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Trusting Your Mom Gut: How Lane Found His Voice

Episode 15 — Experience Miracles Podcast | Host: Dr. Tony Ebel, DC, CACCP — Pediatric Chiropractor & Founder of PX Docs | Guest: Traci Miller — Parent & Care Advocate | Published: April 8, 2024 | Duration: ~36 min

Key Takeaways

• Birth trauma — including C-sections, forceps, and vacuum extractions — can cause subluxation in a newborn’s upper cervical spine, disrupting the neurological pathways that control gross motor development and, downstream, speech.
• Gross motor development must come before fine motor development: a child cannot build strong speech skills if the neurological foundation for head control, rolling, sitting, crawling, and walking has not been laid first. Addressing symptoms out of sequence produces little lasting progress.
• A neurologically-focused chiropractor reading INSiGHT scans can identify the type of birth intervention a child had — C-section, forceps, or vacuum extraction — with approximately 90% accuracy, even before reviewing paperwork.
• Lane’s healing followed a predictable sequence: constipation and sleep resolved first, then food sensory issues decreased, then gross motor coordination improved, and finally speech came online — in the exact order Dr. Tony Ebel and his team predicted.
• Traci attended Dr. Ebel’s Perfect Storm workshop seven times in a row, bringing new parents with her each time — demonstrating how quickly families move from receiving help to actively sharing it with others.

How Does Birth Trauma Cause Gross Motor and Speech Delays in Children?

Birth trauma creates physical injury to the nerves, muscles, and brainstem at the moment of delivery — particularly when birth interventions like C-sections, forceps, or vacuum extraction place traction force on a newborn’s head and neck. Because newborns cannot yet support their own head and neck musculature, this force can cause subluxation — misalignment and neurological tension in the upper cervical spine that disrupts signaling between the brainstem and the rest of the body.

The brainstem controls the entire sequence of gross motor development: head and neck control, tummy time, rolling, sitting, crawling, and finally walking. When subluxation is present, this developmental sequence gets disrupted at the foundation. Children may struggle with coordination, fall frequently, or fail to hit motor milestones on time. What parents and conventional pediatricians often miss is the direct connection between those gross motor struggles and the speech delays that follow — fine motor development, including speech, cannot fully activate until gross motor development is neurologically stable. As Dr. Tony Ebel explains: gross motor development has to come first, one stage begets the next.

For parents like Traci, whose son Lane was born via C-section and showed both gross motor delays and speech regression by age two, understanding this sequence changes everything. It reframes the question from “why isn’t speech therapy working?” to “what neurological foundation does speech therapy need in order to work?” The answer — addressing subluxation and autonomic nervous system function first — is what Neurologically-Focused Chiropractic Care provides.

How Traci Found Pediatric Chiropractic — and Why She Almost Didn’t [00:03:17 – 00:08:06]

Traci Miller: I was looking for somebody who was going to listen to me as a mom. I feel like I do a pretty good job at being a mom. And when I have a feeling about something, I didn’t want that to be ignored anymore.

Traci had four kids and a gut feeling that her son Lane was struggling in ways his previous pediatrician wasn’t taking seriously. Lane was behind on gross motor skills and showing speech regression, but the answer she kept getting was: just wait.

She eventually found a new integrative pediatrician who referred her to a PX Docs office. Traci had essentially no background in chiropractic — a relative had mentioned it in passing, but she’d never pursued it. What finally moved her was a provider who took her seriously enough to make the referral.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Conventional pediatrics is not up to date on neurodevelopment. They’re not good at spotting it early, and they’re not making the crucial decisions around these sensitive periods of development. Lane was starting to go off track developmentally. Your mother’s gut instinct knew it, and the doctor didn’t quite do anything about it.

“I was looking for somebody who was going to listen to me as a mom. And when I have a feeling about something, I didn’t want that to be ignored anymore.”

Once she landed on the PX Docs website, Traci did what most parents do: she Googled. She looked at who the doctors were, what their backgrounds were, and what subluxation actually meant. She was a self-described “holistic-minded” parent who had simply never been introduced to what neurologically-focused pediatric chiropractic could do.

Lane’s Daily Reality: What ‘Gross Motor Delayed’ Actually Looked Like [00:08:07 – 00:15:20]

Traci Miller: I didn’t go out in public. We always went out as a whole family. Either my husband went and did stuff, or we all went — which with four kids isn’t realistic. So that was one of our huge struggles: just getting out into public. Even going to the doctor or the dentist, I couldn’t bring the other kids because I had to keep all my focus completely on him.

Lane at two was not a diagnostic label. He was a kid who fell constantly, ran into things, couldn’t be given even a small amount of freedom in public spaces. Traci had to attend every appointment with Lane solo — no siblings, no distraction, 100% of her attention on keeping him safe and present.

Dr. Tony Ebel: 24/7, 365. And this is where the storm brews — because what you have is a kiddo who needs to go out and get a lot of help. These neurodevelopmental challenges were missed by their pediatrician. Then in 2020 and 2021, even if a speech issue was identified, even if you could get an appointment on Zoom — for a child stuck in sympathetic dominance, learning speech on Zoom? That’s not happening.

Traci put on a good front for everyone around her. Her husband knew something was wrong but found it hard to acknowledge. She was the one making calls, researching, hitting walls.

“I was anything but okay. I couldn’t find anyone to help me.”

The emotional weight of that season — a parent who knows, who pushes, who is still dismissed — is a thread that runs through this entire episode. It’s also what makes the next part of the story land so hard.

The Perfect Storm: How C-Section Birth Trauma Sets Off a Chain Reaction [00:15:21 – 00:18:02]

Traci Miller: Lane had a traumatic birth — C-section, big baby. They really had to just yank him right out. Learning about how birth trauma causes subluxation just opened my eyes to what was going on.

Sitting in The Perfect Storm workshop for the first time, Traci started connecting dots she hadn’t been able to connect before. Lane’s birth — the type of traction involved in a C-section, the forces on a large baby’s head and neck — wasn’t just a delivery detail. It was the beginning of his neurological story.

Dr. Tony Ebel: Birth is physically traumatic for millions of kids. Just think about what we would never allow to happen to a brand new baby’s neck: someone yanking, twisting, and pulling on it. Newborns can’t hold up their own head and neck — they can’t use their own muscles yet. Motor development starts with the head and neck. And this is the area we’re grabbing hold of with big doctor hands, forceps, or vacuum — and we’re yanking and twisting them into the world.

That physical force — concentrated on the most vulnerable and developmentally critical part of the body — creates neurological tension and subluxation. The brainstem, which is housed right there at the top of the spine, controls the entire cascade of gross motor development:

1. Head and neck control
2. Tummy time
3. Rolling over
4. Sitting up
5. Crawling
6. Walking

Those steps have to happen in sequence. Skipping or shortcutting them creates a broken foundation for everything that follows — including the fine motor development that speech requires.

“God designed us — a child needs to go through gross motor development in sequence to then activate fine motor development, which is speech.”

Traci attended the Perfect Storm workshop seven times in a row. Not because she needed to re-learn the material — but because she kept bringing new parents with her.

The Sequence of Healing: Why Chiropractic Has to Come Before Speech Therapy [00:18:03 – 00:24:35]

Dr. Tony Ebel: The order with which things get off track is the order with which we need to get them on track and healing. A lot of families go full out on speech therapy while the gross motor system is still a mess. They’ll go all out on behavioral therapy. And you will not be able to fix any of that. The greatest providers of any kind will not be able to fix that.

This section gets at one of the most clinically important and counterintuitive points in the episode: treating the symptom that scares you most — in this case, speech — before the neurological foundation is stable will not produce results. It doesn’t matter how skilled the speech therapist is.

Dr. Tony Ebel: You gotta sleep, you gotta eat, you gotta poop. Those are the basics of how God designed brain development. So we focus on that first. That’s phase one. Then we move to gross motor. And we said to Traci, “Hey, speech is something we’re going to dive into later.”

Traci actually ended up not starting Lane in speech therapy until after chiropractic care had begun — and not entirely by design. COVID scheduling delays meant in-person speech therapy wasn’t available. But as it turned out, the sequencing ended up being exactly right.

Traci Miller: I definitely think that Lane had success because of the way things were tackled. We weren’t in speech therapy until after he had already started chiropractic care.

At the initial consultation, Lane’s neurological scans — which Dr. Ebel’s team reads to identify subluxation patterns and autonomic dysfunction — surfaced something Traci had barely mentioned in the paperwork: constipation.

Traci Miller: I forgot that I even had that issue with him, because it’s so different now. I didn’t even fully mention it, just a little bit in passing. And the scans just showed it.

That moment — when the technology confirms what the paperwork missed — is when many families start to genuinely trust the process.

How Lane’s Body Healed: Poop, Then Walking, Then “I Love You” [00:27:18 – 00:31:03]

Traci Miller: Speech was not the first change we noticed in Lane. It was first little things — like he would poop. Or he would have less pickiness with his food, which was another one of his struggles. He had a lot of sensory issues with eating. And then it did move on to gross motor, where he would hold my hand and walk. And I was like, “Ooh, this is weird.” I didn’t want to take it at first.

Lane’s progress followed the exact sequence the team had predicted. The autonomic nervous system came online first — digestion, sleep, regulatory basics. Then sensory processing smoothed out. Then coordination improved.

Dr. Tony Ebel: I remember a distinct visit, right after his adjustment. He was what we nicknamed “Drunken Bull” — just, that’s a nervous system that isn’t coordinated. We made an adjustment and you guys walked out hand in hand. And he was just so smooth and confident. And I could tell you could see it.

After gross motor, speech came. But not all at once. Lane started making small comments. He said “pretty” when he looked at his sister. He reached out and grabbed her hand. These were the early signs that his nervous system was finally able to access the social and communicative functions that had been offline.

“When he started looking at us and making small comments — those were huge, huge steps for Lane.”

And then came the moment Traci called her husband about. The moment she wouldn’t have called about with any of her other kids, because it had never been in question.

Traci Miller: The first time he said that he loved us — I just remember calling my husband. And he said, “No, really? I want him to say it to me.” And when he said it to his dad too, it was just such a wonderful, heart-filling moment.

Dr. Spencer, their chiropractor at the time, celebrated right alongside them at the next appointment. The team had given Lane a certificate. These aren’t small clinical wins recorded in a chart — they’re the outcomes that explain why practitioners choose this path.

From Mom Guilt to Chiropractic Evangelist [00:31:04 – 00:36:00]

Traci Miller: I had a lot of mom guilt when it came to Lane. In the beginning, I knew he was struggling. I knew he had some stuff going on. And while I did push for it, I wasn’t listened to. And when I found providers that truly listened to me and gave help to give me that hope — saying, “We don’t know how long this will take, but we’re here for you for the ride” — that was completely life changing for not only me and my family, but for Lane too.

Mom guilt lives in that gap between knowing something is wrong and finding someone who confirms you were right to push. For Traci, that gap was measured in months of dismissed appointments, developmental milestones missed, and a 2-year-old she couldn’t take out in public.

What the PX Docs team gave her wasn’t just clinical care. It was belief. Staff members who had been through similar experiences with their own children. Doctors who connected with both parents — not just the mom who showed up to the first appointment, but also the dad who was internalizing everything and struggling to voice it.

Dr. Tony Ebel: When you find information that changes your kid’s life, you become not a chiropractic advocate. You become a chiropractic evangelist.

Traci came to the Perfect Storm workshop seven times. She brought different people each time. She eventually joined the team at the practice, becoming a care advocate — one of the parents-who’ve-been-through-it that new families meet at the front door.

Her final advice to parents listening:

Traci Miller: If you feel something in your gut, and your mom gut is telling you that you need to keep searching — keep going. You will eventually, by the grace of God and with other people’s support, find what you’re looking for.

“If you feel something in your gut and your mom gut is telling you that you need to keep searching — keep going. You will eventually find what you’re looking for.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Can birth trauma really cause speech delays in children?

Yes. Birth trauma — from C-sections, forceps, or vacuum extraction — can cause subluxation in the upper cervical spine, disrupting brainstem function. Because gross motor development must be neurologically established before fine motor development (including speech) can activate, a child whose birth disrupted that foundation may struggle with both motor coordination and speech. Addressing the underlying neurological tension is essential before speech therapy will produce lasting results.

Why didn’t speech therapy alone help my child’s speech delays?

Speech therapy addresses the symptom without addressing the underlying cause. According to Dr. Tony Ebel, gross motor development has to come first — the nervous system cannot activate fine motor functions like speech until the foundation of head control, rolling, sitting, and walking is neurologically stable. If a child has unresolved subluxation from birth trauma, even the best speech therapist will be working against an unstable neurological base.

How can a chiropractor read a child’s scans and know what kind of birth they had?

Neurologically-Focused Chiropractors trained in advanced INSiGHT scan interpretation can identify patterns of neurological tension that correspond to specific types of birth interventions. Dr. Tony Ebel states his team can identify whether a child was born via C-section, forceps, or vacuum extraction approximately 90% of the time from the scan results alone — even before reviewing a parent’s paperwork.

What order do improvements usually happen in during chiropractic care?

The healing sequence generally follows the same order as the original disruption — and the body’s fundamental needs. For Lane, improvements came in this order: digestion and constipation resolved first, then sleep improved, then food sensory issues decreased, then gross motor coordination improved, and finally speech came online. Dr. Tony Ebel explains this as the autonomic nervous system stabilizing from the inside out.

How do I know if my child’s developmental delays could be connected to birth trauma?

If your child had any birth intervention (C-section, forceps, vacuum extraction, prolonged pushing, or cord complications) and is now showing delays in gross motor milestones, speech, sensory processing, constipation, or sleep regulation, the connection is worth investigating. A Neurologically-Focused Chiropractor can run INSiGHT neurological scans to assess autonomic nervous system function and identify subluxation patterns related to birth.

How do I find a neurologically-focused pediatric chiropractor near me?

Visit the PX Docs Directory and enter your zip code. Every doctor in the PX Docs network is trained in the clinical approach Dr. Tony Ebel describes in this episode — INSiGHT scan interpretation, subluxation correction, and the phased healing model for developmental delays.

Resources & Related Content

• Birth Trauma and Children’s Health — How birth interventions affect the developing nervous system
• The Perfect Storm Framework — The three-stage model Dr. Ebel describes throughout this episode
• Developmental Delay in Children — PX Docs article on neurological root causes of developmental delays
• Sensory Processing Disorder — Lane’s sensory and food sensitivity issues addressed
• Constipation in Children — Autonomic nervous system’s role in gut function
• Find a PX Docs Office Near You — PX Docs Practitioner Directory
• Next Episode: How to Turn Your Child’s ADHD Struggles into Superpowers (without using drugs)