Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #117: Kari Stubbs, PhD – Technology and Children

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Today’s conversation sits right at the intersection of childhood development, technology, and a question that is becoming harder for parents to ignore: What might our children need to develop before we hand them a screen?

My guest today is Dr. Kari Stubbs, who holds a PhD in education and has spent her career in K–12 education technology. And that makes her current work particularly interesting. She isn’t approaching this conversation as someone who is anti-technology. Quite the opposite. She understands technology, has worked within it for years, and sees very clearly where the world is headed.

But she also spends her weeks talking with early-childhood leaders and school-district directors, hearing firsthand that children are showing up at school differently than they did a generation ago.

Kari raised her own two children using what she describes as a brain-based approach to movement and development, during a time when screens still largely stayed attached to walls and desks. Today, she argues for something that sounds almost countercultural coming from an education technologist: protecting significant screen-free time during the first five years of life.

Her argument isn’t that technology is bad. It’s that timing matters.

Those first five years are when children are building many of the foundational human capacities they will carry into school, relationships, and eventually the workplace—things like curiosity, adaptability, creativity, self-regulation, and collaboration. And ironically, as artificial intelligence becomes increasingly capable, these deeply human aptitudes may become more valuable, not less.

Kari writes about these ideas in her Substack, The First Five: Before Screens, and today we’re going to explore what the developing brain actually needs from movement, play, relationships, and the physical world—and what may be lost when screens arrive too early or occupy too much of childhood.

Enjoy,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 23 – Back To School

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Back To School Thoughts

As summer winds down and the school year starts, our attention naturally turns to backpacks, school supplies, new clothes, sports schedules, and carpools. But getting ready for school is about much more than checking items off a list. It is about helping our children return to the classroom with the physical, mental, and emotional foundation they need to thrive.

A few simple changes now can make the transition much easier.

1) Start With Sleep

Summer has a way of pushing bedtimes later and later. Often 1 to 3 hours beyond when a school child should wind down. Begin moving bedtime and wake-up time toward the school schedule a week or two before the first day.

Sleep is not simply downtime. It is when the brain consolidates learning, regulates emotions, restores energy, and prepares for the next day. Deep sleep is critical for cleaning the brain of disruptive chemicals. Younger school-aged children generally need 9–12 hours of sleep, while teenagers need 8–10 hours. A consistent bedtime routine and getting phones and other screens out of the bedroom can make an enormous difference.

2) Feed The Brain

Children cannot consistently perform their best when they are running on highly processed foods, sugar, and caffeine. Build meals around real food: vegetables and fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, healthy fats, and quality proteins such as fish, poultry, and meat. Breakfast does not need to be elaborate, but including protein, fiber, and healthy fat can provide much steadier energy than starting the day with a sugary cereal or pastry.

And remember the simplest nutrient of all: water. Send children to school well hydrated and encourage them to carry a water bottle when possible….. and back to school recipes.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 22 – Technology and Kids

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The Hardest Part of Medicine Isn’t Making the Diagnosis

Last week I wrote that one of the most healing words in the English language may be “no.” I believed it when I wrote it.

After today, I believe it even more.

Today was one of the hardest days I’ve experienced in medicine in a long time.

I drove home with a heaviness that is difficult to describe. Not because a child died. Not because I faced an impossible diagnosis. Not because science failed me. Not because of the many reasons medicine offers for struggle.

I drove home grieving.

Grieving for children who have no idea what is quietly happening inside their own bodies.

Grieving for my own pain at being unable to convince certain parents to see this problem.

Grieving because I can already see a future they cannot.

Today marked the one-year follow-up for many of the children enrolled in our asthma pilot program. We built this program around hope. We invested time that most medical practices simply don’t have. We spent hours educating families. We provided healthy food. We offered gift cards to encourage participation. We discussed sleep, movement, nutrition, inflammation, insulin resistance, and the remarkable ability of the human body to heal when given the right environment….. and a literature review.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #19 Repost – Dr. Alessio Fasano – Intestinal Permeability, Microbiome and MIS

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In this podcast repost, we rediscover the work of Pediatric Gastroenterologist Dr. Alessio Fasano from the Massachusettes General Hospital Department of Pediatric Gastroenterology. In this conversation, we discussed the research on Intestinal Permeability, Microbiomes and MIS, Multi Inflammatory Syndrome in Children .
Dr. Fasano also directs the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center and is associate chief for Basic, Clinical and Translational Research. Under his leadership, investigators are studying the molecular mechanisms of autoimmune disorders including celiac disease, and other-gluten-related disorders. He has been named visiting professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. He authored the groundbreaking study in 2003 that established the rate of celiac disease at one in 133 Americans. Widely sought after by national and international media, Dr. Fasano has been featured in hundreds of interviews including outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal; National Public Radio; CNN; Bloomberg News, and others.
He recently co authored an excellent book with Susie Flaherty called Gut Feelings. I highly recommend you purchase and read this book. It is an encyclopedia of information regarding gut health, the microbiome and much more.
Enjoy my conversation with Dr. Fasano,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 21 – Saying No

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The Healing Power of Saying No

Why the path to health often begins with restraint!

Every major faith tradition discovered something long before neuroscience or evolutionary biology could explain it. Growth often begins with restraint. During Lent, people give something up, not because chocolate, wine, or social media are inherently evil, but because saying no creates space. Space for awareness. Space for clarity. Space to notice how often our impulses quietly run the show.

We need this space to rise above habit and find purpose.

Science is slowly arriving at the same destination.

The ability to delay gratification, to tolerate discomfort, to choose tomorrow over today is one of the strongest predictors of long-term health, happiness, and success. Restraint isn’t deprivation. It’s training.

Training to:

To survive.

To procreate.

To teach.

To Be…. and a literature review.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #116: Russell Greenfield, MD – The Art of Listening

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Welcome back to Dr. M’s Women and Children First.

One of the recurring themes on this podcast is that the future of medicine won’t be discovered through faster-paced healthcare alone. It will be discovered by slowing down, listening more carefully, and embracing a patient-centered approach that seeks to understand the whole person—not just the disease. Ultimately, the future of medicine begins with a better question: How do we truly hear a patient’s story so that we can better serve the person sitting in front of us?

Today’s guest has spent his entire career helping answer that question.

Our conversation today centers on one of the most overlooked aspects of healing: why so many people struggle to begin the healing process in the first place—and more importantly, how we, as clinicians, parents, and patients, can help that process finally move forward.

Dr. Russell Greenfield is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and a Diplomate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine whose career has been dedicated to transforming healthcare from a disease-centered model into one focused on whole-person health. He has served as Medical Director of Integrative Medicine for major health systems, including Novant Health and the Weisiger Cancer Institute, held national leadership positions within the Veterans Health Administration’s Whole Health Initiative, and continues to advise organizations across the country that are reimagining what healthcare can become.

What makes Dr. Greenfield’s journey especially unique is that he was one of the select physicians chosen to complete a residential fellowship under the mentorship of Dr. Andrew Weil at the University of Arizona—the birthplace of academic integrative medicine. At a time when very few physicians were willing to challenge the traditional boundaries of healthcare, Dr. Greenfield immersed himself in a model that recognized nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, relationships, purpose, and environment as fundamental pillars of health, while embracing the remarkable advances of modern medical science.

For me, this conversation is especially meaningful because many of us in medicine are asking the same question: How do we move upstream? How do we stop waiting for chronic disease to develop and instead create the conditions where health can flourish?

Today we’ll explore the art of becoming an experienced listener in service of the patient before us. We’ll discuss why curiosity often matters more than certainty, why healing frequently begins long before the prescription pad comes out, and how understanding a person’s story can unlock opportunities that laboratory tests and imaging studies alone may never reveal.

Whether you’re a clinician, a parent, or simply someone searching for a deeper understanding of health, I think you’ll come away from this conversation with a renewed appreciation for one of medicine’s most powerful tools: listening.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Volume 16 Issue 20 – Healthcare Policy

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Failing Them

Why Are We?

We are failing our children, the next generation.

I have been spending an inordinate amount of time studying cellular biology and mitochondrial function in order to understand worsening disease trends. Thus, I want to revisit a landmark study that is one of the most comprehensive assessments of pediatric health ever conducted in the United States. Rather than examining a single disease or health outcome, Dr. Forrest and colleagues integrated data from multiple nationally representative surveys, mortality databases, and electronic health records encompassing millions of children to evaluate whether the health of American children has changed over the past 17 years. The answer was strikingly consistent: across virtually every major health domain, children in the United States are becoming less healthy. The investigators examined mortality, chronic physical and mental health conditions, obesity, functional status, sleep, puberty, physical symptoms, and emotional well-being between 2007 and 2023. Nearly every indicator worsened over time.

“From 2007 to 2022, infants (<1 year old) were 1.78 and 1- to 19-year-old individuals were 1.80 times more likely to die in the US than in the OECD18. The 2 causes of death with the largest net difference between the US and OECD18 were prematurity and sudden unexpected infant death for infants 12 months or younger, and firearm-related incidents and motor vehicle crashes for 1- to 19-year-old individuals. From 2011 to 2023, the prevalence of 3- to 17-year-old individuals with a chronic condition rose from 39.9% to 45.7% within PEDSnet, and from 25.8% to 31.0% within the general population. Rates of obesity, early onset of menstruation, trouble sleeping, limitations in activity, physical symptoms, depressive symptoms, and loneliness all increased during the study period.” (Forrest et. al. 2025)… and literature review.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

 

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