Alison Mitchell Naturopath

Yesterday I attended the Paediatrics in Practice Summit put together by Sonya Reynolds . Nutritionist . Epilepsy . Keto
It was a great day filled with learning and catching up with friends
As I work with a lot of family’s I was excited to fine tune my skills in working with children, especially some of the more gnarly issues like PANS and ARFID

The sessions included functional assessments, allergies, PANS, ADHD, babies microbiome and ARFID. Check out my Facebook posts for more in depth highlights of what was discussed during the day

Fifth session is all about microbiome impacts. If you know me you’d appreciate how much I enjoyed this session.
Interesting tidbits:
• There is a respiratory microbiome but there isn’t much known about it yet
• If you could weight all your microbes it would be 1-2kg
• The balance of your immune system – the interplay of your Th1, Th2 and Th17 cells are developed by exposure to microbes in the environment. When a baby is born they are predominately Th2 dominant which is mostly allergy dominant and balance is shaped by response to bacteria and fungi. This allows the babies immune system to grow and develop so they are less dependant on the immune factors and defence proteins within breastmilk.
• The diversity of the babies microbiome is initially very small, and with breastfeeding and the babies exploration of a microbial rich world this develops the microbial diversity.
• There is a significant reduction in hospitalisation of babies who are breastfed for gastrointestinal infections.
• Babies born via c-section show a different microbiome to those born vaginally without antibiotics during labour, however there are various things that can influence the microbiome to ‘catch up’ with those babies born vaginally. Some of those things included having an older sibling, having cats at home, or being born in a rural area.
• In children whose microbiome did not ‘restore’ there is a strong association with increased rates of food allergies, asthma and atopic dermatitis.

Kid’s can’t behave well if they don’t feel well. And there can be a myriad of reasons why this is the case. While I believe that neurodivergence is a brain type, there are so many things that make symptoms worse, also you can have symptoms of ADHD appear only at some times, so finding out what is out of balance is so important.
The fourth session discussed functional and conventional testing.

Testing in babies and children is not the same as adults and needs to be interpreted appropriately.

Some interesting facts :
- In breastfed babies there are some nutrients that are reflective of the mothers stores so we can test the mother to get an indication of the babies status.
- Iron level issues can contribute towards issues such as concentration, sleep difficulty, tics/tourettes but if you are not interpreting it correctly it can show up as fine, because inflammation can cause ferritin to look higher than it is
- Paediatric thyroid issues are on the rise
- Coeliac disease can present with no gut symptoms

The different type of testing options that were discussed included blood tests, HTMA, methylation testing, microbiome testing and organic acid testing.

The third session of the day discussed ADHD. I’ve written a lot of content about ADHD before so don’t have much new to add, so will share some of my recent posts about ADHD if you would like to learn more about a naturopathic approach to ADHD.

How a Neurodivergent-Affirming Naturopath Supports ADHD – Addressing the root causes of ADHD symptoms • Alison Mitchell Naturopath If you’ve ever felt like the conventional way ADHD is talked about doesn’t quite sit right with you—you’re not alone. At my clinic, we take a neurodivergent-affirming approach, which means we don’t view ADHD as something “wrong” that needs to...

Second session of the day is about PANS (paediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome) with Lisa Moane The Paediatric Naturopath.
It's not a well known issue but it's sadly too common.

Imagine that your child is completely fine one day, and then all of a sudden there's an extreme shift - there's an abrupt and dramatic onset of anxiety / separation anxiety, OCD, aggression, tics or other gait issues, sleep problems, bladder problems, food restriction (ARFID-like) and issues with cognition and ability to function at school. Not a conclusive list, and it doesn't always present with all the symptoms.

This conditions is largely driven by infections of various origin e.g Step, Mycoplasma, Lyme or mould toxicity and there is a strong inflammatory response in the brain.

How does a naturopath support it?
- Identify the trigger and treat accordingly
- Address gut health, of course
- Look at diet - keep blood sugar levels stabilised to prevent neurological flare, add in foods rich with healing compounds, feed gut microbiome, limit triggering foods
- Support methylation
- Reduce inflammation

Today I am attending the Paediatrics in Practice seminar and I will be sharing some key learning points throughout the day with you.
I love working with kids so keen to expand and refresh my knowledge in many common areas that kids need naturopathic support in - allergies, PANS/PANDAS, eating issues, ADHD and learning about the new options for functional testing for kids.

To start the day the first session is about allergies with Emma Sutherland

Key points from the session:
Look at the Predisposing, Precipitating and perpetuating factors that drive a heightened allergic response

Naturopathic support for allergic kids:
Look at the whole system addressing the body systems that are involved. This might be the nervous system, methylation and nutritional status, it might be gut health (gut health is actually a major one). There is so much that be can done to support babies immune health by working with mother if still pregnant/breastfeeding.

“In the GIT, the microbiome has been proven to be important in developing either effector or tolerant responses to different antigens by balancing the activities of Th1 and Th2 cells. Thus, the microbiome can be considered a therapeutical target for treating inflammatory diseases, such as allergy.” Microbiome and Allergies PMID: 30065721