Hi everyone, and welcome to another video.
Hi everyone, and 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. Claire Stagg.
Dr. Stagg's academic journey began at the University of Bras-de-France, where she earned her doctorate in dental surgery in 1982.
With a relentless thirst for knowledge, she's amassed over 2,700 hours of additional training, with an emphasis on TMJ, sleep disorders, orthopedics, and dental rehabilitation.
Her quest for excellence led her to Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, where she attained a Master's of Science focusing on cranial facial pain in 2011.
Renowned for her pioneering work, Dr. Stagg has been a trailblazer since her early days, being the first to pass the Trinidad Dental Board examinations post-graduation and facilitating significant advancements in dental care delivery in Granada.
Her credentials are further highlighted by her fellowship in the American Academy of Cranial Facial Pain and her innovative contributions to cranial facial epigenetics and non-surgical airway remodeling.
Dr. Stagg's practice is not just about treating teeth, but nurturing the person behind the smile.
She believes in the intrinsic connection of the mouth to the body's overall health and strives for a balance that enhances vital functions such as breathing, swallowing, eating, and smiling.
Her integrative approach promotes not just survival but thriving, ensuring a quality of life that resonates with wellness and joy.
With a professional interest that spans biological, holistic, and cosmetic dentistry, coupled with a strong emphasis on proper nutrition, Dr. Stagg is at the forefront of a dental revolution.
She is dedicated to providing her patients with a healthy, beautiful, and pain-free smile, demonstrating a deep interrelation between the body and the bite.
She is also the author of a newly published book, Smile, It's All Connected, which is available on Amazon.
You can find out more about Dr. Stagg at HealthConnectionsDentistry.com.
And now, let's jump into my interview with today's very special guest, Dr. Claire Stagg.
All right. Good afternoon, Dr. Stagg. Thank you so much for being on.
Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely, absolutely. And this is one of those, excuse me, podcasts I'll preface the audience with. I am geeking out and I'm so excited for this conversation.
So everybody just, you know, hang on because this is going to be fun. I'm so excited to talk to you.
Yes.
Very, very, very excited. All right. So we're just going to start at the beginning.
Because for me, one of the things that I, from being on your website alone, that makes your practice so uniquely different.
And I'll put a link to it in our show notes so that people can go and experience it themselves.
But you take this balanced approach to treatment where it's, you know, it's oral health and overall well-being.
So I'd love to just start there. How did you come up with this path of care? How did you get here?
All right. It was a journey. It was a journey. And there's so many different facets. And I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to talk about the flower.
Oh, yes.
The flower.
For the logo.
Questions about the, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So this is the book. This is the book that you were asking me about.
My book that's out and it's called Smile. It's All Connected, Whole Health Through Balance.
So originally what happened is I studied abroad in France.
So I'm already outside the box compared to the American training, right?
We're more open to natural care, holistic care, homeopathy, alternative care, herbs, you name it.
And then I married an American and came to America and had to do everything over again.
So I did a lot of CEUs following the standard American protocols and they were more so in mechanical aspects.
All right. You know, I did all the big hot shots here in Florida because we have a few of them.
Right.
My biggest question was why aren't the patients getting better?
And so I'm a white person. I want to know why there's a root cause to everything.
And so yes, you could be addressing one thing, but there's something else and then there's something else and there's something else and nobody seemed to connect the dots.
And so what happened is I started with a structural aspect.
My child fell and hit her chin.
And any, you know, well, if you don't or parents out there, if you usually have a fall on your chin, you'll end up usually 100% of times their joint disorder.
And the joint is innovative by the fifth cranial nerve, which is the biggest cranial nerve, which has.
And in the book, there's so many diagrams, but anastomosis or a tethersin with five or six other cranial nerves that can go all the way down to your intestines.
So to say that everything starts in the mouth is not absolutely incorrect.
It's actually more correct than incorrect.
And if you think about it, the guts is the second brain, right?
So what happened?
I love that.
Right. So what happened? The flower, the dark night of the soul, if you will, there's going to be two parts to it.
There's the top, if you will, that's in the light.
And within the light, we have the shadow cell.
And in the dark, in the shadow cell, we have the light.
So we're always transmuting, we're always changing hands, the spiritual part, which you asked me earlier on how come and why.
But there's always balance.
And so I literally, a lot of this was, I'm going to use the word channel that was downloaded.
I prayed about this.
I was praying about it.
But this book started my entire life, but I literally handed the first set of papers to an editor, the first editor of all many in 2014.
And we're now in 2024.
Oh, wow.
This has been a journey on thousands and thousands of hours put into it.
But what happens is if you realize the balance, we always seek balance, homeostasis.
We always want to be in balance.
And in dentistry, if you're not level, another play on the word balance, you won't be, you won't be, okay, my thesis, I'm going to give you a little side part here.
My thesis was how to change the bite, what changes the direction you walk in.
Oh, all right.
And so what happened is in order to prove that changing the bite will affect the way you walk.
I had to eliminate everything that could affect the way you walk all the way from the eyes, the ears, the bite, the neck, the hearing, everything, the neck, the shoulders, the hips, everything.
And so basically that sort of shows is that when we have levelness here, the whole spine changes.
So anyhow, I mean, that's a really roundabout way to many of answering on many questions, but I don't know if I got more confuffle month than help.
I didn't.
I love that word.
I'm going to use that.
Hence the, hence the flower, with a wave for balance, but emotion.
And that's where you have the book has the five, there's six petals on the flower.
You have I start off the book with structural.
All right, so that shows you how it's all connected structurally, chemically, then we talk with mechanical, functional, emotional and spiritual.
And so I think the water there with the balance shows the emotional part.
And you know as a parent that everything is tied in, you know, when your child's not well, you know when something's not right, but as a parent, you want to know why.
And I think that's that's what we're trying to do is we're trying to tie in the why's of all the reasons that these things do occur.
Now, I know that you work a lot with airway.
Yes.
And what it also does is that in each connection, again, let's say structural, for example, and the structural connection. It's a very systematically well written book in each section.
All right, you'll have everybody part and how it's interconnected. So you'll have the teeth, you'll have the tongue and tongue space, you'll have the jaw joints, you'll have the airway, and you'll have the neck and the rest of the body.
Okay.
So it's very methodically written. And that's why I said earlier on, is that if you have questions.
Originally, remember I told you 20 2014, they wanted to go ahead and create says that's, that's too big nobody will read it. It's too heavy.
Well, it's not actually you can lift it up.
But what I'm trying to say is that everybody you wanted to write 20 different books, you have to make one book on mechanical section, you have to make one on structural.
But the thing though is that I talk about everything in one section, but I tie it back in the other section, which is tied back to this section which is because it's all connected.
Right.
So it wouldn't make sense.
Right.
So that's why to, there's a whole section on airway, but there's a whole section on airway discussed mechanically, structurally, functionally, anatomically, chemically, emotionally, spiritually, the breath of life right.
So again, it's all funnel it in. And then you have a human body who seeks balance all the time. And that's what the book does it just funnels everything.
And I want to share something with you that your audience might get because you mentioned that this was for parents mostly right.
That is mostly our audience. Yes.
Every single editor, they were, they were women who had children and they told me that whilst they were editing, they would actually use the book as it was for a reference book for their kids.
Whilst they were editing the book and I said, yes.
That's what it's for.
Yeah.
So that was what it was. I will put a link by the way. So the people are here because if they're watching this, they've seen you pop the book up several times.
Everybody else has no idea you're doing that.
Yep. There it is again.
And it's beautiful.
And thank you.
I'll put a link to it in our show notes. And now it's not officially available until May 7th, but you can preorder it right now on Amazon.
Correct.
Yes. Thank you so much for doing that. The goal.
Yeah.
My goal.
So as a mother, this book was written for all the questions that I never had the answers to.
It's a compilation of all the questions over 42 plus years that patients had that never got answers to.
And that they kept going around in circles because the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing.
And they didn't get the help that they needed.
So my goal in effect was to have all the answers for parents, the laypersons to have readily available in simplistically understandable terminology so that they could go ahead and have a reference.
It's like an encyclopedia, but a reference.
And actually it's very heavily referenced.
It is heavily scientifically referenced. I have nearly 360 plus, I think 356 references with science to be specific.
Yeah.
Okay. Right. But that's that's it's very it's not a woo woo book. It's actually a scientifically written layperson, easy to digest book.
That is if you and I having this conversation, it's exactly like the patient in the book.
I give them analogies, I give them explanations. And the goal was to make it so that people can understand how to take ownership of their bodies, if they understand how they work.
So that guess what the demand, you me will change right because they'll be informed consumers right right well guess what happens when the demand changes.
Everything. The supply will have to change, which means they'll bring the baby back with a bath water that they got rid of last century.
Are you listening to us you're coming back. Come on. It's happening. This is like my own side campaign bring back the DOS please.
Right. Right. So think about it. We used to be called dental physicians.
Which makes sense to me. Right. And that's all this is in the book to just so you know. So there's a section there's a pot is three parts.
Part of the past, present where I talk about what what I have connections down practices like how I work.
And then the clinical aspect if you will, and the admin aspect of the clinical is explaining the flower sections if you will, or the six of them, and then the future.
Okay. The hot was. So to get back to the past, when we were dental physicians. All right, we dealt with a whole body and Dr. Al Fonda.
Just like you ever heard of Western price. Yes, ma'am. I have. Okay. Just like. And by the way, I'll put a link to Dr. Becky's podcast in here.
So people who haven't, they can listen to Dr. Becky explain it.
And so Dr. Western price actually believe it or not was a president of the American's Association way back when.
So you see it was all there before Rebecca. It was all there.
Right. And we fixed it. Yeah, we're bringing it back.
I love that. That's what I would like to see. Oh, I'm right there. I want to empower moms to know that they have options and choices, and they're empowered in the knowledge that their child, it's not okay to have a headache.
It's not okay to be snoring. It's not okay to breathe through their mouse. It's not okay to walk on their toes. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's okay. But it's not normal.
You know what I mean? That's what I'm trying to say. Every child's okay. Don't get me wrong. It's just because it's common. It's not normal.
This is not the way it's supposed to be. Right. It's right. The new norm is not the normal norm.
And you, what made me normal for one child may not be the other child's normal either. Exactly. Exactly.
And now I think parents, you know, what are we 20 minutes?
I think parents are going to start to understand why I'm geeking out at this podcast and so excited for it. I just, I love it. I love you. I love you. I'm so excited.
So, in one of the other things too, I just, we, we talked a little bit before we got started because we have an Airway Mama Bear Army.
And I was like, Airway Mama Bears. And you said,
I, so, okay, so this is because that your wheelhouse, because that's what you do that your strength. Yes, if you want.
My goal is to have the Mama Bear Army period. Well, just the army kind of like maybe may have a negative connotation. I'd like to see that as a tidal wave.
All right. So that's what I see is that they're a move month, a move months, no armies. Let's just do this peacefully.
And this is the biggest thing is that everybody needs to get on board. Yes, everybody needs to get on board. Just like you said, bring back the deos.
Bring back the chiropractors, bring back the speech pathologists, bring back the myologist, bring back the, well, the osteopaths to bring back the dieticians, bring back the new.
Bring back the physiatrist. So it's not a pill for every ill.
There's a reason some things happening is what is the reason? How can we make it to where, how can we make it to where you understand that it's all connected in such a fashion that you
could ameliorate what needs to be attuned and eliminate what is not necessary or detrimental to the child.
Basically, it's time to take control of our health and the health of our children.
Correct. It's time.
It's the biggest thing. And this is where the book is like so important is prevention. I mean, a child, you start working on the health of your child two to three years before conception.
Two to three years before.
At least the reason being is you want to make sure that you are ready, that you are healthy, that you've eliminated the toxins, that you are ready, what you need to do that breathing right, that your husband has the right correct sperm because for example, I just read last night, I don't know where I read this, that taking as part time reduces sperm quantity or quality in men.
All right. And then the children that have, I don't quote me on this, but I read this and I don't know where I read it, because I read this factoid and I was like, oh my God, that makes sense.
But as part time actually affects the quality of the men's sperm, and then the children have issues. Well, what does everybody drink diet this diet that right.
So you want to start getting ready two to three years ahead of time, eating as healthy as you can, organically avoid sugar. There's so many alternatives to sugar.
All right, you want to be able to have something that will help you grow healthy babies. So you have healthy eggs, healthy babies, sperm, so to speak.
And then you have a proper gestation period so that during pregnancy, you're also eating the right way. And one of the things that's super important is sleep. So we could talk about sleep.
There we go.
Mother, right? Mother has to have sleep. Mother has to have proper oral hygiene.
Yes.
Right. No abscesses. And I know it's a big contention, maybe about mercury. We can talk about mercury somewhere along the line. It's not a political statement.
But I write it in my book I said the gazillion question dollar question is like, okay, the EPA doesn't want it in the water. The American Del An association has us wearing filters I've had mine for over 20 something years, but they just made it the law just a few years ago.
Okay, but we're still putting it in the mouse and why is that.
So all these things are just food for thought. And I think everybody needs to be an informed consumer and understand that they have choices.
Yes.
And I think that's where the true meaning of my choice my body my body my choice is like, it's my body to make the right choices for me to be healthy to go ahead and to have a healthy child a healthy family, healthy choices to know where to go from there.
And I will tell you, I will quote Tatiana on this choices, all about choices. That's it. It's all about choices and we have the power to make those choices if we're informed. And that is one thing that about these parents that I am just so over the moon about, they take the time they do the research.
But it's hard to find some of this stuff. And that's why websites like yours, which I will put the link to.
Right.
And that's the outstanding resource section, right by, by topic you can go look up mercury, you can go look up autism, you could I mean the way you've broken it down it's really digestible for parents.
And that is the tip of the iceberg. I have nearly 1000 to 2000 other PDFs and I'm going to put them in there somewhere.
When I, I have 1000s of articles. So, to get back to why this this thing to I mean I was on my journey and my daughter fell, etc.
But what really cinched it was that I kept taking all these residences and I was telling you I kept learning how much more I needed to know we don't know how much we know until we don't.
I mean, if we don't know how much we don't know until we know it right.
Right.
We're all perpetual students.
Well, what happened.
After my, after my fellowship, I went ahead and I got accepted at Tufts to do a master's program and that's why I was telling you about how changing the bike changes the direction you walk in.
Well, what happened is I never thought I'd graduate.
I couldn't find any data to corroborate what my thesis was all about.
I had one German article, and that was like taking the pressure, pressure cuff, the pressure tip off the pressure cooker so to speak.
I ended that also had 300 something references and each reference that I would open have 3040 different references. Can you imagine the mother load.
What happened is now I delve deep. And that's what this book is I delve deep and deeper and deeper and deeper. It's like, okay, why. So how are you connected.
So how is your eye, how are your eyes and your eyesight connected to the way you walk or how is it connected to the way you breathe or how is it connected to the way you hear and your neck, etc.
But, and that's where good Lord I mean God created us all like in the French say marionette or a puppet, right, separate one from the other. It's everything and that's what the book was for I know I'm rambling but when I'm trying to say it's a massive reference book.
The biggest thing is that you have a resource and do like me as a mother, I looked and I found one it's like okay, open that reference and go look, and then you'll find 30 or 40 others.
All right, on the website, I have a ton, but there'll be more in the future too so have them keep looking. It's a totally new redesigned website specifically because we knew we were going to have massive traction with a book.
I've been trying to prep for this so that people can have a resource because originally this site was built as a community website for people. I have my down practice that has its own website.
Right down connections unlimited or health connections dentistry was built as a community resource for people to access data for their own information informative processes.
Yeah, and my hope right now is is every parent listening and we've got these mom and buzz are they're going to sound I hope is happening right now with everyone clicking to go to the website because you can still listen to us while you do this.
And you will discover that Dr. Stag's not kidding.
I have already spent a couple of hours in that rabbit hole just looking and digging and finding.
I'm nowhere near making it through just your resource section. Right. There's so much great information there.
Right. And to me that's part of what this whole you know we still call it an airway community but you're right it's all connected is.
It's all about sharing resources and knowledge because once you have it as a parent and even as a provider, you know as a parent you can make the right decision and more educated decision for your child and as a provider, you can then change the course of your practice and how you're going to support your patients.
Right.
I want to share a fun story with you. So please, I have a local dentist, who's who actually happened to find me through my functional therapist.
And he was blown away by what I shared with him.
And I was like, okay, now this is a young man who's a dentist right.
Right.
Dad.
Okay, know about this stuff.
I'm not, I'm not right. They can't see my face. I'm not surprised because it's not taught. So I understand. Yeah.
Right. So as a mom, I can understand how people can get pretty overwhelmed, despondent, desperate, especially if your child's not well.
Yeah.
But for an educated professional who and this is where what happened to me I got catatonic and I just sat there and cried and said how can I learn all this yesterday.
And I just, but it feels like, isn't it? Yeah.
Right. And that's where the thing too is that it's really hard because there's so much we realize we don't know.
But that's where I hope the book will ease a lot of the anxiety and the French term is on what it's on what it's the stress of not knowing of the anxiety, the stress of the anxiety, basically, it's like, you know what, just read it through
and read it a couple times and then you'll go like, Oh, there's so many dog moments in there. There's so many dominoes and it's a lot of fun stories in there too because it's life.
Right. It's life. It's all crap I went through why I went through it and how I dealt with it and how I help my patients go through their crap their stories and what we did to help them to put it nicely.
And then and help them figure out how to help themselves and that's the biggest thing I think that as the mama bears, you have Papa bears too because we had a reversal that when my kids were younger, dad stayed home and took care of them.
Nice. I was the one working.
That's where Captain FBI my other book my children's book.
Jeff, we're gonna get to that one. I love it too. On the posters behind you. I've already spotted that. Okay. Scoping everything out. See that one.
He's back there. You see there. Yeah. Yeah. So this is the other child, the children's book and this one. So this the second tagline for this little guy is called Captain FBI story time.
I personally like there's nothing more unifying as a smile.
Oh, she did it. Yay.
One of the biggest times that I had remember I worked all day long. I was gone before they were up really I came home. They were already in I was exhausted.
I came home and then they were being fed or doing homework and then the only time I had was story time.
And that's that's what we did is I sat and I read with them. So actually when I wrote this, it was like, okay, how can I tie in home care or hygiene, but make it to where it's not blood teeth right not blood rushing or flossing.
No, what it is, you'll notice the captain is on a world.
Children of every country race creed religion, any and everything all over the world. And so each each little section on the book is a different child, different culture, different sports, different cultural habits, different religions
different way of dressing.
It tied in a lot of unity, a lot of love, and each page will either have a boy and a mother girl. You know what I mean it was either female female parents, or a male female child there was no one thing it was everything's different.
And captain was my my character that created that superpower, superpower, you know, superpower, right FBI stands for irrigate floss brush irrigate.
So basically it's a way of spending time with each child, holding them at night in your arms, letting them point to the pictures and then talk about the country that you're talking about you know why what's that building so for example in France, you have the Eiffel tower.
Well, in Russia you might have the beautiful, you know, mosque of the big buildings in Trinidad, where I'm from. All right, we have we invented steel man, but we also have cricket, and you have the little rasta colors you have a triny flag.
I mean there's so many little things in there. And, but it's just not a picture it's like div dive, dive into it dive into it dive into it and then there's lots of little things and that's that's what I like to do it's like, I want you to think about thinking about thinking
of understanding, because there's a process that you went down a rabbit hole I'm talking mother to mother parent to parent now, your child didn't get the way they are now overnight.
No, don't it's a drop plus a drop plus a drop plus a drop so remember we talked about getting ready for your pregnancy two or three years ahead of time, talking about nine or 10 months or whatever lunar months of pregnancy.
Now we're talking about everything at birth, right. So, did you nurse them. Are you able to nurse them. Do you have the tongue proper tongue motion, the children breathing the right way.
What are you eating while you're nursing them. You understand. So there's a whole process. But if you understand how to think that you could go back and reverse engineer the rabbit hole you went down.
And that's what both books. I do I don't just want to garbage feed you information. No, I want you to think, because that's what I had to do I had to look for the information.
So I'm handing it to you on a platter with the understanding that now you need to cater to your child, because no child is a cookie cutter example.
No, no, same with treatment every treatment, same treatment works for this child will not work for that child.
Right. And that's very blatantly explained also that's why I couldn't separate the parts in a make 16 books because it's not one individual whole health through balance. How do we balance everything hormonally.
I mean you name it everything.
I love that it empowers parents because that's educating and empowering parents that's what we're here for. You have to have that to achieve our personal mission.
Right.
It's the same mission for parents.
You're listening to airway first with today's guests. Dr. Claire Stag.
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 staff 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 dot 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.
When we look talking about the six connections. Yes, also on your website, which I will put a link to for everybody that can't wait for the book.
Just to get your toes wet.
What stood out for me because again I was on the rabbit hole of the resource section.
Motion disorders, which I'm sorry.
After three years of this that's the first time I've seen that's why I kind of went, what.
Motion motion disorders autism.
What in surprise about that one anxiety what in surprise about that one.
How are all three of these connected to oral health.
All right, so let's talk about motion disorders first remember how I told you I had a diagram how the cranial nerve and how they all and astemos is the brainstem.
Yes, if the seventh, the ninth, the 10th, 11th cranial nerve so for those who don't understand the fifth is the trigeminal nerve which innervates the face.
All right.
The seventh is the seventh cranial nerve it's called a facial nerve it innervates the face and part of the tongue.
The ninth is the glossopharyngeal which also innervates part of the tongue. The 10th is the vagal nerve that goes all the way from head down to the, to the intestines and for women can affect vaginal orgasms, all the way down there.
And then the 11th is the spinal nerve. All right. Okay.
Well, they all meet together. I'm a really cool little diagram because in their book. I literally had to describe how I was trying to portray the analogies for the artist to be able to and I had to draw them, and he had to make them to put them in digital formats in the book but it's all in there.
So, several stories behind ticks.
Emotion disorders. All right. So one of my mentors was Dr. Brendan stack with the American Academy of Prano Facial Pain. He is an orthodontist in Virginia outside of Washington.
And he realized one day when he was putting together his slides way back when.
Right.
It's live. Yeah.
For his peers. He realized a lot of his TMJ patients.
When he put an orthotic in there. Remember he's an orthodontist right.
Right.
He put an orthotic inside his patients mouths.
The ticks went away.
What you want. So what happened is that they did the research and they published it so there's two of them are on my website and Tony Sims Dr. Sims took over the philosophy and has was mentored by Dr. Stax.
So it's still out there. Dr. Sims has amazing lectures if you can ever see one go here.
So basically what happens is in this jaw joint.
Right.
That it also is innovated by the create the fifth cranial nerve the trigeminal nerve there's a little tendril called the auricular temporal nerve.
All right, well think of it as when you have an electrical wire.
All right. If you think about it when you if you cut one, there's just a little it's a bit why there's like 20 little different wires that create the big wire that go to the plug right.
Right.
But one little wire carries information and data right.
You change input you change output.
It's not simple. So what happened is they found that when they were to go when they were able to change the way that the joint sat in the foster by changing the bite.
They were able to change the motion disorders that were by the way I'm not treating ticks I'm not treating Tourette's I treated TMJ disorder.
All right, it's like sleep dentist they won't we can't diagnose sleep disorders, but they let us treat sleep disorders with appliance therapy right.
We're not physicians we cannot diagnose these disorders.
But Dr. Stax showed that changing the bites can actually change the little ones who have ticks and Tourette's.
That is mind blowing.
This is kind of when we had by the way when we had Linda Harris on the on the podcast.
And she had TMJ and fibromyalgia and some other things and dizziness.
But I guess now I'm thinking about okay motion disorder I got it. I see the connection.
I had something to do with her 13 tooth and her TMJ and it was fixed and then everything went away.
I guess I really shouldn't be that surprised but as with most things I would never associate the mouth.
How does it work with autism?
So now that's a multifaceted approach.
Yeah, that one was a pretty big one.
Yeah.
And politically have to be very careful what you say.
That's where to I would suggest making sure one that you prepare your body.
Make sure you don't have the neurotoxins that could affect the brain.
All right.
Make sure too that you're eating and drinking the right way.
There's certain things that kids will be more prone to.
All right.
Again without being too.
About it I would.
Okay.
How can I say this.
Let me just premise it with this is not a political stance. This is not a medical diagnosis. We're just sharing information.
Right. Right. So let's just say we did a massive amount of research before we even considered not vaccinating our children.
Okay.
Both my husband and I were vaccinated. My husband at the time were vaccinated and we did not vaccinate our children.
We got religious exemptions.
Gotcha.
That's one facet of it.
One facet.
Another facet. There's a really good movie that's on the website that I think every parent should watch. It's called Finding Connor.
We love finding Connor.
And it's so funny.
I get people don't know this.
I do these podcasts just throughout the week.
I did one yesterday. I did one earlier today. This is my third one in two days and all three episodes. So anyone want to keep track at home. Enjoy all three episodes.
Finding Connor has come up and I just got back from the SEC sleep conference in Houston.
And Kevin Boyd was there and finding Connor came up.
Right. See how God works.
I'm saying let's go universe. Right. Exactly. Those are called synchronicities and synergies. That's where the wave and the momentum. That's not army.
Wave and momentum. That's the power and the strength. The power and unity.
And I will put a link in here for any parent that has not watched this. You need to.
It's also on my website too.
Yes.
Right. But I mean that. Okay. So for those who haven't watched it yet who don't know what it is because you talked about autism and things like that.
We talked about autism in another episode. Yeah.
Okay. Now autism is a special is a different thing. And I think why was in my head. I don't know why I totally bear it off to ADHD.
So autism is a different thing. But ADHD I think would be more pro let's talk about ADHD now. Let's do it. Okay.
So a lot of the kids who have for example disorders of attention deficit who are non function who cannot correlate to a little bit lagging behind on a bed wet and who don't digest.
Well who are not thriving. All right. And who are lashing out. A lot of those children basically are probably not getting enough air.
So they're probably have sleep apnea. And so this story is about this family who did everything that they could and were ready to institutionalize the child because they were at their widows and they had no idea what else to do.
And so eventually what occurred is they went to see Dr. Boyd and they then they guys said I wouldn't be surprised if this child has sleep apnea.
I may be paraphrasing or whatever. But all I'm saying is that long story cut short. They did the sleep study found out that he couldn't breathe.
So of course he couldn't he couldn't he couldn't cope. He couldn't function.
And so once they're dressed as airway which nowadays there's 6000 different ways of doing it non surgery and sometimes surgery may be the best bet.
But figure out why the tonsils and not a noise because they're supposed to be there to help you. But you know sometimes life and death pros and cons you have to figure out what's best.
Yeah, yeah, the right time. But this child was addressed and I totally different person like that.
Maybe but I mean that was that drastic. But still yeah but it was it was and I will tell you as a mom you're going to cry so just come with the Kleenex and you're going to do the ugly cry because it is it is so moving and it's just it just it will leave you speechless.
It's amazing.
Right.
And it was a dentist.
That's right.
It was a dentist. And so that's where I'm hoping that we as a grouping could come back to the neurobiological engineers that we really are.
So if you think about the cranial nerves that I told you about, do they teach you about cranial nerves in school. I don't know I could tell you all my additional training we definitely emphasize how they're connected and how they work together and how everything changes once you influence one more than the other.
That I can tell you that.
But that's, that's where I think the whole trend is going to.
It needs to change.
It doesn't need to change because even in it's my understanding even in medical school at something like four or five I'm not saying 45 to be clear I'm saying for what true or five single hours on the airway.
That's it.
I'm not saying it's going to be on nutrition.
I've never asked but I can probably guess zero unless you took that elective it's probably zero.
And I think it's also four to five hours on sleep.
I think so too I just had a big professor say that to me, and he wanted to go help the universities change the programs. And they said, don't need that.
It's going to be a big shift right that's, you know, I, we were talking about this in the previous podcast, all of the sudden, there is this momentum.
And maybe it's because the groups who we are and then this is all we do all day.
But you know, CAF, the APMD, Airway Health Solutions, Airway Circle, Airway Revolution, we're all together and we're all pushing in the same way.
It feels like, oh, there's some momentum. Okay, this is great. And again, this is an opinion. This is my personal this isn't CAF.
So I'll just put that out there but with this momentum, and you've got these monobairs pushing from one side and we're pushing from another.
This is how change happens. This is how we get changes in health insurance, how we get changes in infant screening at birth.
How we get changes, hopefully down the road at some point at these universities that are training these amazing people that are out here to take care of the rest of us.
Right. So remember the goal is to change the child's health, the child grows so they don't go into, I don't want to use the word defective adults but non-functioning adults, right?
Yes, yes.
Okay, so I'm going to give you a lovely little analogy.
Okay.
Every single one of your groups is like a little light.
Okay.
A little light, each and every single one.
The room that everybody was in, the whole population, all the sick people were in dark rooms.
And then what's happening is each time people like you have a voice, you put a little bit of light in the dark, and then what happens is all of a sudden it's like, oh, oh.
Oh, we can see now.
And we have choices.
Oh, this is what's going on.
Okay.
Now I would like to take this path because this path suits me better.
Or I'd like to take that path because that path suits my family better, my family, my religious beliefs, my whatever, because you still have everybody choosing their own thing.
Right.
But I think the most important thing, and this is where we have to be careful to ego gets in the way.
It does.
All these little groups, they want to be better than.
There's no better than we're all lights.
We're all like, yes.
So we have to work together and coalesce together and connect together.
I think that's really important.
I think that's hugely important.
And just a personal note from me, I'm watching you for people.
I can't see it and make this gesture.
And it's, it was very double door the way he turns on lights.
And I love that.
That just made my day right there.
That made me so happy.
Right.
Because that is what it's all about.
And, and it's funny because we are all, all, all are, that's hard to say, separate groups.
But what people don't know is how often we all talk to each other.
And we're sharing information and.
A dentist will come to us and well, okay, we don't have what you need,
but you know what?
Go to everywhere health solutions.
They've got it.
Go to the APMD.
Take this course.
It's amazing to see just the synergy that is on this level.
And we talk to parents all day long.
And to watch them unite in these different Facebook groups and share
information.
It's incredibly powerful and moving.
It really is.
And that's what it's going to take.
Right.
I'm really happy to hear that because that's what it's all about.
We're all in this together.
We absolutely are.
We really are.
And, you know, kind of, I guess to that point, and this is an opinion again.
You know, a lot of opinions are back up.
Right.
It is.
It is a pinion.
Well, now it's going to be your opinion.
So just hold on.
So what do you think?
It's going to take to make this paradigm shift from dentistry that's
just focused on teeth.
To this more holistic overall wellness for that to come to mainstream.
I think what you, we nailed it on the head.
It's the mama bears.
It's everybody.
The mama and the papa bears.
Yeah.
The labor stuff.
Because remember if the demand requires a once it.
The same thing.
The supply will have to change or follow.
That was what was all along is to enlighten to bring light.
Yeah.
Situation to realize that you can have whole health through balance.
It doesn't have to be one way.
Doesn't have to be surgery.
You don't have to cut body parts out.
You just have to know what's going on.
Be enlightened as to what your options are.
All right, and then make your informed informed.
I think that's the most key word has informed decision.
My way is not the only way.
It's just that I connected.
42 plus my whole life's worth of research.
Cause I, I'm a, I like really digging deep.
All right.
And I did the work for practice.
I did the work for practice.
I mean, I people, there's stuff in there that people are going to say,
what are you talking about until you blew it off?
Seriously.
Doctors mostly.
But then there's the average person that will come in pretty aggressive.
I had one this morning that was referred by a myologist.
That has been seeing people with some different practitioners for 30
plus years.
That has all these issues.
And nobody connected the dots.
One.
Not one.
And I'm saying, okay.
All right.
So do I blow her away?
Or do I just go ahead and listen to her?
Which I did.
And do I go ahead and say, okay, you want the short story or the long story?
I said, well, give it to me.
And I said, well, let's start with the short story.
Yes, I can do your time releases.
But you know what?
You're still addressing a symptom.
You're not really addressing the cause.
All about getting to the root.
I mean, that's just it.
And I told her my practice.
I would treat.
I'm talking to you as if.
I were you in the chair.
How I would want to know how I would treat myself with what I see.
Or if you were my sister.
Or my family.
This is what I see.
There's a lot more going on in here.
You decide what you want to do.
And it's getting to the point to now where right now I'm tired of fighting with people.
I'm not, I don't want to do that anymore.
I'm done.
It's like, now that the book is here, I'm just saying, read my book.
The reason being, it was like 40 plus years of going uphill upstream.
It's, it's, it's, it's a no brainer.
The data that research shows it all informed decision.
You decide, but no, you decide.
You have a decision and no, you can live with it.
I know that it's going to be your quality of life.
I'm just there to light the blight on your path.
That's all I can do.
I can't do the path for you.
I can't walk your path for you.
I can't change your path for you.
I can help you choose.
With light, which path might work better for you, but it's still your choice.
You have to be.
You have to take responsibility. We just did a health summit.
Two weekends ago.
The health summit.
Take responsibility or take a pill.
Right.
Oh.
Something to that effect.
So she, she.
Yeah.
Such a simple phrase.
That's so powerful.
Yeah.
Man.
Well.
So normally at this point, I ask.
The guy who's the best.
I feel like we had it, but I'm more than willing to put it out there.
If you have, if you.
Can come part.
Capsule.
Everything we just said.
Um,
For moms.
That it's actually a lot better than they think it is.
So we're going to end on a very, very simple phrase.
So we're going to end on a very simple phrase.
That it's actually a lot better than they think it is.
So we're going to end on a very positive note.
Okay.
This book is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is the one that's like the Titanic breaking the waters for you
or to follow through with.
You walk with that book.
You, if they, if they don't believe you can say, well, here's the
research.
This is the one that's like, oh, it's so funny because like 20,
30 years ago, if I had people do that with me,
and I'll go like, okay.
You know, like, okay, I went to school. Did you kind of thing?
But it's like, but, but that's the ego part, right.
And then you have the human part. It's like the mom part is like,
All right.
So this parent is obviously anxious.
This parent obviously knows that Chad, I had a lot better than I do.
This parent obviously has a lot of questions.
So the ego part will say what the heck,
but then the mother and the doctor, the true doctor in me first do no harm.
Yeah.
True doctor in me was said, okay, I wonder why.
And that's when I started researching to,
to try to help connect the dots for that parent.
So I think on a positive note,
what we have to realize is you're your best advocate.
Right.
For you and your child.
Yeah.
And then the third point is that no listen to intuition.
God's leading you on this journey.
And there's a reason for that that we all have this journey that we're on.
Whatever it is, there's a reason for it.
And my take out on the whole thing is that once you learn something,
share it.
And then you have to understand that the data is out there to corroborate
and support what you and your gut already know as a parent.
Once you learn something, share it.
And that's the light for everybody else because don't hoard it.
You know, there's a thing, all these things are in the book.
You have two ways of sharing the light.
You can be the light or you could be a mirror.
Hmm.
Reflecting the light to others.
Pretty profound to end with, right?
It really is.
And I think it would be healthy, but it is true.
I have goosebumps.
So I think that's, that's a,
that's a wonderful place to end it.
The book, remember we talked about the spiritual, the emotional book.
We did.
So there are little axioms.
There's little, um, there's little blurbs everywhere and little,
little curly Q flowers.
That through the years I picked up, you know,
every graduation for high school or they always say,
pick the best thing that you want to live your life by.
All right.
Well, the book has a lot of them that are in there because they're true.
They're not.
But one of them, I think it's Einstein and I might be paraphrasing it,
but it says, if you don't, if you can't explain it simply,
it's because you don't understand it.
And I think that's where a lot of the poo pooers.
I'll go back to my analogy earlier on with the ego and the mom and me.
To where if you don't understand it,
then those who really do care about their professions,
because it's a vocation.
I agree with that.
Absolutely. I agree.
You can't pay us enough to do what we do, but it's a true calling.
And I think if you don't understand it,
then now's the time to start deep diving and trying to and the
resources are out there.
There's, um, one of the things I want to put on,
so you don't know this, but this is, let me share this with you.
Okay.
So the, the website right now is a whole is right now,
what you're seeing is the site for laypersons.
Okay.
So this is where we're going to be.
And it's a public health ministry.
But there's going to be a whole site for doctors.
To where we can train doctors somewhat in basics of health
connections, dentistry.
But what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to pair up with all the guys
and gals and doctors and professors and schools and universities that I
went to, and I took all these CEUs and residencies from.
I want to put all those resources on there.
I'm going to be able to start.
Let's start with, let's start with,
where do I go next?
Which one do I do?
Because that's what I did.
Remember I told you I sat down and I cried and I said,
how I want to know all this yesterday.
Well, I was,
I was mentored by many people, but some of them said, okay,
Claire, this is where I would start.
If I were you do this and then do that and then do this and then do
that.
And each one, they had great stuff.
But remember, there's sort of in their wheelhouse.
I took the pearls. I took the pearls. I did the pearls and then I strung them together in the book.
I put it all together in the book. This is what I learned. So you don't have to go through all the residencies that I did.
This is what I did. This is where as a doctor, that's the next project. It's been a little bit overwhelming just getting this big shot.
But that's the next part is actually going on to the training for the doctors and helping.
Training might be a big word, but sharing with the doctors.
Yeah, I like that.
Yeah, sharing.
I don't really like that. And I'll make sure there's links to everything that's available right now for parents because I'm telling you this resource.
It's amazing and if anyone wants to know what I'm going to be doing May 8 because it comes out May 7. So when Amazon delivers at May 8, it will be me and a cup of tea and hanging out reading.
So I invite every parent to be doing the same thing.
And I want you to let me know what you think. Okay, because I will.
This is this is thousands and thousands of hours. And my goal, I want to make sure that I accomplish what I set out to do.
So we blatantly put version one in there.
Because we knew that there was probably going to be thing remember I wrote this starting in 2014 2014 data was from last century and believe it or not holds more true.
But even then we now have 3D stuff we have so much more technological right months than what we did back then just 10 years ago. Yeah.
And then cove it happened.
All right. Well, bless cove it because I rewrote the book and during the six.
Oh, there you go. You were productive.
I rewrote it and I reformatted it and I whittled it down I streamlined it.
So, in effect, what's happening is there's so much data in there but I had to stop somewhere otherwise I'll still be writing till the next century right.
But the goal was to make sure that we started just like I said with a Titanic we're starting a wake. We're waking up people where we're changing the way people perceive things, perceived dentistry perceived their health.
The goal is for them to go ahead and to see that they are options that they are different ways that they can address their issues that they may realize they have or they don't have.
All right. And then afterwards determine where they want to go from there so more than likely somewhere along the line will probably have to write another book and won't be right now.
But yeah. Yeah.
Well, it's awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and for sharing all this and for putting together a website resource for parents that's just so substantial. Thank you.
Thank you too. I appreciate you having me. I hope that I had some little way I was able to have a few people. And if they were have them spread the word so they can help others who can help others who can help others because it's going to be the ripple effect.
That's the only way that I can think of it as a ripple.
Yep.
My last word.
And you're like this as a ripple.
Rumi one of my favorite sayings is Rumi. You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean and a drop.
I have nothing to say.
God bless you Rebecca. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
And I'll be happy to talk again. And I hope all the parents out there got some bomb to their souls and a little bomb to their seeking of knowledge and that I was able to help them in any which way I could.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thanks again to today's guest Dr. Claire Stagg for sharing her medical insight and her amazing joy and love for dentistry and her patients health and well being.
And thanks to each of you for listening to today's episode.
You can stay connected with 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 infoatchildrensairwayfirst.org.
Today's episode was written and directed by Rebecca St. James, video editing and promotion by Ryan Drawn and guest outreach by Christy Bojikian.
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.