The First Seven Years
"The First Seven Years" is a groundbreaking podcast series designed to empower parents and caregivers with essential knowledge about childhood development during the early, formative years. Rather than focusing solely on developmental milestones, the series emphasizes the pivotal role of nutrition and integrative health in fostering growth and wellbeing. Hosted by Dr. Murray Clarke, a trusted pediatrician and founder of ChildLife Essentials, and co-hosted by Bryce Wylde, a functional medicine expert, this series provides an accessible platform for expert insights and actionable advice. Each episode delivers invaluable resources and guidance often overlooked in traditional parenting spaces, equipping viewers with the...
Sleep Training Without the Guilt: A Pediatrician’s Honest Advice
Is your baby not sleeping through the night, and are you wondering if sleep training is the answer? Pediatrician Dr. Jim Sears shares his flexible approach to infant sleep, plus how screens and your baby’s sleep space may affect rest.
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What to Feed Your Baby First: A Pediatrician’s Simple First Foods Plan
Why do some kids happily reach for carrot sticks while others will only eat chicken nuggets? Dr. Jim Sears explains why a baby’s first foods can shape their taste preferences, and what to offer instead of cereal and puffs.
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Cod Liver Oil vs. Corn Oil in Pregnancy: The Study Every Mom Should Hear About
Did you know the fats a mom eats during pregnancy become the building blocks of her baby’s cells? Dr. Jim Sears breaks down why omega-3s matter before and after birth, which fish to choose, and how to check your levels.
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<...Why 1 in 3 Kids Now Has a Chronic Health Condition
How did childhood health go from 1 in 50 kids with a chronic condition to 1 in 3 in just 40 years? Pediatrician Dr. Jim Sears joins the conversation to discuss what’s changed and what parents can do before and after their baby arrives.
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How Simple Daily Habits Shape Lifelong Child Health | Dr. Jim Sears EP28
Raising resilient, thriving children doesn’t require high-tech fixes—it starts with simple, intentional choices made during the formative early years.
Dr. James "Jim" Sears is a board-certified pediatrician, Emmy-winning former co-host of The Doctors, and co-author of renowned parenting guides including The Baby Book and The Healthiest Kid in the Neighbourhood. He joins Dr. Murray Clarke and Bryce Wylde to share practical wisdom on raising healthy children through everyday nutrition, restorative sleep, and positive lifestyle choices during the first seven years.
They explore the modern rise in chronic childhood conditions, the vital role of pren...
Is ADHD a Superpower? A Doctor With ADHD Answers
What is the single most important question to ask your child's pediatrician? Dr. Dan Sullivan answers the show's final Stump the Expert question and shares how his own ADHD became a strength.
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What Should Pregnant Moms Eat for Baby's Brain?
What should moms eat during pregnancy for a baby's brain, and how do you know if you're low in omega-3? Dr. Dan Sullivan answers viewer questions from Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
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Can Kids Learn to Calm Their Own Nervous System?
Can children learn to regulate their own nervous system? Dr. Dan Sullivan explains heart rate variability biofeedback, what he does after testing, and why he looks at the whole child instead of one symptom.
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7 Things One Doctor Does to Manage His Own ADHD
How does a naturopathic doctor with ADHD manage his own ADHD? Dr. Dan Sullivan shares his personal routine, plus early habits for parents and a candid look at EMF and screens.
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Can Stress in Pregnancy Affect Baby's Brain?
Dr. Dan Sullivan is a licensed naturopathic doctor who focuses on ADHD and functional medicine. In this clip, he explains how chronic stress affects the body and brain, and why he thinks a healthy diet and the right prenatal nutrients matter for moms-to-be.
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My Child Had 3 Rounds of Antibiotics. Is It Too Late to Fix Their Gut?
Is it ever too late to repair your child's gut after antibiotics? Dr. Elisa Song answers real parents' questions about gut health, sleep, and anxiety.
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ADHD Hit 11% of Kids. What Changed?
ADHD, anxiety and depression rates in kids have climbed for decades. Dr. Dan Sullivan and the hosts look at the numbers, then ask what may sit underneath the symptoms.
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What’s Really Driving ADHD in Kids? | Dr. Dan Sullivan EP27
ADHD, anxiety, sleep struggles and behavioural challenges may be influenced by more than what’s happening in the brain. Dr. Dan Sullivan is a licensed naturopathic doctor and functional medicine practitioner who was diagnosed with ADHD at 18. He joins Dr. Murray Clarke and Bryce Wylde to explore a root-cause approach to children’s health and the factors that may influence brain development during the first seven years of life.
They unpack the gut-brain connection, nutrition during pregnancy, stress, sleep, screen time, environmental exposures, the microbiome and the role of individualized testing. Dr. Sullivan also shares his...
The One Probiotic Strain Backed by Decades of Research (And Almost Nobody Talks About It)
Not all probiotics are created equal, and the supplement industry has a trick called "pixie dusting" that most parents have never heard of. Dr. Elisa Song explains what to actually look for on a label, and shares the research behind why 30 different plants a week matters more than most supplements.
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...What Is Leaky Gut, Really? A Pediatrician Explains
Most parents check the nutrition facts label. Almost none check the ingredients list, where things like emulsifiers are quietly disrupting kids' gut health. Dr. Elisa Song breaks down her five-part framework for building a resilient microbiome and exactly what leaky gut is and why it matters.
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Should You Still Be Kissing Your Kids? A Pediatrician Weighs In
Should you still be kissing your kids? Dr. Elisa Song explains why human touch does more for your child's nervous system and their gut microbiome than most parents realize.
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Prebiotics vs. Probiotics vs. Postbiotics, Finally Explained Simply
Your gut microbiome makes up to 90% of the serotonin in your body and about half of your dopamine. Dr. Elisa Song breaks down exactly how and why most of us aren't feeding it the way we need to.
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Why Pets and Dirt Actually Build Your Child's Immune System
Hand sanitizer, over-cleaning and shielding kids from every stressor might be working against their immune systems. Dr. Elisa Song explains the science of hormesis and why controlled stress actually builds resilience in kids' bodies and minds.
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This Study Cut Eczema Risk by 83% in C-Section Babies
C-section babies miss out on the microbiome exposure that happens during vaginal birth, and it's linked to a higher risk of eczema and asthma. Dr. Elisa Song breaks down what's actually happening and the study that cut eczema risk by 83%.
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How to Restore Your Child's Gut Microbiome After Antibiotics
A large Finnish study of nearly 1 million births found that antibiotics in early life, even in the womb, were linked to up to a 50% increased risk of anxiety, ADHD, sleep issues and behavioural concerns. Dr. Elisa Song explains why, and more importantly, what parents can actually do about it.
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Your Microbiome Before Conception Is Already Shaping Your Child's Health
Your child's health isn't just shaped in the womb. It starts with your microbiome before conception, and that includes fathers. In this clip, Dr. Elisa Song explains why the gut microbiome of both parents, not just the mother, affects fertility, pregnancy outcomes, and a baby's long-term health, sometimes months before conception even happens. She breaks down epigenetics in plain terms: the idea that your environment, not your DNA, determines the majority of your health outcomes, and how those switches get passed down to your kids.
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Why Nearly 1 in 2 Kids Now Have a Chronic Illness
In this episode, Dr. Murray Clarke and Bryce Wylde sit down with Dr. Elisa Song, MD, a Stanford, NYU and UCSF-trained integrative pediatrician and national bestselling author of Healthy Kids, Happy Kids, to break down why childhood chronic illness has exploded over the past 40 years, and what's actually driving it. They dig into the data: autism up 500%, ADHD up 400%, and a jump from 1 in 50 kids with a chronic medical condition in 2007 to nearly 1 in 2 today.
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Is Laser Therapy Safe for a 3-Year-Old With Autism?
If your child's therapist says they're making progress, but you can't see it, this might explain why.
In this Q&A clip, Erinn Askin answers real questions from parents, starting with whether laser therapy is safe for young children with autism (she points to a body of research and testimonials supporting safety and efficacy) and moving into a deeper concept: primitive reflexes.
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Why Your Child's Allergies, Anxiety and ADHD Might Start in the Gut | Dr. Elisa Song EP26
Nearly 1 in 2 kids today has a chronic health condition, and the research increasingly points to the same root system: the gut.
This conversation covers how a baby's microbiome is shaped before birth, why antibiotics in the first months of life carry outsized downstream risk, and what parents can actually do about it, whether their child was born by C-section, wasn't breastfed, or already had rounds of antibiotics for ear infections. Dr. Song also unpacks prebiotics vs. probiotics vs. postbiotics, the vagus nerve's role in gut-brain communication, why fermented foods may beat fiber for microbiome diversity, and the...
How Laser Therapy Helped Him Become a Student for the First Time
Harvey had never been to school. At 10 years old, extreme sensory-seeking behaviours, licking, biting, and screaming, made it impossible. Two weeks later, that changed.
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Website: https://www.oteim.com/
OTEIM Therapy Intensives: https://www.oteim.com/therapyintensives
OTEIM Hometensive™ Program: https://www...
This Laser Therapy Compresses 6 Months of Progress Into 2 Weeks
Erinn explains how her clinic structures treatment through short, high-intensity blocks rather than the typical weekly-session model, and why that concentrated approach can produce faster results for kids with communication delays, motor skill challenges, and developmental delays.
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...What's the Youngest Age for Laser Brain Therapy?
Erinn breaks down exactly who she treats and why she starts so young. Her practice sees children from age 3 to 16, but she also works with infants as young as 0 to 2, including babies diagnosed with HIV at birth and children with cerebral palsy, because the earliest years are when the brain has the most capacity to adapt.
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This 6-Minute Brain Scan Found What No One Else Could
A nonverbal child can't tell you they need glasses. They can't tell you they're anxious. This device can.
In this clip, Erinn Askin demonstrates the dry-cap qEEG helmet used in her clinic, a device that combines brain wave mapping with photobiomodulation and takes just six minutes to run.
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The Study That Turned Lasers Into Brain Therapy
Sixty years ago, scientists were trying to regrow hair on rats using red and near-infrared light. What they found instead changed the future of brain therapy.
Erinn Askin explains how transcranial photobiomodulation was accidentally discovered when researchers noticed decreased ADHD-like symptoms in the rats they were studying, and how the field has grown from there. She also breaks down BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor).
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The Science of How Light Therapy Rewires a Child's Brain
In this clip, occupational therapist Erinn Askin, a former professor of anatomy and physiology, breaks down exactly what happens when specific wavelengths of light penetrate the skull during transcranial photobiomodulation.
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The 12-Minute Nightly Routine That Changed Her Daughter's Severe ADHD
What if the fix for your child's behaviours wasn't behavioural at all, but neurological, and treatable with light?
In this episode, occupational therapist and photobiomodulation specialist Erinn Askin shares how she discovered transcranial light therapy after her own daughter's severe ADHD pushed her family to a breaking point.
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💬 COMMENT: What's the one behaviour in your child you wish you understood the root cause of?
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Why 1 in 31 Kids Now Have Autism (The Root Cause No One's Fixing)
In this conversation, Dr. Murray Clarke breaks down what's actually driving the surge in pediatric brain disorders, from ADHD and anxiety to autism spectrum symptoms.
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💬 COMMENT below: what's one environmental factor you've changed for your kids since learning about this?
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OTEIM Therapy Intensives: https://www.oteim.com/therapyintensives
OTEIM H...
How This Light Therapy is Helping Kids With Autism, ADHD and MORE | Erinn Askin EP24
Could shining light on a child's head help rewire a struggling brain?
That's the question at the center of today's conversation. Erinn Askin, MA, OTR/L, is a pediatric occupational therapist, the creator of NeuroAdaptive Therapy™, and founder of OTEIM (Occupational Therapy Empowering Individual Minds). Erinn joins Dr. Murray Clarke and Bryce Wylde to break down photobiomodulation, the use of specific light wavelengths to energize brain cells at the mitochondrial level, and why she believes it's changing outcomes for kids with autism, ADHD, developmental delay, and sensory processing challenges.
This conversation goes beyond behavioural labels in...
Does Your Child’s Eczema Starts in the Gut? | Joy McCarty EP24
Could your child’s eczema be a sign of something deeper going on inside the body? In this episode of The First Seven Years, Joy McCarthy joins Dr. Murray and Bryce Wylde to unpack the powerful connection between gut health, skin health, and early childhood development. Joy McCarthy is a certified holistic nutritionist, bestselling author, founder of Joyous Health, and author of The Eczema Healing Guide.
In this conversation, she explains why eczema is often more than a surface-level skin issue, how the gut microbiome influences inflammation and immune balance, and what parents can do to support he...
The Real Reason Your Child's Eczema Keeps Getting Worse After Every Antibiotic
Joy McCarthy, holistic nutritionist and founder of Hello Joyous, and Dr. Murray Clarke answer real parent questions about navigating clean baby products on a budget, what "fragrance free" and "paraben free" labels actually mean, and what to do when a child's eczema keeps cycling back after every antibiotic prescription.
We cover the greenwashing terms, why phthalates in fragrance disrupt hormones and fertility, how to use free tools like EWG and the INCI list checker to vet any product instantly, why antibiotics trigger a microbiome reset that parents need to act on immediately, and how picky eating and...
The Exact Supplements and Foods That Can Help Clear Eczema in Babies and Toddlers
We cover exactly where to start when conventional treatment isn't working, how to run a practical elimination diet for the most common food allergens, which probiotic strains and CFU counts actually matter for infants and toddlers and why vitamin D and omega-3s are the supplements most parents overlook.
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Why Cortisone Cream Backfires and What to Use on Your Baby's Skin Instead
Joy McCarthy, holistic nutritionist and founder of Joyous Health, breaks down why less is more when it comes to your baby's skincare routine and what common baby products are actually doing to your child's developing skin.
We cover why cortisone cream pushes inflammation deeper into the body, how over-bathing strips your baby's moisture barrier, which ingredients to avoid in every baby wash and lotion, why "fragrance-free" and "natural" labels can still be misleading, and how to use free tools like the EWG Skin Deep database to vet any product in seconds.
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Still Have Eczema After Trying Everything? These Are the Tests Your Doctor Isn't Running
Joy McCarthy, holistic nutritionist and author of The Joyous Cookbook, walks through the next level of eczema investigation for families who have done everything right and still aren't seeing results.
We cover the specific lab tests that can identify gut dysfunction, mineral imbalances, food sensitivities, heavy metals, and chemical exposures in children, why dairy and gluten rotation matters more than full elimination, how a disrupted gut microbiome increases a child's propensity for food allergies, and how Joy built a family cookbook around single-ingredient whole foods that kids actually want to eat.
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800 Studies Confirm It: Your Child's Eczema Is a Gut Problem, Not a Skin Problem
Joy McCarthy, holistic nutritionist and founder of Joyous Health, Dr. Murray Clarke and Bryce Wylde break down the science behind the gut-skin-brain connection and what it means for your child's long-term health.
We cover what 800-plus peer-reviewed studies now confirm about eczema and the gut microbiome, the difference between prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics and why all three matter, what leaky gut actually is and how it triggers skin inflammation, why babies can develop leaky skin from over-washing, and how a leaky blood-brain barrier connects to autism, ADHD, and neurological development in children.
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How to Raise Kids Who Choose Whole Foods Without Being Strict About It
Joy McCarthy, a holistic nutritionist and mother, shares practical strategies for building lifelong healthy eating habits in children through variety, colour, and early exposure to food.
We cover why prebiotics matter as much as probiotics, how polyphenol variety feeds different gut bacteria, why peeling fruit for your kids is actually working against them, and a simple fridge audit strategy that gets even toddlers excited about eating the rainbow.
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