rich 1.0 “Why Babies Suck.” That title stops you. It challenges what you have been told and pushes a harder question to the surface. What if “normal” is not normal? What if “they will grow out of it” is something we say when we do not have better answers? Parents feel that tension. You see it every day. More intuition. More awareness. More advocacy. Parents are paying attention. They are asking better questions. They are noticing things earlier. Yet many still feel dismissed. Even worse, they feel the need to apologize for asking. Today’s guest, Dr. James Thomas, decided that he needed to change. Dr. Thomas began his career in a traditional pediatric dental model after graduating from the University of Michigan in 2005. He built two successful practices under the brand Everyone By One. On paper, everything worked. Still, something felt off. At Everyone By One, he kept seeing older children with breathing issues. Mouth breathing. Poor sleep. Behavioral challenges. Developmental patterns that seemed connected, yet no one was tracing them back to the start. He stopped asking how to manage it. He started asking where it began. That question led him earlier. Toddlers. Infants. Then all the way back to newborns. That is where everything shifted. He began hearing the same concerns again and again. Mastitis. Clogged ducts. Painful breastfeeding. Poor latch. Clicking. Leaking. Babies are struggling to feed in a way that should be "natural." These difficulties with a newborn were treated as common. Expected. Something to push through. Then came the moment that changed his entire path. What if these were not separate problems? What if a baby’s oral dysfunction and passive feeding patterns were quietly shaping the breathing and development issues he was seeing years later? That realization landed hard. Once he saw the connection, he could not look away. At the same time, he noticed something else. Parents were asking thoughtful questions, then pulling back. Apologizing. Second-guessing what they were seeing in their own child. That did not sit right with him. So he chose a different path. He listened. Closely. Not only to clinical patterns, but also to the instincts of the families in front of him. Between 2005 and 2016, while building and eventually selling his practices, he tracked patterns others missed. That work led to the creation of health:latch in 2017. A model grounded in radically kind care, fierce patience, disruptive bravery, and a simple belief. Parents deserve to be heard. This approach is deeply process-driven and story-based. It is shaped by curiosity and refined through experience. It also creates space for parents to trust what they are seeing and feeling. Now, in 2026, that vision has evolved into health:latch 2.0. The focus is on breathing wellness from birth through age 10, with close attention to the critical window between 18 months and 4 years. The goal is clear. Help children use their muscles in ways that support natural facial development and efficient breathing, while respecting biology. At the same time, his message is reaching far beyond the clinic. With the release of his book, Why Babies Suck, Dr. Thomas challenges outdated thinking and affirms something many parents already know deep down. You are not wrong for asking questions. You are not wrong for noticing patterns. Your intuition matters. With fifteen to twenty years left in his clinical career, he is stepping into his most authentic chapter yet. He continues his clinical work while consulting with pediatric dental professionals to help them build meaningful models, question outdated systems, and truly listen to the families they serve. He has a story for you. A story about curiosity, courage, and what happens when you follow a question all the way back to the beginning. This is a conversation about trusting your instincts, asking better questions, and changing how we define normal. https://www.healthlatch.com/why-babies-suck https://www.healthlatch.com Listen Bitch Presents TELL ME WHY YOU'RE SPECIAL https://audioboom.com/channels/5166895-listen-bitch-presents-tell-me-why-you-re-special Audioboom https://audioboom.com 480 95 https://audioboom.com/i/43445070/600x600/c 600 600 <iframe width="100%" height="95" src="https://embeds.audioboom.com/posts/8890151/embed?v=202301" style="background-color: transparent; display: block; padding: 0; width: 100%" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="allowtransparency" scrolling="no" title="Audioboom player" allow="autoplay" sandbox="allow-downloads allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>