Page 68 - Special Issue: Healthy Baby

Colic is the cause inflammation in the gut wall, so the gut systems are not in a fit state to digest or absorb

result of wall is sore. Stretching by gas bubbles creates food well. As a result they develop multiple
pain so the baby cries until that gas dissipates nutritional deficiencies. The brain and im-
abnormal or moves on to some other area of the digestive mune system cannot function properly without
gut flora and system. That is why a lot of moms say that when adequate nutrition.
should serve they put their baby on the tummy or stroke the As a result of nutritional deficiencies, these
tummy gently clockwise, the colic stops and the patients often develop osteoporosis. When they
as an alarm baby stops crying. go on the GAPS nutritional program, the children
bell for Colic is the result of abnormal gut flora in begin putting on weight before they start growing.
parents to the baby and should serve as an alarm bell for This is because the bones are getting heavier, the
parents to take serious steps to normalize the bone structure is being rebuilt. The child will first
take serious gut flora in the baby—because the problems that replace the missing nutrients in the body before

steps to might develop down the line are very serious. he begins to grow. The same is true for adults:
Overproduction of gas leading to bloating they are malnourished even though they may look
normalize the and flatulence is very common among GAPS overweight.
gut flora in children, teenagers and adults. Diarrhea and con-
the baby. stipation are usually interchangeable: the patient THE GUT FLORA
may have periods of each. Constipated children When we talk about the digestive tract we
are far more severely at risk than children with have to talk about what lives in there and what
diarrhea. I have seen children who could not pass takes care of it; we have to talk about our gut
a stool for a week to 14 days. That is usually flora.
followed by something one mom described as Gut flora are the mass of bacteria, yeasts,
child labor as her child tried to pass enormous, viruses, worms, one-cell structures, all sorts of
compacted feces. This can be very painful and little critters that live in our digestive tract. This
distressing and often tears the anus, adding a psy- mass of microbes in different adults can be two to
chological component: the child becomes afraid three kilograms (four to six pounds), depending
to pass the stool, holding on as long possible, on where you live. There is a symbiotic rela-
making the whole problem worse. tionship between these microbes and our body.
In fact, there are more cells and more genetic
MALABSORPTION AND OSTEOPOROSIS material in your digestive tract than in the rest
Malabsorption is a universal problem in of your body.
GAPS children and adults. Their digestive What do they do, why do we have them?

FEEDING TIME
Feeding difficulties are universally present among autistic children and among siblings of autistic children. They have
solid physiological reasons for being finicky eaters. They get stuck in a vicious cycle of cravings and dependency because
the abnormal microbes that grow in their digestive systems favor certain foods. These microbes convert the food into
hundreds of toxins. Many of these toxins have endorphin-like structures. They give the brain a pleasure signal and the
brain then wants more—a process similar to drug addiction.
Finicky eating develops usually in the second year of life. Autistic children tend to limit their diets to the very foods
that harm them. They develop cravings for those foods that feed abnormal microbes in the gut and will remove all other
foods from their diet. The diet is usually limited to starchy sweet things, breads, breakfast cereals, bananas, cookies,
cakes, sugar and perhaps sweet yogurts. I’ve seen some children who would eat one or two foods and who would not
touch anything else.
In Gut And Psychology Syndrome, I describe a structured approach for introducing foods into a finicky child’s menu.
Using this method, you can introduce pretty much everything. I had one patient recently who lived on crackers for most
of his life. This three-year-old boy would not put anything else in his mouth and he looked like a poor starving child.
The parents kept taking the child to the hospital, to a clinical nutritionist who told them, “It’s okay, he is eating. Give
him some crackers, eventually he will change.” Following the GAPS method for introducing new foods, in a matter of
two months the child was eating everything—meats, fish, eggs, vegetables and fruit. He was on a full menu and began
recovering. Obviously you cannot expect a child to be healthy who is living on crackers.

66 Wise Traditions