LifeCare Chiropractic

The Best Chiropractic Care in Mesa, Arizona

healthy pregnancy

GESTATIONAL NUTRITION IMPROVES OUTCOMES OF VAGINAL DELIVERIES

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SHOULD YOUR OB BE DISCUSSING IN DEPTH NUTRITIONAL ADVICE TO IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF A HEALTHY PREGNANCY?  Of course the answer is yes, but unfortunately I think this is the exception, not the rule.  The bottom line is that the foods a woman eats during her pregnancy will affect the baby’s birth weight and improving the chance of going full term.  A woman’s weight before she gets pregnant also plays a role in healthy outcomes.

The bottom line is that few things will have as great of an impact on a healthy birth than the food that is eaten during her pregnancy.  That means that the ultrasound and regular visits to your OB are NOT as important as maintaining good nutrition.  In case you are wondering, that does NOT include midnight runs for fast food Mexican, but rather higher intakes of veggies, fruits, healthy fats (stick with low mercury, non-carnivarous fish like wild caught salmon) and NO refined carbs, artificial sweeteners and much lower intakes of omega-6 fatty acids (sunflower, soybean, corn, safflower oils).  Might as well throw in a good quality prenatal.  Incidentally, ALL of the prescription prenatals I have seen are of such awful quality they should be illegal (let alone $40 / month!!).

SURPRISING PROBLEM WITH FERTILITY TREATMENTS

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The number of couples using assisted reproduction techniques (ART) continues to go up.  The problem is that, in most cases, the reason the couple cannot get pregnant is lifestyle.  While they exist, few represent true problems with the ability to reproduce, vs the ability to reproduce RIGHT NOW.

As an example, polycystic ovarian syndrome accounts for a large proportion of the cases of infertility.  This is strongly associated with being prediabetic.  To do the right thing, you address the prediabetic lifestyle in order to allow pregnancy to occur.  Trying to force a pregnancy on a body that is not ready for it can lead to problems.  It’s just really, really not a good idea to mess with Mother Nature in this way.

To understand this current article, we need to understand a process called methylation, which uses factors such as folic acid and B12 to put “marks” onto regions of DNA to turn them on or off.  This allows liver cell DNA, which contains all the information to perform the functions of every other type of cell, to only do “liver” stuff and not “brain” stuff.

This process also occurs in our reproductive cells (sperm and oocyte), where methylation is turned on and off at critical points in the transition from production of the reproductive cells to fertilization to the time spent in the womb.  This process can be called “imprinting” in that it allows messages not contained in the DNA to be passed on to the next generation.

The problem with certain ART procedures is that they may grab these cells at the inappropriate times when the methylation “imprinting” is not present.  Thus, adaptive traits that may protect the newborn may be lost.

While this concept is evolving, I can’t see that the outcome is a good thing, and may be one of the reasons why we see increased risk of preterm labor as well as increased risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes in children conceived through ART.

Let me give a good example.  Had a couple as patients a few years back.  Somehow the topic came up of pregnancy in an office visit and there was obvious tension between the two.  Turns out that they had been trying and her OB was pushing her towards ART.  Well, we did a diet history, made some changes and put her on a high quality prenatal.  Two months later I had a thank you card delivered to me and some 8 months later their little daughter was born.

Had this couple gone through ART, it is impossible to say if the outcome would have been different.  But the bottom line is that ART was NOT what was needed.  Lifestyle was what was needed.

Read more…

WANT A HEALTHY PREGNANCY? DO THIS FIRST…

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This is not the first time I’ve mentioned just how critically important the in-utero environment is in programming that child’s health for the next FIFTY years.  If you want to ensure a healthy pregnancy and give your newborn baby the best odds to live a healthy life, you need to begin before pregnancy.

The studies confirming that preprogramming for obesity and diabetes begins in the womb continue to accrue.  This is little doubt left that this is true.  We no know that the second a woman is pregnant, her decisions affect her newborn’s health.  But what about decisions before pregnancy?

Turns out this is just as critically important.  Elevated cardiovascular risk, as evidence by elevated triglycerides (notice we did not say elevated total cholesterol), before conception led to a 60% higher risk of having a baby being born preterm.  Being born preterm increases that baby’s risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.  That baby, with elevated cardiovascular risk, will likely be raised by the mother who never learned to live for her genetics (as evidenced by the elevated triglycerides).

Here’s the rub.  The most common cause of infertility in the US today is polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS).  This IS insulin resistance.  It is a lifestyle problem.  Without fixing the prediabetic lifestyle, you will not fix the PCOS.  I have had too many patients over the years who spent tens of thousands of dollars, but no one ever addressed lifestyle, which is the key reason they need the fertility treatment!

By not fixing the lifestyle and forcing a woman’s body into pregnancy when it’s not ready, you are, without a doubt, increasing the risk that a successful pregnancy will put the newborn baby at increased risk for the rest of their lives for chronic diseases.  Seems like very short term thinking to just throw some Clomid at the problem..

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002937811001797