In our last post, we introduced you to the wonders of Slow Medicine and how it relates to the mindful and personalized care we deliver at GetzWell. In this second installment, we’d like to expand the conversation by highlighting a point of view espoused by GetzWell and other Slow Medicine practitioners.
The Body as a Garden
A unique posture of the Slow Medicine approach is viewing the body as a garden – a cohesive entity to be nurtured and cultivated. This concept is nicely covered in an article by Dr. Victoria Sweet, a proponent of Slow Medicine and Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Sweet’s account likens the human body to a beautiful garden which has innate ability to grow, develop, and heal when properly nurtured and fed.
This view is in stark contrast to mainstream medical practice which regards the body as a static machine in need of repair, “fixing” isolated and seemingly unrelated symptoms instead of looking at the whole and identifying and treating the root cause as a way to achieve optimal health.
Bacteria – The Body’s Rich Soil
The “body as a garden” metaphor aligns beautifully with our work here at GetzWell. We regard the body as a complex web of interconnected and interdependent parts, and understand that our organ systems work together, influence each other, and impact our overall health.
The unifying agents keeping our bodies well and working optimally are trillions of natural microbes. As demonstrated in this illustration from Wired.com, a diverse group of bacteria, collectively known as our microbiome, all work together to perform myriad functions from head to toe, inside and out.
The highest concentration of these microbes exists in the gut where about 70 percent of the body’s immune system is located. Central to our practice is helping babies build and maintain healthy gut bacteria from the get-go because those bacteria not only facilitate digestion, but they are key to educating the immune system, safeguarding against many diseases and allergies over a lifetime. (Check out our post The Beauty of Bacteria and Your Baby’s Health to learn more.)
We Grow Healthy Babies
GetzWell’s Slow Medicine approach supports the body’s natural and interconnected healing powers with care that addresses the unique needs of each individual. This is achieved with a host of individualized services that notably include prenatal nutrition and ‘greening the womb’ consultations for pregnant women and couples who wish to become pregnant, lactation support, nutrition counseling, and wellness visits that last four times as long as the typical 10 minute ones in fast food practices, allowing us to educate parents with the most up-to-date information.
All of what we offer is designed to ensure has your baby has the healthiest start in life , before and after birth. Please call us today to learn more. Church St: 415.826.1701 / Union St: 415.969.6670.
