Spotlight Series
Guest Name: Lesha Nelson
Credentials: OTR/L – Pre and Perinatal Craniosacral + Somatic Practitioner
Lesha Nelson: awesome thank you so much
Dr. Betty DeLass: yes hey Lesha is a pre- and perinatal somatic practitioner Advanced craniosacral therapist occupational therapist and postpartum doula she specializes in somatic trauma resolution and bodywork for preconception through postpartum including newborn care she trains birth workers on topics such as attachment nervous systems and trauma-informed Care currently she is a teaching assistant for the center of pre and perinatal programs supporting mental health practitioners and midwives to deep in their education climatic trauma resolution and birth her work is rooted in the nervous system healing and attachment Theory to address mind body and spirit to have worked for over 15 years in trauma informed care empowering people with evidence-based practices as well as the tools they need to learn to listen to their own intuition and deep body wisdom oh amazing stuff right so right off the what made you decide to get in this line of work like how did how did this transpire
Lesha Nelson: it’s been such a journey and especially because you know I’m a lifelong learner and will always be a lifelong learner so I keep being like Oh I’m an occupational therapist oh I’m a craniosacral therapist oh I do pre perinatal somatic so it’s been a long journey and I just kind of fell into occupational therapy uh at the time I really wanted to go to graduate school I knew I wanted to be in the health field and I landed on occupational therapy because I felt like it was a very good bridge between medical world and medical understanding because there’s definitely a foot in that area but it also really looked at the whole body and encompassed spirituality and spirit sometimes as well and I really liked how it encompassed both and it we were kind of the bridge in the hospital between the person and the medical providers so that’s how I landed in occupational therapy and I worked in locally in inpatient neuro rehab for years loved neuro and really got a great understanding of the brain the body nervous system and I happened to get a job at Primary Children’s on plant they had an opening I had a friend say I know you love neuro stuff I really think you should come up to primary and work with me and I was like no no no no I don’t work with kids I don’t I don’t do babies babies scare me this is not my area um and about the same time I was just starting to learn some craniosacral therapy techniques through an organization called The Upledger Institute and at my interview at Primary Children’s I told them well I do craniosacral therapy and they were like you’re hired and I was kind of like well I don’t I don’t know if I want to be hired I don’t know if I want this um so they had me come in and Shadow for a day and within the first hour I was like oh my God I love this this is just where I want to be working with the kids and with babies and in that environment was just amazing it was one of the best jobs I ever could have asked for had and um so that’s kind of what opened the door to Pediatrics itself and and to working on infants and newborns and they approached me and said we love that you do craniosacral therapy but Lesha basically you need we need on file that you’ve had training specifically for Pediatrics so I was like okay I’ll go get my pediatric craniosacral therapy training and did the Pediatric courses and did the pregnancy courses and the newborn courses within the Upledger Institute and that is what opened the door to me working with pregnancies and with babies and I’m so so lucky because I just was able to immediately start putting into practice the craniosacral therapy techniques to every client I saw up at Primary Children’s and every age every baby every um from very complex medical trauma to very simple trauma or medical issues I was always incorporating craniosacral therapy into my practice and kind of grew my own practice on the side at the same time and a couple lactation Consultants found out excuse me that I do craniosacral therapy and I work on babies and they started sending me babies to my private practice and it just grew it exploded at the time this was probably 10 years ago I was one of the only I think honestly the only one in the valley that did craniosacral therapy on on kids
Dr. Betty DeLass: I know
Lesha Nelson: and babies and so my practice just grew really fast and made the hard decision to stop working at Primary Children’s and just focus on my independent my own practice and have eventually then opened that up into more somatic processing and somatic work as well with pregnancy and and really made the decision in 2020 with Covid I think a lot of us went through some soul searching and some big changes at that time and really decided I am going to only focus on on pregnancy and birth and postpartum and newborn like I’m I’m not I was still seeing other other things like back pain and concussion and and I decided to filter that out and just be like this is what I’m doing this is what brings me the most joy and I really followed that
Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing incredible story for you all that so what do you feel like Makes You Different in the line of work that you do
Lesha Nelson: I really feel what makes me different is the fact that I do have all these separate trainings and I kind of pull in each each of the different pieces and so someone might come to me with a newborn and we’re doing craniosacral therapy someone might come to me because they’re pregnant and we might be doing some somatic processing or craniosacral therapy or occupational therapy even sometimes looking at you know what are their activities of daily living or are they are they happy with with what they’re doing in their life and I really just trust each person will get what they need whether it’s craniosacral whether it is more somatic whether it’s the blend of both um and a lot of my pre-imperial somatic training we look at the baby’s experience so that education we specifically go in and look at our own births and what that was like for us from preconception through postpartum for us as babies and going through that process and feeling that in my own body really created an understanding and awareness of the baby’s experience and so that’s a really unique approach for for someone to come into my office that when I am working with an infant I’m really looking at their birth as to what they went through and whether it was like a fascial restriction or a strain or a stress or a trauma how to work with a nonverbal human working through trauma is is very different and very unique in my line of work
Dr. Betty DeLass: incredible incredible um hey so given all this great information who is an ideal fit for you to come in obviously newborn babies moms things like that are there’s certain ones that you’re like these people really need this or like kind of give us that that scope of like who’s the ideal person to come in and see you
Lesha Nelson: yeah I think you know having an understanding that the way I work and the way somatics works is that someone that just wants to lay on my table and not participate doesn’t really work for me sometimes we need that sometimes in a once in a blue moon we’re doing some craniosacral and the mom or the birthing person just really needs a nap and needs to check out and I I get that but whether it’s you’re preparing for pregnancy or you’re processing your birth most times there’s conversation and there’s there’s talking and so someone that wants to work with me needs to understand that like we’re talking and we’re we’re doing processing work and we’re getting in tune with our body so just having an understanding that mindbody Spirits connected and that’s the type of client that that I think is great and that has that belief or or wants to work towards that that whole body connection
Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing yeah I love that I think that’s super important to like know what you’re getting into and what you need to be prepared for for the type of services you’re going to receive so awesome okay what does the process look like to work for you so like say someone listening here they’re like I want to work with Lesha how do they work with you
Lesha Nelson: yeah so anyone can go to my website book a session that’s easy um I offer quite a array of services and offerings so whether it’s one session and you come into my office and you do one session um whether that’s for pregnancy whether that’s for your newborn whether that’s for you and postpartum I also offer packages of sessions of 12 and so if someone wants to do deeper work and I’m really open that say that package of 12 like right now that package of 12 I’m working with Mom and Dad because they both wanted sessions and sometimes I’ve done like mom and baby in that package of 12 so there’s a lot of flexibility there um and then I also do some inhome postpartum doula care and I put that in quotes because it’s more or less me coming to your home uh in the early postpartum period to do body work in home and whether so that you don’t have to come to the office and those are in packages as well but it’s really focusing on the birthing person staying home and not having to leave to go to appointments and so and those can look like I’m working on baby I’m working on mom we’ll do um sometimes we do Yoni steaming sometimes we’re doing an abdominal massage it’s just really catered to the birth itself and what the person wants and desires so all of that um I have a free 30 minute consult consultation call people can set up with me people can text me texting is like honestly amazing because it’s quick and I can text between clients so the best way to contact me is my website text me jump on call with me jump on a phone call pretty open
Dr. Betty DeLass: awesome awesome okay now we’re going to switch gears and talk a little bit more recovery so what does recovery mean in your put ethos from pregnancy to postpartum and that transition whether that’s for Mom or baby just dive into that
Lesha Nelson: yeah so after just found that every baby is different and one sometimes a baby needs one session and it kind of depends what’s going on um I honestly think every baby could benefit even from one session post birth and research has shown and osteopathic research has shown that something like 80% of babies have an issue at the cranial base and see1 post birth and that’s just normal and that if we can address that right away it can lead to better outcomes for latching and for attachment and for sleeping and so of course I’m like every baby should just have one session um and then sometimes there’s some some birth trauma um so whether there’s forceps used or suction or um I’ve heard and seen so many things that I don’t want to trigger your viewers and your listeners but sometimes those babies need a little bit more support and some signs might be like they’re just fussy they won’t settle they seem uncomfortable in their body um yeah they’re just they’re like tight and sometimes people be like oh my baby’s so strong it’s holding its head up and it’s rolling over and it’s two days old and I’m like that’s not strong that’s tight so those are some things to kind of watch for and um usually after one session I can get a sense of like yeah we need one or two three sessions most babies do not need more than four or five sessions sometimes if a baby is having oral restrictions which is happening more and more these days which is where there’s tightness in the mouth or sometimes the tongue is tied with this frenulum or the lips tied or we’re starting to see a lot of cheek ties we’re starting to see a lot of mouth breathing and narrow really narrow palates and that is in hinder that’s hindering a lot of latch and relationship and connection issues
Dr. Betty DeLass: do you know why that’s happening this is not scripted on here but I was like why is that happening why are there’s more of this happening
Lesha Nelson: yeah there’s a couple different theories about that and and I just kind of I have some that I’m like yeah that resonates and I’ll maybe I’ll share the ones that resonate but I don’t know if this is happening more I actually think this was happening for my generation it just wasn’t caught um I you know piecing all this together and knowing my body now I have a very small palate it’s narrow it’s shortened um I have a subtle line down the center of my mouth it’s my two bones kind of formed this is drastic but they kind of formed like this instead of like this which can happen from bottle feeding in appropriate latch from sucking pacifier use which was all me I wasn’t breastfed very long because my mom got mastitis so I had a lip tie that I Burst when I was eight so all of these things I think this was already happening we just didn’t know and when I was born I’m in my 40s it was actually pushed upon more to do bottle feeding it was a lot more about like women working in women Independence and and not that’s not happening now but the push more now is for breastfeeding and so we’re seeing these issues and I’ll just drop the name Dr. Weston Price there’s a really good book by him it was written in 1930 it’s like a textbook very boring to read but he was a dentist that that basically said in the I don’t know what year he basically predicted this happening what’s happening now which our Jaws are shrinking our palates are getting smaller we’re having very a lot of teeth Decay and a lot of teeth issues and we’re seeing oral restrictions and he was off by like 30 years um it’s happened later than when he said it would but basically his book comes down to nutrition and what we’re feeding and what we’re eating and our mineral depletion and so we know that if you have lack of vitamin K that can actually lead to smaller palates and jaw issues and that’s like just one small nutritional thing and when we look at our mouth and our teeth health we actually need to look at our maternal line grandmothers so when I think about my maternal line and my grandmother I look at her health and what she was eating and what was happening in her life um and I’m like oh yeah no wonder I’m minerally depleted like no wonder I’m having these issues and I grew up of and on vegetarian for many many years so like there’s just this whole mineral depletion thing happening that’s affecting the shape of our heads and our skulls and our mouths and and I say this and people are like oh no but it’s super reversible like Weston Price reversed it in he has one case study where one a mother had six children to she ate the indigenous foods of her culture and it was a lot of like meat and dairy and no processed foods beautiful teeth beautiful structure you can see all the pictures the next two kids she fed them canned foods and it was about the time that the Army was starting to supplement certain tribes in the area so she was eating all processed foods their teeth rotted before they were like 12 their jaws were like super recessed and so the mom was like well I’m going to go back to my indigenous foods and went back to her landbased foods and the next two sums were back to like healthy teeth and really strong jaw
Dr. Betty DeLass: wow wow that’s incredible I’m not surprised right I’m not surprised at all okay so next question is what is something I feel like you just like pulled out millions of these things what is something that most people don’t know that you think that they should know about what you do
Lesha Nelson: yeah I think it goes back to just really understanding what pre-imperial work is and encompassing pre-imperial work we’re looking at our own births so and how our own births are are really important in the relationship between the births of our children and that our own births are also predicted by you know we’re we’re in this generational line and things that happened many years back that we might not even know about can show up in our current birth and so just starting to understand and look the way I treat and the way I think about things is like what is happening in the whole field not just your body and your birth how that affects your child and your baby’s birth but also like what’s happening back here and and what’s this whole that whole piece and bringing that into treatment into practice and understanding that
Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing amazing okay thank you um next question is is there anything you special that you want to promote to the audience and that can be anything that’s you want to say
Lesha Nelson: yeah so I kind of started this this thing and and it’s it’s slow going I think it’s just kind of getting some momentum but the number one thing I hear from women in my office and new moms in my office is that they want a community and they’re they’re looking for community and you know I see different providers doing things throughout the areas I know Community is happening but it’s a I’m trying to like funnel it into a place where it’s like easy to see the different activities in the groups and so I started a WhatsApp group for anyone anyone in preconception to postpartum with the focus of just getting to know like other moms in the area other birthing people in the area other activities mostly like Gatherings and circles and um it’s a way to promote some more community and it’s been good it’s anyone’s welcome it’s slow but I just I was trying to find a way for moms and birthing people that don’t want to be on Facebook and Instagram and because that’s the way that we often providers like us share our information and share about our classes and our courses and so I’m trying to not use social media in that way and still create community so WhatsApp was my solution um Al I can share that with you it’s just a WhatsApp group that anyone can join and I’m always telling people like tell people about it if providers want to be involved with me right now there’s me and another Doula just recently joined to like kind of help share what’s out there and hold that space if anyone wants to start to be involved in that to share their stuff or like wants to support this community with me right now I’m like I’m doing this alone but I want some help
Dr. Betty DeLass: you know you you know I’m in right you know I’m in soend send me the WhatsApp awesome thank you for sharing that that’s a really exciting thing um and then my last question the one question I love asking everyone is what is the thing that you want to be known for
Lesha Nelson: yeah that’s a that’s a hard question it’s like it’s the same question as like if you had a stage and a megaphone what would you tell people it’s like I don’t know um yeah I really think the it I mean I include craniosacral in this when I say this but but really that pre-imperial somatics and educating and working with people with their own births to really help lead to better birth outcomes of Their Own children like I really my dream and my goal is just to have better birth outcomes in a world right now that is so full of birth trauma and I want to be known to support support people that are that have had experienced birth trauma to work through that or want to prevent birth trauma and that’s that’s really what I want to be known for
Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing amazing okaya where can we find you website social media all the things WhatsApp list it all
Lesha Nelson: yep so my website’s my name leshanelson.com Lesha is L E S H A and Nelson N E L S O N um my website if you go to my website it has like an email and a phone number and you can find me through there I am also on Instagram as Lesha Nelson and um the WhatsApp group is called Nest and Nurture and maybe contact Betty too because maybe she’ll be a part of it but the Nest and Nurture WhatsApp group and if you want to be a part of that you can message me on Instagram or you can send me a message and I’ll send you the link to to be added to that community and I guess the last thing I’ll plug I have a a passion project I do I try to do once a month a podcast it’s called Nurturing Resilience and I just share resiliency stories information it’s a very broad podcast but it’s a lot of fun
Dr. Betty DeLass: amazing amazing well thank you so much for jumping on the spotlight series with us thank you for your time and thank you for what you’re doing in our community this is so fun I’ll see you soon though
Lesha Nelson: yeah thank you so much for doing the spotlight Series this is awesome