For today's episode, Nicole Rinton returns to tell us about risk factors associated with pregnancy and autism.
Nicole will take us through a pre-pregnancy topics to increase our awareness and tools to consider for reducing the rates of autism.
In addition, she will take us through pregnancy and postnatal factors commonly associated with autism.
Some of these factors are from the environment and some of these biological considerations and biomarkers that, at times, can be seen in blood work.
With her 17 years in medicine and her drive as a mother, Nicole offers tremendous knowledge on the topic of autism.
And now, today's episode with Nicole Rincan.
Nicole, let's start with pre-pregnancy and maybe we can get into some factors such as prevention and some sort of awareness, maybe biomarkers or lab work that can be done and some environmental factors.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Ryan, for having me on today. I really appreciate it. It was really fun last time and I love chatting.
And I did want to, I have to preface every speech with this. This is not direct medical advice that I'm giving. So, of course, anything that I'm saying, don't take it as a prescription, please talk to your doctor about anything you're going to do or try during pregnancy or with any medical intervention.
So, yeah, thank you for having me on about pregnancy. I wanted to, yeah, talk about it because it's really important, I think, as autism awareness is increasing and it's important for mothers to understand that there is a familial kind of inheritance with autism frequently.
So, there was one study that showed that 18, over almost 19% of kids with autism have an older sibling with autism. So, you know, if you have one child with autism, you're more likely to have, much more likely to have another child that's up to like six times the risk rating.
So, so prevention can be key. And also, it's interesting because when they looked at maternal and paternal half siblings, there's even an increased risk in each direction. So, for half siblings on the maternal side, if you have a sibling with autism, you'll have a two and a half times greater rate of having autism.
And then if you have a paternal sibling, half sibling, it's a one and a half greater risk. So, it does appear that like the genes on both sides do affect pregnancy. So, we're going to talk about maternal risk factors, but it is also important, dads are important too.
And so their health does matter in the contribution of having healthy children. So I just wanted to point that out.
And I also wanted to just kind of start the talk saying that, you know, there was a cool study that showed the maternal knowledge of environmental toxicants,
lower the risk of having children with autism. So that's why I want to do this podcast, this podcast, because the more moms know, the more they can avoid things and do the right things, take the right things.
It does lower your risk. So it matters. It very much matters. And I know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So we're really trying to make sure that we get as many healthy babies being born every day as we can and not have to try to reverse some of the effects of autism that we see.
So, yeah, that's kind of my intro. You wanted to kind of dive into maybe some maternal risk factors. Is that right, Ryan?
Sure. Yeah, let's, yeah, because I'm absolutely in an agreement with you because this information ought to be out there. And if it's just one child saved, then perfect.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and like I said, it's important.
Mumper did a cohort study. It was a pretty big study in 2013. Now it's a decade old, but she kind of did a pregnancy summary talking about various risk factors and there does appear to be a lot. So it's not just one or two big risk factors.
So for the sake of this podcast, we'll kind of touch upon the most important that we found and also the most modifiable because some things that's like, well, genetic like race or, you know, one study showed that being white or Asian was an increased risk versus being other races.
For having an autistic child and, you know, obviously we can't change that. So, but there are a lot of things you can. So then this mumper study, she talked about environmental toxicants being a major risk factor.
And there are other things like gut flora, maternal gut flora. So having a mom that had dysbiosis was a risk factor. Medications were part of those toxicants, such as the big ones that they identified were Tylenol.
So really advocate for mom to not take Tylenol during pregnancy because it has been significantly correlated with autism in children and offspring.
The other medications they talk about is antibiotics. So moms that took antibiotics during pregnancy had higher likelihoods.
And again, that's a really complicated topic. Is it because it caused dysbiosis or was it the infection to begin with that was the risk factor, or was it the actual some kind of a toxin from, toxicity from the antibiotic and it's hard to kind of tease apart.
But again, these are things like if moms having GI issues, you know, for whatever reason, severe constipation, diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, things like that, you should identify that prior to conception.
And she also mentioned, you know, breastfeeding duration was a risk factor. So they talked and we'll talk later about post conception strategies, but I'm sick post postpartum strategies, but breastfeeding for at least six months actually significantly
decreased the risk of autism to so breastfeeding is an important thing.
You know, there are there are some other, you know, toxicants that other studies have pointed out.
So there was another one.
Dr. Rossignol actually did a review study, who I worked for in 2014 and he identified the two biggest toxicants were air pollution and pesticides.
There's been a big correlation, even just with, you know, the 2.5 ppm, like the kind of air pollution from vehicles and things that are associated with autism. So there's a big urban correlation.
So kids that live in bear urban cities actually have more autism rates versus living in rural areas. And you know, yeah, that may be correlated with air pollution studies.
There was another really cool study that showed that living next, I mean, it's not cool, it's unfortunate, but living next to a freeway.
I believe it was like 300 feet, it was really relatively close, like a block away from a freeway, increased the risk of having autism in their offspring.
So they actually did a study that showed if you were in this radius from the freeways, you had higher incidence.
So that it does appear to be some have an impact. Pesticides, and this was again a study done a decade ago, but pesticides do appear to be big mitochondrial toxins for certain people, especially with genetic susceptibility.
So living in agricultural areas where they use a lot of pesticides or living in areas, you know, where just like maybe Florida where they're using a lot of pesticides routinely, or, you know, frankly eating non organic food and having pesticides ingested in your daily meals can correlate.
There's a gene called pond one gene that I've seen it in some of my patients where
you know these kids are profoundly sick with pesticides and you test them and their their organophosphates through the roof and you know removing that strict with mostly with strict dietary, you know, restrictions of intake of pesticides can really improve outcomes improves
their mitochondrial function their speech their cognition. So, so yeah I mean like I said we can go on and on about risk factors did you have any questions about those specifically.
Yeah, it was very fascinating as you was explaining that because of and you as anyone.
You know as well as anyone that are mitochondria is from the maternal side. Yes, and you know they're they're exposed as everything that you were describing so the child's mitochondria.
And that being such a huge factor for our cell health and our nervous systems. And then I was, I was thinking about that gut flora about the pregnant mother because during some research I found that the the maternal peripheral or specifically the the
pancreas serotonin provides serotonin for the in the womb for the central nervous system of the child.
So that was just wow to me because of this is obviously kind of dysfunction in our modern society and autism as we know it as a low serotonin or serotonin dysfunction in the central nervous system is a big factor for autism that direct
relationship there was just like oh my gosh. Yeah, I was just wondering if I have a couple of questions though. Yeah.
Are there alternatives parents or maternal can use besides Tylenol if they choose this route. I think that's probably is to avoid it, but if they need to.
So that's a difficult one. Unfortunately, because you can't take ibuprofen I mean general medical wisdom is you can't take ibuprofen during pregnancy.
Because it, it causes a it causes a certain hole in the baby's heart basically it can.
It's not indicated and can be dangerous for the fetus so you don't want to take it. So a lot of times it's kind of looking at alternative routes I typically would try to do kind of natural anti inflammatory
and we can talk about this later but it's part of my work up is that well why are you having pain to begin with you know is there.
Do you have inflammation because you know typically you know you're going to correlate with pain with inflammation and you know sometimes there's just organic things you got a you had a back disc herniated a long time ago and you know sometimes
there's just structural issues but a lot of times there's inflammation associated with that especially you know with most moms that are young, you know, you know, less than, you know, 40.
There shouldn't be some consistent pain unless there was an accident or whatnot but yeah reducing inflammation can be key so you know we can try, you know, fish oils a big one and you know other supplements that help make the omega three fatty acids like I mentioned,
and other things that can help reduce inflammation to begin with so the goal is to iron out if you're having chronic pain before the pregnancy what's going on and let's address that first, you know.
So you know and I had I mean I had really bad during my pregnancy, it was probably during the last trimester.
I had really bad headaches and I don't know, you know, now kind of looking back I was thinking I was having histamine intolerances because again during my pregnancy, I had a dysbiosis I was having GI problems, and I don't think I adequately address them before I got pregnant and you know,
I just kind of did fertility treatments and I got triplets and that yay but you know had I known I would have gone about it differently.
And, you know, I just kind of, you know, the doctors were like let's do an MRI on you why are you having headaches and I refuse I'm like no no no I don't want any testing like I just you know and so I was trying to work with food.
So I cut out some dairy towards the end of my pregnancy and it actually helped. So, figuring out where like again where the source of the pain is what's causing this inflammation so instead of just giving a med that's treating things downstream let's try to go upstream and see where it's coming from.
So yeah it's a really good question.
Something else that I pulled out of that that first few minutes there about the freeway. And I was wondering if, like, of course the air pollution is obviously there but the, the amount of light, especially at night, because I'm so fascinated with you can see pictures from space.
Like the 40s, 60s, 80s, 2000s to current day. And it's just increasing the nightlife is just so bright across our societies now.
Yeah, yeah, it's possible. I mean, you know, I know you're really into studying light and effects of light and you know seasonal, like we were I was going to bring up seasonality of birth.
So there was one big study and it was a really, really a large cohort it was over 6 million kids they looked out so very large study looking at what season was most correlated with autism and they found that conceptions with December through March had the highest rates.
And conversely, summer was had the lowest rates. So, you know, there is something to that of having that natural light and, you know, being maybe having had a longer length of light, you know, like the summers are the longest days.
And so yeah, that that maybe have a big impact. And interestingly, too, if you look at the demographic of geographic location. The this was a study I was as probably a decade old now too but it showed that people in the northeast so like New England area had the highest
rates of incidence geographically of autism versus the southeast had the lowest. So, you know, maybe the further towards the equator, you're getting more sunlight, you know, who knows or maybe there's like you mentioned there's just more urban areas in in in New England, you know
there's Boston in New York and if you're leaving there's a lot more people populated in urban areas versus if you look at like New Mexico, you know there's not going to be as many urban areas per population so densely, you know densely populated of course so.
So yeah, it's really interesting and to talk about your serotonin I mean the studies are very, they're all over the place you know they used to think when I was first reading these studies with serotonin they used to think that it was a hyper serotonin state and that caused autism.
So what they did was as an experiment like there's a ton of studies a bunch of doctors trialed fenfluramine, which actually has it used to be fen for the fen fen you know it was the weight loss drug, but what they found is had novel anti serotonin properties
so these doctors all theorized well let's give an anti serotonin agent and see how they do. And they did study after study and there were a little bit of results but most of them were not successful and so they found that actually driving down serotonin didn't really help kids with autism.
So, I just was reading a paper actually yesterday on on tryptophan which is kind of the precursor to serotonin, and they found that they, they starved out kids with tryptophan.
And they did like for 24 hours and then they gave them some of them placebo which is like no tryptophan or they gave some of them back tryptophan. And there was a very it was a wide variety of results the kids that had high serotonin states and then dipped down to very low serotonin states
had really abnormal behaviors so they didn't seem to tolerate low serotonin versus the kids that had moderate when they dipped down they seem to do okay so it's interesting like we there is a relationship with serotonin
that kids do very well with SSRIs on the spectrum actually increasing serotonin and some kids don't. And I think there, there must be a subset there must be a gene type I think it's probably associated with the microbiome and maybe methylation
maybe going to act up full late like we talked about. So, you know, it's, it's there, there, it seems like what we need to do for the future, in my opinion, of autism is kind of tease apart different kind of types of autism or what you know this is the this is the the
the kids that seem to have clastridia and they have too much propionic acid and then they're not converting dopamine to norepinephrine. This is the group that has too much serotonin and they respond to these kind of you know. So, and we try to do that we try to do that organically in our clinic by looking at the markers and treating
individual kids but gather there maybe I would hope there'd be a better way to kind of delineate groups but we're trying.
So, what I know about inflammation from studying like quantum physics and whatnot is inflammation is too many protons. So that means there's not enough electrons, which is also with a lot of the topics that we're going, we're talking about now.
I was just wondering if, if mothers and fathers could increase their electrons, especially during those winter months, because it's apparent it's obvious to me, like, during the winter, the earth, northern hemisphere is not getting those electrons.
I'm just thinking out loud there. I just wanted to say that. Well, yeah, and I think what you're, I think, you know, is basically what you're saying is oxidative stress, and that that oxidative that redox where they lose an electron and then your body has to gain it and you kind of go through this process.
And so yes, there's too many free radicals, and that can cause inflammation and a lot of damage, and neurologically, of course. And so but you know there are other aspects of inflammation to as far as immune modulating aspects.
And so, you know, there's, there's TNF alpha, and you know, there's other immune responses that can trigger this as well. But yes, it kind of I mean Dr. Rossignol and Dr. Fry heard them at a conference once they're, they're joke, they joke and they're like, Yeah, yeah, we're treating mitochondrial dysfunction.
Yes, but basically all we're doing is giving antioxidants. Everything's an antioxidant, you know, and so they're all in this exactly to your point.
And I think that the sunlight, yes, can absolutely serve that purpose. And I think it is, you know, essential for health. And so yes, it's, it's, you know, agree.
We have those with the mitochondria because of how much 95% of our melatonin is made in the mitochondria. And it goes back to that tryptophan because that's also sequence along the lines of serotonin and melatonin. And because that's might be our number one antioxidant. I don't know if it's number one, I don't know if we can subordinate them, but it's up there.
Yeah, well optimizing the electron transport chain is part of what we do for a lot of mitochondrial dysfunction. So a lot of these supplements like CoQ 10 and carnitine can very much help support those processes and make sure that the, we're not losing a lot of energy and we're not creating a lot of free radicals while it's going down that chain to produce a ATP.
So it's, it's, yeah, it's very crucial. It's all kind of.
I selected a blue light will create free radicals from vitamin A out of high form, and it destroys the lipid rafts and the mitochondria and stuff. And that's also goes in line with the rates of being exposed to artificial light and avoiding sunlight and the types of artificial light.
Yeah.
But that's all complicated. And I want to make this more about, more about what, what fathers and mothers can do. So I was wondering if there are options or alternatives to things like antibiotics.
Yeah, so that's a really good question. And, you know, a lot of these things, again, this is, you know, we don't typically do.
So I don't, my goal is to optimize the mother's health while, or before conception. So looking at these things, I try not to treat, we really don't treat like, we're not a primary care, you know, we're not a, we're not a gynecologist,
OBGYN, you know, practice. So for a lot of these things we do defer. And some things, you know, I mean, with maternal infections, you do need to address, you know, the mom, I mean, if you have a, if you have an infection, you know, maybe more,
you know, maybe more dangerous, of course, to leave that untreated. And not all antibiotics are created equal and even, you know, general medicine kind of knows that. And so the least invasive, the better, you know, so it's a very case by case, I wish I had some straightforward answers.
There's things that we could look at and usually figure out, you know, what the infection is and what's the safest antibiotic or even herbs, but some herbs you got to make sure they're tested during pregnancy.
So I'm always very wary of telling moms, you know, to take herbs, because, you know, you want to make sure that you know what's safe. And so, you know, like I said, for that, a lot of it is, you know, preventing the infection to begin with so, you know, I talked about it with just autism treatment in general and a lot of the things look very much the same,
you know, making sure that you're not eating foods that have a lot of herbicides like roundup, which can cause a dysbiosis. And that, that will definitely trigger so eating an organic diet, you know, eating whole foods without a lot of additives which we don't know you have in half what the ingredients are,
and so, you know, for me, again, like with my headache, but in my pregnancy, a lot of times it's just reducing something bad that you're doing versus, you know, and what kind of water are you drinking, are you drinking tap water that may have arsenic or, you know, too much chromium or, you know, nitrates or chlorine.
And so, you know, really optimizing, you know, the things that are going to keep your body healthy because we're going to fight, I mean, naturally we get infections and we can fight them, you know, if a, I mean, a lot of times women, you know, in the, in a practice, if a woman has an infection like a gynecologic infection, or even a UTI, like half the time a woman will recover naturally over a few days.
We just kind of a standard of practice, given antibiotics and, you know, it gets a little sketchy, like I said, it gets a little risky during pregnancy because you don't want to leave infections untreated.
So, but the idea is to have your immune system working optimally so it doesn't get the infection to begin with.
Whenever a parent or a mother comes into you and maybe this is a bad question, but are there certain like lab works or biomarkers that you can see or kind of go to to make sure the maternal is ready for conception?
Yes. And that's a good, that's a really good point.
So, you know, what normally we'll do is, you know, I like to do a panel. So if we have a mom, you know, and a lot of times in our practice, it just happens this way where, you know, we have a mom with a child on the spectrum and she she wants to get pregnant again, or she happens to be pregnant.
So we will look at certain labs, you know, to kind of like we said, how to mitigate those risk factors. So a big one is inflammation like we talked about.
So we'll get CRP, ESR, these are these are inflammatory markers and a and a that kind of correlates with autoimmunity and inflammation.
And then a lot of times, you know, those can be associated with GI dysbiosis, like, you know, because if you're having autoimmune diseases, then there's there may be something wrong in your in your guts some overgrowth or Proteus Morabulus or Clebsiella or whatnot.
So we want to address that first. Another big thing that we look for thyroid function. So, be having hypothyroid is a really big risk for for autism and in offspring.
So we'll look at thyroid antibodies. We'll usually look at the TSH, which is kind of the standard screening, but we'll also get a free T3 free T4.
And, you know, if you see any red flags, we're going to treat and you kind of want to treat more aggressively than a non pregnant woman.
Even, you know, because that really affects the development of the brain of the child. And so, you know, there's some things. So what we found that when we treat thyroid appropriately, the risk factors go down, you know, you just give them either, you know,
Synthroid or some some pairs before Armour Thyroid, which is a blend. And so you give these medications and it does seem to to mitigate some of the risk.
But of course, we're looking at well, why do you have hyperthyroid to begin with, which usually again goes back to the gut. But not, I mean, you know, they usually infections or whatnot, chronic infections.
So, you know, those are things that we want to look at. But it isn't very important to treat. And so we try to optimize those doses as much as we can.
Yeah, we briefly talked about the thyroid and the tire is seen in that biosynthesis and the T 43, the four and the three is iodine.
Do you know anything about supplementing iodine or is that I was just going to say that.
Okay, you got a great point. And it really, yeah, I know it's a great point because iodine is really helpful, actually. And so iodine is one of the one of the big supplements and any good any quality prenatal will have iodine in it to help support maternal
thyroid. So there's usually that baseline but if we're seeing thyroid issues, we can definitely bump up that supplementation.
And, you know, again, this is where you talk to your doctor because, you know, too much can be bad. You can overdose on iodine. So, but you do want to make sure that you're supporting the thyroid and it does actually help a lot.
So yes, yeah, it's a good supplement to consider doing pregnancy.
When you know cautiously, there are so many people with thyroid problems in our modern day. It's very.
It is and especially amongst females, you know, and I, I see, I mean, I see a lot of females with hypothyroid and a lot of times they're kind of subclinical.
So when I was in PA school, we did a, I did an endocrinology rotation, and I had a really great doctor. She was a brilliant woman.
Just Dr. Kansa, I love her. And she, she would treat even more, you know, more aggressively than the standard guidelines, which is why I liked her because she was quite progressive and she'd give everybody she had like, she had a protocol of
like, she'd give like MSM. And this was, oh my gosh, this was like two decades ago. But, and, but she would treat anybody with a TSH above 2.5.
So, in the standard of care, I don't know if you know is 4.5. So she'd say, look, if it's getting above 2.5, it's slow, like, let's just, it's getting tired, let's just give it a little bit and she wouldn't overdose or anything, but she'd give him a tiny like, you know,
a small dose. And most of the patients would respond really positively, we'd have people with that were kind of depressed or weight gain or just not feeling very motivated. And they'd come back like, wow, I feel a lot better with this tiny dose.
So she was very progressive. And I think, I so I think that, you know, you can talk to your doctor and see how much you can kind of, you know, treat it, because it is very dangerous for the offspring for your child to be, you know, low when you're low on on thyroid.
And just one more thing about that to coming back around what we talked about in our last discussion is that those thyroid hypothyroidism is associated with folate receptor binding proteins.
So, you know, how much of it is actually cross rectivity, you know, is that their thyroid slowing down, and they're not making enough folate, and their bodies binding to folate receptors.
So, you know, usually when you see somebody with hypothyroid, you know, you got to, you know, in general, that's a that's a clue as a red flag in my mind, hey, let's, let's a give him some more folate and be test those receptor antibodies, and make sure that that's supported as well because
they usually go hand in hand.
So, I just want to clarify, and I think I know. Yeah, personal disclosure, I guess is I've, I've had thyroid problems, and I've had a lot of autoimmune problems and I think it was all related.
I doctor wanted to do a and a work up on me, and I was like, I didn't do it because I'm like, I don't trust the care. I don't trust it'll be fixed because year after year I was getting another new autoimmune condition and I was like something's going wrong.
I'm not sure really whenever I got into the sun, and the grounding and the electrons, but you mentioned that the low thyroid is that that's associated with like low motivation and depression.
Can be.
Okay. Yeah, I mean it can be I mean, um, you know, and I think, I think Western medicine is on to this. I have a lot of, you know, like colleagues that are you know just doing, you know, primary care.
And they do seem to look at it. They understand it. I think that so I think we're on the right track. I think that the, what I find is that they're just kind of under treating. I think that the like the endocrinologist I talked to two decades ago, she's like, you know, we can really start treating earlier before
I get so fatigued. Now ideally, like you said, we back up 10 to 10 steps and say, well, wait a minute, why are they getting thyroid to begin with, you know, do they have immune dysfunction? Why do they have immune dysfunction as their, as their metal toxicity is there is there some kind of genetics are they
having, you know, MTHFR mutations that we need to give more folate.
You know, there's a lot of things that we can do backing up to see, you know, like you mentioned, I mean, a lot of autoimmunity comes from the GI tract. So they know that like when they they've done a lot of studies and this is not this is kind of well established that something like rheumatoid arthritis.
Okay. Is correlated with often not always but often produce merabilous overgrowth in the gut. It's a gram negative rod. It produces a lot of LPS is those lipopolysaccharides it's huge inflammatory it loves to, you know, colonize the the the GU tract the the urinary tract.
So it caused a lot of UTIs but it also just caused a lot of joint inflammation. So a lot of this stuff's like, well, wait a minute, you know, where's your what's going on and so this is where really in depth GI testing comes into place because a lot of people have a lot of
funky things growing in their gut that they just don't know because you know, like primary care medicine doesn't test for it, you know, they'll look for a C. diff toxin or, you know, salmonella or so, oh, and people do a basic parasite test but it's not very inclusive.
And that's kind of all they test for but it's so much more complicated than that and it's it's really the cornerstone of a lot of autoimmunity.
So that's that's always that's that's always my you know, I but I love the GI I love the gut. I mean, I think that I think that the science I really try and match like probiotics with the specific gut profiles I mean I have a ton of
probiotics in my arsenal that I'll recommend based on symptoms and just not just one size fits all I think it's a huge undiscovered, you know, science that really can be super impactful.
So yeah, and you know, yeah, like you said, it's um, and in in one more thing just to that end is that you're talking about your story and, you know, and I totally agree about these rising autoimmunity, you know, factors and a lot of things that we talk about in in a functional medicine
practice and an integrative medicine practice is stress. And you know who knows what was going on in your life during that time I certainly with my my life, you know, I think that I was having a lot of pregnancy problems early on in my first trimester and I, I took
a leave of absence from work because I was I was starting to get bleeding and I so they they put me in disability and I just sat in a bed all day and frankly it was just glorious and I I mean it was I hadn't sat down in forever and just watched game shows and I really a lot of my issues got better and I found the like oh I just
needed to lay down for a few days and you know, and my body was like oh and I kind of stopped bleeding and I felt I had, I just was in a better mood and I was sleeping better and I'm like oh shoot like I was just doing too much at one time I was putting too much pressure it was you
know, and so you know a lot of this is going back to the basics like sunlight grounding sleep, you know stress reduction. You know, and and really not like let's not like let's what's how can we take away things from your life that is causing disease versus adding in
more drugs right now I'm so good. Yeah, I was so good. What are some of the things that we haven't talked about with the folate and like the phylinic acid and it seems to me from my perspective there's so much with the folate and different options.
Yeah, is that something that can be tested like pre pregnancy and monitor pre pregnancy. Again, just like the kids yes so we'll usually do you know mth fr to see how well they're just methylation their full light in general, and that will kind of dictate how much
maybe methyl folate they get. And you know somebody pointed out online in responses podcast, it is obviously it's it is a lot more complicated than just one gene, their COM T genes and there's a lot of what's called SNPs, single and nucleotide peptides that really interact with how your body.
You know runs these big metabolic processes so you know some people don't do well with a ton of methyl donors, so you can't put them on too high of a dose of methyl folate.
And we're usually giving phylinic acid, not folic acid, but full linic, which is kind of the raw on methylated form. And so that can be very helpful for even mth fr deficits, just by having that available folate, along with some other supplements that I usually recommend can help with actual
methylation process. And, and then we do also test for those folate receptor antibodies in the pregnancy. I just had a mom that was that was texting me. She's like hey you know my, you know, even she had a surrogate she she couldn't get pregnant so she was having a surrogate
and I like to test my surrogate for folate receptor antibodies and can you order this test and you know, I want my, and I want my, my, my baby's, you know, mother to surrogate mother to have you know folate to and some like I you know I understand and so it is important, and I wish I had taken
more folate again during my pregnancy I mean I, I took a little extra and so I was kind of on the right track I think I but again I took a ton of folic acid. And so I was taking extra folic acid. And I didn't know at the time that you know it was kind of a not optimal
dose.
You know was it.
I don't know, I don't know if it did more harm than good maybe it did more good than harm I don't know, but you know I would have done things differently which is again why I'm doing this podcast because yes, the ideal dose.
You know, usually to answer that question, you know, we'll give a prenatal there's a few brands I like. I don't know if I'm allowed to say it on here for plugging but you know there's a few, there's a few quality prenatals like I usually recommend one by thorn has a good one.
I have a few others. And, you know, usually it has methylfolate in it, and most of them have like 800 micrograms, which is actually not bad. And then I will usually give a supplemental folic acid something small like two two additional milligrams.
And then I will give a baseline, even without, you know, necessarily any recommendations. And then if they have other issues folic receptor antibodies and stuff we can start increasing that dose, kind of depending on the labs. So, that's a good folate start.
Are there are these typically over the counter or the prescription.
These are over the counter the supplements are over the counter I mean once you get into the really high doses of folic acid, I mean, we know we're giving you know sometimes 25 milligrams twice a day I mean that's a prescription.
But, and so you know you do have to talk to your about your doctor about that which you should and I mean it's like I said you know pregnancy want to be careful.
So, because you know babies are sensitive so you got to make sure you know what you're doing. But yes, those are prescriptions but for the most part you can you can do enough. I mean I know there's certain brands out there I can't think of the name but you can find 510, even 15 milligrams I believe of methylfolate is just a supplement over the counter.
So, you know you some parents, I know, you know kind of do it themselves.
Yeah, that's what I was wondering because it seems like folate is becoming more aware in the lay public, but there are so many options.
For the over the counter option and plus what I've learned from you and Dr fry is there's, there's differences that you need to be aware of. Yes.
Yes, yeah they're definitely not one size fits all so you know for most people I don't recommend those just to be clear I don't recommend those high of doses of methylfolate.
Like I think 15 milligrams of methylfolate is is probably too many methyl donors I mean it for a lot of people they may have symptoms or they may not tolerate it so I that's why you know the philinic is safer to give at higher doses, you know most practitioners are not going to do 25 milligrams of methylfolate.
I don't even know that you can buy it it's a little it's just too much.
So, if you're going to go up higher most people would choose the philinic and that's where your doctor comes into play.
And, and so the round backer I'm sorry you go ahead.
No you go ahead.
Okay. Yeah, so I know we got way off track but you were asking about testing.
And we talked about the folate I know we talked about auto immunity thyroid. There are some basic ones that I do think that, you know, primary care tends to get right. So most of the time they will look at iron, and we'll do a ferritin like an iron panel.
Because iron is quite important, and a lot of moms are low.
So that's something to optimize, especially specifically ferritin, we tend to check that and kind of base our labs on that.
Another thing you know you'll got your one I want to get like liver function is what's called the CMP will do kidney function you know that's all included in that test blood sugar.
So a lot of the basic screenings are good because a lot of these maternal pregnancy complications that are common like like gestational diabetes gestational hypertension preeclampsia preterm labor all these things we see in kind of, you know,
frequently are associated with autism, like most of them.
So maternal pregnancy complications are associated with an increased risk of autism. So, you know, like I said, in some ways, I mean, I think that, you know, I hate to bash, you know, Western medicine, I think that there are some things that they're doing well.
And there are some medications that are helpful in the screening portion of it, you know, because we should be somehow controlling these.
But there it's not all equal. So, for example,
let's say with thyroid we believe that if you treat some of the hypothyroidism and actually give thyroid supplement it improves outcomes.
For something more complicated or maybe not as complicated but more controversial like depression.
What we find is that there actually is there seems to be an increased risk of either SSRI use which is anti-depressant use in autism.
And the big controversy is, is it really the anti-depressant medication causing autism in the, you know, in the children?
Or is it because the mom was depressed to begin with and it was depression which prompted the treatment for an SSRI.
So, you know, so basically certain things like treating iron, treating vitamin D deficiency, treating thyroid can be helpful.
But something like an SSRI doesn't seem to be protective for the child for getting autism.
So, moms on anti-depressants tend to have more children with autism.
So, you know, like I said, I know it's kind of a, you know, going back around it's just basically certain tests are helpful.
And that's kind of what I'm trying to talk about. And other things are, are, you know, again, to talk about Western medicine, like certain things like SSRIs are not very helpful.
And so you may want to be looking at other things for your depression, especially prior to pregnancy.
You know, why am I feeling sad? Why am I feeling unmotivated?
So, yeah, so sorry, I kind of went on a rant there. But I did want to make that clear that certain things help.
You know, so it's like, oh, I'm depressed. I'll just go on an SSRI and then I'll get pregnant because I'm not sad.
And so that's going to help me, you know, and that's not the ideal way to look at it.
That's not what the studies show is helpful.
Whenever I think about depression, I think about tyrosine and tryptophan, something we've talked about a lot.
And then aromatic amino acids, and they require that UV light spectra.
Yes.
Because of the tyrosine making dopamine epinephrine, norepinephrine and melanin, you know, which is a get up and go or drive and anticipation and wanting.
And then the serotonin that's, you know, provides that mood regulation.
And to that end with the testing, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's exactly what we test for.
So plasma. So what we do in kids with autism and also in pregnancies, we test for plasma amino acids.
So really backing up to see, you know, exactly what you're saying is what amino acids are missing.
Are they low in cysteine or are they low or low in proline and like maybe an autoimmune disease?
Are they low in a salamine?
Like, so there's so many things that we can give that'll give us an indication of where the body's struggling.
You know, I've seen some parents that are unfortunately, especially if they're protein deficient with like dietary intake that are just low in amino acids across the board.
If you're not eating enough protein, you know, especially like, you know, vegans and things, it's hard to make these amino acids.
So they, they have, you know, you'll screen them and we tend to see them lower.
I have a lot of patients that are, that are vegetarians due to religious beliefs.
And so, you know, there are struggles that we have to get protein in because sometimes the labs, you know, the labs speak for themselves.
And so we can, we can tailor that.
So exactly right. We do look at amino acids as part of our pregnancy profile.
I've never considered that.
Yeah, it's very cool. I mean, in the standard lab will do it. I mean, it's great.
It's a very easy, I mean, it's a plasma. It's just their doctor can add it on there.
And it's very informative. I've followed this with my kids. I mean, I, I, you know, I wish I had gotten one during my pregnancy, but you know, with my kids every year, it's part of our annual labs.
And I'll see, oh my gosh, yeah, they were, they were deficient and Sistine this year.
And this year, their connected tissues are starting to, like, or this year they're looking really good.
Or this year, you know, we need to bump this up.
And it really actually does guide my treatment for them and just kind of guide my overall picture of what's happening in their body.
It's very useful. And, and of course, Dr. Rosamill and Dr. Fry would say it's very useful for looking at mitochondrial dysfunction, because there are certain things like the alanine delicine ratio.
If it's really skewed, then it'll show you that it's not working properly.
So that's part of what we do is our mito work up to, and we do see that we do see it.
Amino acids are ought to be one of the top priorities because they're, they're 20 proteins and all other proteins are made from here.
Yeah. So it makes sense. Super critical. Super critical. I love doing them. And because it's a puzzle too.
So you look at it and it's, it's frankly, it's just really fun because everybody's a little different.
And so you're trying to look at the biochemistry of it and what you know, and you know, you're pulling out your charts.
Oh, it's low here and here and trying to figure out what's going wrong and what you can do to help them, you know, because everybody's everybody's body is so unique.
And it really gives you an interesting snapshot.
Now, sometimes if, you know, if it has to be fasting, if it's not fasting, then it's not necessarily representative, but it should be fasting. So that's helpful.
Do you know if there are data, research data on dietary types and autism risk?
So, oh, like, like, like vegan vegetarian, pescetarian versus autism rights.
Yeah, which might be complicated because there are so many other environmental factors.
That's right. You know, I don't know in my research, that's a good question. I'm sure it's out there.
Nothing, no studies are coming to mind, but they're probably out there and that would probably be another question for another podcast.
But, you know, like I said, just clinically, I do see that it does impact.
It does impact our labs. And, you know, and especially, you know, if you're a vegan with the B12 is, is, you know, and this is like, again, this is known in Western medicine, you know, it's like, we need to do B12 injections typically.
And that's, that's kind of more or less without exception. I mean, there's always exceptions, but it's pretty typical.
Just the whole vegan, because they're not getting the those proteins and, you know, people that avoid protein, animal, meat and fat.
Yeah.
Seems like, yeah, that's going to be big. Because that's where we get them. I mean, we make them inodendously.
Well, I experimented on myself with this because I'm big into diets. I've been doing like nutritional counseling for, you know, since I was a PA, like 17 years.
And so I've tried, you know, I've played around with ketogenic diets and, you know, like low carb or initially I've tried a low fat diet back in, you know, two decades ago and that was popular,
which just totally shut down my hormones. I mean, when I was on a low fat diet, my body was not happy. I actually like stopped menstruating.
And yeah, I mean, even like I went to my OB, I was like, I was a kid. I was trying to lose weight for my wedding. And I always like, why, what's wrong with your hormones?
I'm like, well, I'm not eating any fat. Like, that's not working.
So, but recently I've actually gotten fascinated by the carnivore diet and this idea of, you know, protein only just because nutritionally it seems so important.
And when you have these dysbiosis, these things that seem to be fed by grain, at least in my case.
So I was learning like, okay, if I ate grain, I was getting bloated. I was getting tired. I mean, I could consistently kind of track this.
I feel like my thyroid was slowing down. So I'm like, let's just try carnivore. So I cut it out. And I felt really good, like really good for maybe six months.
I mean, I was pretty good about it. And I was trying to do mostly just the lion diet with, you know, like mostly beef and some eggs and, you know, but I actually found that over time,
for me, it wasn't necessarily good. And it wasn't something I wanted to stick with. Now, everybody's got their own thoughts on this and it's very controversial, but everybody's body's different.
And I found that after a while, my thyroid was actually, they were going up. My TSH was going up again. So I thought, oh, maybe I think I need more carbohydrates.
So I started to add in more fruits and veggies and I actually found that things are stabilized a little.
So and even the veggies, I'm kind of like, you know, not so much into, I mean, I eat some, but, you know, but fruit is good. I drink coconut water, I get juice, you know, orange, fresh, squeeze, orange juice is delicious.
So anyway, my point is just kind of playing around with diets, I think does impact your health. And a lot of kids do well on a ketogenic diet, like we talked about, I think, on the last podcast.
But, you know, that's not something we're going to advocate kind of full circle. It's not something I'm going to advocate for moms. I mean, I think that a balanced diet in general, I think is better.
I do worry about the long term consequences of, you know, being on something extreme like carnivore during pregnancy, you know, I think that, you know, it's hard to kind of pin down.
And so, you know, usually moderation is best and eat what your belly is telling you feels good, you know, so yeah, that's it's a hard one.
You know, and like I said, some people are very fanatical about their ketogenic some people fanatic about this or that so, you know, but everybody's different. Do you do any kind of special diets or have you tried all that for your for your auto immunity stuff.
Yes. I think the best advice I've ever had for food is eat seasonally and at your latitude, because it's all photosynthesis. It's all electrons and protons.
Yeah, created.
Yeah.
So if people could just see in season at whatever's growing at their latitude, they're going to get the best electron proton balance.
Well, and I love that answer because I've been really into I've been follow a bunch of stuff online, and I follow this regenerative farming, and they were talking about on this less podcast and they were talking about how it's really like you said eating in season eating
with the plants that are the healthiest and part of that is soil health and the time of the year, and really how that's affecting our microbiome like, and how we don't need to add minerals we actually need to add probiotics back into the
plant so much the minerals because, you know, when you eat according to these kind of older farming practices, it's really like some of the antibiotics and pesticides that are kind of harming the food and so anyway, but yes, eating seasonally and eating, eating according
to your latitude makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I'm Italian like, you know, they Italians have some of the longest, you know, lifespan we know and they do that you go to there and everything is just fresh tomatoes and if it's not then you don't get that if the eggplants
are not in season you don't get that and you know, when you taste it the food is just rich and you know nobody's really overweight there, you know, you lose weight every time you go I've been three times and I just stuff my face and lose weight it's amazing.
So they're definitely on to something with this whole, you know, yeah, eat what's around you. Eat what's in season. I love that idea. And I think I hope we can get here in America. I really do.
Yeah, it seems like that's going to be a change after the election.
Yeah, well, we'll see, you know, I mean, either way, to me, regardless of the outcomes, I just want, I want health, you know, I want health for everybody and this is why I'm like, well, I'm going to do this either way.
So, you know, I mean, it's so sick.
I really, I really, you know, all we can do is is speak our peace and speak our truth and send, you know, love and health to everybody and we're doing it so you know, I mean, that's all you can do.
So, um, I think we're, I think we're there. I think we're getting there. I think people are ready for this. I'm certainly ready for it. So it's very like I've told you last podcast. It's very exciting. It's a very exciting time to be alive.
I'm really, I'm really grateful. I think it's, I think it's going to be fun.
Yeah. So, after pregnancy, after birth, what are some of the, the more interesting or some important items that you, you find?
Yeah, so that's a good question. And I, you know, one of the big things is that we learned with the, obviously the pregnancy, I didn't mention this, I think I kind of round about did with vitamin D.
And we talked about sunlight a lot, but a lot of times, you know, if you do have a pregnancy that's in, you know, you got pregnant in January and you live in, you know, New England and you're not going to get as much vitamin D, you know, so what do you do and, you know, we do find that supplementation is helpful and the increasing those levels does correlate does seem to correlate with increased health.
It's not, you know, the gold standard of how we're supposed to be living, but I think it is a viable substitute for what we have right now. So, normally with babies, we're going to usually just recommend some vitamin D, something very low, you know, that, you know, I mean, it's, you know, usually 500 I use a day, depending on obviously the size of the baby.
This is not medical advice, but yeah, something low vitamin D3 and a lot of times, especially if we had any, if the baby's having any issues with bloating or diarrhea or constipation, then we can recommend like an infant probiotic that can be helpful.
But some babies too, I tend to recommend if there was a history of any kind of autism or whatnot is some DHEA, I'm sorry, DHA, basically the omega three, they make some infant formulas for those omega threes, but specifically the DHA, there's usually, there's two components, there's the EPA and the DHA and the DHA is more for brain development.
So, we give a little dose, if the mom's concerned or wants to do it, but you know, for the most part, again, it's really optimizing those things that we talked about for health.
So, breastfeeding your baby for six months, that's key. I mean, it really seems to be helpful. So, even if I know so many moms reach out to me, they're like, you know, I'm worried about toxins in my breast milk, you know, they're like, I'm trying to be clean, but gosh, what if it's got metals or roundup or this or I get on the glyphosate, this and that and the other thing.
So, you know, studies have shown even, even regardless of that, it's, there's so much, it's liquid gold, there's so much health benefits to it, that it's going to be better than anything they're going to get out of a can.
I mean, that's just how it is. And so, you know, there are risks and ideally the mom, while she's breastfeeding, yes, those toxins that you would, you know, anything that you're ingesting will come out in breast milk.
So, you know, you take antibiotics, your baby's going to get some antibiotics, but it's still better than what they're, what they're giving us commercially, you know, out of a powder can.
So, there's that, I'm sorry.
There's some controversy over the, like the baby formula.
Yeah, well, they're half, I mean, my understanding, and I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is that they're, they have to be, they have to have some kind of like omega six, like seed oil kind of thing.
Like there's none commercially available, it doesn't have any seed oil.
Because, and so, a parent, I actually, several parents reach out to me like, what brand can I get? And so I'm like, well, you know, it's hard, there seems to be nothing without a seed oil in it.
So, you know, obviously we're trying to lean towards non-GMO and organic, and you got to read the label, some are definitely better than others.
But yeah, it is hard to find a good option. There are more options available now than there was when I was, you know, breastfeeding, when my kids were babies.
I mean, gosh, there was like, you know, a few cans. I mean, there wasn't, there was really, there wasn't much, you know, I wish, like I actually breastfed as much as I could.
I had to pump because I had three babies. So, I actually had to pump half the time, and then I had to alternate.
And then some kids would get my, like, my breast milk, and then some kids would have to get the formula. It was about half and half.
And I just, I, my kids, it was so sad to, it broke my heart because when the kids would get my formula, my breast milk, they'd be great.
And the kids would be happy, and, you know, they're no bloating. And then the kids would get the formula, they'd be bloated and crying.
And my son, my one son preferred my breast milk so much, he didn't want to take it, but I couldn't make enough for three.
It was really frustrating. At one point we looked at a breast milk donor and it just didn't work out.
And so, it was a tough situation. I mean, most parents are not going to have that hard of a time, hopefully, you know.
I mean, some women, you know, and I tell women, you know, you got to keep trying. I had a hard time initially producing breast milk.
So, I remember I had a horrible experience where my, I was in the hospital and for some reason, it was after my C-section, my milk, it just wasn't coming in.
And I had a lactation consultant and I just had a C-section with three babies out.
And I hadn't even been like 12 hours and my milk hadn't come in. And she was literally yelling at me saying, you have to try harder and you need to be breastfeeding these babies.
And it was, and I started crying. I just was sobbing in my gown with my sutures and my husband came in, oh man, he yelled and he said, get out, you know, because, you know, they were beating me up.
It was so awful. So it took me a little while to get my breast milk in, but I kept at it and eventually I did.
So I know some moms are like, you know, they have a hard time and I just tell them, just keep trying, you know, get a lactation consultant.
It is important. Sometimes they can give you tips. There's theoretically some supplements that I don't normally recommend, but I know some of these lactation consultants can.
So anyway, yeah, it is important. And don't let anyone yell at you, but try your best.
So yeah, but, but yeah, so you know, that's big recommendation.
You know, and then everything else is just what we talked about.
Obviously babies aren't going to get, they shouldn't really be getting water unless you're mixing it with formula, in which case you want to do the RO water, reverse osmosis water.
Obviously don't mix that with tap water.
If you're near a freeway or I'm a big fan of air purifiers, I got big quality air purifiers in most of my house, because we do live in urban areas.
So I try to keep those, you know, the air quality as good as I can changing out the filters.
We talked about organic non GMO diets.
You know, plastics are a big deal.
So just make sure that, you know, I tell moms don't microwave anything in plastic or styrofoam.
You don't want to heat up those kind of plastics because phthalates have been associated with autism and pregnancy kind of those plastic softeners.
So not good.
I mean, I think it's interesting for even pre pregnancy, maybe yes, yes, it implicates pregnancy.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm a big family.
We in my house, I'm kind of a, I'm really, really strict about, you know, what we have, we either have glass or stainless steel.
And we have some like ceramic obviously like the cast to be non chipped or theoretically can have lead.
I mean, I really try not to have any kind of plastic that we eat with cook with that kind of thing.
Because yeah, I think I do think it matters.
I mean, plastics everywhere.
And if it's just the difference of me buying some different kind of plates are not using disposable, not microwaving with disposable plates that have that lining on there, you know, you heat up food and then you're just eating it.
And it's all melted.
It's like, that's not going to be good for your health, you know, and it's an extra dish.
I get it.
But, you know, it all it all adds up.
So, you know, some of those things, you know, glass is great for cookware.
You know, so kind of avoiding those those household things are important.
Yeah, it's hard to avoid.
It's hard to avoid all these identified risk factors that are coming out.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, even the vinyl on the floor and because everybody's floors are now made out of vinyl and like that can have, you know, it's like your feet are grounding, you're being grounding the feet, you know, they're grounding the vinyl.
And you're going to be absorbing those toxins.
I mean, the feet are a big conduit for, you know, people just think like your feet are inert, you know, and they don't really interact with the environment.
But of course, we know that's not true, especially.
Yeah, so, you know, what you're walking on matters, you know, the coatings that they put on carpet now are all these flame retardant coatings.
Right.
And so because they don't want the carpet to catch on fire, so we get a brand new carpet, you're probably absorbing that.
I mean, people don't think about it.
You know, and I don't, I didn't, you know, but now when you look at it, like, oh, yeah, I guess that would be a thing.
And so, you know, as a flooring in a house, I mean, you know, if you're not renting and you can afford it, then, you know, yeah, I mean, solid woods better or tile, you know, like some kind of a ceramic tile, you know, that's good.
I mean, even concrete, you know, I mean, depending on what kind of coating you're putting on it can matter, but.
Yeah.
So yeah, it all matters and, you know, so that's, I mean, those are kind of the basics and like, I mean, I didn't read this in a study or anywhere, but I love your idea of sunlight.
I mean, I think, you know, parents are so scared to put their babies outside and I know some of it's cultural, but you know, some of the healthiest babies I know are all tan.
I mean, we just, you know, you go to Florida and like, there's just babies out there that are all brown and they look really happy.
I think, you know, from the sun, you know, and, you know, I think that's a good thing.
It's like, take your baby outside, go for a walk, you know, get some sunlight.
I think it's healthy.
Yeah.
I love that.
Levin wasn't discovered until 1994 and that's, it's frail.
It's absorbing the sunlight and it's feedbacking our metabolic accounting.
It governs our metabolism.
And that's why babies are so fat compared to like chimps or monkeys, even though we have 99% genes.
It's because for our development compared to other mammals, it's because we come out fat so we can interact with the environment in the sunlight and that's what accelerates us.
So, it's wild.
I don't know, but it sounds interesting.
Like it's totally good theory.
I mean, I, you know, yeah, I, yeah, it's, it's, it's like you said, it's, it's hard for me to believe that sunlight is healthy.
And you know, it's, it's interesting because, you know, I, I see people that live indoors and then they avoid the sunlight.
But then when they go out in the sunlight, they get burned, right?
And they're like, oh, see, I got burned.
I got these spots now.
I should have never gone out in the sunlight.
And it's interesting because this summer we spent some time in Florida seeing, I was seeing patients and, you know, there, there was these workers that are, you know, on Daytona Beach Shores and they're the gatekeepers for the, you can see them.
They're gatekeepers for the, you can drive up on the beach.
It's super cool.
So they're, they take your money and they, you know, give you tag.
And these ladies are literally in the sun for like eight hours.
They worked this toll booth.
They didn't even have a hat on.
And I don't, I don't see any sunscreen and they're just standing there all day and they're smiling and I didn't see one sunspot.
And I looked over my husband, I'm like, this lady's in the sun eight hours with no hat and no sunscreen.
It's amazing.
I'm like, how, how did she get there?
I almost wanted to pull her aside.
Like, what's your secret?
Like your skin looks great.
You know, because like I said, I see people over here in Southern California, they go outside for two minutes and then they're burned.
And, you know, like I said, they have all this hyperpigmentation and it's just, um, yeah, obviously the science behind it's complicated.
But I mean, to me, that is a sign of, of health and, and, you know, that it seems like that's an appropriate immune response.
Whatever that lady's doing is something we should be striving for.
Right.
The rates of sunscreen sales in melanoma are identical.
It's like sunscreen is causing it.
And I tell you why, because red light is always out with the sun's out.
The sun is 43 to 48% red light.
Red light preconditions us, prepares us for the UV light.
Yeah.
And people aren't getting that like morning red light or enough red light and then they can't sustain sunlight.
I haven't worn sunscreen.
I used to a lot.
Yeah, I haven't worn sunscreen for two or three years and I have vitiligo, which is one of the autoimmune problems.
Yeah.
I can go out July, August, vitiligo.
I never wear sunscreen anymore and I don't need it.
Yeah.
It's wild.
It is wild.
I mean, I've heard some claims and I have no way to substantiate this or not because I don't know if it's true.
But some people are saying that if you remove seed oils from your diet that you won't get sunburnt anymore.
I don't know if that's true, but it was this big post.
This was a couple of months ago and it was circulating all over my feed.
I've never actually tried it, but I do think that there must be something to like you said the inflammation component and just some just the immune response.
That's supposed to be natural.
I mean, we're supposed to be in the sun all day.
So what's going wrong?
What's wrong?
And I mean, you know, you know, is it the vitamin D deficiency causing it?
And do we have to slowly increase that exposure or have that exposure from birth?
I mean, like you said, I know this is your wheelhouse as far as the science of light, the study of light.
But I don't know.
It seems like living in a box, you know, the way we are doing it doesn't.
My body just doesn't like it.
I get very antsy.
I have to jump up.
I go for a walk every day.
I'm always like, you know, outside when I can.
I feel like, yeah, it drives me nuts.
I have these, you know, I like everybody else.
I always want to have a farm and I imagine myself being outside with my animals and being in the sunlight.
And like that's like my bliss or being at the beach.
Those are like my two bliss like ideas and both of them involve like full sun, you know, and I can't imagine happiness where I didn't have full sun.
Yeah, that's that's where we evolved.
Yeah.
Oh, and I'll tell you, beta endorphins is involved with that.
Yeah.
And in hyperchalance and the prophecy beta endorphins and what Milano sites, it's why that connection is so wild.
It is. Well, I mean, you can almost feel it.
I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm, you know, I feel like I'm pretty in tune with like, because I got three kids.
I'm pretty into my emotions and man, like I just relax like and it can be almost instant if I'm having a bad day or I'm tired or what.
I just go out in the sun.
Thankfully I live in a place where there's a lot of sudden typically.
So I just go outside, lay out there and man, my stress, there is just nothing like a stress reduction for me.
By minutes of direct sunlight, I'm like, oh, my kids know like, oh, that's mom.
She's just sending herself, you know, they kind of know.
And it's interesting too, because my kids do it a lot, especially when they were younger.
I would know we lived in San Diego and I would know and at the time I think I told you the story when they regressed that we had found some mold in our house and they were really kind of pale.
And I would find them and they would just be good.
They'd go outside, they'd let themselves out in our backyard and they'd just be all three of them laying out in their diapers or what, you know, and just like flopping in the sun and the grass.
And I'm like, that's interesting.
And they just kind of like look at me and I'm like, wow, and they would go do this every morning.
They just kind of flop outside.
And even like my mom was like, that's kind of interesting.
I'm like, they like the sun.
So they still do it.
They still like they crave the sunlight.
I mean, they're little sun babies.
I would never want to move them to a place that was dark.
They'd be really sad.
So yeah.
So I don't know.
They know they seem to know.
They knew what they were doing.
Yeah.
That it's the opioid in the cannabinoid is directly attached to that.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
It is amazing.
Yeah.
I think I think you're you're onto something there.
Yeah.
I am.
Yeah.
I am.
My brain starts to raise as to like, yeah, the other the other implications.
But anyway, I digress.
So in conclusion, let's see what I think we talked about kind of the big things,
the environmental things, getting the basic biomarkers done.
I think I hit on most of them.
Like, you know, thyroid iron, you know, inflammation, autoimmunity, folates,
you know, acids, you know, basic supplements.
We talked about vitamin D three, a fish or like omega threes.
I'll throw in their folenic acid, a prenatal with iodine.
I'm usually I'll throw in some calcium magnesium to can help with the mineral
mineralization for the babies.
You know, those are kind of baseline.
We if we do test them on for carnitine for that mitochondrial component,
I will throw I can give them some acetyl alkanitine as well.
That can be really helpful for brain development to utilize those fatty acids
and is an antioxidant.
But yeah, I mean, those are kind of the main things.
I mean, you know, a lot of it's just making sure that you're addressing some chronic issue
that you've kind of been not really thinking is a big deal.
Certainly fertility, my take home is just that, you know, had I known,
I mean, I obviously I got fertility treatments and I think that's,
I probably now looking back could have done it a different way.
And I, you know, and I wish I had and that's okay.
I mean, we, you know, we know, but if you're having fertility issues, you know,
seeking alternate providers, the medical providers instead of just jumping to IVF
or IUI or some kind of hormone replacement.
Because there, you know, there is a lot to look at.
So, you know, I think that's about it.
I mean, I think I'm trying to look over a little cheat sheet here, but yeah.
Do you have any other questions?
Anything else you want to talk about?
There's a lot of great topics.
So it's an infinite amount.
So hopefully people can have some good take home messages with this.
Yeah.
It's really, like I said, it's, you know, for me, the take home is it's really important,
again, maternal knowledge, you know, increase in maternal knowledge about this.
And that's it.
And for others not to stress out and freak out about it too.
Just use this as information and information, you know,
and heed my warning, the stress is a big deal.
You know, if you're at work and you're trying to get pregnant, you're pushing something too hard,
you know, I mean, we pushed for fertility and I was trying to work during my trip with pregnancy as a physician assistant.
My body was like, oh no, that's not working.
Like, and so, you know, just listening to your body, relaxing, you know, what's meant to be is meant to be,
you know, trying your best, live a healthy lifestyle.
But, you know, yeah, just, you know, go in with the flow, get sunlight.
I mean, you know, go outside, you know, take walks.
I mean, some of the things I did, I did, I walked every day during my early pregnancy, you know, and in San Diego.
And I made sure that, you know, I love doing that.
So just listen to your body.
And yeah, it's a journey.
But, you know, again, if we're here, if anybody needs it, oh, I did want to mention too that I have, it's more or less this talk.
It has more examples and specifics in writing on my website, NicoleRinCon.com.
I have a talk presentation that I did several years ago talking about this.
So if they wanted a different, it's in a, like a PDF format, then you can, you can access the website to look at pregnancy recommendations in writing.
So I have it, I have a pregnancy talk on my website.
And yeah, of course, like we're here, I, you know, if you need a consult or want to talk to somebody, then we do that too.
So.
That's fantastic.
Good.
So let's hopefully we can have some more discussions on here.
One about GI alone and stuff like that.
Yeah, that'd be wonderful.
Yeah, good to talk about.
Well, all right, Ryan, well, I'm going to go to a concert tonight with my triplets.
It's the first one we're going to go to.
So I'm going to go to the Hollywood Bowl.
So they're very excited.
So it's going to be fun.
So now they're ready to be cool.
They're doing okay with, with the autism and stuff.
Yeah, you know, I thank you for asking my, my son, my one son, he actually, we just had his IEP meeting on two days ago, three days ago, and they just said, look, he, he doesn't have any autistic symptoms.
He basically, he just lost his diagnosis.
And I agreed with it.
He's like, he's not, he has no support.
He's in Gen N. He's getting mostly A's.
He has friends.
He's doing great.
So we just took away his IEP, which is, oh my gosh.
It's just, I can't like, it's a blessing.
I never thought we'd get here.
And yeah, my other son, he's in Gen Ed too.
He actually just got all mainstream this year.
So he's in all Gen Ed and we're working on his social a little.
And, you know, he's, he's has a little hard time making friends where actually this is not on topic, but we could talk about it next time as we're working on a little oxytocin talking about hormones.
Yeah, I want to talk about oxytocin.
I knew you would.
So the monocelular and parvo cellular pass.
Yeah.
That's different.
Yeah.
So we're, we're, you know, we're, we're thinking about adenated, but, but cognitively, um, he's doing great.
You know, he's very sharp.
He's testing well and, uh, his speech is great.
And, uh, so yeah, you know, we're, we're trying this oxytocin and, and, and, uh, so it's, it's really fun to be able to, I mean, to be able to do it.
And like on as with my family, with my kids and also so I can talk about it.
You know, I'm not just like recommending something that we're not doing and, oh, this is my experience and we tried this and this didn't work, but then we did that.
And that was good.
And, you know, so it's, it's very much just like we're in this.
So, but yeah, the family is doing great.
Um, I'm super, super blessed.
I'm, they're turning into teenagers, which is what you want to see.
They're getting too cool for school, which is super appropriate.
You know, and I'm like, oh, yeah, there it is.
So, you know, I think like it's, it's really, it's, it's a proud mama moment.
It's one of those things that you're like, oh, you know, oh, the time.
You know, oh, the talking back, but it's super good.
I mean, you want to see, like, I'm like, you know, hey, yeah, I'm glad that you're, you know, wanting to be independent from me.
You know, so it's a blessing.
So thanks for asking how are your kids?
In a couple of years that they're not going in one or needs you and you're just going to be like a big embarrassment.
Which is what I'm going through right now.
Right.
They don't want to be in a big embarrassment.
So good.
You know, like I said, it's, it's, it's good. It's normal.
They, you know, you know, you want them to be their own people.
I want them to go out into the world and do whatever they, their heart desires.
You know, yep, you got to leave the nest. Good.
But at the same time, it's like, where, where are the little kids?
I know.
Well, that's why you got videos and pictures and I embarrass them all the time.
Look at this video.
This was you.
I'm one of those moms, you know, mom, put away the video.
So, you know, it's impossible not to be like that.
I know.
They change so fast. And it's just, it's like, it's like an instant.
It feels, it's, it's simultaneously, it feels like a lifetime and it feels like an instant.
It's such a weird phenomenon, you know, cause it's like, you remember them.
Yeah. You remember them, you know, these different people and yet you just, you expect them to be this size again.
I remember my babies like five pounds, you know, and you just hug them and, you know, it's, and then the other stare at me like, mom,
you close the door, mom, you know, I'm listening to music mom.
So yeah, it's, it's, it's wonderful.
It's the best thing, the best thing that ever happened to me, my kids, I mean, my, my second to my husband, I mean, obviously, like, you know, my husband comes first.
I love him. We have a great marriage.
You know, the, you know, the kids are just, they're all important, you know, at, um, yeah, it's just amazing.
Kids are amazing. I love kids.
Yeah. Well, well, thanks for coming on, especially on the Saturday.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Prepare for that time change and the darkness.
Less, less on womp, womp.
Well, we'll, we'll interact some more.
I'm looking forward to it. So thank you so much.
You're welcome, Ryan. We'll have a good weekend.
Thanks, you too.
Okay. Bye.
Bye.
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