Airway-Centered Orthodontics and Low Tech Living: Root Cause Wellness with Dr. Maureen Kuhta

Sep 22

🎧 Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

What Is Airway-Centered Orthodontics?

In the first half of the episode, Dr. Kuhta explains what airway-centered orthodontics really means. Instead of focusing solely on cosmetics—like straight teeth—her practice looks at how jaw structure affects a child’s ability to breathe, sleep, and grow. She explains that mouth breathing, snoring, and sleep-disordered breathing are not just minor nuisances—they can be early signs of deeper health concerns.

She shares how expansion and interceptive care at younger ages can make a dramatic difference in long-term wellness and facial development. Parents will learn how behaviors like thumb sucking, soft-food diets, and even pacifier use can all contribute to narrow palates and airway issues.

Why Sleep (and Breath) Shape Everything

Dr. Kuhta reveals how disrupted sleep—often caused by mouth breathing or poor jaw posture—can mimic ADHD symptoms, affect emotional regulation, and hinder brain development. She walks us through the red flags to look out for in your child: open-mouth sleeping, restlessness at night, and dark circles under the eyes.

This section of the episode is packed with “ah-ha” moments for parents who might be wondering why their child struggles with focus, energy, or mood swings—despite getting a full night’s rest.

Root Cause Wellness Starts at Birth

One of the most practical parts of the episode? Dr. Kuhta shares her perspective on feeding babies and toddlers in a way that supports their jaw, teeth, and airway development. She makes a strong case for crunchy, fibrous foods, and touches on how modern baby-led weaning and long-term bottle use may affect mouth structure more than we realize.

Julianne and Dr. Kuhta also talk about tongue ties and how they affect not just feeding, but also speech, posture, and overall breathing function. It’s a must-listen for any parent navigating early childhood development with intention.

Life on a 12-Acre Farm: Raising Kids Without the Noise

In the final part of the episode, we shift from clinical to personal. Dr. Kuhta shares what it’s like raising four kids on a 12-acre former horse farm—complete with chickens, gardening, and nature-based rhythms.

She talks about the conscious decision to limit tech, slow down, and give her kids time to be outside, bored, and creative. This section is deeply relatable for families yearning for a simpler, more connected lifestyle—and provides a beautiful contrast to the fast-paced, high-pressure environments many families find themselves in today.

Travel, Adventure, and Letting Go of Control

Finally, the episode wraps up with Dr. Kuhta’s love for travel. She shares how her family balances running a medical practice with low-tech parenting and international adventures—including extended trips to places like Turkey and France with her children.

Julianne and Dr. Kuhta reflect on how these experiences fuel their children’s independence, curiosity, and worldview—and why giving kids space to explore (even when it’s uncomfortable for us as parents) is one of the most powerful tools we have.

Outdoorsy Challenge of the Week

This week’s challenge? Send your kids outside for at least an hour. Give them a backpack, some rope, and some tools. Let them get dirty, discover something new, or get completely bored.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Book: Breath by James Nestor

@untetheredairway on Instagram

Where you can find Dr. Kuhta:

https://www.alignedhouseofortho.com/

Instagram: @alignedhouseofortho

Facebook: Dr. Kuhta

Want the full episode? 🎧 Listen to EP 21: Airway-Centered Orthodontics and Low Tech Living: Root Cause Wellness with Dr. Maureen Kuhta

Julianne Nienberg (00:00)
Welcome to the My Outdoorsy Mom podcast. I'm your host, Julianne Nienberg, mom of three, backyard adventure enthusiast, and your go-to gal for making memories outside with your kids. This is your space to ditch the pressure of perfect and embrace simple, soul-filling time in nature that fits real family life. Each week, we'll talk motherhood, nature play, travel, and entrepreneurship with honest stories, practical tips, and guest conversations that'll feel like chatting with a friend.

Whether you're raising wild little explorers or building a business during nap time, I see you. So grab your coffee, toss some snacks in your bag, and let's make some memories. This is the My Outdoorsy Mom podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:38)
Today's guest is someone who is not only transforming smiles, but also transforming lives, starting with the way our kids breathe, sleep, and thrive. Dr. Maureen Kuta is a pediatric orthodontist, a mama for, and the founder of Aligned House of Orthodontics in Metro Detroit. She specializes in airway-centered orthodontics and takes a whole child root cause approach to treatment.

We're talking about sleep disordered breathing, mouth breathing, misdiagnoses, and how orthodontics can be a gateway to lifelong wellness and not just straight teeth. Plus we'll chat about her farm life, low tech parenting, and how she helps her kids connect to something bigger than themselves through nature and stillness. Dr. Kuta, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:18)
Hi, Julianne. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

I wanted to say that I've listened to every episode of your podcast so far. And I think anyone who's listening now needs to hit pause and download everything so they can listen to all of one. The most transformative one so far was the 15 minute summer prep. So thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:38)
You know what? Thank you so much for taking the time to do that. I have had such great feedback on the whole premise of just taking 15 minutes because I think it feels so achievable. And I can't wait to dive in to you and not only your clinical experience, but also just your family life because you, think just from following you over the years, I know you and your family kind of embody this whole wellness.

lifestyle that I really love and have appreciated following along. And so I wanted to dive into your background and ultimately, what led you to create Aligned House of Orthodontics? And when was it that you realized pediatric airway centered orthodontics was it for you?

Speaker 1 (02:18)
It's a really good question. And for me, what it comes down to is once you have kids and you're really trying to approach everything from a root cause standpoint, I realized that a lot of orthodontics wasn't doing that and have been practicing over a decade. And I keep seeing kids who are sicker and sicker. And for me, what that looks like is children who

cannot breathe, have really inflamed tissues, tonsils, adenoids, and aren't functioning at their optimal level of health. And so once I started understanding the research and how orthodontics and airway are totally interconnected, and really once I had a few cases under my belt and I really changed some kids' lives and therefore some families' lives, it was like a switch that got flipped and I couldn't look back.

And it's something that I really spend all of my free time at work kind of researching more and digging into because I'm really passionate about what's possible. And at the end of the day, people have to know what's possible and what's out there. And I think that anyone who's in airway orthodontics or airway dentistry, that's our ultimate mission is to educate people so that the right people can collaborate for their kid, for themselves.

so that we can increase the quality of care.

Speaker 2 (03:49)
I know you treat not only families in Metro Detroit, but I remember when we came to you, I was so just blown away by your depth of knowledge and airway because as a parent, I had had some red flags with my own children. I thought something is not right. I think that there are so many parents and moms who take a look at their children, whether it's from an orthodontic standpoint, but they have this gut feeling like something is not right. If you were to give any advice,

to parents who are kind of waffling between, do I get an orthodontics consult or an airway? What are some red flags or symptoms that parents can be looking out for that might flip the switch for them to seek an airway centered orthodontic practice?

Speaker 1 (04:32)
That's a great question. And I want to start with the bigger why there because what's most important that parents understand is we want the best possible airway at the youngest possible age. Not every kid. You're right. Not every kid needs this airway centered type of care because they don't have any symptoms that we're trying to address. However,

When you ask about the symptoms, the big kind of the top ones that we want to take into consideration are snoring and mouth breathing. No amount of snoring or mouth breathing is considered normal. A lot of times what parents will tell me is, ⁓ it's only sometimes or it's only in the car. It's only when they're positioned one way. It's a cat purr. It's really cute. And then they'll get their phone out and they'll show me. And I'm like, ugh, that's snoring ⁓ or mouth breathing.

They'll say they don't mouth breathe during the day, but they mouth breathe all night. If you hear me say anything in this podcast, parents listening, it's this, any snoring or mouth breathing will change how your child's brain is developing. And the key is that is reversible. And so that's why we're so passionate about educating parents. And when it comes back to that timeframe of best possible airway at the youngest possible age,

what you have to remember is just like everything with kids in growth and development, their brain is really growing and forming. And we want that brain to have good, restful sleep, getting into REM sleep. And the peak ages for that is six and under. So if you have a child who has any of those symptoms we mentioned, right, the snoring, the mouth breathing, even I like to highlight really funny bites. Some parents will say, they've always had an under bite or

Open bites where they can't bite into food because their teeth don't come together in the front or jaws that are really set back. Those are all things that I would start to look at on really young patients. And that would be a reason for you to seek the care of someone who's at least open-minded to looking at kind of this whole child approach, not just looking at their teeth and not just looking at their bite. We're trying to understand why the bite has forms like that.

if Airway is involved and then what are our action steps to be able to correct for that? Does that answer your question?

Speaker 2 (06:50)
Absolutely, and I wanted to add on, speaking from our own experience when you talk about mouth breathing and again, as a parent, I didn't know what I didn't know and it took me seeking a professional who is specialized in this to realize that, my child's chapped lips were a result, chronic chapped lips were a result from open mouth breathing and it wasn't until I started going into this research and trying to understand,

Why is my child always have chapped lips? Well, it's not because they're licking their lips all the time, which I'm sure that also didn't help, but it was because they were in fact open mouth breathing throughout the night. I joke about this, parents, sometimes we get woken up by our children in the middle of the night. They want to come crawl into bed with us. One of the best things that I've ever done is sleep with my children to better understand.

how they're sleeping and how they're breathing through the night. I know every parent is like, no, I want them in their own bed. Or some folks really embrace the whole ⁓ experience of sleeping with their children in bed. But that's been one of the most telling experiences for me as a mother is to sleep with every single one of my children at some point. Sometimes it's when they're sick. Sometimes it's been when they're healthy, just so I know how they're sleeping and what types of behaviors or what types of habits.

they're forming or that have been created and that occur in the night when I'm typically not seeing them, right? Things like grinding their teeth, open mouth breathing, snoring, teeth clenching, all of those things. So I know a lot of parents are wanting to have their own night of restful sleep, but that's been a really telling experience for me as a mom to better understand where my kids are in terms of just airway health overall. And one of the reasons I love,

your root cause approach with children is that there's a lot of times I think you can speak to this is parents are coming to you with not just airway concerns, but it also leads to the path of things like inability to focus, right? Inattention. We're seeing more and more children who do have sleep disordered breathing, but they're presenting in the classroom as like inability to focus.

Attention difficulties. So from a clinical standpoint, how does that kind of all intertwine with one another?

Speaker 1 (09:12)
Really good question and I want to start with answering. For anybody who quickly doesn't know how these two things are correlated, I think this, I'm going to try to put a visual picture in your mind. So the upper jaw is the maxilla, the upper jaw is the palate and the teeth. And so if we're going to have, actually I have one visual you can use here. Okay. So it's the palate, it's the teeth. It also forms the nasal cavity.

So your upper jaw, your kid's upper jaw, that is what forms the volume of the nasal passage. And so over time, part of evolution, part of our diet, there's a lot of, that's a whole nother podcast, jaws have been getting smaller. Therefore nasal passages have been getting smaller. And it's estimated now that one in four kids will have sleep-disordered breathing. We have to think of sleep-disordered breathing as a spectrum, just like we do hypertension or diabetes.

someone is always pre-diabetic, always pre-hypertensive. And so we're trying to catch those kids who are at the beginning of that sleep disorder breathing journey before they hit apnea at 30, at 40, at 50. And so recognizing we're not finding problems, we're reacting to our environment, which has changed how we have grown, which has therefore changed airways. So now going back to thinking of how that's correlated to behavior and growth and development, it's really important because

When we get into REM sleep, our hormones are reset. Our brain is restoring and it's repairing. And we have these kiddos out there who sometimes they have 10 to 15 apnea episodes an hour, which means one apnea episode means that child stops breathing for 10 seconds. Now I want everybody in their life to picture a three-year-old that they know and put that three-year-old on the bottom of a pool right now and count to 10.

Every time I do that, it gives me the full goosebumps because I would never let that happen to my child. But we have kids that are having those episodes 15 to 30 times an hour. So you tell me what happens to that child's brain. We know that it changes how that brain starts to form. And so the part of the brain that's most affected is the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that's helping someone with their social emotional behavior, their regulation, their attention, their focus.

And the other big thing is growth hormone. And so it's not uncommon. Can I tell a story really quick? Because I had a mom last week in the practice and she had been in treatment for 10 weeks and she's in the dental field. So she comes in a little hesitant, like, I don't know what this airway stuff, but I think we've got to do it. And we start treatment on her son with an expander. And I saw her last week and she had tears in her eyes as she was telling me that.

Speaker 2 (11:44)
Absolutely, please do.

Speaker 1 (12:05)
Just in the 10 weeks of wearing the expander, her son stopped snoring and stopped mouth breathing. He grew three inches and he was totally starting to wean off of some medication that he was on because she said it was like a light switch went on because I knew he was sleeping and it wasn't the, there are two things that can happen. Someone can still be neurodivergent and have ADD and have sleep disorder breathing. But then there are some kids who just have the one.

And they kind of miss present as someone who has ADD when it really is just more of that their brain isn't getting into rest. And that was this child. So when she saw him getting into that rested state, ⁓ the pediatrician was okay with her starting to wean on some of the medications that he was on. And even the gym teacher called her and said, what have you done with this kid? Because he went from sitting on the sidelines in gym class to winning the first grade race just in that short time. Like tell me that doesn't change someone's life and forever that kid's life will be changed.

And that mom saying, you know, had we not kind of dug a little deeper to understand how this was all connected, we would have never been here. And even her little bit of disbelief, I remember sitting in that console and she's like, whatever, let's do it. And then she was like, I'm going to hand out this referral to everybody because it just takes one kid like that for you to change your entire perspective and how you treat.

Speaker 2 (13:21)
Absolutely. And you know, I know that you and I are in a lot of the same community groups and I can't tell you, I'm sure you see it just how many, how many comments, questions I see on a daily basis, weekly basis of mothers concerned about their children who are presenting with, social and emotional regulation difficulties, attention difficulties and

I think because there's several of us now, there's a whole community of us that see you as a practitioner. There are so many more comments advocating for, well, have you checked? Have you gone to see an airway specialized orthodontist? And all it takes really is just for one person to tell you, I feel like there's so many times when parents go straight to medication or straight to therapy. And what I've learned in talking to a variety of practitioners, there is so much

that we can do to advocate for our child that incorporates several of these healthcare practitioners. I know I've spoken with you and gotten our speech therapist involved because there was so much involved in my child's tongue tie and the positioning of their tongue and their tongue lacking control and strength, right? Because he had a tongue tie ultimately that was then also impacting his airway. And so I think sometimes

Parents, moms, if you're listening, if you have any, any feeling in your gut that something is not right with your child as it relates to their behavior or to their sleeping, but to consider seeing an airway specialist because more often than not, you you, know you've been helpful in pointing ⁓ parents in whatever direction they need to go, so much, so many times I feel like airway is just, like you said, disregarded as.

And people, ultimately, they kind of want sometimes a quick fix. They want to know that if their child has a problem, that they can do something, take something. And this isn't a quick fix, because tell us about expansion. I can speak from experience. I've had two kids now go through expansion. But it's not just like an overnight thing, right? Although sometimes the benefits kids can see and families can see right away. But it can take several months for the pallet to expand.

Speaker 1 (15:33)
It can. And I think it's important to top line this part of the conversation by saying, oftentimes there are teams that are created to care for this child. And so that's where kind of working with an airway centered orthodontist is important because they often have those teams in place where once I get my 3d image of your child's airway, I can say, Hey, let's rule out ENT or we should touch base with the ENT. Let's connect with a speech or a myofunctional therapist, or let's start with expansion.

Once we have that team created, we can start to understand where to start. And it's important to note that oftentimes these kiddos, the care is multifactorial. You can have someone who has allergies, who has a lot of body inflammation from food, from their environments, if they're sleeping in a room with mold or lack of air filters. So we want to look at that full picture and

Typically, treatment starts with an expander because we're trying to normalize and widen the upper jaw and open up their nasal passage. And that active part of the expander is around three to four months. Now I've had people report in those 10 weeks that they've noticed significant changes. Other kids, it takes multiple appliances to get that same effect. And then we also need to incorporate some work with an ENT because tissue isn't going down.

There's one important study I want to highlight here for anyone who's considering working with an ENT. the ENT they say is their job in an airway case is to clean out the tissue. The orthodontist, our job is to make that box of the airway bigger. So picture a coffee straw filled with Play-Doh. The ENT is going to go in there and scoop the Play-Doh out.

I'm going to take that coffee straw and change it to a smoothie size straw, like a bigger straw. And so a lot of parents will come to me already having done the EMT work, but because nothing was structurally made bigger, their kids still snores and mouth breathes. And the research shows, this is a pretty recent study within the last few years, that around 65 to 70 % of kids who have expansion tonsils and adenoids will go down in size.

So when we have parents who don't want to jump to surgery and want to try to understand maybe why this inflammation started in their child's airway with the tissue, it's always a good starting point if we don't have an obstruction to consider expansion because again, it's a non-surgical option that could help someone's tissue go down in size.

Speaker 2 (18:14)
how old is too old to work on this, I think you mentioned earlier, there's kind of a sweet spot that we want to be in when we talk about evaluating, assessing. Is there a point where a child might be too far gone?

Speaker 1 (18:27)
It's not that the child is necessarily too far gone. We just might have to do a little bit more heavy lifting with how we can get some corrective appliances in. So I have had good success and would be really willing to treat kind of 14 years and younger. Once we've got 14 and above, then we might have to consider expansion appliances that require some anchoring into the bone.

And once we have maybe like an 18 and up, because I do see adults in my practice, then we're, doing a little bit more surgical considerations. But again, we are trying to understand if a recommendation is going to help someone's airway. And every single patient who has had kind of a surgical correction, if you will, would tell you that it's changed their life. And so with my experience in the last decade, seeing so many adults, what I'm trying to do is

prevent all of the kids that I see now from ever getting to that point.

Speaker 2 (19:28)
So one thing that you mentioned earlier, I'm just talking about, you know, kind of the evolution of our, of the shape and structure of our mouths and our palates. Why do you think so many kids need orthodontic work today? I ⁓ had a question from a follower ask, is it because of diet changes? Is it because of the way that we eat and we get our food? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. ⁓

Speaker 1 (19:51)
It's both. And there was a lot of research done. So the school that I went to, University of Pennsylvania, there's a big anthropology department there. And actually a lot of the research kind of was founded in this collection of skulls that they have. And there's something that we're not going to like, which is a lot of this started with the industrial revolution when women entered the workforce. am a working mom. So.

I say this with love to all of us, but what they realize is in that transition of women to the workforce, it stopped a lot of breastfeeding and it changed the stigma around breastfeeding. And that was a little bit of the first tipping point where there was some more ⁓ bottle introduction. And again, I'm speaking as someone who I've had children, I've gone back to work, I've pumped, I've breastfed, I've bottle fed, I've done it all. I've used formula. ⁓

But if we think of kind of those prehistoric days, of course, the only way to feed a baby was by the breast. And that ability of a child to breastfeed and the way that it uses their tongue is different than anything else we can mimic with a bottle. And so that was kind of the first shift, if you went and you really dug into the research, that they'd say that was the tipping point of some shrinking in the anatomy. But we can combat that in how children eat.

because there are muscles of mastication, is mastication is how you chew, how you bite. And those muscles are all inserted into bones on the face. The more those muscles are used, they activate growth centers in the face. So the second big part, which sets kind of growth and development of faces and airways back was this kind of highly pureed diet that babies have been marketed and fed and you know,

As moms, we've got to get those pouches that are organic and $7 from Whole Foods. But now you have a 0 to 2-year-old who sucks on their food all day. They really lack that mastication, like the chewing, the biting, and those growth centers on their face aren't being activated in the same way. So a lot of us in the airway field, we don't do pouches. If you're going to do a pouch, I have pouches.

but it's like for an airplane. And if I do have a pouch out, I'm going to push it onto a spoon to feed to my child because you're really just trying to have any way that they can chew on things. So another big thing in our field for developing faces is kind of how we call it. Like the shorthand of us is like chew toys, little U shaped. And there's lots of brands. I don't want to mention brands because I'm not affiliated with anything, but anything that kids can chew on. Or if you're starting to think of kids who are eating, you really want to give them food that they have to chew.

like raw vegetables, beef, turkey, ⁓ all of those things that are going to really require them to get those muscles working. Because a lot of muscle issues as kids get older, it's lack of use, right? If you don't know how to chew food and mobilize your tongue and swallow properly, it can set you back in that tone in your mouth. And if you don't have the tone to keep your mouth closed, it can be really hard to keep your mouth closed while you're sleeping. And so I think it's recognizing

it's a totally unrealistic expectation to assume that A, every mother can or wants to or should be breastfeeding. But that was a little bit of a tipping point in history. And then once we got into that pureed diet that we've all just, I don't know, I feel like it's kind of been like a huge part of maybe like the 90s and 2000s. And now I think baby-led weaning has really taken off. And so maybe that distinction between those two ways of eating for kids is really important.

Speaker 2 (23:40)
I totally agree. mean, once I stopped to think about it, I realized you and I have grown up in this or become mothers in this era of pouches. mean, our parents weren't talking about pouches. And now, to your point, I have also seen a shift where we're going back to baby led weaning. So, you know, for my first and second.

for my first, especially, had no idea what I was doing. And I was kind of doing all the things, trying to figure out what worked in terms of feeding and hoping to feed my child nutritious whole foods. But there was a lot of pouches. ⁓ Once I got pregnant with my second, bring on the pouches. It was easy, was convenient, and especially during travel. And then by the time I got to my second and third, I started to incorporate more baby-led weaning. there's something to be said about allowing your child

to use those muscles in the jaw, right? It's like you use it or you lose it. And in that sense, when we're talking about children, if they're not ever introduced foods that allow them to work those muscles, I've seen it now with one of my children who's doing speech. It's just that poor tone in their tongue. They don't have the strength. They're now learning through exercises that we've been doing through speech pathology how to lift the tongue, how to move the tongue back and forth through the mouth.

So that is really interesting because moms were giving, their children, just regular food. And then this whole pouch revolution really came to the forefront. And yes, it's convenient. But I love how you talked about, promoting the use of those muscles through Whole Foods because

what a lot of moms, I think, get worried about in terms of choking hazards, right? With things like raw vegetables or beef jerky. And if you've ever been a mom who has done baby-led weaning, you're just constantly watching your child to make sure they're not choking. And you're also waiting for that gag reflex. You're like, OK, when do I intervene here But it can be really kind of terrifying to move towards that. But it's...

It's a great way for them to build those muscles in the jaw,

Speaker 1 (25:48)
Yes. And I think both of us want to say if that's something that you're interested in, you and I are not experts in that. would love for you to find a resource that will help introduce you to baby led weaning. But right now I have a one and I have like 20 month old and her two favorite snacks are beef jerky and raw celery. Raw celery is a really good one because you really can't break off a big piece of that, but they can suck it, they can get the juice and then all those strings are left. ⁓ And another one is I'll take long carrots and I'll kind of quarter them long ways that I know that

she's going to try to chew that. She's going to end up with a lot of it falling out of her mouth. But it's just really easy and honestly cheap ways to, try to do that little bit of extra work for your kids jaw development.

Speaker 2 (26:31)
So for parents who have young ones who are learning to feed from an orthodontic or ⁓ from an orthodontist standpoint, what are great foods to steer parents towards to help develop those muscles and what are foods to avoid? We've all kind of heard like avoid gummies, things like that. What would you recommend?

Speaker 1 (26:50)
cavities are two things in kids okay it is mouth breathing number one reason for kids with cavities is mouth breathing so to start there number two is carbohydrates it's the crackers it's the goldfish it's the snacking all day and so I am a stickler on this one in terms of my kids at home I think when you're thinking of I'm jumping into answering those avoid foods because

I get a consult every week where the parents are doing everything right. But when we start to dig into some of those hidden diet things, it's the fruit jerky's, it's the dried fruit. It's all of that sugar, whether it be fruit sugar or candy sugar, it's still sitting on the teeth. And it's really hard for a two year old to a five year old to use their tongue to get all of that out of their teeth. And it's the crackers. Typically it's a lot of goldfish, right? I mean, I feel like it's like every preschool, every daycare, every school snack, it's goldfish.

trying to avoid long periods of exposure where your kid is snacking seven times a day, because you're just introducing more carbohydrates, which break down into sugar, which sit on their teeth. None of us are brushing our kids' teeth seven times a day. I'm not brushing my kids' teeth in the middle of the day. That's very impractical. juice is another big one. had a kid.

who had 14 cavities and I said, what do you think home care is like? Is there a lot of juice in the diet? And the mom said, yeah, but only three or four times a day. That's still for context from someone kind of in the dental or orthodontic space, that's a lot of sugar. That's about a hundred grams of sugar that's being consumed that just sits on the teeth. So I think if I had a top three, it would be, have a zero juice tolerance policy in my home. Really the only time my kids will get a juice box is.

kind of those honest juice boxes, like after a sports meet, if someone brought that. The second is really trying to minimize crackers and kind of that carbohydrate snacky consumption. Try to replace it with a whole food, like a jerky, a fruit, a vegetable, a nut, a peanut butter, a nut butter. ⁓ The third being really those dried fruits, because it's just the same as like a pack of gummies. And again, those can be like special considerations, or like when my kids get Easter baskets, or

Santa feels their stocking and the holidays. Those are the times that we'll kind of introduce those items instead of candy. But I don't think it should be an everyday occurrence as much as I know how delicious they are and we all want to consume them.

Speaker 2 (29:14)
So Dr. Kuda, I loved learning that you now live on a 12 acre farm with four kids. And I know previously you were living closer to more of Metro Detroit, ⁓ more of an urban setting. Tell us about what that shift was like for your family and why you chose to move out to a 12 acre farm.

Speaker 1 (29:37)
So we have taken a big step in changing our environment. And it was really tricky because when the opportunity arose, I was building my practice where I work right now. I was building that about two miles from my existing home. So I had this fantasy of walking to work and biking. And after school, my kids would come see me at work. But then when all of us

entered the COVID pandemic and we were in tight quarters and we were really faced with this time to contemplate what does our future look like? What does that mean for our family? We had two kids at the time and we knew that we wanted to have more and we had two boys. And my husband and I both had very like classic American childhoods where it was like ride your bike and you drove to get Slurpees and you drove to the beach and you had all this freedom.

And where we were living, we weren't able to give that type of freedom to our kids. And that's not every family's desire. You know, there's a lot of great things where we lived and we still miss a lot of those things where, you know, we don't have the same access to restaurants and kind of the culture and museums. And we have to drive to do all of that. But for us, it was prioritizing space where our kids could have the freedom to explore, to

be outside as much as they wanted and to be able to really reconnect to kind of say nature, but just how we grow food and how we are able to utilize things in our land and the ability to like more or less kind of like go back to the olden days of a childhood. And so when we

tour the property, it was like a one second decision of like my soul knew that it was was meant to be there. we were really fortunate that it worked out that we were able to relocate. So now I say we kind of live in total freedom, but we do commute to work. I drive about anywhere from 30 to 40 minutes to get to work. We do commit to driving our kids. Our kids attend school in person right now. And so we do commit to driving our kids to school. And it's a little bit of a trade off. You know, some people

that's not their have-it-all scenario, but for us that was a big part of it.

Speaker 2 (31:58)
I love how you talked about how we grew up. I don't know if you've noticed, but there's been a kind of reframing. Sometimes I joke and say it's like a marketing of our childhood, this 90s childhood era, right? Or this nostalgic feeling for our 90s childhood. And now we're mothering in a generation where we're all trying to go back to that, right? Like somehow we got so far off of being able to let our children

ride their bikes down the street that now we have to reframe it and like remarket it as like, oh, let's go back to the nineties and give our children that. there's something to be said about letting our children have a little bit of freedom and independence and the skills that they learn and the things that they gain, the life lessons that they gain from that.

I've just from following you over the years, I know you're growing a garden and that's important to you. Can you tell us about what that experience has been like growing a garden with your family? What it means from a food source standpoint? ⁓

Speaker 1 (32:59)
I

would love to. before we started our garden or before we really kind of got into it, we worked with Rachel, who was your former podcast guest. And I loved listening to her episode. was actually in my garden planting as I was listening to that episode. And we took an old horse pasture and we took about half of it to like, we really did the full thing. Like we got a tiller, we tilled it, we got all the rocks out, we brought the soil in.

And then every year we've kind of added to how we want to grow things, what we want to grow, what's easy for us. Every year we try to add more and more to like our big berry patch that we have. And then this year we put in a 15 tree orchard. So we've got apples and peaches and cherries, plums and pears. And hopefully in about five years, anyone who knows me can come to the Yupik because we're going to try to do it all organic and natural.

We really don't buy produce in the summer. It's kind of wild, or like any berries or any strawberries. And it's something where it's really meaningful for me. Part of it is you have to enjoy being out in nature wanting to do that. I really love that as a hobby. And I love that my kids have been a part of it. They have little parts of the garden where one of my sons name is Eddie, and it's Eddie Strawberry Row.

this year, one of the new things that we did is we built a teepee out of sticks and we're going to trellis sweet peas up the teepee and that's Lewis's teepee. And so just making it seem like it's their space as well. And we have right next to our garden, we have chickens and we get a ton of eggs. And then in a week, we're actually going to add sheep. So we'll see. That's a new venture for us that we really want to start.

maybe expanding some of the animals as a part of what we're doing. I'm not sure what we're gonna do with the sheep. We're probably not gonna eat them, but more so just kind of like a venture into more animal husbandry, which is new to us.

Speaker 2 (34:56)
And what a great lesson that is for your kids to not only be surrounded by nature but also to take part in caring for animals to take part in caring for something that's outside of their family to build a relationship with the animals to have to just be mindful of Caring for another creature, right? There's so much whether it's planting to be caring for the food

that you're planting. I loved that episode with Rachel. First of all, I love her background. love, you know, when she dives deep into environmental toxicology, I'm like, tell me more, tell me more. I just want to hear all of it. ⁓ But I know she's helped so many of us here in the metro Detroit area in learning how to really just build a garden that suits your family, right, that suits your family's needs, whether it's just having fresh produce and also arming so many of us with knowledge that, it can be done whether you're living on a 12 acre farm.

or whether you're living downtown somewhere and you have houses on each side of you. I loved working with her and having her on the podcast. And she's also going to help me kind of redesign our garden in the fall.

One of the things you talk a lot about is just spending time outside. How does, and I think you and I are on the same page in terms of this low tech lifestyle. I don't want to say no tech because it's almost impossible to be virtually no tech. I know there's families that do that, but how do you balance having a low tech lifestyle with your own family?

Speaker 1 (36:26)
For us, what low tech means is no personal devices. And granted, I am not parenting teenagers yet. So for reference, my oldest is eight, and I have an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, a three-year-old, and a one-year-old. And just a principle that my husband and I had before our children were born is that we knew it was going to be a no personal device. We were just going to have no personal devices for our family. so committing to that early on,

I want to say has been like the greatest blessing, but we're not in a position where we have that power struggle. And we do, like I said, my children attend school. So there is technology use at school and we do have a TV that we'll watch family movies on, but a big part of it for me and especially just in the field that I'm in, I'm surrounded. And especially in the last, I mean, I've been in dentistry almost 15 years.

I've really seen the evolution of kids, right? I'm not a teacher, so people don't think of it that way, but I'm interacting with anywhere from 50 to 100 kids per day. And I'll know these kids for five years, for six years, for seven years. I'll know they're siblings. And if you think of all of that social, emotional time that a kid is meant to have by speaking to adults, looking at people in the eyes, playing outside, fighting with their brothers, pushing someone over on the trampoline.

And all of that are like rungs on the ladder where they've got to put that first rung on to get to the next, to get to the next. And I practice in an environment where a lot of those kids haven't had the opportunities to really develop some of the kind of foundational regulating behaviors. And I always will just in my mind's eye, and sometimes I'll tell my kids this too, in like a loving way to other families who maybe just don't choose this same

low tech commitment. But if your kids' eyes are on a screen for an hour to two hours to three hours a day, it's just three hours of their life that they're not looking at somebody. And when I think of it and I reframe it from that perspective, you know, it makes it really easy for us to commit to just never pulling that stuff out and really committing to kids who maybe they're not developing faster or they're not

reading at the age of three, because they're on some kind of app that's teaching them to read, but they're outside and they can talk to adults and they can order food at a restaurant and they can do hard things. And I think it's taken a long time for us to get to the point where we're seeing that payoff. And as we head into summer, it's just a challenge for all of us to really be committed to the things that matter. And so for us, one of those pillars that matters is

keeping our baseline of technology. I don't want to say outside of the house, but technology will be fully controlled by adults at this point.

Speaker 2 (39:28)
I heard you mention, you know, family movie nights. That's a way that we utilize technology to foster family bonding. So for us, it's we my kids don't watch anything all week long. Friday night, they know we have it on our calendar. It's got a big, you know, bucket of popcorn.

and that's when the kids know that we can watch something altogether and we have to all agree, which takes us forever still, but it's a moment for us to come together, sit on the couch and watch something and not just zone out. And even this past weekend when I was at the beach with my kids, I began to realize because, you know, now I have this special lens of seeing the way kids play outside and having talked to the different people I've talked to just in this short time of starting My Outdoorsy Mom,

this play that they're experiencing, I was seeing them running, digging, climbing, jumping into freezing cold water. It's not just play, right? These are things, these are physical actions that are also rewiring. They're firing neurons in their brain. And so it's not just, it's not just play, it is play, but it's also foundational for growing, right? It's foundational for growth and for learning and for development. So it's been so eye-opening.

Everybody has their own set of rules for us. We've kind of adopted similar principles or similar, a similar lifestyle in terms of just having technology be a way that we can connect, whether it's through Friday night movie nights or ⁓ us all finding like a nature documentary. Like, wait, my kids have loved slow paced nature documentaries since they were little. And I love to sit down and watch it with them too, know, things that aren't fast paced, things that aren't like flashing.

big bright primary colors. One of the things that I also wanted to ask you about, because if you've ever stepped into Dr. Kuta's office, you know that she has these beautiful photographs of her family and how they've grown over the years, but also some of the fun and amazing travels that you guys have taken. How have you and your husband prioritized adventurous travel with your kids? And how do you think that's shaped their development?

Speaker 1 (41:34)
I love that question because it's really, it was really important to my husband and I before we had kids to try to maintain that part of our identity. I still remember our first trip, we took our eight week old baby to Kauai, which is a long flight. It's a big time change. And we had been there for our baby moon. So we had this experience where we had been there without kids and this like, my goodness.

you're glowing and you're so happy you're kind of anticipating this beautiful family you're going to have. And then you're there eight weeks later with this baby who you're like, wait, but we've got to like deal with naps and I have to breastfeed him everywhere. And he's going to cry. And we're like at the pool. And I still remember we brought like our baby lounger to the pool and the baby fell asleep in the baby lounger. Cause an eight week old baby sticks anywhere. And we were like off swimming in the pool and people kept walking over like looking and we'd be like, he's ours. He's ours. That's our baby. We're fine.

But we also left that trip being like, okay, this is a wake up call that if we're going to commit to family travel, we got to be all in. And we want to make sure that we just really started off with the premise of having minimal expectations and just we're there for the adventure. We're there to reconnect with each other, to spend time with our family. And anything we see along the way is a bonus. And I think...

When you kind of put pen to paper for us, what we started realizing is, you know, international travel is a lot more accessible than people think in the sense of we went to Provence, France when I was pregnant with my last child, my fourth, and this Airbnb villa that we stayed in with a private pool, all these bedrooms, a vineyard, an orchard was maybe $200 a night.

And everyone was messaging me like, my gosh, send me the link, send me the link. I'm like, guys, this is Europe though. You just have to start looking and you can start realizing ⁓ that's cheaper than the Marriott in like, know, Trevor city. And so once you start being open-minded to what's possible and starting to look for some great flight deals, you really can travel for a similar cost than you can to America. And I think what opens the doors when you go overseas.

Last year we spent my oldest son birthday in Turkey and it was the first experience for my children in a lot of mosques and the prayers and you could tell they were just so proud to be there and learning about the culture, interacting with the people. And if you ask them, they might say, mom, when are we going to go back to Turkey? We really loved walking through the, you know, like August Sophia or certain things. And, you know, we wouldn't

have the same opportunities to maybe experience. We could, we could do that here. But I think sometimes it's just easier when you commit to a trip. You're kind of all in, you're all together, no one's working. And you can really teach your kids a lot about resilience and communication. mean, the last big trip we were on, we went to Italy and I had kind of an emergency with my eye where I had to seek like emergent care because I had an ulcer in my eye.

And so just my kids, like one of my favorite memories is like my husband and I are like driving and I'm like yelling at him because I can't read the Italian signs to like figure out where to go to the hospital. But it's like all of those real life experiences where at the end of that, my kids were ⁓ just exposed to so much and it's just the food, the culture, the people. I think a big part of like who my kids will be as they get older is incorporating

kind of that adventure and just the spirit of the unknown, which I think is so fun. It's that's something that can always be the culture of a family. And so that's one of the things that we want to make sure that we do with young kids, with teenagers, with adult children is just have that spirit of adventure. And I think it'll be something that hopefully continues to tie and bind our family as we enter into like the grandparent phase and we have adult children that hopefully will still want to do that with us.

Speaker 2 (45:34)
one thing I heard you say, apart from the number of lessons and also just the time you spent together when you intentionally, go somewhere or travel or vacation with your family. I took my son to New York City and it was just a solo trip, just him and me. And I was very excited to go to the American Museum of Natural History. And as was he, he was very excited for the dinosaurs.

And I think when you travel or you just kind of get out of your comfort zone and experience new things, it also gives your children a really great lesson in how to be gracious and in experience new things that they might not necessarily enjoy. Right. But also how to be part of a family and how to experience things graciously without complaining like, this museum stinks or, know, or, we're just looking at another mountain. ⁓ But it was really, you know,

It was an eye-opener to me that there are things that I want to get out of vacation and travel and adventures that might not be on the same page as my six-year-old. He might be more into climbing rocks somewhere. And I think the beauty of travel is kind of striking that balance where you're finding something for everyone, right? But also that tension of experiencing things together and going through them together.

while it might not be your favorite activity, but having the lesson of how to experience someone else's interests and passions with grace, right? And so that was kind of a big eye opener for us. I'm not sure if you've experienced that with your children, but mine, I have one in particular that tends to be very vocal in whether or not they like something.

Speaker 1 (47:13)
I mean, we all have those kids. We all have those kids. Yes. But you know what is universal? A really good chocolate bar in every state and every country. So we can always circle back to finding something delicious at a store that's new. And that usually is like our, my, my, always my trick on international travel is finding like that new little candy or that little item where they would never have access to that at home. And I don't want to say it's a little bribe because it's not, but it's just like a fun way of kind of just getting everyone back to the same point.

Speaker 2 (47:40)
Absolutely. mean, you know what? A good chocolate bar can reset just about anybody. before I close, there were a couple of questions, Dr. Kuta, that followers had that I want to make sure that we talk about. one of the questions that a lot of followers had was,

Do kids need to lose their baby teeth before doing expansion?

Speaker 1 (48:06)
That is a good question because I feel like a lot of dentists and I don't want to say old fashioned orthodontist would say that. However, think of it this way. I prefer to use the baby teeth. So the answer to that is no. Your child does not need to have any adult teeth to start orthodontic treatment. Even if a child comes to me with adult molars, my preference is to still use the baby teeth for an appliance because it just takes the pressure off of keeping those molars perfectly intact.

Once those six year molars come in, if you think about it, our kids are having those teeth for 80 to 90 years. So the last thing we want is to put an appliance on them if we can use something just as suitable, which for me would be baby molars.

Speaker 2 (48:56)
Okay. Another question that was asked by followers and it's more about bite and misalignment. If a child's bite looks misaligned, should parents wait for them to maybe grow out of it? Will that child eventually grow into that misaligned bite? Is that possible? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 1 (49:15)
So growth deficiencies, growth discrepancies never correct themselves. If we have teeth that are growing improper, it's very likely because the jaw structure is underdeveloped. The only exception to that is if we've got about an 18 month to a three year old who's been using a pacifier for a long time, because pacifier mouth is essentially those top teeth get really flared forward and

If you remove the pacifier at the right time, you'll see those teeth tip back into place and you'll see that little bit of dental change. However, past the age of three, three and a half, you might not see those teeth come back in and you'll start to see that the pacifier could be affecting their jaw development. So typically if we see those red flag bites, my advice is just educate yourself. You don't have to start treatment.

But I think what you won't regret is going in and learning about your child's bite, learning about their anatomy, their airway, so that once you have that education, you can decide if that aligns with your values and how you want to proceed with care.

Speaker 2 (50:28)
In speaking of education, what helpful books or resources do you recommend to learn more about airway health for kids? Do you have any favorite books or things like that?

Speaker 1 (50:40)
So one helpful resource is the book by James Nestor, which is called Breathe. And I think whenever I have kind of an 18 to 30-year-old who is questioning if they should pursue treatment, I'll guide them to that book because it will just start to help them understand the why. And I think there's a lot of good information online right now, kind of how a lot of

parents like to consume things, I think is on Instagram. And you have to take it with a grain of salt. You have to, from my perspective, I think you have to think as this person trying to sell me a product. And one of the accounts, accounts that I like is called Untethered Airway. We can share that in your resources. I think our social media account, which is run by my team, is really educational and informative.

And I think what you want to do as a parent is just start to do some research. mean, we have so much information at our fingertips that I think this is a topic that you don't have to read a book on. I think you can just start inputting some questions into chat, GTP, into Google, to educate yourself so that when you go to an appointment with an orthodontist, you've done 10 to 15 minutes of research. So you feel you're somewhat educated and you can ask the right questions. The parents who are a little bit blown away in a consultation are the ones who have no idea why they're here.

which is fine. That's what we're going to do is we're going to tell you why you're here. We're going to help educate you. But those consultations can be pretty overwhelming for them because they've never been told that snoring or mouth breathing isn't typical. And you're just kind of starting to like uncover the iceberg for them.

Speaker 2 (52:22)
For anyone who's listening, if you haven't had a chance to check out Dr. Kuta's practice online, I will make sure to link it in the show notes. I love your case studies. I love when you walk us through a case study with a patient and just their progress and where they started at baseline to where they are today. That always blows me away because the proof is in the pudding, right? You show a lot of times the x-rays or the images that you have where a child started out with an airway that was

you know, the size of a coffee straw, as you mentioned earlier, and how you're able with expansion to open up that palette, open up the airway and just the benefits that you've seen from expansion in young children. I think that for me is always something that I look forward to when I come upon your feed, but also just the way you answer questions ⁓ that I think a lot of parents who are seeking this type of information typically have. So I will include that in the show notes.

Lastly, before we sign off, Dr. Kuta, always ask every single guest to share an outdoorsy challenge. It's something simple that parents and families can do this week with their kids. What's an outdoorsy challenge that you would give listeners today?

Speaker 1 (53:33)
My outdoorsy challenge for you is to make your kids, dare I say force your kids to be outside for an hour. Of course, this depends on the age of your children, but I think we have to give ourselves permission to let them go outside and know that you're gonna get the complaints, that they're bored, they've already explored the forest, they don't wanna go on the trampoline, and remembering that it's a really important part of development.

And it's so good for their bodies to be in the sunshine and the grass and the trees and to figure out to do what to do with that feeling of boredom. And I had a girlfriend who said, but an hour that's so long, like they're going to complain. They're going to knock on the window. Yeah. My kids are knocking on the window. Can we have a popsicle? Can we come inside? but one of my favorite little tips or tricks that I'm really trying to help engage them and starting an outdoor play activity when they're

struggling. Sometimes I think at first you'd really need to help kind of soft launch them, set up some things outside for them to play with or give them some ideas, maybe even start the play so you can then back out. But one my favorite things is helping them pack a backpack and some tools. One of my sons has a little toolkit like a hammer and a rope and I'll just tell them it's your job to go get lost. Go have lunch in the woods, go climb a tree, go hammer something and then come back and

Last week, my kids came back with this huge deer bone. They had had all their snacks. It had been like two hours. They had got their rope caught in a tree. They didn't know how to get it down. And it just opens a world of possibility for them. And I think we need to give ourselves permission that we're good parents that are sending our kids outside and making them stay out there.

Speaker 2 (55:15)
love that. If you're listening, send your kids outside, send them out for an hour, pack them a bag with some snacks and some tools, and just let their imaginations unfold. I love that. Dr. Kuta, thank you so much for your time today, for your wisdom and for your work with your practice in treating the lives and patients and families and serving them well. Thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker 1 (55:37)
Thank you, Juliana. I appreciate it.

Julianne Nienberg (55:38)
Thanks so much for spending part of your day with me. I hope this episode left you feeling encouraged and inspired to get outside and enjoy nature wherever your feet are. If you loved what you heard, it would mean the world to me if you tap those five stars or leave a quick review. It helps other outdoorsy minded moms find the show and grow the sweet little community. And if you're looking for more ways to simplify, slow down, and connect through nature, you can find me over on Instagram at myoutdoorsymom, read the blog at myoutdoorsymom.com, or explore all my digital resources and seasonal guides in the shop.

Everything's linked right there in the show notes. Until next time, take a deep breath, step outside, and I'll meet you back here next week.