Tony Ebel, D.C.

I invited Tony Ebel, DC, interactive chiropractor and founder of PXDocs, to come speak to my Born Free Method community members because he’s brilliant. But he’s not just brilliant, he’s also awesome. Tony is the sort of guy with whom I could enjoy a bourbon and talk about my vulnerabilities as a father, the cult of medicine, and difficulties in my relationship. He’s a regular guy…

But from this regular guy, I’ve gained some incredible insights about what he calls the “perfect storm”. When I say insights, I mean validation.

We met through an Instagram post that I posted a year or so ago in which I presented the story of a woman who had a child with autism spectrum disorder, and she was asking me if thought that perhaps a hypoxic injury in her birth could have caused the autism. While I don’t believe that a hypoxic injury alone could be responsible (and proving that would be impossible), I did consider the influences of the myriad of other stressors put on little babies and whether these stressors, in combination, might overwhelm an already fragile nervous system within a baby that experienced relative hypoxia during childbirth.

Tony jumped on that post, and we’ve been friends every since. I soon found myself on one of his live webinars where he discusses how the combination of environmental toxins, poor co-regulation with the parents (e.g. long NICU stay), subluxation during birth, or the myriad of issues related to cesarean birth might impact a child’s lifelong health. And even better: what to do about it.

You might be thinking, “What business does a chiropractor have in speaking about birth?”

Well, like other chiropractors who have come on the podcast such as Elliot Berlin, Lindsey Cantu, and Kaleb Valdez, these practitioners often have to fix the problems that we generate through our overly-interventive approach to childbirth in the conventional model. They are sounding an alarm…and we have been slow to respond.

There was a recent post on another OBGYN’s Instagram page meant as an eye-roll in response to another chiropractor’s suggestion that perhaps cesarean birth might impact how the sutures of the fetal skull and its orientation around the vertebral spine through the atlas and cervical spine might impact a child’s health. I commented with the suggestion that perhaps we should listen to what he has to say rather than discount is completely carte blanche because he isn’t an OBGYN. I got trashed.

But I ask Tony about this hypothesis in this interview, and he unpacks it beautifully.

Perhaps there is a reason that baby’s do better - on average - when born vaginally versus abdominally?

What do we have to lose through consideration of the myriad of issues that c-section might cause, especially given that we can all agree that 37% of babies being born in our country by c-section is problematic?

In this conversation with Dr. Ebel, we also discuss the ideal timing and frequency of newborn chiropractic care (spoiler: immediately), issues with vertebral joint subluxation, the neuroendocrine-immune (NEI) system, PANDA/PANS, and laying a healthy foundation for our kiddos through proper nutrition and life modification.

Disclaimer: This episode is not meant to demonize c-sections or OBGYNs. It’s a call to action to reserve the operating room for only the necess