21 : The Secret Sabotage Part 1 - How the position of your tongue might be making breastfeeding & weaning extra hard with Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist Jenny Cacilhas (MyoBalance OMT)

In this episode, we delve into the fascinating world of orofacial myofunctional therapy with our special guest, Jenny, a registered dental hygienist. Jenny shares her personal journey and how she discovered the transformative effects of this therapy. We explore the core principles of myofunctional therapy and how it can impact so many areas of your life (and your child's) including night waking & challenging daytime behaviours.

Episode Highlights:

• Jenny's personal story (inspired by her daughter's struggles with dyslexia, behavioral issues, and sleep problems) to explore oral-facial myofunctional therapy.
• The 4 main goals of myofunctional therapy.
• The impact of myofunctional therapy on behavior, sleep, allergies, and even tonsil size.
• The role of tongue ties and oral restrictions in oral facial myofunctional disorders.
• The importance of nasal breathing for oxygen delivery, nitric oxide production, and overall health.

Book an initial in-person or virtual assessment with Jenny on her website. 
Hang out with Jenny on Instagram & Facebook @myobalanceomt

A bit about Jenny: 

"I am a Registered Dental Hygienist and Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist. I first stepped foot into the dental field back in 2011 graduating St. Clair College in 2014. Over the years I have taken many continuing education courses, leading me to finish my Bachelor of Science - with specialization in dental hygiene, at the University of Detroit Mercy in 2018. I have always been interested in how oral health effects overall health, and have taken many continuing education courses around this area. I have found that there are many people (including myself) with orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMD) and that people were just dealing with it. This brought me to do some research and asking myself - Why are people just dealing with the symptoms? There has to be negative long-term effects in having OMDs and there has to be a root cause to the OMD.

During the shutdown of March of 2020 due to the global pandemic, I came across the field of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (OMT). This was the first time I have heard of OMT and wondered why I havent heard of it before. Researching more about OMT, I knew I had to get certified, and completed my certification October 2020.

During my studies of OMT I learned how to assess for signs and symptoms of orofacial myofunctional disorders (OMDs) and learned how to treat my own OMDs, realizing the impact it had on my overall health. I am excited to provide the same services to you! Through a comprehensive examination, a therapy program is specifically designed depending on the persons myofunctional disorder and severity to help them start breathing well, sleeping well, and living well.

I also look forward in collaborating with other health care professionals who are interested in learning about OMT and how it can help make a difference in their patients who live with OMDs.

Outside of Dental Hygiene and OMT, you can find me out and about in the community with my husband and daughter, usually taking our two dogs for their walks. I have recently enjoyed learning the art of photography - mainly landscapes. My biggest joy would have to be traveling; Im always looking for a new destinati

Want to learn more from me?
Watch my free, instant access workshop: 
Designing Your Pathway to Toddler Breastfeeding Mastery

Grab your free guide to say "No" to the feed while still saying "yes" to the need at  www.ownyourparentingstory.com/guide

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Transcript

Jenna: In this week's episode, I had the absolute pleasure of interviewing Jenny Caius, who is a registered dental hygienist and oral facial myofunctional therapist. Her complete bio is in the show notes. Uh, but I really wanted to take a moment before we get into the episode because I know that for many of you, you're looking at the title, you're looking at the show notes, and you're like, I don't understand.

Jenna: What is this? Does this relate to me? I don't even know what these words are. But there are many, many, many people in the world, maybe yourself, maybe your child, maybe your partner, who have oracal myofunctional disorders and are not even aware of it because it, it's really normalized, um, in our culture and we're gonna get into that in the episode.

Jenna: But having an oracal myofunctional disorder can be sabotaging your best efforts to feel well rested. To have patience with your children. It can also be sabotaging your child's best efforts to get that full night sleep, right? Um, it can be really amplifying the troubles in your breastfeeding and weaning experiences.

Jenna: Right now, it's not a guarantee. This might not be the issue for you, but it just might be. So I really want you to have a listen. Pay attention and dip your toe into the world of oral facial. My. So that you can optimize your wellbeing and your child's wellbeing and really enjoy your life and thrive. Okay, so without further ado, please have a listen and make sure that you hit the subscribe button or the follow follow button if you're on Spotify, so that you can get part two when it drops in a few days.

Jenna: Enjoy.

Jenna: Jenny, it is such a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. I am. Like, I'm, I've been stoked for this conversation for weeks, so I cannot wait to hear more about your story because I, you've alluded to it when we've talked prior, but I've not really heard how you got into providing this work. So I'd love to hear a little bit about, well, first of all, what it is that you actually do, and then how you got into it.

Jenny: Perfect. Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. So yeah, my name's Jenny. I'm a registered dental hygienist by trade. So now I'm doing most of my work is oral facial myofunctional therapy. And how I started with that was I was seeing all these issues in clinic with like sore jaws and mouth breathing habits and children's not, not growing their jaw to their full potential.

Jenny: And I started looking into why and behavior issues, and my daughter was a big. One of them, she was diagnosed when she was six with dyslexia, so I kind of, and then they said that she had a little bit of a D h D, so I kind of dug further and deeper. Mm-hmm. And there was a lot was stemming from her sleeping habits.

Jenny: So I started looking into sleep and airway health. And she had a narrow jaw. She had a, a very, a narrow upper. Jaw and her tongue wasn't postured from the proper position. And so I started looking into this and I found the field of or facial myofunctional therapy. So yeah, that's kind of like my daughter was my why and why I got into the field and we started doing some myofunctional therapy with her.

Jenny: Her sleep got better, the bags and her eyes were disappearing and her behavior was a lot better. And her reading, she was just able to process it a lot. Yeah, more efficiently. And it was a night and day difference for us. And her school grades went from like just barely passing to now she's functioning and loving school and paying attention a lot more.

Jenny: So that was a big wow. This airway is issue is, is huge, especially in behaviors. And so I got 

Jenna: into myofunctional therapy. Yeah, that's amazing. And I. I mean, I relate to that like on so many levels from what I've seen with clients and all those pieces too. How important like breathing while you sleep, I mean breathing in general is, but like that breathing while you sleep is, it just plays such a foundational role in your life.

Jenna: I love that your daughter like that. That was like something that you noticed in your daughter and that she had this really exciting. Journey. So could you explain a little bit more about what like oral facial myofunctional therapy really is, like how it works and what you're looking for? I know you mentioned like tongue posture, obviously, like breathing at night and you know, all of those kinds of things.

Jenna: But could you give a little bit more detail onto what that kind of looks like? 

Jenny: Sure. So my therapy or myofunctional therapy, Is pretty much almost like physiotherapy, but for your tongue. So we do a lot of tongue strengthening and tongue toning exercises. So there's always four goals that we aim to achieve with myofunctional therapy.

Jenny: So first we want to make sure you're breathing all day and all night through your nose. So wanna cuddle the mouth breathing habit and make sure that you're always nasal breathing with a proper assessment. We have to make sure that you can breathe through your nose first, that there's nothing blocking it or, and no other health.

Jenny: Practitioners are needed, so we always wanna make sure that you can breathe through your nose. The second goal would be making sure that they're, you have a proper lip seal, so that will go hand in hand with the nasal breathing, making sure those lips are closed, that you're promoting healthy breathing through your nose.

Jenny: Uh, third one is the tongue posture. So your tongue should always be kind of suctioned to the roof of your mouth. That will help the tongue is kind of like our natural expander, especially as. While we're growing. So when you start off at a young age with that tongue section to the roof of your mouth, we tend to get a wider upper jaw.

Jenny: But if the tongue is postured lower cause of a habit or a tongue tie issue, then we tend to see more of a V-shaped very narrow, high upper palette. And the the upper palette is basically the floor of our sinuses as well. So the higher it is, the smaller our sinuses. And then number four is we wanna make sure our tongue's functioning properly, making sure it has the correct swallowing pattern that it's sectioned up and it's not swallowing a lot of air.

Jenny: We tend to get a little bit more digestive issues in that way. And then a lot when your tongue is actually suctioned up to the palate, a lot less frequent ear infections can happen. So if you tend to have a lot of ear infections, especially as a child, it could be the suction of that tongue, not allowing that.

Jenny: Middle ear canal to drain properly. So yeah, so those are the four goals of the myofunctional therapy. So it's very compliant based. A lot of the exercises at home that you're training because you're altering your behaviors so that you're doing the correct positioning. Im postures. 

Jenna: I feel like in the lactation world, a lot of people are familiar with like tongue ties and oral restrictions, which do play a part in this because.

Jenna: Obviously if you're, if you have, and for anyone who doesn't know what a tongue tie is, it is literally when the tissue underneath your tongue is too tight or perhaps like comes too far forward and you can't actually lift your tongue and have like proper mobility with your tongue, which. In what you're, you were sharing there, like your tongue cannot be suctioned to the roof of your mouth and as you were sharing that natural palate expansion can't occur, then you get this high vaulted palate that can, in my case, did likely twist your septum like in your nose.

Jenna: It can cause all of your airway passages to, to, to be too small. I have had surgery to get my nasal passages widened, like so this, it totally happens like that. So then there's this tongue tie, which we. Like are familiar with in lactation, but a lot of people don't go the step further to understand that.

Jenna: Even after that tongue tie is like released, the actual tissue is released. There's these behavioral habits, quote habits. It's not a habit as in like a bad habit that you're doing, like, you know, because you're lazy or bad or anything like that, but like your muscles and everything need to relearn, and those neural pathways need to like reform, right?

Jenna: So your tongue can function properly again. So that's what I'm hearing, right? Like all of those pieces. With that. And I think that it's just mm-hmm. Like, it's important to mention that, cuz I think a lot of people like think about like the tongue tie perhaps if you're in the lactation world, and I know a lot of people who listen to this podcast have had babies who have had tongue ties and they had them released.

Jenna: But there can still be these additional issues. Like having that tie released doesn't automatically fix everything overnight. Like it's, it's, it's a really. Complex system that's happening in the tongue, in the mouth. So it's so important to have those additional supports. And, and then this is so cool because it's exercises.

Jenna: So if the surgical piece of having the, the tongue tie release was like intense or like a lot to go through and I get it, but this is like exercises for your tongue and mouth. And I know that this can happen because I'm on this journey myself, but this can happen at any age. You can. You can make these changes into adulthood as well, which is really, really exciting.

Jenna: So, I guess I'd like to ask, cuz we're talking about this, what do those exercises 

Jenny: even look like? So the process is different for everybody. We'll take a look at the, the first session is basically a full assessment just to see what's going on, looking for the root cause. Why are we having behavior issues?

Jenny: Why are we having that, you know, higher anxiety? Why are we not sleeping well at nighttime? Why are we mouth breathing? Is there, is it a habit or is it because you, you absolutely need to. Ca, because you can't breathe through your nose. So we take a look. So sometimes we have to involve other healthcare providers.

Jenny: A lot of times actually, it's a very collaborative reproach, myofunctional therapy. Mm-hmm. So we take a look at everything. Then we refer out to EMTs, your family doctors, allergists. If we just can't get that congestion down in the nasal passages. Body workers, chiropractics, physiotherapists, massage therapists, crans therapists.

Jenny: We involve a lot of different people. Airway dentists, TMJ specialists and dentists are also involved. In a lot of cases, if you need a tongue tie released, then we have to send off to a pH ectomy provider, which we assess the tongue function to see if it does need a release or not. A lot of people associate tongue ties with just that tip of the tongue really being tied to the floor of the mouth.

Jenny: Mm-hmm. And that's not always the case. Sometimes it's something we call a posterior tongue tie, where you are speaking properly, you're eating properly, so nobody looks for a tongue issue. So posterior tongue tie is not necessarily the back of the tongue. It's still in the, in the front, but the, uh, two thirds away from the front.

Jenny: It doesn't allow that back of the tongue to suction up, which is what we want, so that it doesn't fall back into the throat so that we don't, as we grow, get into that sleep apnea issue. So if you had to do a therapy program by saying you needed a tongue tie release, we would start like two to three months before the tongue-tie release, start toning that tongue by exercises.

Jenny: You would do these exercises twice a day. Like I said, everybody is a little bit different with what exercises I would give, but a good one is like something called a tongue cave, and we would suction that whole tongue up to the roof of the palette and then click down. So we suction it for 10 seconds.

Jenny: And then click down, and that just promotes that tongue cave and really getting into that palette. A lot of people can't because their palette is so narrow and high that they can't get that tongue sectioned properly. So then we also look at do we need expansion? Do we involve an orthodontist or an airway dentist that does expansion to help create some more room for our tongue?

Jenny: Because sometimes releasing a tongue tie and not having the room for your tongue after the release can actually cause more issues than not. So yeah, we take a kind of look at everything and everybody's a little bit different based on the treatment they want or you know, they can get, so it's. The therapy, the, the exercises are always a little bit different, but tongue ca everybody will have that tongue ca suction that tongue up to that roof of the mouth cuz that's ultimately our goal.

Jenny: Our end goal is to keep our tongue there all day and all night so that, because it's very hard to breathe, try to suction your tongue up to your roof, your mouth right now and try to breathe outta your mouth. You can't, but you can breathe through your nose. But if your tongue's lower postured, which is hanging out at the bottom of your mouth, you can open your mouth and mouth breathe.

Jenny: No problem. So that one, when that tongue is up in section, that is really promoting that nasal breathing and that's 

Jenna: what we want. Yeah. Yeah. And so why do we want the nasal breathing? Obviously it can have really big impacts as you shared with your daughter, but what are the benefits of the 

Jenny: nasal breathing?

Jenny: I always say noses are breathing mouth for eating. You don't ever try to eat food with your nose, so basically breathing affects your whole quality of life. When you mouth breathe, it can cause things like allergies and food sensitivities and large tonsils or adenoids. That's huge with mouth breathing.

Jenny: I've seen a lot of people where after they had that mouth breathing, have it corrected. Those tonsils actually decreased in size without having to need for removal. I am not saying that they right. That is the end result. If your tonsils are touching, you definitely need to go see it. A specialist, they're an e n t to help assess if they need to be removed or not.

Jenny: Cuz if they're touching, you're not breathing. Uh, chronic nasal congestion also happens when you're milk breathing. You're not, you're not, uh, filtering that air that you're breathing properly. And then you also, when you milk, breathe, you don't create a molecule that we need to deliver the oxygen throughout our, our bodies.

Jenny: A lot of times you'll hear people say, You get actually 20% less oxygen when you mouth breathe, but that's not necessarily true. You still get oxygen when you're mouth breathing. You just don't get it delivered properly, so you get 18 to 20% less oxygen delivered properly because you're not creating that nitric oxide that we want.

Jenny: When we breathe through our nose and nitric oxide, we can get through foods, but we get it mostly from nasal breathing. And that's the biggest thing. We want that nitric oxide so that we can deliver that oxygen throughout all our, our whole body. And with mouth breathing, actually, you tend to have a lot more behavioral issues.

Jenny: So anxiety, depression is also elevated an increase, and your body's constantly in that fight or flight response. It's constantly stress when your mouth breathing. So over time, over the years, you're gonna notice a lot more side effects from it. You can notice even diabetes pressure. Are any cardiovascular disease is gonna happen over time because you're constantly in that high stress state when you're mouth breathing.

Jenna: What I'm from you is that it's almost like we're we're. You know, not actually, this could be a bad analogy, but it's like we're malnourished when we're breathing through our mouth. Like we're not giving our body like the nourishment that it needs to actually thrive. So we're constantly in this like survival mode state, like our body's constantly in this.

Jenna: Deficit, right? It's working extra, extra hard to to just function properly and function normally. So we are exhausted and it makes perfect sense that there would be cognitive issues that you wouldn't be able to focus properly. If we've reframed this as a child, these issues can absolutely be happening from infancy, right?

Jenna: Like from birth. Essentially these, these issues can be there because we know that the palette is already being shaped like, well, the. Infant is gestating, like before the child's even born, the palette's being formed and the tongue is moving and swallowing, sucking, swallowing, all that's happening. So it's happening really, really early on.

Jenna: So it makes so much sense that there would be, you know, A lot of, a lot of dysfunction in our day just from the fact that our bodies aren't being, you know, nourished the way that they need to be, kind of like at night. That makes perfect sense to me. 

Jenny: That's the, like, you, you touched a little bit on it and that's like the one thing I I kind of wanna mention throughout this Yeah.

Jenny: Is, is I know that there's a lot of new moms and, and everything that, that are listening, and I just wanna say that mouth breathing is not normal. It is considered normal, so, Right now that we see, I see kids, it's just normal to see kids open mouth posture, really droopy eyes, bags behind the Venus pooling, which is the little bags that we see underneath their eyes.

Jenny: It's completely normal to see. That's what people, that's where our children are supposed to look like. But as soon as you see snoring or hear snoring or any type of mouth breathing behavior, that's kind of when you wanna look further into the function and what's. Going on with the, with the tongue, seeing if it's little posture, because even as babies you can just lift that chin up and have that tongue suction properly to the roof of the mouth.

Jenny: So it's just, uh, yeah, just a lot of people are like, oh my baby, it's so cute. Like it's not cute and it's an airway issue. Yeah, 

Jenna: it's so true. And I think that that's something that, like parents I know, like they come to me and they're really frustrated with what's happening with their child and. You know, we talk about the nervous system being like the regulating of the nervous system.

Jenna: You can't get sleep in fight, or like you're not gonna get restful sleep. I. But a lot of times, toddlers will wake up more frequently to breastfeed because guess what's happening when they're breastfeeding? Well, first of all, they're probably nasal breathing. Secondly, their palate is being stimulated, so they're moving into a parasympathetic nervous system state.

Jenna: So that's that rest and digest phase. So, mm-hmm. They need that support. It's not just about comfort, like, oh, I need a cuddle from mom, which is not a problem or bad, but they're literally. That's their best bet at getting a good night's sleep is actually go going back to the breast, to breastfeed, to fall back asleep.

Jenna: So when we eliminate, just breastfeeding, and I talk about this a lot, when parents often ask me, like you're talking about the needs, like, oh, we need to address the needs underneath and the root causes, and which could be many things, but one of them can be that your child has. Poor tongue posture, or perhaps actually a tongue tie or something else that's happening.

Jenna: And they can't, they're struggling to sleep. So if we eliminate breastfeeding, that's not gonna make that problem go away, right? Like they're still gonna continue to either wake at night or they're gonna have these behavioral issues and you know, you've just eliminated a tool that can be used to support that.

Jenna: So, yeah, I, I feel like jumping on that soapbox too, like it's, this is not normal. We, like, we can, you know, there's, there's things to do. We can get support and there's a pathway forward, right? Like it doesn't have to be like this. 

Jenny: Yeah. And, um, and, and myofunctional therapy for babies, there are feeding therapists and then specialists at work with children.

Jenny: My, my practice, I, I don't think I've mentioned it. Yeah. So I own my, my balance omt, I do a lot of virtual. Consultations and appointments. And then also I do in-person visits as well, my location in Kingsville, Ontario. But, uh, but my therapy is very compliant based program, so with children or infants and toddlers, it's very hard to get that compliant.

Jenny: So it's just kind of figuring out that root cause at the beginning and, and finding providers that will help until they're old enough to do the co the, the therapy 

Jenna: program. And it is harder to have the compliance when your child is not rested. So that's like a, it's just extra, extra challenging. And I think that that's, it's, I think that we do ourselves a disservice too when we're not like looking at that and looking for that piece too.

Jenna: Because we spend a lot of time talking with our doctor, waiting on wait lists for specialists, for behavioral specialists. And it's not to say that like every behavioral issue is just gonna magically disappear when we like have proper tongue posture, but you're just gonna be self-sabotaging, right? Like, if you don't have that proper tongue posture and you're not like having proper sleep and all those pieces, then it, you're just gonna be sabotaging your efforts to support the, the other issues that are there too.

Jenna: So it's really important to consider that and to like look at that as part of the piece of the puzzle when we're talking about. You know, kids that are struggling with, with behavioral issues, you know, so, 

Jenny: yeah. Oh, for sure. So you were just, it's a very small part of the puzzle. Look to see if there's any sleep disorder breathing.

Jenny: Yeah. Cause if there is, it'll help with the behavior issues. But will it go away completely? I can't guarantee that. And nobody can guarantee that because we don't know what else cognitive cognitively is going on. So it's just, Sleep disordered breathing and behavior issues are hand in hand. The signs and symptoms are almost exactly the same at children with A D H D and are often misdiagnosed cuz it is sleep disorder breathing.

Jenny: I, I work with a lot of local psychologists in the area as well. And we have noticed a big shift after we get that nasal breathing happen in their behavior. So it is, the symptoms are very, very much alike as your, am I saying your child doesn't have a D H D? Absolutely not. Yeah. But the, the sort of breathing symptoms are very, are very similar to A D H D A D H D behaviors.

Jenny: Airway health is, is number one. It's how we live. We need to breathe.