45 - Why You Can’t Relax After Birth (and What Your Nervous System Has to Do With It) with Dr. Avery Champagne

In this episode of Doula Talk: Postpartum, Babies, and the Battle for Sleep, Deb sits down with holistic family chiropractor and author Dr. Avery Champagne to uncover what’s really happening in a mother’s body when she feels anxious, wired, or unable to rest after birth.

Dr. Champagne explains how postpartum anxiety and exhaustion stem from a dysregulated nervous system, not just lack of willpower. He and Deb break down how chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and hormonal changes can keep moms stuck in fight-or-flight mode, and what it takes to restore balance. From practical tools like cold-water face dips and deep breathing to chiropractic adjustments that support the brain-body connection, listeners learn how to move toward calm, grounded postpartum health.

They also discuss Dr. Champagne’s book, Root Causes: Why the Healthcare System is Failing Us and What We Can Do About It, and why true wellness means creating health — not just treating symptoms.

Resources Mentioned:

• Root Causes by Dr. Avery Champagne — rootcauses.net
• Radiant Health Chiropractic in Lacey, WA
• Visit DoulaDeb.com for gentle postpartum support, sleep consulting, and the First Year Support Program to help you rebuild rest and regulation after birth.

This episode will help every new parent understand that anxiety isn’t a flaw — it’s a signal from the body asking for care.

Transcript

Deb (00:50)
Hey there friends, Today we're digging into a topic that every mom can relate to. that buzzing anxious feeling when your baby is finally asleep but your body just can't chill.

you're wired, overstimulated, and your brain's running a marathon at 2 a.m. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, we're talking about the postpartum fight or flight cycle and what's really happening inside Your nervous system. joined by Dr. Avery Champagne, a holistic family chiropractor and the

author of the book, Root Causes, why the healthcare system is failing us and what we can do about it. He's sharing how stress, sleep deprivation, even spinal alignment can impact your mental health, digestion, and overall regulation after birth. If you've ever wondered why sleep when the baby sleeps feels like a cruel joke or how to actually support your nervous system without adding another to-do list to your day, this episode is for you.

So go grab your coffee or reheat it for the third time and let's get into it.

Deb (01:55)
well thank you so much for joining us today on Doula Talk. Why don't we just get started with a little bit about your background what drew you to this kind of work, supporting families.

Avery Champagne, DC (02:05)
Absolutely. Well, first of all, Deb, thank you so much for having me on. My name is Dr. Avery Champagne. I'm a family chiropractor here in the Lacey Olympia area. And what really drew me into family health and prenatal health and pediatric health was my journey through the difference between allopathic and salutogenic care.

Deb (02:28)
Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (02:28)
And

so I grew up with a huge fascination of the nervous system. Like, are you telling me the brain and how it functions translates into other areas of our chronic health and wellbeing? You know what I mean? And so I thought the most logical course was to go to medical school and then specialize in neurology. Cause I wanted to study the nervous system and what made it healthy and strong. And so I got the chance one summer to take

Deb (02:39)
Like crazy, right?

Mm.

Mmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (02:56)
tours of medical schools. I got to go to Harvard Med. I got to go to UMass and Brown and got to meet med students and medical doctors and specialists. It was a fantastic, high-opening experience, but it left me extremely discouraged and pretty upset. Not once on that trip did we discuss preserving health, preventing illness.

Deb (02:59)
cool.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (03:24)
Strengthening our well-being and cultivating resilience not once did we talk about health on that trip It was instead Instead it was a lot of surgical advancements. It was a lot of Pharmaceutical advancements and a lot of pathology management and don't get me wrong if you have a pathology that deserves to be diagnosed and treated quickly, but I Wanted to study what made people healthy

Deb (03:27)
Mm-hmm.

Isn't that crazy?

Right.

Absolutely.

Right. That's a whole different area. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (03:53)
Not what made people say, yeah. And

so I came home from that trip pretty defeated. I'm like, still want to study the nervous system, but not what makes it diseased. You know what I mean? And so I was complaining to one of my chiropractors at the time. And he said, you know what? I'm speaking at a chiropractic conference in the Bay area. It's the whole entire theme of the weekend is neuroscience. And so I got the chance to go to that conference.

Deb (03:59)
Yeah.

Right, yeah.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (04:23)
And here all these amazing doctors talk about all the changes that goes on in the brain as a result of focusing on the spine. And so that's when my entire trajectory shifted from allopathic world to the salutogenic model of healthcare, which is really where does health come from? How do we cultivate that? How do we build that up?

Deb (04:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Yeah.

That's amazing. mean, and when you think of chiropractic care, you don't think of brain work. We just think of car accidents and back pain. So it's so eye opening to just understand that part of it. So what I want to focus on today, and it was part of one of your topics of interest, was about ⁓ new parents and specifically new moms feeling anxious and overstimulated.

feeling like they just can't turn off. So I wanted to hear your perspective on what's like happening in their body with that, ⁓ just specifically in that postpartum period.

Avery Champagne, DC (05:25)
Absolutely. And let's call the elephant in the room out. I'm a dude. All right, I'm not I'm not gonna mansplain motherhood to anybody listening, but I will from the point of view of neurology and neuroscience explain what happens when we go through significant stress in our life. I think childhood

Deb (05:30)
Right, right. mean, totally. Thank you, yes.

Avery Champagne, DC (05:46)
And new life entering this earth is a beautiful miracle every time. But that's a stressful experience, no matter how it happens. Absolutely. And so let's back up a couple steps before we start explaining the biology of mental health outcomes, right? So first of all, If you hold up your hand and anybody listening holds up their hand.

Deb (05:52)
Mm-hmm. It's probably the most useful thing you could ever do. Yeah, for real. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (06:09)
Make a fist with your thumb on the inside. Now grab your wrist. That wrist is essentially where your brain stem is located in relation to your brain. And your brain stem is regulating vital functions, heart rate, respiration, blood pressure, circadian rhythm, all these things that we don't need to think about. It just unconsciously happens 24-7 no matter what. Now if you open up that fist and grab your thumb,

Deb (06:20)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (06:39)
This is your amygdala, your hippocampus. These are emotional parts of our brain that have been around for a long time. These are very old parts of our brain. Now, the newest part of our brain, if you put those fingers back over your thumb, this is your prefrontal cortex. This is the most advanced part of our brain as human beings. It's what makes humans humans, right? It's our executive function. It's our ability to plan ahead and use logic.

Deb (06:47)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (07:08)
And guess what it also does? It pumps the brakes on other parts of our

Deb (07:13)
emotional

Avery Champagne, DC (07:13)
other parts of our brain.

Deb (07:14)
emotional regulation. Yeah,

Avery Champagne, DC (07:16)
Yeah. And it makes total sense when you look at a teenager, like a 13 year old, they don't do a good job regulating their emotions because the prefrontal cortex isn't done developing until 25 years old. That's a little joke. ⁓

Deb (07:16)
for sure.

Let me tell you, I have a 14 year old. This

is very true.

Avery Champagne, DC (07:34)
And in most men, far after 25. That's a little joke.

Deb (07:37)
me tell you, I have

Avery Champagne, DC (07:39)
And so what can cause our prefrontal cortex to either work better or work worse? Trauma. Trauma is a huge source of prefrontal cortex dysfunction, as is emotional stress, chronic stress. Like most of the time, it's the chronic daily stressors that affect our health, not just one big adverse event. You know what I mean? And so what happens?

Deb (07:51)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And rewiring your brain

Avery Champagne, DC (08:09)
what happens when the prefrontal cortex shuts off? We're left to operate from our more emotional centers of the brain until the prefrontal cortex comes back online. And so, absolutely, so if you imagine a brand new mom or even a brand new dad who is malnourished because they're not eating the way they were leading up to the arrival of their new baby,

Deb (08:21)
It can help regulate all of that. Yeah, that makes sense.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (08:36)
So if you factor in malnourishment, if you factor in sleep deprivation, you factor in fear from, crap, there's a human being I'm now responsible for, whether it be emotional stressors, ⁓ biochemical stress from malnourishment and sleep deprivation, and hormonal, and especially with the moms who have been pregnant for nine months and

Deb (08:41)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Hormone, all those hormone changes, yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (09:03)
whether it was a C-section delivery, a vaginal delivery, giving birth is traumatic. And so there's, it's not just one event that causes anxiety and postpartum depression. It's an accumulation of the last nine months made much more significant by several weeks of not eating right, not hydrating right, and not sleeping well enough. So it's no wonder that the prefrontal cortex is struggling

Deb (09:09)
Yeah, it's big on my system.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (09:32)
to do its job. And when we factor in other parts of the nervous system like our autonomic nervous system, fight or flight is a huge area of focus these days. Thank gosh, so many people on social media are starting to talk about the sympathetic nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system. And that's just where my brain goes to first whenever we're working with families experiencing those symptoms or struggles.

Deb (09:34)
Right, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Can you just tell us, give us a good definition of the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system so we can get like a good base?

Avery Champagne, DC (10:02)
Absolutely.

A lot of people think that the sympathetic nervous system is like the boogeyman and for those unfamiliar with these words, we're talking about unconscious neurological reflexes. So our unconscious nervous system, autonomic nervous system, can be divided into sympathetic or parasympathetic. Most people know the sympathetic nervous system

Deb (10:19)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (10:32)
fight or flight response right and a lot of people know the parasympathetic nervous system to be the opposite of fight or flight It's how the body rests digests develops prioritizes immune functions digestive functions Whereas sympathetic functions are the opposite heart rate elevates blood pressure elevates. We usually

Deb (10:32)
you're talking about me on

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (10:54)
Don't digest as well. We're not prioritizing immune and reproductive functions because blood is leaving the gut and reproductive tract and falling into our extremities. And so if you would think of a car, right, we have a gas pedal and a brake pedal. If your foot is on the gas pedal, you're probably operating from go, go, go, fight or flight physiology. If you put your foot on brake pedal,

Deb (11:05)
Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (11:22)
you're slowing down that momentum. That's usually a parasympathetic response. We need both. Like we can't have one or the other and we actually would die without sympathetic control of our body. The problem is, they're reflexes. Reflexes are unconscious and it's so easy to have a body that gets stuck in sympathetic dominance. What can force us to be stuck?

Deb (11:24)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

and

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (11:50)
malnourishment, chronic sleep deprivation, abnormal spinal health resulting in differing neurological perceptions in the body. There's so many things. It's not just your co-worker, right? It's not just watching the news at night. Don't get me wrong. Nobody should watch the news if they want to prioritize mental health. But it's the tricky stuff is what we're talking about is an unconscious learned response. Response.

Deb (11:58)
you

Right, especially right now.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And being able to flow between both states well, ⁓ I think is something that I think we don't we don't do well in this society. We kind of just stay in one and then be like, I need a break once you're at your breaking point. And then you're like, I'm to take a weekend away and vacation. And then you don't really feel that much better when you're doing it in that burnout way.

Avery Champagne, DC (12:20)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

No.

Deb (12:47)
Yeah, okay. Well, that makes sense. It's the perfect storm for stress postpartum. Which is why we feel that way.

Avery Champagne, DC (12:52)
It is the perfect storm. That's a good... And why it's so hard, it's hard to will ourself out of an unconscious pattern. Because you can consciously, you know, most moms and families are like, yeah, life is good. Our baby's here.

Deb (13:02)
yeah, yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (13:09)
We're blessed, everybody's in seemingly good health, but why am I so sad? Why am I on such edge? Why can I not go to the bathroom normally even though I'm eating normal, I'm hydrating normally? It's the unconscious neurological response. That's where we have to focus. can't just, do you feel good today? you do? All right, you're doing great. No, we have to look at things other than how we feel. We have to take careful inventory.

Deb (13:27)
Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (13:38)
of digestive patterns, respiration patterns, sleep patterns, which anyone with a newborn baby at home, they're laughing right now because where's the pattern around eating and sleeping and God forbid just getting out of the house? And we have to have a team that knows how to ask questions well. We have to have a team that's helping us get out of the house and breaking up patterns so that normal doesn't turn into normal.

Deb (13:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think that's a big piece that in our society is so missing is the support piece because we act like this is all on our mom's shoulders of like figuring out how to help themselves out of fight or flight. And really, it's like it's more of a bigger systemic problem with our society and viewing that get it together, lady. Like you need to just rest more. And you're like, how do I do that? ⁓

Avery Champagne, DC (14:31)
Right. How

do you rest when your brain can't rest?

Deb (14:35)
Yeah, yeah. And I hear that a lot from new moms is, you know, the baby's sleeping, but I have a really hard time even resting, just having them feel in that restful state to sleep while the baby is sleeping. Because I was asleep while the baby sleeps. I mean, just the other night, a mom was like, I had an opportunity, a unique opportunity for a nap and I just laid there and I was just like, my mind was racing, my body was tense and I couldn't rest.

Avery Champagne, DC (14:58)
Yeah.

Deb (15:03)
and even though she had a couple hours support, it was just that one day, right, of that support,

Avery Champagne, DC (15:04)
Yeah. Yeah.

Deb (15:09)
and so it was really hard for her to grapple with that. She's like, I had the time and the support, what happened?

Avery Champagne, DC (15:17)
And here's the scary

and sad reality of that for new moms. If left unaddressed, right, nine months later, a couple years later, a decade later, we're seeing record rates of autoimmune diagnoses in young women.

Deb (15:36)
100%.

Avery Champagne, DC (15:38)
And the longer we're burning sympathetic dominance, it's our parasympathetic is becoming lower and lower and lower functioning. And then it's very common to see fibromyalgia, lupus, memory problems. Whereas in, if you're more sympathetic dominant in the early stage of autonomic dysfunction, you're typically seeing more anxiousness. You're seeing more IBS tendencies.

Deb (15:51)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (16:07)
You're

seeing more manic episodes, whereas the longer the autonomic nervous system is dysfunctional, you'll start on the other end of the spectrum, start to see the lupus, autoimmunity, memory problems, because it's so draining. And the longer the immune system and the digestive system aren't functioning as designed, we're going to see all these crazy diagnoses and conditions that are unfortunately becoming common.

Deb (16:10)
Mmm.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah, and chronic, you know, and then we have the medications and things to help with that, but we're not really looking at that, original source of that stress and lifestyle and supportive community.

Avery Champagne, DC (16:48)
Education is such a missing component in healthcare. there's not a family we work with, whether they're one month pregnant or they're two weeks away from their due date, that we don't have the conversation about the fourth trimester with. Most pregnant mamas get under care because they want to bring balance to their pelvis. They want the safest pregnancy outcomes and the safest delivery outcomes.

Deb (16:52)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ that's neat.

Avery Champagne, DC (17:15)
That's an easy, right? That's an easy to understand goal. But we also have to tell them and their partners, here's what you should expect during your fourth trimester. Here's how to support your nervous system more than just getting your nails done and going and watching Netflix. Right, those are nice, but they don't address the autonomic health, right? So spinal health is so important, regardless of neck pain, low back pain.

Deb (17:16)
Sure. Yeah.

Getting the bubble bath.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (17:43)
When we adjust the spine, and here's why I became a chiropractor by the way, when we adjust the spine, there is a 20 % improvement to the prefrontal cortex. And that's not an opinion. You could go and look on Nature, the gold standard for medical journals. If you look at Nature or JAMA, there are so many studies that show the prefrontal cortex changes positively.

Deb (17:53)
Mmm, okay.

Avery Champagne, DC (18:11)
when you adjust the spine. And so we tell moms chiropractic care is not predicated on musculoskeletal symptoms. We have to be specific and we are correcting subluxation, but subluxation isn't always accompanied by your traditional neck pain, upper back pain. There's so much more to the spine than just pain.

Deb (18:12)
Wow.

Right. Yeah.

Yeah, and I had a chiropractor more recently talk to me while I'm getting adjusted in the way of like, okay, now I have your nervous system connected. And I had never heard a chiropractor talk in that way. And I was like, so curious about what that even meant. And that that's what it means, right? Is that as you're getting that alignment, it's making sure that that highway of your spine is like connected to the rest of your body so that it can actually function properly.

Avery Champagne, DC (19:02)
Yeah.

Function properly, that's the key word, right? Yeah, we were designed to function. We were designed to regulate and heal. And when we find ourselves unable to, rather than just looking at the symptom and covering the symptom up, maybe we could look upstream and ask ourselves, why aren't we digesting the way we used to be able to? Why aren't we resting the way we were able to 20 years ago?

Deb (19:06)
Optimally, maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (19:30)
or regulating our emotions. you

Deb (19:32)
Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (19:33)
know, doctor of chiropractic also means doctor of cause. What are the causes that are resulting in all these varying effects in our kids, our parents, our families?

Deb (19:36)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and it kind of leads me back to in my postpartum and as a parent of like, well, I know I'm not eating well, so that's probably it. And like so much self blame around that of like, I'm not resting well, I'm not doing this. But instead of that, sounds like let's build in some care postpartum, like ahead of time of like, this is something that is to be helping me to eat better and to sleep better and to feel better so that I can take better care of myself. ⁓

Avery Champagne, DC (20:04)
Yes.

Absolutely.

Deb (20:12)
And

so what would be, I mean obviously the optimal thing would be to set it up ahead of time, but let's just say someone's in postpartum now, what would be some of those key red flags that tell a mom like, this could be really helpful for you?

Avery Champagne, DC (20:28)
Absolutely. Like you said a few minutes ago, if you're laying down in bed, you should be sleeping, not just staring at the ceiling. Right. I mean, there's so many signs of a dysregulated nervous system. know, basics are, are you digesting the way you should be, right? Are you chronically constipated? Are you having chronic, reoccurring bowel movements that just...

Deb (20:38)
wondering when you're gonna fall asleep.

Mmm.

you

Avery Champagne, DC (20:57)
You're going too much. know, most postpartum moms have varying levels of pelvic floor dysfunction. And the chiropractic component, what's the regulating source of pelvic floor? It's neurological, right? All the lumbosacral nerve tissue that reaches the pelvic floor. So pelvic floor control, mental well-being and resilience. I'm not a mental health counselor. We don't treat mental health conditions.

Deb (21:16)
Sure. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (21:27)
but we ensure that the nervous system is able to regulate so that when they go to counseling and when they're working with a psychologist or just a support group, they have the tools within to use what they need to use. You know what I mean? Yeah, well you know, it's hard because we live in a country that's been very programmed to base their health off of symptoms. Like, do you have a symptom? Go see this symptom specialist.

Deb (21:40)
Right, like your brain can actually accept that help. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (21:57)
you don't have a symptom, well then why are you in our office? You know what I mean? You're fine, right? Come back when symptoms are present, because then we can help you. That's pretty much the purview of allopathic health. And so what we want to, I do a weekly health class for all of my patients, and one of the first things we spend time talking about is what do symptoms really mean? What do the absence of symptoms possibly mean? You know what I mean?

Deb (21:59)
You're fine. Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm, mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (22:25)
And so if anybody listening to this is experiencing digestive distress, mental health struggles or emotional regulation problems, maybe they're not sleeping well, maybe they've noticed certain immune stressors, like they're hypersensitive to getting colds the flu, or they have a possible autoimmune condition that's just flaring up, those are all signs of nervous system dysregulation.

Deb (22:34)
Mm-hmm.

you

Avery Champagne, DC (22:51)
and I'm not gonna be naive and say that the only thing mothers in postpartum healing need is chiropractic care. I think it takes a village. I can't tell you how many times a month I refer a young mom to a local naturopath, a local holistic mental health counselor and support group, but if the spine and nervous system are subluxated, we...

Deb (23:00)
sure. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (23:19)
It doesn't matter how much vitamin D and K we take, we need to address that subluxation so that the body can better regulate, better function, adapt and heal.

Deb (23:29)
yeah, takes a village, but also can you define subluxation? What did you say?

Avery Champagne, DC (23:33)
yeah, yeah.

So Deb, a lot of people go to a chiropractor for very common symptoms, neck pain, sleeping problems, postural issues in kids. But what chiropractic focuses on, regardless of the varying symptoms, is the health and function of the spine as it relates to the nervous system. And so there's a condition chiropractors look for that we're trained to look for called vertebral subluxation.

Deb (23:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Avery Champagne, DC (24:03)
A lot of people have heard subluxation, maybe. A lot of people haven't. It's a uniquely chiropractic concept. It's any time two or more joints in the spine become misaligned. It has a profound negative impact on how the nervous system operates. We don't have to spend three hours on neuroscience today, but there's two simple things your nervous system is doing at every second.

Deb (24:11)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (24:33)
It's listening to your body. Your

brain is receiving all this sensory afferent input. 90 % of that input comes through your spinal cord. Yes, your eyes send sensory input to your brain, your nose, your ears, your mouth, but 90 % of that sensory input comes through the cord. What protects your spinal cord?

Deb (24:53)
Mm-hmm.

your bones? Yeah. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (24:56)
Yeah, your spinal bones, your vertebrae. So

anytime those vertebrae are misaligned even subtly, it has a profound impact on that sensory afferent input. And when your brain is trying to listen to your body and receives different kinds of input, it's going to send out different kinds of output. Does that make sense? And so subluxation for some people can look like numbness or tingling down the arm.

Deb (25:06)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm, yeah. ⁓

you

Avery Champagne, DC (25:25)
It could

look like a burning or shooting pain down the lower back and thigh. For a lot of people, there's no musculoskeletal pain, but because there's a nervous system dysregulation, there could be IBS. There could be mental health conditions. There could be autoimmune stressors. There could be reproductive stressors. And so oftentimes people are like, yeah, I love my chiropractor. They cured me of IBS or they cured me of period cramping.

Deb (25:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (25:53)
But

in fact, it wasn't the chiropractor curing anybody. It's our bodies functioning as designed when we remove interference between that sensory afferent process and that motor efferent process. We got to correct the information coming up so that the brain can help regulate and adapt the body down through the core. Yeah, people don't have to, the scary thing about subluxation is we can be completely pain free.

Deb (26:06)
you

Yeah, once it gets the message, it's not blocked. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (26:23)
and still have subluxation very much present. There are so many common causes of subluxation. Birth trauma is an incredibly common cause. Think of even in the most safe sound births where the music is, Enya's playing, the lights are dimmed, and it's a peaceful water birth. There's so much pressure being exerted on a baby's cervical spine. And then if you think about iPad kids today, we have such terrible

Deb (26:23)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (26:50)
Postural epidemics occurring right now people are stuck looking down all day long We have sports injuries people with nine to five desk jobs Emotional stressors are a huge cause of nervous system dysregulation the list goes on it's so common to have subluxation Yeah

Deb (26:56)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and I'm also thinking about epidurals, you know, the fact that you're getting medication and a puncture into your spine. So it's like, that's gotta have

some effects on your nervous system.

Avery Champagne, DC (27:21)
⁓ Major effects and

imagine a mom who maybe never got the opportunity to hear about the benefits of chiropractic care. So maybe they went nine months of growing a human being inside of their body never having their spine been adjusted. So that's a different kind of trauma right there.

Deb (27:31)
Hmm.

Yeah, well it's so much push and pull and things growing and muscles stretching and you know, so much happening of like your center of gravity is completely way off and you start waddling just to like, just to cope and then all of a sudden you don't have it and I remember the first time I stood up after having both my kids, I was like, I got the wind knocked out of me and also I was like, whoa, how do I even balance anymore because now I don't have this watermelon in my belly.

Avery Champagne, DC (27:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Deb (28:13)
Yeah, yeah, and there's still that baby coming through your pelvic bones and things are moving, but if there's not movement in your pelvis too, that could be some trauma as well.

Avery Champagne, DC (28:24)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Deb (28:25)
Yeah. So are there anything that outside of coming to the chiropractor and like getting that adjustment, are there any accessible ways of calming your nervous system at home that you usually send patients home with?

Avery Champagne, DC (28:39)
Every now and then upon request, I teach a gut brain connection class because a lot of people in America have chronic gut health problems. A lot of people in our country are struggling with mental health and there's a huge connection between what goes on in the gut and what goes on in the brain. And one of the main connectors between the gut and the brain is our 10th cranial nerve called the vagus nerve, which is also gaining a lot of attention online these days.

Deb (28:44)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Wow,

good.

Avery Champagne, DC (29:08)
And the

vagus nerve can be, the majority of the vagus nerve is actually sensory. So there are a lot of things that we can do for the vagus nerve to stimulate it so it can go back to that positive parasympathetic function. And so a couple of things that can help activate or stimulate the vagus nerve, cold water exposure. If you immerse, I would actually, I would say face is better.

Deb (29:14)
you

Okay.

Mmm, the cold plunges of this.

Okay.

Avery Champagne, DC (29:38)
A lot of research is coming out for women and cold plunges. How it's not always the best thing for a woman to do. Cold plunge. I'm not gonna go into the science and research on that, but there's... Yeah. But I would say your face is super accessible. Get that big bowl out and get some water and some ice cubes in there. You don't have to put your face in there for five minutes.

Deb (29:45)
Just

Yeah, it's gotta be hormonal, something going on in certain times of your cycle. Yeah.

Yeah.

Great.

Avery Champagne, DC (30:05)
but 30 seconds a couple times in a row can actually stimulate that vagus nerve. Diaphragmatic breathing can stimulate the vagus nerve if done right and long enough. Practices like Tai Chi, which is slow, stimulates the vagus nerve. A lot of women after giving birth, they're very excited to go back to their CrossFit or their Orange Theory.

Deb (30:12)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (30:33)
We actually want to slow down during a month or two after giving birth because we need to prioritize parasympathetic function. Honest to God, research shows laughing stimulates the vagus nerve. I think having really strong gut microbiome is paramount for not just mental health, but vagus nerve health, immune health, not AD.

Deb (30:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, nice.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (31:01)
about 80 % if not more of our immune health comes from the gut. So every mom, every person should be on a high quality pro or prebiotic. And then we also want to remember 90 % of the serotonin that the brain needs comes from the gut. So if anyone's struggling with happiness, depression, they should also be looking at their gut big time.

Deb (31:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (31:29)
And naturopaths and clinical nutritionists are great resources to work with for gut microbiome support. ⁓ know, honest to God. Absolutely. So important is that social health, mental health.

Deb (31:37)
⁓ And those are all really great things for nursing too. All of those things are really important for ⁓ producing milk and having a good healthy milk supply, but also providing so many wonderful things for your baby. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (31:58)
A lot of people forget where the vagus nerve comes. It branches off the back of the skull and it wraps around the front of the first two vertebrae. And then it starts traveling down the thorax and into the gut. C1, C2 subluxations can actually really irritate the vagus nerve and cause it to underperform. So even if we are taking probiotics, we're doing cold water immersing,

Deb (32:04)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Mmm. ⁓

Avery Champagne, DC (32:27)
We're laughing, we're doing Tai Chi, we're doing diaphragmatic breathing. If there's an upper cervical subluxation, the vagus nerve can have a much harder time doing its job.

Deb (32:38)
Yeah, like receiving all of that help. Yeah, that makes sense. Wow, that's really helpful. So it sounds like all of this stuff is really just rooted in wellness and not treating.

Avery Champagne, DC (32:40)
Absolutely.

Deb (32:53)
necessarily just the symptoms but like working on the wellness of the cause of the health challenges. And I know you have a book so I kind of wanted to talk about that a little bit does that like connect to you know the anxiousness and the burned out time of postpartum.

Avery Champagne, DC (33:08)
Absolutely. For the past four years, I've been working on this book called Root Causes. I started to see so many patients starting to forget where health came from. We have so many healthcare conversations in our country and very few of those conversations actually revolve around health.

Deb (33:12)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (33:28)
Most of those conversations revolve around who should pay for health care, the accessibility to different kinds of doctors, but very, very rarely do we talk about health. And during the pandemic, I saw a lot of our patients extremely fearful for their family safety, for their own well-being. Rightly so, there was a lot of confusion in our country. There was a lot of fear in our country, and people just wanted to keep themselves and their family safe.

Deb (33:38)
Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (33:55)
And so I started, you know, I know a lot about healthcare history as a doctor of chiropractic, but I wanted to really understand when did it become so allopathic heavy? What? 100? Yeah. A hundred years ago, we had chiropractors, naturopaths, osteopaths, we had medical doctors all working, herpolis, homeopaths, all working in a lot of harmony. And then some things changed in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

Deb (34:05)
Yeah, symptom management. Yeah.

Herbalists. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (34:25)
that made it kind of a monopoly on medical care and every other kind of doctor that was performing healthcare started to get some pretty bad negative connotations in our society. And it wasn't an accident. There were some intentional events that transpired that I think more people really deserve to know about. And so I'm not gonna go down the whole history of that, but I wanted to understand what are the root causes of health?

Deb (34:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (34:54)
Like we know where sickness comes from, we know where illnesses come from, and we know all about the traditional methods to address those, but where does actual health come from? Where does physical well-being, emotional resilience, social health, spiritual health, where do they come from, and how can we support more families in embracing that framework and that approach to health? And so salutogenic approaches simply describe

Deb (35:05)
Mmm.

Mm.

Avery Champagne, DC (35:22)
the approaches within healthcare that create health, such as chiropractic care, naturopathic approaches, nutritional approaches. And so I wrote this book because if someone is experiencing anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia, those are conditions and symptoms that absolutely make people suffer. And no but.

Deb (35:46)
yeah, for sure. And then they probably lead

to a lot more bigger problems like the autonomic stuff that we were talking about, autoimmune

Avery Champagne, DC (35:52)
Yeah,

nobody should have to suffer through those and power through. I hear so many times from natural people, yeah, I don't want to take a pill, so I guess I'll just tough it out. Well, that's not a solution or an answer either. It's OK to treat symptoms while at the same time cultivating resilience and well-being. And so I wrote this book for families who are like, I don't need more and more medication.

Deb (36:04)
No, no, that's terrible.

Avery Champagne, DC (36:21)
but I need to support my health today, tomorrow, and the next day. I want my family today to be just as healthy and well as they are gonna be in 10 years from now. And so how can we start planning for health? And so anybody who's going through mental health suffering, physical health compromises, they should be cultivating health, and it's okay to treat symptoms. There's gonna come a point in time where symptoms might not be present.

Deb (36:25)
you

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. In the meantime. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (36:50)
And then what do we do?

Deb (36:50)
Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (36:52)
Do we go to the chiropractor only when the sciatica is 10 out of 10 and we can't tie our shoes? Or do we go to a chiropractor because we know we live in an unnaturally stressful world where people are over toxic and under deficient and just the most sick we've ever been. And we're also the most medicated we've ever been as a society. We're the most operated on we've ever been as a society. And we're no better for it.

Deb (37:13)
Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (37:20)
when it comes to our health outcomes. And so there are different ways. I don't believe in chiropractic as an alternative to medicine, because they don't have the same goal. Medicine is beautiful. Its goal is to diagnose and treat conditions. Chiropractic care, exercise, nutrition, the goal is to cultivate health and well-being. And so it's just, do you have tools in your toolbox or not? Do you need more tools in your toolbox?

Deb (37:45)
Great.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (37:48)
They

need different tools because if all you had was a hammer, everything would look like a nail. And so we don't have to throw out hammers. We just need to add better tools to create better health outcomes. .

Deb (37:54)
Right? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think that is

such a key thing you just said was like, just because you're taking the medication or treating the symptoms, it's an opportunity to work on the overall health to improve your situation so that maybe you don't need that medication in longer term. So say you have like reflux, okay, you don't need to suffer through that. Take your medication to make sure it's...

under control and you're not suffering, but like where is this coming from? And work to get more healthy to see if we can avoid the medication eventually.

Avery Champagne, DC (38:34)
Yeah.

And people should also know that omeprazole and other kind of anti-heartburn medications

Deplete the body of b12 and so what does a chronically b12 deficient person look like? my gosh That is a problem. And so I'm not advocating people fire their PCP or ditch their medications But it's not a secret why people who regularly utilize chiropractic care and naturopathic management for symptoms and nutritional counseling for life Tend to need less medication. You know what I mean?

Deb (39:11)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (39:15)
We actually have a box in our clinic where people bring in their empty medication bottles that they no longer need and they just put it in the box because we want to celebrate the cultivation of health. We want to celebrate people throwing out their canes and walkers. We want more lives to be lived. You know what I mean? you

Deb (39:24)
you

amazing.

Yeah, yeah. so much of a better conversation than I even imagined. It was so, so helpful. ⁓

I think that's all my questions. Did you have anything else you wanted to share about postpartum or the nervous system or how you can help even during pregnancy?

up to delivery and then postpartum because I know there's probably a little bit more that you wouldn't wanted to share around that.

Avery Champagne, DC (40:03)
Our mission statement in this office is very clear. We're on a mission to create a safer, stronger, and healthier community.

by delivering exceptional, principled chiropractic care. And I think this is the most exciting time in our country, more than ever, when it comes to healthcare, because we have so many people, more than ever in history, that are being extremely critical about their family's health. They're doing research more than ever. They're following up and asking questions more than ever. They're seeking second opinions now more than ever. And I think that should be encouraged.

Deb (40:31)
I don't know.

Avery Champagne, DC (40:40)
I think health requires active participation, not just kind of sitting on our hands until it gets bad enough. And don't let problems get worse, address them now. And so my invitation and my hope and prayer for anyone who's listening to this, if you have been feeling stuck with your health, or maybe you've been feeling discouraged by the quality of your healthcare,

Deb (40:43)
Mm-hmm.

Right, bad enough to actually go get treated for symptoms, yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (41:10)
the past couple months or past couple years, please know that there are options in your community. There are people who are waiting to help and you don't have to keep just suffering through more of the same. You don't have to read my book, Root Causes to live a healthier life. You can, you should. I have been getting emails from people all over the country and parts of Europe about how they can help their family members. What should they recommend?

Deb (41:18)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Avery Champagne, DC (41:36)
Email me, go to the website rootcauses.net, send me an email. I spend hours every week helping family members across the country find principled chiropractors to get under care in naturopaths, all the holistic team members we would want. And so my leaving thought for people listening to this is have a chiropractor. And if you have significant symptoms, have a naturopath as well.

Deb (41:50)
Amazing.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Avery Champagne, DC (42:05)
And don't forget, where does health come from? It comes from the inside out. And so if you are experiencing anything less than optimal health, optimal ways of living, look inside first. Don't forget that your body knows how to heal. And if you have a doctor that's not reminding you that your body knows how to heal, health comes from the inside out, and we should always start and end with the nervous system, get a different doctor.

Deb (42:09)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And most, know, chiropractors and naturopaths all have their little community and network of people who they can connect you to as well. So I think you start with one and then you're like, hey, ⁓ you know, who can help me with that? Who can help me with that? And there are so many wonderful communities around. Well, thank you on behalf of our community for everything you do. ⁓

Avery Champagne, DC (42:33)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

Deb (42:55)
So tell us about what you have going on. So you have your book at rootcauses.net. You do weekly seminars. Tell us a little bit about

Avery Champagne, DC (42:59)
Yes. Absolutely. So I am constantly on the go teaching. Every couple of months, we do a really popular event called Dinner with the Doctor.

where we buy dinner for 20 or 30 people who want to learn more about natural health care, holistic health care, chiropractic care. And we spend an hour going over the basics about how the body works, how they could get the most out of their health care experience. It's a lot of fun. And so we host, we share a parking lot with a Ferrelli's and they have a ⁓ private upstairs banquet room.

Deb (43:34)
fun.

Avery Champagne, DC (43:37)
we do them on a quarterly basis. If people call our office, Radiant Health Chiropractic, they'll be informed about the next one. On Saturday, December 6th, we are doing pictures with Santa in our office. It's a free event. We do ask that people RSVP so we know how to schedule the afternoon. And the first hour of this event is reserved for sensory friendly kids.

Deb (43:45)
Great. OK.

Have fun.

plan.

Avery Champagne, DC (44:04)
So a lot of kids can't go to the mall. They can't go to crowded places. So the first hour is only for kids with sensory ⁓ special needs. And last year we actually had five parents tell us these are our first pictures with Santa ever. And so that's Saturday, December 6th. If you find us on Instagram or Facebook, you'll see reminders and invitations. And we're always here to answer questions and help people live a healthier life.

Deb (44:04)
That's wonderful.

too much.

Mm-hmm.

That is ⁓

Perfect.

Avery Champagne, DC (44:34)
So you could call us at 360-489-0973. Find us online, Radiant Health Care Practic. Shoot us emails, call us, leave us voicemails. Let's help our community out.

Deb (44:47)
Yeah, that's amazing. I love that. I love that sensory friendly because it is a resource that is not, you know, going to Santa is so hard for some kids. ⁓ I would have appreciated that with my little one. that's wonderful.

Avery Champagne, DC (44:56)
Yeah. ⁓ And

I almost forgot next month, so in about a month from today, we're doing a patient appreciation week. We are raising canned food for the Thurston County Food Bank. So all of our patients who are already patients,

Deb (45:08)
cool.

Great.

Avery Champagne, DC (45:16)
Instead of paying for their adjustment that week, they're bringing us a big bag of canned food. And for any community members that aren't patients or have never been here, if they wanted to schedule an entire new patient exam, it's usually a little over $200. But if they brought us a bunch of canned food and $50, that's the price of their exam. So we just want to donate as much as we can to the Thurston County Food Bank. That's November 17th.

Deb (45:39)
Amazing. Yeah.

Perfect. Awesome. We need that right now okay. Well, great. We have ways to get ahold of you. And did you have anything else going on you wanted to share for your offices?

Avery Champagne, DC (45:45)
through the 21st.

I had such a blast today. I can't wait to do this again. And thank you so much for having me on.

Deb (45:59)
Yes. Yeah,

thank you so much for being here. ⁓ We do have a couple other topics on your list, so I definitely want to get those on the books as soon as possible. So I appreciate you so much. Thank you so much.

Avery Champagne, DC (46:10)
You got it. I'll see you soon, Deb.

Deb (46:13)
Thank you so much. I'm going

Avery Champagne, DC (46:13)
see you soon, Deb.

Deb (46:19)
Okay, let's all just take a deep breath. This conversation was a reminder that your nervous system isn't broken. It's just doing the best it can. And it's really trying to keep you safe in the world that rarely slows down for new mothers. Here are the key takeaways I hope that you hold on to. Postpartum anxiety and overwhelm aren't just in your head. They're deeply rooted in your body and your nervous system.

Sleep deprivation, nutrition, birth trauma, and constant stress can keep your brain stuck in go mode. True healing comes from building health, not just managing symptoms, exactly what Dr. Champagne talks about in root causes. And lastly, simple body-based practices like deep breathing, gentle movement, cold water face dips, laughter,

and chiropractic support can help you calm your system

remind your body that it's episode lit a spark for you, check out Dr. Champagne's book, Root Causes, and learn more about his work at rootcauses.net. You can also find him at Radiant Health Chiropractic in Lacey, Washington. And if you're local, don't miss his Dinner with the Doctor events or their upcoming Sensory Friendly Pictures with Santa.

I mean, how cute is that? And as always, if you're in the thick of postpartum life and feeling like your nervous system's running the show, come find me at douladeb.com for virtual support, sleep consulting, or my first year support program. You deserve rest, regulation, and a reminder that you're doing an amazing job. Thank you so much for tuning into Doula Talk. And if you love this conversation, please share it with a friend who needs a little nervous system love.

And don't forget to hit so you never miss an episode.