158. Marilyn Sanders: How childhood trauma and lack of safety shapes a child's nervous system.

Today, Dr. Marilyn Sanders is hanging out with us to help me create a conversation about the impact trauma has on a child's developing nervous system. 

Dr. Sanders is a board-certified pediatrician, neonatologist, author, scholar, and educator. She provides clinical care for critically ill newborns, infants, and young children at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut. As a neonatologist, she cares for babies with a wide range of medical problems that require intensive care services, and she also sees babies from four months to three years of age who are at risk for developmental challenges.

Dr. Sanders is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.  Her scholarly work focuses on enhancing the social and emotional well-being of vulnerable infants and children, many of whom were exposed to early trauma. Her approach to trauma-informed care is embedded in the Polyvagal Theory that elaborates how our unconscious nervous system’s sense of safety, danger, or life threat affects our emotions and behaviors. Dr. Sanders also co-authored a must-read book called The Polyvagal Theory and the Developing Child.

In today’s episode, we’re talking about…

• What the nervous system looks like.
• How exposure to trauma, neglect, chronic stress, and adversity impacts a child’s nervous system.
• How childhood survival responses can carry into adulthood.
• How dorsal shutdown can manifest as self-medicating.
• Why it’s important to stop asking what’s wrong with you, but rather what happened to you.
• The importance of repair after disruption.
• Why it's important to understand your nervous system response so you can better respond to children’s dysregulation.

…and so much more!

Podcast show notes: 

https://courageouslyu.substack.com/p/marilyn-sanders-how-childhood-trauma

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