Give her one finding she can see and remember. “Send me anyone with a feeding difficulty” is not that.
Lactation consultants are my number one referral source. Most already have a list of people they send babies to, and if your pitch is a symptom, you are one more name for the same symptom. Unless she takes home something very specific, she will not remember you past a few days or weeks.
The finding: JET
Jaw. Eye. Torticollis.
- Is the jaw deviating?
- Can you see an eye asymmetry, the orbits sitting uneven?
- Is there any cervical range of motion issue?
These are not three separate issues. They are three windows into the same cranial subluxation pattern.
The chain, link by link. Torticollis is a spasm of the sternocleidomastoid, which attaches up into the mastoid process, part of the cranium. Constant tugging there rotates the temporal. The temporal carries the TMJ, so depending on which way it rotates and gets stuck, the jaw moves toward or away from that side. As the sphenoid torques and the frontal compensates, the orbit rotates with them, and the eyes stop looking even.
She does not need that mechanism. She needs to know the shift happens when a subluxation is present, and that you are the person who corrects it.
Any feeding difficulty still counts. JET is for when she is unsure.
What to do Monday
- Teach JET to every lactation consultant you work with. Three questions, three letters, one pattern she can spot visually.
- When the baby comes in, measure. She sees the asymmetry; you put numbers on it. Take the cranial vault asymmetry index and the cephalic index with calipers.
- Give the parent a report in your language that frames the head shape as a downstream effect of a subluxation pattern, not the problem itself.
- Track the change over visits. You are not eyeballing it and hoping.
Heard on the podcast: 39 – The Referral Script That Gets Lactation Consultants to Send You Patients