what's going on. I want you to see an IB CLC and refer outside the hospital.
Who then can maybe refer to a chiropractor, who then refers to the proper surgeon for evaluation.
Now, if you have a class three or class four, that's not going to stretch. It's a little wives tale.
I don't know who started it, but tongue ties and lip ties aren't going to stretch. And unless you
cut them, they're not going to tear almost a real thin and maybe a fork or something. So these
should go directly to the hospital, ID CLC, and then go to the surgical revision, which turn
on send them back to the lactation person, send them to the chiropractor, they come back to me,
and we rotate around. Okay, we work as a team. I'm going to have to make sure the parent does
a proper post surgery care so it doesn't heal back together. But reality that doesn't work.
There's a breakdown. But we have 90 days of that brain development, which is another
hour of discussion. But within that first 90 days, if that baby is not getting good oxygenation,
and they have cellular death of the neurons of the brain, they'll never be replaced. And if it goes
on for one or two years, these are the kids who may be ADD, okay, or misdiagnosed down the lot,
which you can see parents understand that it takes a team of educated people. That's an important key.
You're listening to Airway First with today's guest Dr. Lawrence Kotlow.
You can find out more about the Children's Airway First Foundation and our mission to fix
Before Six on our website at childrensairwayfirst.org. The CAF website offers tons of great resources
for both parents and medical professionals. In our Parents Portal and Clinicians Corner,
you can find educational and informational content, including videos, blogs, our recommended reading
list, comprehensive medical research, podcasts, events, parents' support, and educational opportunities.
Parents are also encouraged to join the Airway Huddle, our Facebook support group, which was
created for parents of children with airway and sleep-related issues. You can access the Airway
Huddle support group at facebook.com. Backslash groups. Backslash Airway Huddle.
Are you a medical professional or a parent that's interested in being a guest on the show? Then shoot
us a note via the contact page on our website, or send us an email directly at info at Children's
AirwayFirst.org. As a reminder, this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not a medical
diagnosis. If you suspect your child might have an airway issue, contact your pediatric airway
dentist or pediatrician. And now let's jump back into my interview with today's guest, Dr. Lawrence
Kotlin.
Um, and I just would like to ask really fast here because one thing we hear a lot from parents
is they're told the tongue tie will resolve itself. Is that ever the case or is that rarely the case?
Um, well, I'll give you two answers. I see kids 10, 11, 12, and 18 who were told that
and it didn't happen. So no, it's not going to disappear. What may disappear is reflux because
once you're off the breast and the bottle, okay, what happens is it lasts 12 to 18 months of pain
and discomfort versus a week of surgery. So the answer to the question is no, I don't know where
that comes from. I've never seen it. And I treat kids from birth all the way up to the
ages of 18. And then you see some adults. Okay. Okay. So to start with, when you assess it,
these, there's some complicated assessments out there which people seem to think are wonderful,
um, to get everybody on the same boat. But in reality, first thing you want to do is you want
to look at it. You can tell it's tied. Does every tongue tie have to be released? I would say every
class three and four should be released. We should be proactive, okay, and prevent problems.
On the other hand, we need to look at function. Can that function? And lastly, the comorbidities.
And we take a look at what we saw before and we put them all together and that's how we make a
decision. It all starts here. Proper evaluation. You can't do it on mom's lap. It doesn't work.
Okay. I'm looking in the mouth. You as a parent can see what I can see. Okay. If you do it the wrong
way like this, that's why they can't be diagnosed or assessed properly. You have to have a baby in
the right position and you as a parent can do it. You don't need anybody to tell you. If you do it
this way, you're going to miss almost 50% of them or more because these are the ones that the studies
are out there and that's why they show only five or 10% of babies at tongue tie because they don't
see what goes on between the insertion and the base of the tongue. So they missed all of the
distal ties. So that's the second thing. First, you fill out the paperwork then you do an exam.
Okay. Okay. The treatment you wanted to see. Okay. I have a well-trained staff. We always worry
about airways. We protect the eyes. My staff's been with me to be honest with you for over 40
years. I've been in practice 52 years and most of my staff's been with me for over 40 to 45 years.
So they're well-trained. They know how to hold the baby. We know how to avoid leading and nerves.
And if you go to the appropriate person, okay, we're able to do it and this is what it should
look like when it's released. Okay. So this is us working four-handed dentistry. It's a surgical
procedure and we protect the patients. In my office, all babies and mothers and fathers
are brought in through a separate entrance because in many cases the baby hasn't been immunized from
COVID or RSV and we use UV lights. So every baby is separated, isolated and the parents are too.
So there's no chance of communication if that baby comes down with a problem. Patients this week,
they drove in, they had a hotel and they called the morning. They said they have to cancel. The
entire family came down with COVID. Anyone who thinks that COVID is going away is delusional
because I'm treating everybody as if they had COVID and older patients would treat. This is
not so much to worry about but hepatitis and AIDS. So back in the 70s, we were doing this. So this
is the procedure using extra oral suction to prevent vaporization of any kind of bacteria
or aerosols. You can see it's very quick and easy. I've just done the lip. Now we're going to do the
tongue and we gown and we glove and we protect our patients as if they were on our own shoulder.
And the baby's awake? Oh yeah. They get no sedation. They get sugar water at the most. The whole thing
takes less than a half a minute. Oh, wow. Okay. You never put a patient. I've not had a sedative
patient except for older kids with something called a dramine for car sickness. I got rid of my
nitrous because we can't really sterilize the tubes in the office so I didn't feel comfortable.
And I don't use any drugs or chemicals on the kids. We use sugar water and that pretty much covers
it. And if you read the studies, it's a good analgesic and mother's milk, the two that we use.
Okay. Okay. Reflex. We talked about briefly. I'm just going to mention it. Okay. It could be just a
simple latch and they put them on drugs and that shouldn't happen. It should be part of the differential
diagnosis. But this is what the physicians tell patients. All babies have gases spit up. They put
them on a reflex drug. So put mother on special diets. They go to GI doctors. So put on different
drugs. They put allergies, colic and reflex. Okay. They still on the hand breastfeed. They say it's
an allergy to cow's milk. They put them on formula for $97. They put them under general
friendoscopy. They put NG tubes and stomach tubes or they do a procedure. But nobody looks as the
tongue as maybe that's the cause. So I would urge every parent who's listened to this before you
allow a doctor to put your kid on drugs and in the OR make sure that tongue is properly assessed
and evaluated because all of these comorbidities may be directly related to that tongue type.
That's another important key. 15 different. Okay. So this is just one study out there.
This shows and this is in Brazil. Unfortunately, he died recently. But in Brazil, it's required
every newborn baby have their tongue evaluated. But here again is a study. Short-lingual frenem
may lead to abnormal oral facial growth, development of sleep disorder, breathing.
And there's lots of them out there. Here's another one. Okay. So there are plenty of studies.
If you type them in on the internet and look, but when they tell you it's a fad,
not anymore, never was, but it's important to understand the risks of watching. This is the
article. Again, you can download it from the internet. A frequent phenotype for pediatric
sleep apnea. Short-lingual frenem. And I'll have links to all of these in our show notes.
No matter what age we treat tots, we need to do a full evaluation. These are the red flags.
So this is also on my website. And any child over the age of two has to fill out this form.
And it's not a check off. If you read the directions, it says put a zero, a one, a two, or a three.
Now, I don't really believe that sleep studies are of value these young kids,
because they can't really handle it. But this is better than any sleep study as far as I'm concerned,
because it's showing me this child has problems. And we need to look at the tonsils, the adenoids,
and the airway, but the tongue has to be part of that differential diagnosis. Because parents
and teachers have struggled with these kids when they're in school because they're just
in school because they're disruptive. They don't do well in school. And again, I have a whole series
of slides just on the airway and brain development. I'm just going to show you one. Okay. But this is
a patient who was referred to me for Invisalign. She was 18. Okay. Six days post-op. Two years.
No local, just topical. And this is using carbon dioxide laser because
aiming being in water to cool. All lasers are not creating egress. You have to be careful.
Some don't have aiming beams because things are dangerous. If you're just doing soft
tissue surgery, you're in direct contact. If you're using this laser, which is a CO2 that has
water in there, an airbion has water in there, but this one has better human space as well.
It's not. But machines run from 3,000 to 150,000 miles.
Unreal. That's so weird.
You can let it extend.
Yeah, all the time.
Yeah, we'll get there.
She's going to go away.
Wow, to see her move it like that so quickly after you released it, that's wild.
Okay. So tell me what's the difference with your life?
I just like my neck. Everything feels so much better. I can finally like lick ice cream.
It's just so unreal to be able to like stick my tongue on my mouth.
Before your head hurt though, right?
Yeah, really.
You know, a lot of neck and neck pain.
The worst headaches, everything.
And we just did it two seconds ago.
And I just, I don't know. I just feel like my posture is better.
Everything, nothing with my neck.
Okay, you were so tight. You should feel 100% better.
I do.
Okay, we're going to check you back in the week and we're going to get another report.
Have you had your first ice cream gone?
Yeah, I did actually write what I loved here. It was, it was so weird.
Does it taste better?
It did.
So much better. Like I, this whole week I've been sleeping just like,
like I've never slept that gun ever. And I'm just like, I just feel better.
And this is not anecdotal because everybody says the same.
What do you think?
The changes.
Yes.
Yes. Tremendous changes with her, her posture, her neck.
She's, she's up like this instead of like this and her just like, just everything.
Just living like that. And just like, can we change to an extent?
That's crazy.
Yeah. I just wish I would have did it sooner because I mean, I've noticed and this is no,
I mean, this has been a life changer for her. It really has.
No one ever looked at her, said anything to you. No one ever suggested it.
When she, when I went to the dentist, my, not even the dentist, my dental, my dentist,
there were, that was cleaning my teeth one day. It was just like, oh, she's top time.
But that was like only a couple of years ago. Yeah. And she said that, well, if she hadn't
had any scrunch problems, right? I feel like that. I mean, it's just, you know, whatever.
So I, we didn't think anything of it. Then I, then it started getting worse as she got,
you know, within those couple of years. And I'm like, this is not, this is not right.
What about the medical community? Did you talk about the headache or the cleaning or the cleaning?
I just thought of this. She's like,
So this goes on for a long time. I won't keep it going here. But bottom line is the question is,
it's recommended kids see a dentist by 12 months. But the reality is that first 12 months,
the pediatrician should have a form in their office that I showed you earlier.
And if there's evaluation that needs to be done, a pediatric dentist should be educated
and trained in a pediatrician to evaluate the tongue and refer appropriately. So at 12 months
is a general team. So this talks about brain development in the first 90 days. Look at the
difference in that child. The baby's brain is growing by 1% each day right after birth.
And it's growing fast. That first 90 days, as I said, if that baby's brain is not getting full
oxygenation, those synapse aren't being corrected. And those areas of the brain where the nerves are
not getting oxygen, those will die and they can't be replaced. So it's growing by 64% in the first
90 days and 30% of an adult. That's a lot of growth in 90 days. So basically, this is my website,
my email. I've tried to keep it for 45 minutes so that we could get everything in here. I think
I covered all the questions you asked, what you talk about. So I'm open for questions. Let me
end my screen sharing and we can just talk. Yeah, absolutely. And you did. Thank you so much. You
covered quite a bit there in 45 minutes. Thank you for letting me ask questions along the way,
as well. I appreciate that. So I guess, what are the questions I would have? And
I realize it's an opinion question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Why are we missing this so much?
And I understand there's a group that thinks it's a fad or thinks that it's not needed. We've all
read the article in the New York Times a few weeks ago. But why aren't we looking for this
in infants? Why isn't this part of their birth exam? Well, first of all, the article in the New
York Times was very biased and it represented the ENT and a mother who didn't get a good result.
And a lactation person whom I understand had some other things that were fissures.
I spoke to that woman for over an hour and so did other people. And she'd ignored everything we said
that is the article misrepresented. Yes, we agree with we go back to when my kids were born 45 to
50 years ago, 20% of women in the United States were breastfeeding. Now we have close to 90%.
Also, in the 50s and 60s, it was pushed that formula was the best thing for our babies.
Then we came into the 60s and 70s with the hippies. They wanted to go everything natural,
natural childbirth, breastfeeding. And it became more acceptable for women to nurse.
And as we progressed further, fathers became involved. So we had a combination of bottle and
breastfeeding. But as more women nursed, and they were no longer at the lower end of our
financial socioeconomic area, they went and complained. There's a problem here. Now,
in dental school and medical school, we get nothing other than the tongue is for chewing
is for chewing taste. Everything I presented today I've learned on my own or with other people who
are going to be on that webinar. And we've talked to and some many of those have been in my office
because I started doing this 50 years ago, but not on babies because we didn't have the right
materials. lasers change it because lasers are not a burn. They don't hurt most of what I do
in operative dentistry, as well as surgery is without numbing anybody, because it has an anal
G's effect. And there are other types of lasers called photobiomodulation, but you're good for
trauma, etc. So again, that's a long story condensed. But we don't get it in our residencies. We don't
get it in medical or dental residencies. I had one residency program I lecture to, and they said,
if you do, if I do everything you just explained to me, I have to learn how to do everything all
over again, because it's opposite of what I learned when I was going through four years of dental
school. And again, I can expand upon this, but I don't want to keep you on for two or three more
hours. The bottom line is, there are blind folders. I went to Stockholm and lectured,
and there's 530, I think seven pediatricians, not one of them was interested enough to come,
and they were all invited. So as I say, you can bring a horse to water, but you can't make them
drink it. I have this course, which I advertise to pediatricians. I've lectured locally, and I
can't get them to come. They don't want to hear about it. And if when I do go to them,
I won't even get into the fiasco return, it was trying to set me up and telling me that
they should be the ones to refer and that kids are getting infected. And when you listen to the
medical community in ENT's lecture, I've done over 40,000 laser surgeries and never seen one
infection. Okay, I see mistakes that other people make because they don't know the anatomy. So
the parents who are listening, I would say, do your homework. Number one, look at the comorbidities
and insist. Go by your gut feeling. Okay, get a proper evaluation by someone who can assess it
and refer you or treat it. This is being treated all over the world. You can find someone who's
local or I've had people flying from Europe in the older days when I was the only one doing it.
So I hope that answers that question. It absolutely does. And I guess I have a personal
response to something that you said. First of all, to the it goes against, you know, we have to relearn
everything we learned in school. Well, come over to the world of technology that happens
about every 50 seconds for us. And then shouldn't we always be continuing learners? I mean, that's
one thing we're huge advocates for here. Things change. You know, I have a biology background.
Things I learned in college, whatever years ago, their discovery weren't true. So it's life. That's
the beautiful thing about the human mind and the modern world we're learning every day. So
come on board that bandwagon folks. Oh, I'm gonna say. The mind doesn't grow. It does.
I'm gonna tell you. Exactly. Exactly. So at the end of every episode, I like to turn the show back
over to our guest for the final thought, you know, one final thought to leave with our parent
audience. Well, I think I just did that, but I'll do it again. Yeah. I appreciate the opportunity
to talk directly to parents. I want them to open their minds and think that what we're doing is
what's best for their baby for them and the father, because they will work together. Our goal is not
to pay for our lasers because mine are all paid for before I pick them up and start using them. My
goal is to do three things. One, make that baby's life better. Make the breastfeeding experience
and growth and development of the child for the family better. And to be honest with you,
my staff and I enjoy doing it because we're helping three people. So it's a positive experience for
me. And that's why I don't or can't retire as long as my eyes and my hands work and my staff is on
board. We're going to continue to do what we feel is necessary in spite of the pushback from the
New York Times and other medical people out there. But I think parents, go buy your gut feeling.
That's the most important thing I would say. I 100% agree with that. And again, I will put the link
to the Airway Health Solutions webinar in our show notes for parents and medical professionals
both. We invite you all to join. They are part of our collaboration group. So please, please, please
register and attend that. And on a personal note, thank you so much for being on and just your
open, honest, unfiltered sharing of your knowledge. It's truly appreciated as is the work you do.
So thank you. My pleasure and appreciate your asking me. If I can be of any further help,
you know how to reach me. Thank you. Thanks again to today's guest, Dr. Lawrence Kotlow,
for sharing his medical insight into each of you for listening to today's episode.
If you're new to our podcast, please don't forget to subscribe. And if you enjoyed today's episode,
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