Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of The
Welcome Back to Airway First, the podcast from the Children's Airway First Foundation.
I'm your host, Rebecca St. James. My guest today is Dr. Julia Sadov Lopez. Dr. Julia is a biological
dentist accredited by the International Academy of Oral Medicine and Toxicology. She attended
dental school in Indiana, where she first began her dental career. She went on to practice dentistry
for several years at a holistic dental practice in Chicago. There she was able to work closely in
collaboration with Dr. Kevin Boyd, even serving as a research assistant for his anthropology research
at the Penn Museum. Dr. Julia practiced general dentistry while still offering services like
infant or nectomies. Her passion for identifying and referring young patients to seek early
interception solutions became one of her favorite parts of her profession. She has since created
her own consulting business, or a wellness, to offer customized one-on-one support for parents
and the topic surrounding airway dentistry. More recently, Dr. Julia relocated her family to Portugal.
There she is enjoying learning about how the perspectives and services that are offered in
Europe vary from the training she received, formerly in the US. You can find out more about
Dr. Julia at auraswellness.com. And now let's jump into my interview with today's guest,
Dr. Julia Sadov Lopez. Awesome. All right. Good morning. Thanks for joining us, Julia.
Thank you for having me, Rebecca. I'm really grateful to the Children's Airway First Foundation
for offering to be an ally and all of this outreach and support for parents. So...
Oh, yeah. Thank you so much. And, you know, we feel the same about you. That's why we wanted to have
you on, because you've got a very unique opportunity for parents. We want to make sure that they hear
about it. And if it makes sense for them, that they have the chance to reach out and chat with you.
That's great. Thank you so much.
Yeah. So let's just go ahead and jump right into it then. So before we really, you know,
get into what you're doing now and how you got there, let's just take a step back and talk a
little bit about your own airway journey and how it's... And it is auras, right? Auraswellness.
Auraswellness. Yeah.
Auraswellness. The muscle around the lips is the obicularis auras. So that was part of the
the origin and naming it. Yes. Very cool. I like that. Yeah. So, you know, just a little bit about
your journey and how Auraswellness came to be. Perfect. Thank you. Yes. So I guess I would say
a dramatic shift took place in my dental career. I graduated dental school in Indiana and was
practicing there and what would be viewed as a conventional practice for a few years.
And then I relocated to Chicago. Once in Chicago, I had the good fortune of interviewing in a
dental office called Wrigley Valdental. They, on their banner, on their window outside,
it said holistic dentistry. And at the time, I kind of was like, I don't really know what
that is, but I'm looking for a job. This is a great neighborhood. I'm going to go in and find
out a little more. So I went in and I was able to connect with the owner, Bernice Tplitsky,
who became one of my most influential mentors. And she took me under her wing and really taught
me a lot about how to view dentistry differently than how I had viewed it in previous years.
And so one of the things that really happened was she was already well integrated in Chicago
in kind of working collaboratively with other providers. So I got to meet various professionals
that she was familiar with. Dr. Kevin Boyd, who I know has been on those podcasts numerous times.
We love Dr. Boyd. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, among those professionals. And other kinds of providers,
I mean, she was very well connected into more integrative health centers that were offering
just medical health or manual therapies and other kind of allied health solutions for
patients of our practice. So when I kind of had the good fortune of becoming a part of this amazing
network that's in Chicago, I initially kind of took it for granted. It was almost so easy to
refer out to other professionals that could help our patients. And it really wasn't until
some time later when kind of two things happened. One is that I started to reflect on,
you know, there were certain parents that I would say your child is exhibiting some symptoms
of a problem here with how their face is growing or how their teeth are positioned.
I would make a referral to one of those very well-esteemed providers that we trusted and relied on.
And six months later, the parent would come back in and they hadn't gone yet. And it was one of those
things where I didn't really stop to ask myself, what was the resistance? Yeah, what was the
standpoint? Had I not explained myself correctly? Was there maybe a trust issue with myself or the
other provider? Were they just not ready? Were there financial limitations or other resources?
So it was really one of those things that I didn't dive into. It took me a while to realize that
that was kind of a pattern. And then the other thing that happened for me is that my niece,
my family lives in Florida, and my niece was starting to exhibit some symptoms. She had crowded
teeth, she was four years old, thumb-sucking habits, some hyperactivity, some food allergies,
kind of just some things that made me say, hey, I talked to my brother and my sister-in-law,
I think we should have her looked at. And all of a sudden I was faced with the fact that I didn't
have that easy referral community available for her. And I knew exactly what I was looking for.
I was a dentist. I knew what my brother and sister-in-law were open to trying in terms of,
you know, there's always different directions that treatment can go. They were open to exploring
an expander. And so I knew exactly what I was looking for, but it was really hard for me initially
finding a provider for a four-year-old when I didn't necessarily have these systems in place
and strategies in place that I now offer for others. So that was kind of a wake-up call for me,
was that here I am, a dentist that's knowledgeable in these backgrounds on these topics, and it was
quite a challenge. So for me, I was just thinking, how hard is this for the parent who doesn't
necessarily have all that connection? I was about to say you were in the position that many of our
parent listeners are in. They don't know where to go. Yeah, so that was really my wake-up call
into, it was a slow evolution. I knew that I wanted, I'm very passionate about the education and
the early prevention approach, you know, I'm all for taking a vitamin if we can treat with the
vitamin instead of waiting for needing the pill. So it was something that I wanted to make my
perspective available and gradually over time I created my own business to do so. I wasn't
necessarily clear at first what kind of help was needed and it was definitely a process for me to
figure out what role or as wellness would play in supporting parents. But I'm glad that at this
point I can say I do offer one-on-one consulting for parents and we'll talk more about that.
And yeah, happy to have found my own kind of niche. You know, when it's funny, that happens a lot,
especially around this particular topic because it's just, there's this such a massive void
in providers and education and just overall parent support. Right. So it's just,
I think that's awesome what you've done. Thank you. Yeah, for sure. And it is so funny that you were in
Chicago because you've got Lurie Children's and Dr. Darius and Dr. Kev and, you know, you're an
amazing network. Dr. Gavillet, Dr. Jenny Hapman, I mean, it was lots of people. And they're all talking
and sharing and of course you think that's just this magical world everywhere, but it's, there's
something very unique happening in Chicago. I agree. And I didn't recognize it until I started to look
outside and see what was going on elsewhere. Yeah, yeah, it's wild. So, and that's part of, you know,
we're all on the same boat, thankfully pushing in the same direction or growing. No one's pushing
it like that wouldn't work well, right? I think that there's, there is good momentum generally
taking place in terms of a broader set of services being offered and a broader awareness and meeting
the demand that's there to support parents and finding those treatment solutions and finding those
providers. Yeah, and it's, it is amazing because it is a demand. It's funny because the estimate's
not funny, but you know, the estimate is 400 million children. And you think, oh, it's such a huge
number. It's not real blah, blah, blah. More and more parents are becoming aware of it and they're
looking at their child going, oh, he or she snores. Oh, we have late stage bed, what are you, oh,
they just told me my child has ADHD. I don't want to give them the medication. Right. Wow,
could this be airway? People are starting to wake up to this huge number. It's real. And it's right
here in our backyard. Yeah, it's crazy. So one of the things that you mentioned, and we have spoken
with another holistic dentist before, but for parents who might not have heard that episode,
what is the difference between holistic dentistry and traditional dentistry as we know it?
For sure. That's a great question. I think holistic dentistry is kind of a broader umbrella term
that promotes treating the whole complex human that's in front of you, right? You don't have
this limited frame of just looking at the mouth. You really go into it with kind of having taken
a step back to recognize that this is a lot that we're not expected to know everything. We have to
work collaboratively with other providers who can provide their own areas of expertise. And I think
airway dentistry is kind of one offshoot of what holistic dentistry can be, where we're looking
at sleep and we're looking at allergies and we're looking at school performance. There are other
avenues that kind of fall into a holistic perspective, but I've really taken an interest in honing in
on that that airway dentistry portion of it. Yeah. And just to be clear, y'all aren't DOs.
I mean, you're still dentist. Correct. But you have a different viewpoint. I mean, if I could put it,
don't mind my own words. You correct me if you need to. But I have heard this over and over.
Airway, the mouth is the start of everything, everything to do with your body, everything.
Absolutely. Digestion. So you guys are in front of the train, basically.
Yeah. A lot starts with the mouth and a lot becomes visibly apparent in the mouth. You can see
inside the mouth before you can see in other parts of the body. So what you might pick up on
on a dental x-ray that could be causing problems elsewhere in the body, some of the first
areas of visibility to the problems, I guess we'll say, can start in the mouth.
And that is such a paradigm shift, at least for, I can't be the only one. So I suspect it's a lot
of our listeners because you don't think, oh, this is really critical. You think, okay, twice a year,
I'm going to get my cleaning, I get my new toothbrush and toothpaste and off we go. You don't
realize how impactful it is. Yeah. I hope that, you know, I think as Dennis stepped up to the plate to
present themselves as more than just the tooth mechanic that we're able to make that differentiation.
And I like the way you put it, tooth mechanic. That's great. Because one of the things that
I've heard Dr. Moralea, then Moralea say over and over and over, we're not here for the teeth.
You're here for the jaw. You're here to grow the face. It is that important. And
even Dennis started studying airway in school. Oh, no, absolutely. It's, I'm happy to say,
you know, seeing organizations like the airway revolution and their intentions of creating that
change from within the dental institutions. I think that, again, we're seeing momentum moving
in the right direction. And I'm optimistic, we'll say that. I'm optimistic that things are moving
in a good direction. I agree with that. Yeah, airway revolution. I mean, we love what Victor
and those kinds of doing over there. It really is great. And then you have groups like airway circle
for sure that are really focusing on myofunctional therapy, airway health solutions. You've got
Lauren and Ben over there really trying to train all the other clinicians that are involved so that
you know, we're all on the same page and let's all move. And to me, it feels, it feels like, you
know, we're actually starting to move because you have groups like the ADA now. Mm hmm.
That had an actual challenge. Yes. Mm hmm. Yeah. There's actually a symposium coming up
in Chicago of all places, which will put a link to any of the clinicians that are listening that
want to join us. It's the end of May. But it's starting to become a conversation that more
clinicians are having. And that's, to me, that's phenomenal. That's we've got to get there.
Absolutely. Absolutely. I was lucky enough to be at the beginning of my dental career when the
the advice of starting orthodontic screenings at age seven came out to that already on its own
kind of shifting up. Now, how much of that is is acted upon and implemented is still remains to be
seen. But the fact that that already that was before I discovered airway health or a biologic
dental perspective, I was like, Oh, that's interesting. You know, I didn't pay attention to
the fact like, Oh, interesting. Something different. Yeah. And it's funny. I know it takes time,
but you've got groups, like all the ones we've mentioned, you know, in the APMD, I mean, there's
there's a big chunk of us. We don't have time. I know the change takes time, but there's 400
million kids, we don't have time. You need help now. And that's one of the things when I first
started my dental career, I overlooked a lot of things. There were patients in my practice who,
of course, the classic clenching or grinding, and I didn't stop to investigate that to the level
or depth that I should have. Sometimes things like a gag reflex that I didn't properly understand.
You know, whether for me, it was just making the dental appointment trickier, like, Oh,
that one hour that they're in the dental chair, it's going to be harder because they had a strong
gag reflex. But stopping to kind of look at how that was a affecting everything that led up to
the child or adult in either case, arriving to the dental chair and eating treatment, you know,
what was going on that caused that gag reflex or that hypersensitivity, and did that contribute to
the problems we were facing. And then moving forward, how is that going to continue to affect
them as they carried on into life outside of the dental appointment on the other side?
Right, right. And every episode, I swear, I say this, you didn't know. You don't know what you
don't know, right? So we have clinicians are carrying guilt and I wish I had known just like
these parents, we're all looking around going, I wish we knew. For sure. For sure. Right. So
we're all here now and we're moving from here. Do what we can do. Exactly. Exactly. So to that
point, let's just kind of segue into talking a little bit about the services that you offer on
your website. So I want to start with the big one that I saw that I was pink to my interest.
What is concierge? That's very hard for me to say, consulting and what benefits does that offer parents?
Yes. So the concierge consulting is just kind of a generalized kind of one-on-one coaching
consulting offer. So what I have found is that most parents who reach out to me,
they're feeling stuck. So it's more so been a situation where these parents, they've piecemealed
their education together. Some of them come in, they know all of the dental vocabulary by now,
they know about different treatment solutions and paths that exist. They've really done so much
hard work, but something doesn't feel right to them or they're feeling fear about making that
decision about is this the best treatment solution for my child. And in other cases, it's strictly,
I don't know who geographically can help me, can you help me with that? And so I will do offer kind
of after understanding what kind of difficulties and challenges a parent is facing, I can offer
advice, I'll do some research and share information about who I think looks qualified to be able to
help them. Sometimes that is starting with an airway focused dentist, but other times that might be a
myofunctional therapist or an occupational therapist just kind of depends on what the primary area of
focus is for that parent seeking care. And that connects back a little bit to what I was talking
about before when parents hit that resistance. It's one thing to kind of plant that seed and say
there's a problem here, but the parent has to find the right motivation in order to move through
kind of the stages of change because when they're first introduced to the idea of there's a problem
here, so often it comes from a perspective of oh, you're the first dentist who have ever mentioned
this. And sometimes that's really welcome and parents are like, oh, I've been looking for solutions
for so long. Thank you for finally seeing me. But other times it can be kind of
jarring, I guess for lack of a better way to phrase that. And I think that kind of working through
where parents get stuck meeting them to understand what their specific child situation calls for,
what their experience has been, and understanding that I don't like when there's a rule that someone
says oh, every child has to do myofurst or expansion first. I don't think rules like that work very
well because who is your child? What's their experience been? And beyond that, what's your
family experience like right now? What kind of time resources, resources so often are money,
but we have to look at time and compliance and involvement. There's so much that goes into it.
So for some parents, there's a clearly defined pathway where there's only one
provider in that area that they may feel like oh, this is the best person, so I'll go to that
person and it's fine. But for others that are feeling stuck, we have to kind of unpack why are
you feeling stuck? Right. Are you not finding something that aligns with how you feel your child
should be treated or what your capabilities are in this moment? And do we know, do you understand
at least enough to make an informed decision if now is not the right time for treatment?
And do you know what to look for to prepare yourself for how things might change over time?
Yeah. Yeah. And then there's so many things that you touched on there. One thing in particular,
we call them airway mama bears. And again, not to exclude the dads, y'all are awesome.
But it's normally the moms driving this train. So most airway mama bears. Happy to make airway
daddy bear shirts. We need to. But the research that they do, so many of them when they have come
on our podcast just to share their stories, I am blown away with their knowledge. The books they've
read, some of them have attended some of the conferences and it's just, it's mind blowing to
me. But you have to. But sometimes you don't have the time to do all that. Or like you mentioned,
you're just so overwhelmed. And it is scary, especially if you're that parent
that's sitting there with a child that the school has just told you, hey, you need to go have your
child tested for ADHD. Let's get him on some medication. You don't know what to do. It's
overwhelming. You don't want to put your kid on medication. And it's just a lot. It's a lot for
parents to to try to unpack. And the other thing that is interesting is you pointed out right now
because the shift with where the beginning of airway centric dentist or airway dental providers.
They're not everywhere. They're hard to find for sure. And, you know, even with really great
search tools, which I'll put a link for absolutely that we have on our site that's powered by airway
health solutions. Even if you can find one, maybe you can't get to Chicago, Dr. Boyd or Alabama,
Dr. Harold, you can't get to one that's close to you or the closest to you because they're so far
away. Absolutely. Are you able to connect them or do you have enough resources to connect them
with people like Dr. Felix Liao, who will coach a dentist in the area? Maybe the child's going to
get a marky, but they don't know what to do. This particular dentist, do you have those kind of
resources available? So I do largely start with a lot of the main search tools and that you've
referenced airway health solutions, AAPMD, you know, some of the main airway circle, a lot of the main
kind of groups that you talk about that most socks and parents can have access to if they if
they follow along to a lot of the other information that's out there. But sometimes it's for me,
it's following a trail. So like I would say, and again, it kind of goes two ways. One is that
that journey might lead to a certain type of provider. Say a parent's more interested in
something like an elf or something, you know, where can we some parents come in knowing that
there's certain philosophies that they want or things they want to avoid. And so kind of working
through customizing what direction we can take that. So sometimes I'm able to go through some
of the main registries, but sometimes it's following a trail. So I just had a family that worked with
me, they're relocating from the US to Germany. So it's not just within the US. She was like,
my two older children have already gone through this treatment. My younger one's going to need it.
I need help finding someone. So in that case, it's it's kind of following different threads and
getting there. We were able to find two providers within 30 minutes of where she would be living
that offered the exact type of solution she's looking for. So it's it's sometimes I'm able to
navigate those specific paths. I do think it's a little more of a challenge when a dentist,
if someone's looking for the dentist, they can't find the dentist. If it has to start with, there
are a lot of great organizations that will say, have your dentist reach out to us, we'll get them
trained, we'll provide a solution, which I think is really amazing and supportive of a lot of these
organizations. It can be a great tool to get more dentists on board if maybe the dentist had never
heard of it, that you've got that Airway Mama that's saying, I trust this person, I like this person,
I don't want to go somewhere else. But then you have to consider the facts that, you know, that
provider is just going to be kind of starting their journey with that parent. And that's
still a welcome situation. That's what I had to do in some ways with my niece. I had to find an
orthodontist who typically she was very well versed in a lot of these tools and different
solutions, but she never really treated the sub six population. And I was there saying,
will you try? That's definitely not the normal approach that I would take if I have a parent
coming to me to ask for help. But in this situation, we were all willing to, yeah, she was,
she was, we were in the fortunate position that since I was helping at Dr. Boyd's office at that
time, he offered to directly kind of supervise back here. And yeah, can't say no to an opportunity
like that. So all's well that ends well, she got some great expansion, things are good.
But sometimes it's finding a way around the care that's available. So whether that's virtual
solutions to get started, whether that's looking at, I mean, I think, I don't know, I keep kind of
mentioning other organizations, but Toothpillow is increasing access to care right now.
I'll put a link to that because we actually partnered with Toothpillow as well.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm saying it's so funny. We're all on the same boat all of a sudden. There is not,
yeah, just to be clear for anyone that's listening because in several podcasts,
you'll hear us mentioning other foundations, other organizations. This isn't like a, this is our
thing. This is all we're doing. One thing that I personally have found that is so unique is two
things about this airway movement that's happening to Polavis is, it is an airway revolution, but
we really are all united because we all have these different niches and these expertise. And we
send the parents or, because we focus on parents, but some of the others don't. So we're sending
adults to each other and provider, we can't train you, but we can send you somewhere that can be
trained. And it really is one giant airway universe that we're all starting to push together. And I
think that's why you're feeling this momentum, which to me is so unique. And the other thing is,
and Dr. Boyd is an amazing example. Nobody stops. It is 24 seven. These providers, these advocates,
it is a passion that, pardon the pun, we just eat, breathe, sleep. It's just, it's always
airway because at least for us specifically, it's children. It is that critical. For sure.
You're listening to the airway first podcast with today's guest, Dr. Julia Sada Lopez.
You can find out more about the Children's Airway First Foundation and our mission to fix before six
on our website at Children's Airway First.org. The CAF website offers tons of great resources for
both parents and medical professionals. Visit our parents portal, clinicians corner, resource center,
and video library to see for yourself. We also encourage parents 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. 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 today's episode.
And yeah, I had the good opportunity to connect with Christy at your organization not too long ago
to have that same conversation because I'm always looking for, I realized that my services
aren't the right thing for everyone. So I need to know, like you said, where to send other parents
if they're looking for a perspective of a sleep coach, if they're looking for a perspective of
somebody other than myself. I know I can't possibly be the right person to help all of these parents,
but I think that there is something so wonderful about the nature of the nature of airway dentistry
is to work collaboratively. And I think that carries through into all of these providers. And
that's one of the things that I really encourage parents to do is sometimes if they're having maybe
there's always skepticism of a dentist. I think anytime, anytime you go into some skepticism
there, but I think specifically with airway dentistry, like you open this conversation with us
is asking those providers, how did you get here? What's your story? Because I think that provides
a very interesting perspective on who they are and why they've chosen to offer the solutions
they're offering. I think sometimes on the flip side of that, there's a situation where dentists
are very have very good intentions. They have a tool that they know how to use. Your child has a
problem that needs fixing. And so sometimes it comes from a really good placement. Parents can
sometimes feel like they're being pressured into one solution or another. And part of the dentist
perspective is to use your professional judgment to offer a solution and not overwhelm. You're
trying to slim down the options, not overwhelm a parent into thinking, whoa, this is too much,
too fast. And you just take a step back. So sometimes I think just kind of empowering parents to have
those dialogues with the providers and really either understanding where they're coming from,
understanding why a certain tool is being recommended, if that's the treatment path that
they feel is correct, just making sure that we're understanding, oh, this tool is being chosen for
my child specifically because of this reason. And maybe there hasn't been the proper amount of time
dedicated to having that conversation because dental offices can sometimes be baffling and
you don't always get to have that in-depth dialogue that can be so needed. But encouraging parents to
feel confident asking the right questions and understanding kind of where that dental
provider is coming from. I think that can move things through in another stage and make taking
action easier, whether that does feel like the right solution to the parent or not. Sometimes
they can say, oh, you're telling me this, but you have to listen to that, mama bear instinct.
And then you kind of take that step back and use that to guide you into the next step. I just don't,
I don't like that so often parents feel stuck. I understand it. I understand what they're coming
from. But that's kind of my goal and my mission is to help understand and see your specific situation
and see if I can guide you in another direction. And it is always different, right? One size doesn't
fit all. And one thing I particularly have noticed, and it's just, it's a beautiful thing. If I can
go all woo-woo on it for a moment, it is absolutely beautiful to watch in podcast after podcast and
meeting these, these luminaries and change makers and things in person at different events around
the world. They mean this, right? Their hearts are still in this and they're open at no point.
At no point I've ever heard someone like Kevin Boy say, no, I know it all. No, they're still
learning. They're still growing. They're still evolving. They're still sharing this collaboration
between Dennis and myofunctional therapist and occupational therapist and lactation
results. It's amazing to watch this synergy and this knowledge that they're sharing. The part that
seems, I guess strange to me is there's this beautiful dance going over here of knowledge and
sharing and how are we going to save all these kids and we're all going to do this together and
let's just keep learning and sharing. And I'm going to send this patient to you. Oh, this person
knows this and there's still a group over here. It seems to be a little hesitant to come on board.
And if I can put you on the spot for just a minute, obviously it's an opinion. No, by all
means, go for it. And I get it because, you know, the Dennis, everything starts with the mounts,
so great. They are the head of the train, but there's a whole other part of the train that is
the ENT, the pediatric specialist. Why is that particular, we'll just continue with the train
analogy. Why are those particular carts so hard to connect and get on board with the string?
Where is the resistance coming from? Well, I think we mentioned before, it's the academic
institutions in part, you know, there's medical school and there's dental school. Right. And they
don't get airway either, it's my understanding. For most of them, it's what five hours at most,
four hours or something like that. Yeah, I guess it's going to vary from institution to institution.
Sure. But at the end of the day, that's a line that was drawn in the sand. And it said, medicine
is this, and then kind of vision is this and dental is this. But again, when you go in with
that holistic perspective, and my goodness, I've had my eyes open, you said you didn't want to go
awoo, but I'm like, bring on the woo because for me, there were things that starting this journey,
I would have just been like, I don't think that's real. And then you see things and over time you,
you can't pretend it doesn't exist. You can't pretend. Once you see it, you can't go backwards.
And I think that's the thing is, like I said, there were times at the beginning of my career
where I had an adult patient come in asking me about his nitty pot. And I was like, why is this guy
asking me about his nitty pot? I'm working here. And that is the base. It's just one of those things.
But until, and I don't know for everyone, it's going to be a different journey to arriving. And
perhaps it was just early in my career. And I was trying to prove that I knew what I was talking
about at that point in time. I was trying to prove that I was the professional they could rely on
just coming out of dental school. So it was harder to say, I don't know.
And for everyone that's going to look different, that was just my personality and what I think I
went through. But when I first arrived at the office in Chicago, or at Gleeville, then she just
asked me, like, do you have an open mind? Because that's really, you know, that's what you have to
have to be able to move into this space. And I think that goes for both parents and providers,
because the providers, as you mentioned, you know, that train maybe is moving more slowly than we
want it to in various professions. But it's because we think this is the box that I'm supposed to fit
in. And this is where I'm supposed to help people. And until you take a step back and say, but this,
you know, this body part is connected to that body part. Exactly. We really, there's, there's the
invisible strings that we can't, there's some we can follow and some that we can't follow. And
it's just a matter of really, I'm not suggesting that someone needs to try some modality or
treatment that they're not interested in or believing or, you know, I think it's always a journey for
each parent to find again, the path that feels aligned for them. So by just how a parent, hey,
cranial sacral therapy or some other sort of modality, this is going to make your child,
this is going to make a frenectomy procedure easier on everybody. If your child can go do some sort of
osteopathic manipulation or otherwise, it's going to prepare their nervous system, it's going to
reduce tension in the body. And that is something that comes from an open mind. If you would have
told me that years ago, I would have been like, I've never heard of these other providers, why are
they going to help a dental procedure? So yeah, and for parents that aren't sure, I'll put a link
to Dr. Stephen Hall's podcast. I think it was one of the third or fourth ones that we did,
cranial sacral. And I did the same thing. And granted, I came from the land of Walu, so that
is how I grew up. But so I was like, oh, this is going to be fun. And by the end of it, I didn't
want it to stop because I had so many more questions because I was not expecting Dr. Hall to come in
and go, listen, I can do this. And all of a sudden, this is an alignment or oh, you have TMJ, I'm
going to do a little boom. You've got some relief. Never occurred to me. But we're back to, you know,
the DOs are probably listening going, well, yes, we know everything's connected. But the rest of us
are going, wow, I had no idea. I had no idea before. And so whether that's the provider that's
now going to refer out for those adjunctive allied services, or whether that's the parent that's
going to say, okay, now I think that this is going to be best practice to support my child. And one
of the things I talk to providers about sometimes when I'm just kind of talking to them, there's
so commonly the hesitation to, I think for professionals who are earlier in this journey
of finding the collaborative care, there's such a hesitation because you say, well, parents are already
paying me for the service, and then I'm going to send them to spend money on this other procedure.
And that's just kind of an insight into the psyche of some of the providers. Believe it or not, parents,
I know sometimes parents are like, they just want my money. These parents, because the parents who
listen to this, you are motivated and looking for solutions. I understand that.
But still, right? But there's still some we've had some single parents come on and say,
what do I do? This is so expensive. Or my insurance wouldn't pay for it because they said that
this is elective. You're just some insane response like that. So that is a concern. There are people
that think that. Dr. Dave McCarty came on and he opened the podcast sharing a story about a patient
that I don't know why I'm here. I was referred to you. You're here just to get money. By the end of
the visit, he's going, oh, oh, wow. Okay. So my heart is good. Oh, I didn't know. So sometimes it is
just back to the let's just be back to that open mind, both parents and providers, parents, when
you're coming in, just have an open mind. Yeah. And again, that doesn't mean for me, there's no rules.
So it's not like if you're doing X, you have to go get Y. Like it's not a set. Every child's different.
Every child's different. Every family's different. You again, the mom knows or the dad, the mom typically
knows the child better than anyone else. And for some parents, they don't even need to stop and
hesitate. They find a provider, they can go, they say, oh, this is right. This is it. Good. We're
getting this taken care of. And they can confidently move forward. But other times there's that voice
in the back of the head, the hesitation, resistance, whatever it is. I think it's just really helpful
to unpack that and see maybe there are treatment avenues that you didn't think about before that
I can help guide you towards now. Yeah. Yeah. And you may not be living in one of those amazing
centers like Chicago or Houston or LA or New York, maybe or Seattle. Sorry, didn't mean to leave
y'all out. You could be in one of the outliers and it's just, it's an interesting dance. So
along with the parents, one of the things that you do that I think is so great is you're kind of our
own little mama bear because you're taking on awareness within the community itself, talking to
educators and other clinicians and allied providers. What is that like? How did these
outreach programs come in to be? For me, it was really, while I started learning about
all of the topics of airway health and airway dentistry, it was most easy for me to make some
parallels to what I had seen when I was in grade school, thinking about classmates of mine who in
retrospect I was like, oh, that person is acting that way because they probably weren't sleeping and
they probably weren't breathing well. And I don't know, I think that is a quirky, I have a kind of
a lot of memories that I can shuffle back through easily. But for me, that kind of, that the stage
that schools are one of the most important places to be looking for children who are at risk of
improper growth that's affecting their breathing, but it's the cascade of effects. And I've tried to
make several efforts to connect with teachers because I do think that if teachers know what to
look for, they can better understand and maybe they're going to stop before they say your child
needs to go on medication. They might be able to stop and say, we should explore this or we
should look into this further to see what's causing these problems or this behavior. Sometimes it's
behavior, but sometimes it's different kinds of behavior. So just a child who's excessively
drooling or, you know, it's not necessarily psychological behavior. There's other factors
that come into play. They could be sleeping. For sure. And so kind of recognizing, giving teachers
the tools to recognize that these can be problems. I think it's still hard to then bridge that gap,
giving the teacher these tools to let them know what's going on or who they can seek help from
in their immediate environment. So those are things that I'm still navigating, but I've been
fortunate to connect with some speech language pathologists who work in school systems, some
Montessori providers who are really interested in kind of thinking about things differently.
And so some of it is just connecting with those parents. I've made intentions to connect directly
with schools and I've had a lot of doors closed. No response, no thanks, not interested, of course.
But for me, it's really important to offer that as part of this momentum that's going to bring us
forward as if we can bring more teachers on board. I think teachers that can feel comfortable
raising awareness to these problems can be a really important step. I would agree with that. And
and I'll just kind of be a Lorax for a moment here because I come from five generations of teachers.
I'm the only one, we're all cruising through and then I kind of go, nope, and then it goes to my
niece. So they're all around me, teachers, special ed, teachers, reading consultants, principals,
professors. It's just in our blood, right? And I will say, I've had a similar conversation with
colleagues before and why are we putting more on teachers? Well, as I hop on my Lorax stump,
I'm going to tell you, teachers go into that world for a reason. They love children. It's not for
the money, it's not for the prestige, they love children. All the bureaucratic stuff that comes
with it, they love. But if you can empower a teacher with a really easy tool to look at a child that
they love and go, hey, I see this, hey, parent, you might want to consider blah, blah, blah,
because here's what I'm seeing. That teacher is going to go home with a heart full of love
and relief because they did what they're there to do. They're there to grow young minds and to
help children and to give them love. And that's what we're empowering teachers to do. Yeah, I think,
that's my goal is to make sure that teachers can have that conversation, but it's really
powerful to hear your perspective on that coming from the family of educators.
Yeah, thanks. There's a few things that I get kind of about and that's kind of one of them.
So another thing that you do that is really cool and study clubs are all over, but I would imagine
your study club because of what you're doing is a little bit different than the traditional study
club. So I would say my study club is one of the ways and branches of the AAPMD. And I am,
yes, I'm rounding up professionals still here in Portugal. So my intention is I moved to Portugal
and I was part of probably going to get my introduction there. Sorry, she was in Chicago.
But yeah, I think that that's one of the things that's really rewarding for me is taking
what I've been presented with in terms of working collaboratively and again, seeing that that's a
strong movement in the US and trying to bring that here to Portugal to start creating a little bit
more collaboration here within Portugal. Portugal itself is a country that's the size of the state
of Illinois. So working collaboratively should be fairly easy when you think about it like that.
But it's not necessarily the way that the mindset has been because I'm not sure that they've had,
I'm fortunate to have joined a really great integrative medicine organization here in Portugal
and gotten a network with some providers through that as well. But again, they're still building
in that stage of working collaboratively. So that's something that right now I'm still building
that list of people who are open-minded and interested to learn because I tell them I kind of
explain what the organization does and what the quarterly calls would be. We're hoping to launch
them in the second half of this year to actually start hosting all of them. But when I just meet
with providers and explain it, they're like, but why? There's that thought process that hasn't
necessarily been presented to them before to just kind of work collaboratively. Yeah, and it's
interesting to not just the collaborator, but just the whole airway movement in general. I've had,
I'm not sure he's the right word, but I've had the opportunity to speak with both Dennis and
Allied professionals in Scotland and the UK and Dubai and Australia and then a parent whose podcast
will be coming out shortly who was originally from Denmark and now she's in Houston. I'm kind of
blown away that, oh, this is going to sound horrible, but the US is actually ahead as far as this
movement. It's not what I thought it was going to be. Because traditionally it's the other way
around on a lot of these things. And, you know, granted, you've got Brazil who's ahead of us as
far as new born screenings and things like that, which you, you know. And a lot of that comes over
to Portugal because there's a lot of, because Portuguese is a common language, there's a lot
of really great Brazilian providers who, the professionals here are stellar, but yes, I agree
in terms of creating that collaborative community. It's interesting to me that there's such a
disconnect, not the right word, but just the lag. Is that because of the just the way the
healthcare systems are set up or is it just movement hasn't spread yet?
The great question. Yeah, I wish I had the answer to provide the insight to the why on that.
But that's definitely something I'm working on is gradually getting to know more providers here
and being able to create that network of support. One thing I will say, kind of what you alluded to
is, and maybe just by virtue of having the connection with some of the Brazilian professionals,
but when I talk to people here, there's a little less of that resistance in terms of thinking about
the health that of course chewing and eating processed food versus eating
foods of various textures. But of course, that's going to make a difference on how the child grows
and evolves. It's a lot easier of a conversation to have here. So that's an interesting insight.
And another thing that I've noticed here is that I guess in Europe in general, there are
different treatment solutions that focus almost a little more on the neurological health of the
child, which is an interesting departure from what I've seen. So I think there are pros and cons
to kind of each area. And I'm just excited to be having the experience to get to understand
kind of these nuances and hopefully be able to make my mark and bring people together and create
a positive change. And I love that. And kind of to that, I know you have some more courses coming.
They're not on your website. Could you give us just a sneak preview of what those are?
Yeah. So my one-on-one consulting I found has been more helpful of a tool for the parents who
already have been going through this journey for a bit and they've gotten to a point where they need
that help or support to get them over the hump. But I do have an online course that's coming up
that is meant more for kind of the setting the foundation for parents. The parent is
maybe new to understand these problems or maybe they're kind of earlier in their journey to
considering what can be done, what different treatment solutions are out there. And this
online course is kind of more of a DIY approach to creating your own action plan. So there's kind
of an educational component that will empower you to know what questions to ask yourself,
what questions then you might want to carry into meeting with providers, but also just kind of
setting the stage so that you feel more confidence as a parent knowing that there are different
treatment directions. And so you're not sitting there with a blank stare in front of the first
provider that you talk to thinking, I have to go home and think about that. You know, you're a
little bit of a kid going into that. So it's condensed, it's not meant to take up too much
time because I know that parents are busy finding a chunk of time to do an online course is not easy,
but most commonly what's happening is you are an active parent, you're spending hours in the
Facebook group looking for answers or whatever pathway you're on. And this is meant to kind of
create a more consolidated program to just give you more confidence in creating an action plan
and knowing where to go. That is awesome. And I will put the link to your website in the show
notes. Perfect. If it's out by the time the podcast comes out, we'll swap it out and put that.
Yes, I just actually- Otherwise they'll show up in our resources area. Great, great. That would
be wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. And for parents that are actually watching this and not
listening, over here, give me a love shoulder. See how good I am? That was good. Some of the
books that we recommend were right out of the gate. I mean, one's easy to see because it's big
and yellow. It's James Nester's book. If you haven't read Breathman, that's a great place to start.
Absolutely. Then Sleep, what is it? Breathe, sleep, drive, sharing when? Yeah, I've got four
books that I put on my website as starting points. I think there are obviously numerous resources
out there and they're just interested in one topic versus another. There's certainly different
directions and different books that are out there. But those are some of my names. Those are some of the
great places to start, right? To start, to get the over-due. Get your feelings. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
And then come take your course and then they'll know what to do. Yeah, absolutely. So at the end
of every episode, I always hand it back to the guests because whether you're a provider or a
parent, you're the professional. You're the one everyone's here to listen to. So I'd like to give
you the floor for final thoughts. Yeah, I think just my overall, I guess, mantra when it comes to
this space is just making sure that parents know that no two paths are going to look exactly the
same and that make sure that you can find a treatment pathway for you that feels well aligned for your
individual situation, your unique child, what your family's facing. And if for any reason you're
having a hard time navigating that, I'm here to support you. That's right. Can you hear that,
Mama Bears? Follow the link. Thank you so much. Thank you, Julia. Really appreciate it connecting
with you. Absolutely. Take care. Thanks again to today's guests, Dr. Julia Sadev Lopez for joining
us and to each of you for listening to today's episode. You can stay connected with the Children's
Airway First Foundation by following us on Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Don't forget to subscribe to the Airway First podcast on your favorite podcasting platform so
you won't miss an upcoming episode. If you'd like to be a guest or have an idea for an upcoming show,
shoot us a note via the contact page on our website or send us an email directly at infoat
childrensairwayfirst.org. Today's episode was written and directed by Rebecca St. James,
video editing and promotion by Ryan Draughan and guest outreach by Christy Bojikin.
And finally, thanks to all the parents and medical professionals out there that are working hard to
help make the lives of kids around the globe just a little bit better. Take care, stay safe, and happy
breathing everyone.