Jessie Inchauspé: 90% of Pregnant People Are Missing THIS Nutrient (Follow THIS Simple Diet To Reduce Glucose Spikes & Protect Your Baby’s Brain & Metabolism)

23 Feb 2026 · 1 h 12 min · 33 chapters

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In short

Podcast Summary: On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Episode Title

Jessie Inchauspé: 90% of Pregnant People Are Missing THIS Nutrient

Episode Overview In this episode of *On Purpose*, host Jay Shetty welcomes back Jessie Inchauspé, a biochemist and bestselling author known as the "Glucose Goddess." They discuss the critical importance of nutrition during pregnancy and how it affects a child's long-term health. Jessie emphasizes that pregnancy is not merely a waiting period but a significant developmental phase that shapes a child's physical, mental, and metabolic well-being.

Key Themes and Discussions

Importance of Nutrition During Pregnancy

  • Misconceptions: Many parents are misinformed about what constitutes a healthy pregnancy diet, with common myths like "eating for two."
  • Co-Creation: Jessie explains that pregnant individuals are co-creators of their child's health. The nutrients consumed directly influence the child's development.

Four Key Nutrients

  1. Glucose:
  2. High glucose levels can increase a child's risk for type 2 diabetes later in life.
  3. Pregnant individuals often consume excessive amounts of sugar, leading to detrimental health effects for the baby.
  1. Choline:
  2. Essential for brain development; most mothers do not get enough.
  3. Low levels are associated with brain defects and increased miscarriage risks.
  1. Protein:
  2. Critical for muscle development and overall growth; 70% of mothers do not meet recommended intake.
  3. Insufficient protein can lead to smaller babies and long-term metabolic implications.
  1. Omega-3 Fatty Acids:
  2. Important for brain function; studies show a correlation between adequate omega-3 intake and higher IQ in children.
  3. Many pregnant individuals fail to include sufficient omega-3s in their diets.

Systemic Failures and Support

  • Jessie highlights systemic issues in the food industry that mislead parents regarding proper nutrition.
  • She stresses the need for better education and transparency in healthcare systems about the nutritional needs of pregnant individuals.

Personal Insights and Experiences

  • Jessie shares her experiences with pregnancy, including the emotional toll of miscarriage and the stress of navigating dietary choices.
  • She discusses the guilt and pressures new mothers face and the societal expectations surrounding pregnancy health.

Recommended Actions

  • Jessie encourages pregnant individuals to:
  • Eat four eggs daily for adequate choline.
  • Prioritize protein at every meal.
  • Supplement with omega-3s if dietary intake is insufficient.
  • Monitor sugar intake, aiming to stay below recommended limits.

Conclusion The episode underscores the profound impact dietary choices can have during pregnancy, not only for the individual but importantly for the child’s future health. Jessie’s insights aim to empower parents with knowledge that can help shape healthier generations.

Episode Resources

  • Jessie Inchauspé's book, *9 Months That Count Forever: How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes Your Baby's Future*, is available for pre-order [here](https://www.amazon.com/Months-That-Count-Forever-Pregnancy/dp/1668219123).
  • Jessie’s website and social media for more information on her work:
  • [Website](https://www.glucosegoddess.com/)
  • [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/glucosegoddess)
  • [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@GlucoseRevolution)

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This markdown summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, including critical insights and actionable advice for listeners concerning pregnancy nutrition.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Pregnancy Diet Basics

1:50 to 2:14

Discussing the common misconceptions about pregnancy diets.

“And so 90 % of mothers today are eating a diet that is not giving them the right nutrients for their baby to grow.”

Introduction to Jessie Inchauspé

2:14 to 3:01

Jay introduces Jessie and her expertise in nutrition.

“Today's guest is us welcoming back one of your favorites.”

The Importance of Diet During Pregnancy

3:01 to 4:13

Exploring how pregnancy diet impacts child development.

“diet shapes your baby's future, releasing March 17th.”

Myths Surrounding Pregnant Nutrition

4:13 to 7:03

Debunking myths about what pregnant women should eat.

“There's another myth around your baby will get what he needs from you.”

Key Nutrients for Pregnancy

7:03 to 9:21

Identifying essential nutrients for fetal development.

“Is it simple enough for someone who's not educated on this, i.e.”

Impact of Diet on Long-term Health

9:21 to 11:19

Discussing how maternal diet affects the child's health outcomes.

“The food industry or food landscape has created this toxic environment and we're all trying to eat as well as we can, but the system has failed us.”

Understanding Protein Needs in Pregnancy

11:19 to 14:52

Explaining the recommended protein intake for pregnant women.

“statistics like this that are mind-blowing.”

The Impact of Maternal Nutrition on Child Development

14:55 to 16:26

Discover how maternal diet during pregnancy affects the baby's long-term health.

“So most of us are sending a signal to our baby without even knowing we're doing that of there's not a lot of protein in the world you're about to be born into.”

Navigating Early Pregnancy Challenges

16:28 to 17:11

Find out practical tips for managing nausea and diet in early pregnancy.

“If you were talking to a room full of pregnant moms right now who are just starting their journey, they're nine months.”

Nutritional Guidelines for Pregnant Moms

17:13 to 20:06

Learn essential dietary recommendations for pregnant women to support their health and the baby's.

“You can make sure your blood sugar levels are balanced.”
Show all 33 chapters

The Myth of Eating for Two

20:07 to 23:01

Understand why the belief of 'eating for two' during pregnancy is misleading.

“Now, this is something we need to unpack.”

Importance of Nutritional Education for New Moms

23:04 to 24:02

Discuss the lack of education regarding nutrition for new mothers and its consequences.

“If you don't eat any eggs or any choline whatsoever, your baby is not going to get enough.”

Consequences of Poor Maternal Nutrition

27:39 to 28:00

Explore how a lack of essential nutrients in pregnancy affects the baby’s development.

“If someone is eating a diet of processed foods they're obviously not getting all these key markers the four that you keep telling us What's happening to that baby?”

Nutrient Impact on Baby's Development

28:00 to 29:10

Learn about how a mother's nutrient intake, particularly choline and omega-3s, affects brain development in her baby.

“but up to a point, the mom's muscle mass is going to start shedding to give the baby protein.”

The Role of Choline and Supplements

29:10 to 30:50

Discover the importance of choline and omega-3s for fetal development and dietary recommendations for mothers.

“And choline and omega-3s are super important to creating those neurons.”

The Unknowns of Maternal Impact

30:50 to 32:30

Explore the challenges in measuring the direct impact of maternal diet on child intelligence and health outcomes.

“For omega-3s, you can only find them in fish or in algae or krill.”

Avoiding Harmful Substances During Pregnancy

32:30 to 34:00

Understand which substances, including alcohol and chemicals, should be avoided during pregnancy for the baby's health.

“If my son decides all he's going to eat for the rest of his life is Nutella and orange juice, he's probably going to get diabetes.”

Understanding Glucose Spikes in Pregnancy

34:00 to 36:20

Learn how glucose levels in pregnant mothers can affect fetal development and the implications of glucose spikes.

“So there's no studies on those, but yeah, probably.”

Inflammation and Long-Term Health Risks

36:20 to 40:40

Examine how maternal inflammation during pregnancy can influence the baby's risk of psychiatric disorders.

“So when you have a glucose spike, your baby inside your uterus also has a glucose spike.”

Navigating Dietary Choices and Stress

40:40 to 42:00

Discuss the pressures on mothers to make healthy dietary choices during pregnancy and strategies to cope with stress.

“But it seems that perhaps high inflammation during pregnancy could be one of many factors that is relevant in this quest to try to understand these disorders.”

The Pressure of Pregnancy and Nutrition

42:00 to 43:36

Explore the societal pressures on pregnant women regarding diet and health.

“the stress component of this or, which I'm sure you had to navigate yourself.”

Understanding Miscarriage and Its Causes

43:36 to 45:44

Learn about the connection between diet and miscarriage, including crucial nutrients.

“But if we go back to science and we go back to simple stuff that has a big impact.”

Jessie's Personal Journey Through Miscarriage

45:44 to 50:40

Hear Jessie's personal experience with miscarriage and the emotional toll it took on her.

“Our moms didn't eat any choline, omega-3s, a lot of sugar.”

Coping with Grief and Emotional Support

50:40 to 56:00

Discuss the complexities of grief related to miscarriage and the need for emotional support.

“But yet at the same time, I wanted to try getting pregnant again.”

Overcoming Pregnancy Anxiety and Embracing Love

56:00 to 57:00

Learn how to navigate anxiety during pregnancy and allow yourself to embrace love.

“And my therapist said something amazing.”

Managing Fatigue and Sugar Cravings During Pregnancy

1:00:26 to 1:02:40

Understand how to manage fatigue and sugar cravings effectively during pregnancy.

“So what I did is I always made sure to not have sugar on an empty stomach.”

The Importance of Exercise for Pregnant Women

1:02:40 to 1:05:00

Discover how exercise during pregnancy influences both mom's and baby's health.

“And all this is in the chapter in Nine Months That Count Forever about blood sugar and glucose.”

Addressing Bloating and Diet for Pregnant Women

1:05:00 to 1:07:03

Learn about dietary adjustments to manage bloating during pregnancy.

“I mean, listen, when you're pregnant, one step feels like 10 ,000 steps.”

The Role of the Father's Diet in Conception

1:07:03 to 1:08:28

Explore how a father's diet prior to conception affects sperm quality and pregnancy.

“one thing we haven't talked about is how does the man's diet affect his sperm and affect you know we touched on it briefly when we were talking about miscarriages but like how important is that?”

The Lasting Effects of Prenatal Nutrition

1:08:28 to 1:10:01

Understand how prenatal nutrition impacts long-term health and emotional regulation.

“But if, in a world where we have all these incredible scientific studies, we need to know about them.”

The Impact of Diet on Baby's Development

1:10:01 to 1:13:45

Explore how maternal diet affects baby's epigenetics and long-term health.

“When I talk to my friends who have kids, they're like, oh my God, that kid came out completely different to the other one.”

This or That: Pregnancy Edition

1:13:46 to 1:18:16

Engage in a fun game discussing dietary choices and pregnancy experiences.

“And even in pregnancy, I feel like that's such a big, important marker.”

Reflections on Pregnancy Nutrition

1:18:17 to 1:19:56

Jay and Jessie discuss the significance of pregnancy diet and its lasting effects.

“Honestly, though, Jesse, I want to say that, you know, you're writing this book, Nine Months That Count Forever, How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes Your Baby's Future.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Jay Shetty:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great way to keep your mind clear. That's why a State Farm agent is there to help you choose a coverage option that's right for you. As you go through life getting that new house, car, boat, motorcycle, or even RV, helping protect it is always a good idea. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or on the award-winning app, State Farm is there to help protect what's important to you. And with so many coverage options, it's nice having help to find what fits for you. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

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1:50Jessie Inchauspé:And so 90 % of mothers today are eating a diet that is not giving them the right nutrients for their baby to grow. Your diet during pregnancy is calibrating things in your child. It's setting his metabolism, the number of brain cells he has. It's setting his resilience or his sensitivity to disease.

2:13Jay Shetty:Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is us welcoming back one of your favorites. When she came on the show last time, she absolutely made an impact on each and every one of you. I know so many of you commented, shared, and messaged in saying how much her advice has changed your life. She's changed my life for the better, my wife's, our parents, everyone that we know when we've been talking about her advice. Today, I'm talking again to the one and only glucose goddess, biochemist, bestselling author, and viral science teacher, Jessie Inshope, whose work reaches millions of people around the world and has transformed how we think about food and health.

2:56Jay Shetty:Jessie is here to talk about her new book, Nine Months That Count Forever, how your pregnancy diet shapes your baby's future, releasing March 17th. If you haven't already ordered it, but make sure you get it right now as you're listening to this conversation. If you're expecting or hope to be one day, the Science Back Guide reveals how what you eat during pregnancy doesn't just affect you, it can shape your child's health for a lifetime. Please welcome back to On Purpose, Jessie. Jessie, it is so great to have you back.

3:28Jessie Inchauspé:Thank you so much for having me back, Jay. And thank you for calling me a science teacher. That makes me happy.

3:32Jay Shetty:I mean, your resume is amazing, but you're a dear friend. And last time you came on, we were just getting to know each other. and we hit it off so well. We just ended up hanging out and talking. And this book I know means so much to you. And it's been such an incredible journey for you. You were just showing me a beautiful video of your baby boy. And this journey is one that I don't think gets talked about enough. And as a man who will never get pregnant and not experience what it feels like, I've definitely seen how so many of my friends feel misinformed. So many feel under-informed. so many feel misled.

4:06Jay Shetty:But the biggest thing I think that I want to start with is so many people feel that you can eat whatever you want when you're pregnant. There's really no rules. Why do you disagree with that?

4:16Jessie Inchauspé:There are many myths around pregnancy. That's one of them. There's the myth that you should eat for two, the myth that you're going to gain weight anyway, so it's the perfect time to eat all the stuff you never usually eat and that you don't think you should eat because they're not good for you. There's another myth around your baby will get what he needs from you. And I think the main myth, Jay, is that when you're pregnant, you have a bun in the oven. Have you heard that expression before? I've heard that expression, yes. Okay. So I was told when I was pregnant by people in the street, oh, you have a bun in the oven.

4:52Jessie Inchauspé:And I think this is where most of our problems start. Because as I was thinking about this metaphor, I thought, There are so many things wrong with this sentence. First, it implies that as the mom, you are an oven, meaning that you are this passive box of heat and time. It implies that when you're pregnant, all you got to do is keep the temperature at the right temperature and just wait. And then it also implies something a bit more subtle. because if you bake something, like if you're making, I don't know, a brownie, the moment you put the brownie in the oven, it's going to stay a brownie. The oven doesn't change the recipe, right?

5:34Jessie Inchauspé:So it implies that your baby, the moment that the sperm meets the egg, it implies that at that point, the baby is set in stone and that all you got to do is wait and let nature do its thing and the baby's going to come out. I learned in the science that actually what happens during the nine months and specifically what you eat during the nine months co-creates the baby. So if you eat two different diets, a different baby will come out. Your diet during pregnancy is calibrating things in your child. It's setting his metabolism, the number of brain cells he has. It's setting his resilience or his sensitivity to disease.

6:17Jessie Inchauspé:It's like you are a co-creator when you're pregnant. You're not an oven. A better metaphor is being soil out of which your baby's little seed growing. Like you have a beautiful garden, right? If I were to give you a seed for an apple tree and I said, Jay, you have two options. You can plant this seed in your driveway where it's just rocks and gravel, or you can plant it in the soil in the sun. You know intuitively you should plant it in the soil in the sun. Because even if that seed has the same genetic plan, where you plant it is going to determine how it adapts and what it becomes. And as the mom, you're the soil.

6:53Jessie Inchauspé:And it's a lot of responsibility, for sure. And I felt that too. But the science I discovered helped me navigate that responsibility more easily. And that's what I want to share with people today.

7:03Jay Shetty:Is it simple enough for someone who's not educated on this, i.e. myself, is it simple enough to be able to say this food links to this and this food links to this? Like, is it that obvious?

7:13Jessie Inchauspé:It is that simple. Really? Yeah, it is that simple.

7:15Jay Shetty:Wow.

7:16Jessie Inchauspé:So in the studies, I discovered these four main nutrients that have a outsized effect on your baby's long-term health during pregnancy. The first one is glucose. Glucose, we meet again. So the amount of glucose circulating in your bloodstream during pregnancy is going to program your baby's DNA to be more or less vulnerable to type 2 diabetes later in life. Second one is choline. Choline is found in eggs, and it builds your baby's brain. And we know that if there's not enough choline in a brain during pregnancy, well, the brain will be formed with fewer neurons. Neurons are the brain cells that process information.

7:54Jessie Inchauspé:Third one is protein. During pregnancy, you need to eat more protein than usual. And animal studies show us that if you have too little protein, the baby comes out smaller and with a setting to keep his muscle mass low for life.

8:07Jay Shetty:Wow.

8:08Jessie Inchauspé:Yes. And the fourth one is omega-3s. Omega-3s are a type of fat that come from algae in the ocean. And this fat also builds a baby's brain. And we see, for example, studies that show that if you have enough omega-3s during pregnancy, you can measure a higher IQ in a baby at four years old.

8:26Jay Shetty:No.

8:27Jessie Inchauspé:Yes. So as I was discovering this, I was making that same face. I was like, what? Why is there such a gap between what science knows and what parents are told? And that's the gap that I'm hoping to bridge because this stuff is essential.

8:40Jay Shetty:So Einstein's mom basically had an amazing diet.

8:43Jessie Inchauspé:Well, who knows? Maybe she didn't know this stuff. I think back in the day, they ate a little more organ meats and foods with higher nutrition. So maybe she did have a better diet because the problem is today, most of us are eating a diet of processed foods. It's not our fault. The food industry, marketing messages. And so 90 % of mothers today are eating a diet that is not giving them the right nutrients for their baby to grow. So 90 % of moms today are missing one of these crucial nutrients. For choline, it's 90 % of moms and not getting enough. For protein, it's 70%. For omega 3s, it's 75%.

9:20Jessie Inchauspé:And for glucose, well, most moms today eat three times the recommended amount of sugar during pregnancy. And it's not their fault, Jay. This is really important. The food industry or food landscape has created this toxic environment and we're all trying to eat as well as we can, but the system has failed us.

9:38Jay Shetty:What's the negative impact of, for example, the three times the glucose, not enough of the omega-3s, not enough protein? How bad can it get? And what are the sad experiences that mothers are having during and post-pregnancy that they may not even be connecting to those things.

9:55Jessie Inchauspé:So for choline, for example, we know that when moms have very low levels of choline, it can lead to more brain defects that can end in miscarriage. Doctors will often tell you about folate. This is the only thing my doctor told me. He said, take a folate supplement. Everybody talks about this. And it's because low folate levels are also linked to higher risk of miscarriage. Nobody talks about choline, but it's just as important. So that's a main one. In terms of choline, like if you don't have enough choline, your baby will be fine, right? Maybe his brain will be formed a little bit less optimally, but we'll be fine.

10:27Jessie Inchauspé:My mom didn't eat any eggs when she was pregnant with me. When it comes to glucose, if you have a very high sugar diet during pregnancy, and if your blood glucose levels are very high, we know that it means that your baby will be more likely to develop type 2 diabetes. For example, there is this condition called gestational diabetes, which means the diabetes of pregnancy, which means just having very high blood sugar during pregnancy. And when we look at the kids of moms who have gestational diabetes, 21 % of the kids will have developed diabetes by age 22 versus 4 % of kids of moms who did not have gestational diabetes.

11:09Jessie Inchauspé:And this is a big deal, Jay, because if you develop diabetes as a teenager, you have 15 years of life just knocked off. You're on average going to live 15 fewer years than your peers. And there's all these incredible studies done on millions of women, statistics like this that are mind-blowing. Even siblings, Jay. If one was developing in the womb of the mother when she had gestational diabetes, and if he has a sibling that was developing in the womb when the mom did not have diabetes, the sibling developing during the diabetes has a four-time increased risk in developing himself diabetes in his lifetime.

11:43Jessie Inchauspé:So what's going on? Like, why is this going on? So one of the main things we need to understand about pregnancy is that while your baby's DNA is set in stone when the sperm meets the egg, there's something else that is not set in stone. And that's called epigenetics. It's a complicated word, but it simply means that there are these tiny little microscopic switches like the dimmer switch on the light that control our genes and that say this gene more activated, this gene more silenced. Epigenetics switches on your baby's DNA. And these epigenetics, where do they come from? They come from the environment that you provide during pregnancy.

12:24Jessie Inchauspé:So as a pregnant mom, you are programming your child's DNA with what you eat. And in particular, when it comes to diabetes, we see that moms with very high glucose levels have babies who have the genes linked to diabetes that are activated at birth. And this setting can stay with them for life. So it's like the moment they're born, they're born with this innate vulnerability to that condition. So that's choline and glucose. For protein, now this is fascinating. And I know you're vegan, so I think protein is a big one for you. Okay. So animal studies show us that if a mom doesn't have enough protein during pregnancy, even if she has enough calories.

13:09So it's not about she doesn't have enough food.

13:12Jessie Inchauspé:It's specifically she doesn't have enough protein. This is in animal studies. They see that the babies are born with epigenetic switches that say, keep your muscle mass small. It's as if low protein during pregnancy is sending a message to my baby, saying to him, hey baby, you're going to be born into a world with not a lot of protein, so you should keep your muscle mass small.

13:36Jay Shetty:Wow.

13:37Jessie Inchauspé:So he's getting a message. Your baby's getting information about the world he's going to be born into with what you're eating during pregnancy. He can't see anything. He can kind of hear through the water, but you know, it's muffled. And he's like, what kind of world am I being born into? Because as he's creating his organs, his brain from scratch, He needs information. And your diet is providing information. So if you have a very low-protein diet, your baby's going to think, okay, I've got to create my body and set up myself in a way that I'm going to survive optimally in a low-protein world.

14:09Jessie Inchauspé:This moment of pregnancy is preparing him for the rest of his life.

14:13Jay Shetty:Is there a recommended protein amount for pregnant moms?

14:16Jessie Inchauspé:Yes. So for a long time, it was too low. and recent studies that are using a very fancy new technique have found that it's 50 % higher than we thought.

14:27Jay Shetty:That's a lot.

Read the full transcript

14:27Jessie Inchauspé:That's a lot. Because when you think about it, protein is not just muscle. So many things in your body are protein, like your immune system, like the molecules that make up your skin, like all of your hormones. I mean, most of your hormones. So basically, we now know that during pregnancy, you need about 1.5 or 1.6 grams of protein per day per kilo of body weight. So that's about 100 grams of protein, give or take. Today, 75 % of moms are not getting that amount. So most of us are sending a signal to our baby without even knowing we're doing that of there's not a lot of protein in the world you're about to be born into.

15:08Jessie Inchauspé:and I when I was reading the science I was like huh I have these two friends Gabriel and Nicholas okay they have kind of the same diet and they do pretty much the same exercise one builds muscle mass super easily and the other one struggles so much to put on muscle and I was wondering well maybe one of the reasons is their programming from the womb when they were in their mother's belly. So we're not equal. Like who we are today, you and me, we're going to be more or less vulnerable to things depending on what happened when our mom was pregnant with us.

15:40Jay Shetty:Yeah. And you can feel that as well. As you were saying certain things, I'm like, I need to go ask my mom what she was eating. That's what I did. I called her. I was like,

15:49Jessie Inchauspé:mom, okay. So I have this little list here. How much choline did you have? How many eggs? She was like, no, it was the 90s, honey. Like in the 90s, we only ate sugar and low fat foods. I thought, man, that's why, that makes sense

16:02Jay Shetty:That's why you're so smart

16:03Jessie Inchauspé:No, but actually, you know, I'm fine But if I'm honest, I'm okay But if I'm honest, Jay, like I struggled with mental health my whole life When I was 25 years old, I was on the cusp of prediabetes Like clearly, I had a vulnerability to prediabetes Maybe it was because my mom only ate sugar and special K when she was pregnant We don't know

16:25Jay Shetty:We're never going to know

16:26Jessie Inchauspé:But all the animal studies, the decades of studies on animals that we have point to the fact that what happens during pregnancy sets up a baby for life. And it's very clear.

16:36Jay Shetty:If you were talking to a room full of pregnant moms right now who are just starting their journey, they're nine months. They're all going to take a copy of your book away home because it's going to help them through the next nine months. What's the first thing you'd want them to know today that's going to shift the next nine months?

16:52Jessie Inchauspé:I would say the first three months, don't worry about anything I'm saying because nausea is usually so bad that you can't eat anything of remote nutritional value.

17:01Jay Shetty:Is there any way of avoiding that nausea that mumps? There's nothing.

17:05Jessie Inchauspé:Well, if it's really bad, there's medication you can take. But for most of us, you just have to wait it out. There's a little few things you can do. You can make sure your blood sugar levels are balanced. So use all of my hacks from my previous work. Protein in the morning. protein basically all the time it's the only thing that can help really balance the nausea i would even keep some almonds by the side of my bed and have them before i got up like i would literally open my eyes not move put my hand to the side grab 10 almonds put them in my mouth and then get up like that's how bad it was um you could do that ginger helps exercise also helps actually but mostly it just sucks man it just did you try anything that was crazy or

17:47Jay Shetty:like a myth and then busted it and realized this doesn't work for sure.

17:50Jessie Inchauspé:I was like, I'm the glucose freaking goddess and I know all this stuff and all I've been able to eat for the past month is croissant and pain au chocolat.

18:00Jay Shetty:That sounds amazing.

18:02Jessie Inchauspé:No, it's because carbs were the only thing that didn't make you want to throw up.

18:05Jay Shetty:But for first three months, you're okay.

18:08Jessie Inchauspé:Well, the first three months, you do what you can. If you're not nauseous, use everything in this book. And what I would say to pregnant moms is okay, first trimester is kind of unique. Do what you can. Then I would say eat four eggs a day because four eggs are going to give your baby all the choline that he needs. Two, make sure you have a protein at every single meal. This is going to give your baby enough protein. Three, have fish or supplement with omega-3s. I did that every day. Two grams of omega-3s every day, which is more then you might think. And four, watch your sugar. Because cravings are strong during pregnancy.

18:46Jay Shetty:That's what I was about to say. So the cravings is not a myth. That's a real thing.

18:50Jessie Inchauspé:Depending on who you are, you're going to have different cravings. Like I was craving kiwis and red meat.

18:56Jay Shetty:And you don't love kiwis in general.

18:57Jessie Inchauspé:I don't care about kiwis. Like I've never wasted kiwis.

19:00Jay Shetty:Explain that to me. How does that happen?

19:02Jessie Inchauspé:Well, okay.

19:03Jay Shetty:I always thought it was just like a fun thing that movies made up.

19:07Jessie Inchauspé:No, the theory goes, and strawberries. I could eat pounds of strawberries. No reason. I don't even really like strawberries. I don't care. The theory goes that your body is making cravings that have to do with things that you're missing in your diet. For example, why was I craving strawberries and kiwi? Maybe because of the vitamin C. Some moms crave pickles. Why? And scientists believe they know why. Because pickles contain salt and iodine. And iodine is very important during pregnancy. I was craving red meat because I was very low in iron. So maybe the red meat was a way of getting iron. We don't really know.

19:42Jessie Inchauspé:A lot of this stuff is a mystery, Jay. Like, first of all, we can't really run a lot of studies on pregnant moms.

19:47Jay Shetty:Yeah, of course.

19:48Jessie Inchauspé:So it's a little bit complicated. And second, we know some things, but a lot of stuff we don't really understand yet. It's a miracle that you're building another human in your body. I mean, wow. So I would say four eggs a day, enough protein, supplement with omega-3s and watch your sugar. Try to stay under the recommendation of the World Health Organization, which is 25 grams of sugar or less per day. Now, this is something we need to unpack. 25 grams of sugar is not a lot. It's the amount of sugar in one glass of orange juice, in like half a chocolate bar, or in two cookies. It's not a lot. And most moms today, the surveys show that they actually eat more sugar when they're pregnant than when they're not pregnant.

20:36Jessie Inchauspé:Two reasons for this. One, cravings. And some studies on rats show that when you're pregnant, you get more enjoyment out of sugar. It's like your brain rewires and you get more dopamine when you eat sugar than before.

20:50Jay Shetty:I don't even need to get pregnant to know that. I'm like, sugar is like my, what do you call it? It's like my, not guilty pleasure. It's like my - Kryptonite. Yeah, that's right. It's taken me years to train myself off of sugar.

21:03Jessie Inchauspé:So imagine when you're pregnant, your brain is like, well, the animal studies show that your brain might be just more sensitive. So the same cookie is bringing you more enjoyment. So it's like, it's intense. You have to deal with that. And then there's society telling you, oh, you're pregnant. Eat for two. You know, have more sugar. Have a cookie, et cetera.

21:22Jay Shetty:What are you actually eating for? That idea of you're eating for two, are you just eating for one? Like, why is it a myth?

21:28Jessie Inchauspé:You're eating for like 1.2.

21:29Jay Shetty:Right. So the double is a mistake because you could overdose on the sugar.

21:34Jessie Inchauspé:It's a total myth. Like, for example, for glucose. So glucose comes from carbs. So like bread, pasta, rice, or cake and fruit. Those are foods that contain glucose. They're called carbohydrates, carbs. You might think, oh, I'm pregnant. I need to eat like way more pasta, way more sugar. You don't. The studies show us that in the very end of pregnancy, when your baby's about to be born, so he's as big as he's going to get, he only needs a very small amount of glucose per day, 70 grams of glucose per day. That's about the amount of glucose in a cup and a half of rice. That's it. At the very end of pregnancy, you need one cup and a half of rice extra per day.

22:12Jessie Inchauspé:At the beginning of pregnancy, you need no extra glucose. Second trimester, very little. So we need to tell people about this very important information. And you might think, Jay, okay, well, if a baby needs 70 grams of glucose, surely he just takes that and he doesn't take more. This is another misconception. Your baby does not just take what he needs. Your baby takes what is there. If there's more glucose in your bloodstream than he needs, he's going to also register more glucose in his body than what he needs. So that's why we see that at birth, some babies have super, super high glucose levels and others have normal glucose levels because it's all dependent on the mom's own glucose levels.

22:55Jessie Inchauspé:You're connected. You're connected. It's like if it's high in your blood, it's going to be high in your baby's blood. If it's low in your blood, it's going to be low in your baby's blood. If you don't eat any eggs or any choline whatsoever, your baby is not going to get enough. And that's the whole point. You have to learn about this stuff because nobody's telling you, unfortunately.

23:14Jay Shetty:Yeah. I can't believe that this hasn't become necessary learning in life. I remember people always talk about this idea of you go to the hospital, you give birth, and then you come home with a human being. And there's no exam, there's no test, there's no education. you know we obviously have to take a driving test right we take exams to get jobs it just feels like having a baby feels bigger and harder than all of those things.

23:42Jessie Inchauspé:I think you'd think that because it's biological you just know how to do it and you'd think that society would naturally support it to the best of its abilities but actually the food around us today is failing moms.

24:02Jay Shetty:Hey, it's me, Jay, and I just wanted to share this one phone call I had with a friend. It was when I just made one of the biggest decisions in my career, and I was nervous about how it would be received. Then my friend called me out of the blue just to check in, and hearing their voice, their encouragement, completely changed my perspective. That moment reminded me how powerful a simple connection can be. And did you know that 2026 will mark 150 years since the first phone call, March 10, 1876? From that one call, it all grew The first long-distance lines The first call across America The first across the Atlantic The first commercial cell service Even the first 911 system AT &T has been connecting people in so many ways for 150 years I can't help but wonder how many lives were changed How many important conversations happened Even how many lives were saved All because people could reach each other 150 years of connecting That's not just history that's a reminder.

25:00Jay Shetty:When technology brings people together, we can do incredible things.

25:05Jessie Inchauspé:Connecting changes everything. AT &T.

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25:47Jay Shetty:And on the busiest weeks, the frozen aisle offers a sense of calm, with 365 taquitos, rice, beans, and chunky salsas that turn dinner into something effortless, not overwhelming. These moments matter more than they seem because nourishment isn't just about eating. It's about creating space, space to enjoy the meal without distraction, space to connect with the people around the table, space to breathe between everything else life demands. When food supports life instead of complicating it, that's when it truly serves its purpose. Save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market. The space around us really shapes how we feel and move through life.

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27:39Jay Shetty:If someone is eating a diet of processed foods they're obviously not getting all these key markers the four that you keep telling us What's happening to that baby? What kind of nutrients is it getting?

27:50Jessie Inchauspé:It's getting what it can the mother's reserves are going to be depleted. Up to a point, there's a limit because biology will always favor the mom staying alive. So all of the mom's choline is going to get given to the baby, but up to a point, the mom's muscle mass is going to start shedding to give the baby protein. The mom's omega-3 reserves are going to go all to the baby, but again, with a limit. Like if you don't eat any of these foods, your baby will not get enough, quite simply. And I mean, same with sugar, right? It's like if you eat a lot of sugar, your baby's going to be processing a lot of sugar.

28:24Jessie Inchauspé:Now, humans are resilient and nature has a way. And so the baby will probably be fine, probably. But you're silently setting up that baby for more vulnerability. You're silently programming his genes a bit more towards disease. You're probably shaping his brain in a way that's not optimal. For example, the brain. So today, Jay, you have about 100 billion neurons in your brain. Can you feel them?

28:48Jay Shetty:No. I hope they're there.

28:51Jessie Inchauspé:So you have about 100 billion neurons. And these are the brain cells that connect information, that process information. These are the same neurons that you had the day you were born. Wow. Neurons never get replaced. They stay with you from the moment you're born until you die.

29:07Jay Shetty:So they're getting older.

29:08Jessie Inchauspé:They're getting older. And most importantly, all your neurons, give or take 5%, were created when your mom was pregnant with you. And choline and omega-3s are super important to creating those neurons. And so depending on how much choline and omega-3s your mom was having, your brain will be shaped differently. In the studies done on animals, again, because we can't do this in humans, scientists will reduce the amount of choline and omega-3s in the mom's diet. And then when the baby's born, they look at the brains very, very closely under the microscope. and they see that if there's very low levels of choline, the babies have fewer neurons and a smaller brain.

29:50Jessie Inchauspé:And they see that if the baby had very low levels of omega-3s in the womb, when they put the baby through some tests to see intelligence and how quickly they can get out of mazes, for example, the babies with very low omega-3s in the womb take four times as long to find the maze exit. No way. So you probably don't know it, but you're walking around with a brain that has a few cracks because of your mom not having enough choline and DHA. Why are you assuming that? And listen, me too, right? Most of our moms were a generation that was not given this information. And again, the food system has been failing them.

30:23Jay Shetty:Do you recommend people getting those from supplements or from food? And what does that look like?

30:28Jessie Inchauspé:Food is always better absorbed and always cheaper. However, if you don't eat any animal foods, you should take the supplements. It's just going to be much easier. For example, choline. So four eggs a day is the amount you need for your baby. If you're vegan, that would mean you have to eat eight pounds of soybeans per day. Eight pounds to get enough choline. So take a supplement. Yeah, right. That'd be way, way easier. Yeah. Way easier. For omega-3s, you can only find them in fish or in algae or krill. So if you're vegan, you want to take some supplements made from algae. now i still supplemented with extra omega-3s and extra choline just because i wanted to put as much as i could there yeah but supplements are great but again like if you're only supplementing the molecules are still going to be a bit less well absorbed than if you take the real food

31:25Jay Shetty:is there any way of knowing whether all of what you did has helped your son i mean he's wonderful

31:31Jessie Inchauspé:He's very smart, super awake, like a éveillé, which means like just, you know, he's really present. Is there any way I could know? I don't think so.

31:41Jay Shetty:There's nothing right now that you can test or know from, to know that it's had a positive impact.

31:46Jessie Inchauspé:Well, in the studies, they can test this. For example, they take two groups of moms. One group they supplement with choline and the other group with a bit less choline. what they do is they measure the kids reaction time on these computer tests in the first year of life and the reason scientists do this test is because it correlates to adult iq and they see that babies developing in the womb with more choline have faster reaction times on that test meaning they probably are going to have higher adult iq but me personally there's nothing i can do because i'm not designing a perfect experiment i didn't clone myself and say okay jesse a is going to do this diet, Jesse B, this diet, same baby, and we're going to see what happens.

32:26Jessie Inchauspé:I have no idea. And pregnancy is not everything, right? If my son decides all he's going to eat for the rest of his life is Nutella and orange juice, he's probably going to get diabetes. So it is an important window of calibration, but I don't know what's going to happen. I just know that as his mom, I was lucky enough to find this information. And I feel like I did everything that I could to try to set him up as well as I could. But I don't know.

32:52Jay Shetty:No, no, absolutely, of course. And you're always trying to do the best you can do. What are the foods that mothers, when they're pregnant, need to avoid?

33:00Jessie Inchauspé:Well, I would say the classic ones. So alcohol is one. There was some debate a few years ago around, oh, maybe alcohol is not that bad. The thing is, when you understand how the biology of it all works, if you drink a glass of wine when you're pregnant and your blood alcohol level goes up, Your baby's blood alcohol level in your uterus also goes up by the same amount. So when people say, oh, a glass of wine is fine during pregnancy, I'm like, when your baby's born, would you give him red wine in his bottle? No, you're doing the same thing.

33:32Jay Shetty:That's crazy. That's crazy. And what impact does that have?

33:35Jessie Inchauspé:Well, we know that very high alcohol levels can lead to proper, proper, proper health conditions with babies born with a lot of disability. But the one glass a day, we don't really know. it seems to be fine but what's happening in the brain we're not sure in animal studies they show that even the equivalent of one glass a day needs the brain forming differently than it should so that's one thing another thing to avoid i mean cigarettes all drugs toxic chemicals if you can because again they go into your baby's bloodstream what kind of toxic chemicals are the ones we don't

34:08Jay Shetty:think about the ones that you had to really clear out that's a good question i think the big ones

34:13Jessie Inchauspé:is like asbestos, mold, pesticides. Cleaning parts in the house? So there's no studies on those, but yeah, probably. It's a good idea. I try to clean everything with vinegar. I either drink it or I clean with it. That's a good idea. I also was very careful with plastics. So I was wearing Invisalines, you know, the teeth retainers, and I took them out during pregnancy because I saw some studies that show that there's minuscule amounts of plastic that can be leaching into your body. So I thought, might as well be safe. But again, this is very early stuff.

34:43Jay Shetty:So even drinking from a plastic water bottle, for example.

34:46Jessie Inchauspé:I try to avoid that for myself also, because the microplastics, you want to avoid heating plastic in the microwave or eating out of a warm or hot plastic container. Plastic bottles are a big, big one. So I lose it all the time, but I buy a nice aluminum water bottle and then I lose it after four days and I have to buy another one. But I try to drink out of those for sure. And then a big one we don't think about is like sugar. That's something that goes directly into your baby's bloodstream that your baby also has to deal with. So I did all this work on glucose, right? Maybe we can go back to that a little bit because I think the parallels between adults' glucose levels and the baby are interesting.

35:23Jessie Inchauspé:So glucose is our body's favorite source of energy. All the cells in our body use it for energy. So our fingers to move, our hearts to pump, our brains to think, etc. And we give glucose by eating carbs, which I explained. Starches like bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, or sugars like apple juice and chocolate cake. We talked about this in our previous episode, but if you give your body too much glucose, you get what's called a glucose spike. Yes, I was about to ask you about this. And these are not good because they increase inflammation and they lead to your body needing to turn that glucose into fat to protect itself from the high glucose levels.

36:04Jessie Inchauspé:And then after the spike comes the crash. And lots of glucose spikes over time can lead to many symptoms and consequences. So when you're pregnant, your baby, his bloodstream and your bloodstream are pretty much connected. There's no filter. So when you have a glucose spike, your baby inside your uterus also has a glucose spike.

36:28Jay Shetty:And what's that training the baby's body to do?

36:31Jessie Inchauspé:Well, it does exactly what you do. meaning it registers inflammation, and it also has to deal with the spike.

36:38Jay Shetty:So it has to crash.

36:40Jessie Inchauspé:Yeah, and it has to turn the glucose into fat to manage the spike. So your baby's body, as he's developing, is like, oh, glucose spike, okay, I'll take some glucose that I need, but the glucose I don't need, I'm going to store it as fat. And that's why we see that baby's fat mass at birth is perfectly correlated to the mother's glucose levels. So the higher your glucose levels during pregnancy, the more fat mass your baby is born with.

37:07Jay Shetty:The most baby's really cute. So, absolutely.

37:10Jessie Inchauspé:Super cute. But if there's a lot of fat, it's a sign that your baby had to deal with a very high glucose environment when he was in your belly.

37:20Jay Shetty:Are they taking energy away from other areas of growth by having to process that?

37:25Jessie Inchauspé:That's a great question. I don't know if they're taking energy away, but the main thing that's going on is that repeated glucose spikes is increasing inflammation.

37:35Jay Shetty:So it's setting them up for having an inflammatory body long term.

37:38Jessie Inchauspé:It's doing a few things. Yes. One thing, yes. Second thing is it's training their body to put on fat. Like put on fat, put on fat, put on fat so that you know how to store glucose away quickly. And so in animals, we see that high sugar diets during pregnancy means that the babies have these switches activated on the genes for storing fat. So they are set up, they're calibrated to be really good at storing fat. And we all have friends who eat the same diet as another friend, but one friend puts on much more weight than the other. And then the other thing that happens, Jay, has to do with your baby's brain.

38:12Jessie Inchauspé:And this is an entire incredible universe. So as I said, all of your neurons are being built during pregnancy. And so you have the neurons in your brain. pew pew pew lots of neurons being created 250 000 neurons per minute during pregnancy okay but that's not all in your baby's brain there's also another type of cell and these cells are called the microglia and they kind of look like starfish they're like hello microglia and they are sort of your baby's rangers they're in your baby's brain as he's growing his brain and they detect problems. They say, oh, that neuron is not shaping out as it should.

38:50Jessie Inchauspé:I'm going to go grab it and destroy it. That neuron is not connecting very well or it looks a bit weird. I'm going to go grab it and destroy it. So the microglia, the little starfish patrols, are pruning your baby's neurons to eliminate all the damaged ones. Now, the problem is when we have high inflammation levels in a baby's body, one of the causes can be the high glucose levels. These microglia, they kind of freak out and they become overactive. So they start pruning neurons that should not be pruned. So they're killing healthy neurons. They're making mistakes. They're going a bit too far in their role.

39:27Jessie Inchauspé:So the brain is not being shaped as optimally as it could. And scientists believe that this is why moms who have gestational diabetes have kids at a 25 % higher risk of developing autism.

39:48Jay Shetty:This is an association.

39:50Jessie Inchauspé:Yeah, it's terrifying. So it's an association. And it's actually not just autism, but all psychiatric disorders are more common in babies of moms who have gestational diabetes. And again, scientists believe it has to do with these overactive microglia in the brain. I want to be cautious here because it's pretty heavy stuff. So what we're talking about here is an association. We're not saying gestational diabetes causes autism. And still the numbers are very low. For example, you go from 3 in 100 kids having autism in the general population to 4 in 100 kids having autism in moms who've had gestational diabetes.

40:29Jessie Inchauspé:It's an association. The numbers are still low. But the signal is very strong. This is from studies done on tens of millions of moms. This association remains. So listen, it's a very, you know, psychiatric disorders, very big topic, lots of variables, lots of factors. But it seems that perhaps high inflammation during pregnancy could be one of many factors that is relevant in this quest to try to understand these disorders. so again it's just shocking all the stuff that science knows and it's shocking how little parents

41:04Jay Shetty:are told yeah yeah and it's and it's hard because the way i'm listening to him like it feels like so much pressure on the mom like all of this feels like and you've just been through the process yourself like it's hard work because you're almost testing your discipline and your willpower at a time when you're trying to co-create a baby, which you've never done before, if it's your first time doing it, if it's your second time, sure, you've had some experience. But it feels like so much and it feels like the stress of it. And I think we're kind of like this in society. Like today we have, in the past we didn't have information.

41:39Jay Shetty:Today we have information and sometimes more information creates more stress. And then we all get to this place where we're like, oh, I'm just gonna do what I can because I can't handle this. But this has real, as you say in this book, look, these nine months count forever. Like this has a lifetime impact. So in one sense, we can't be as, okay, I'll do my best because we know what it takes. How do you encourage moms to think about the stress component of this or, which I'm sure you had to navigate yourself.

42:05Jessie Inchauspé:Yeah, I think the first thing we need to understand, this is not the mom's fault. 100%. 100%. Society has, excuse my language, fucked up. The food that is available today, the food that is cheap, the food that's at the grocery store, the food that they serve you, even at the hospital, is bad for us. And it's leading to all sorts of stuff from heart disease to diabetes. I mean, we're all sick because of our food system. And it's also failing pregnant moms, like it's failing everybody else. And so just like with everything else, we have to say, shit, we are in a bad situation. Food around us is not helping us.

42:39Jessie Inchauspé:What can I do? What are small things I can do to try to put the odds back in my favor? And just like with my glucose hacks, I teach people how to, you know, reverse diabetes, for example. Here I'm like, okay, ladies, we're in a bad situation. Society is not helping us. Here are simple things that we can do to help us navigate this food landscape during pregnancy. And Jay, it is a lot of pressure. Like you're building a human and I'm never going to be able to take that pressure away. I felt it too. But I'm hoping that with this book, I'm going to lead moms away from like the overwhelming Instagram information and that barrage of like stuff and be like, these are four things that if you do them, you're going to have an outsized positive effect on your baby's development and long-term health.

43:23Jay Shetty:It's just four things, yeah.

43:24Jessie Inchauspé:It's stressful. It's so stressful to be pregnant because no matter what you do, and even now that I have my baby who's born, I feel like no matter what I do, I could have done it better. I'm going to feel guilty of this, guilty of that. Like it's tough, it's tough. But if we go back to science and we go back to simple stuff that has a big impact. I truly believe we can navigate that pressure with a bit more ease and serenity.

43:48Jay Shetty:And I appreciate you saying it's not, you know, the woman's fault because -

43:52Jessie Inchauspé:Biologically, Jay, babies are developing in female bodies and that's just biology. But everybody is responsible for the society we live in. We're not going to hold moms responsible for the food at the grocery store. You see what I mean? So it's just like, this is a biological thing and society as a whole is failing. Governments need to be reading this. We need to be teaching this in medical school. Like doctors need to be talking about this. For example, choline, that 90 % of moms are not getting enough in the United States. Only 6 % of healthcare practitioners talk about choline to pregnant moms.

44:28Jessie Inchauspé:The surveys show this. So the system is broken and it's so not the mom's fault. It's a systematic issue and we need to find a way out of it.

44:40Jay Shetty:Yeah, it's like your doctor's not telling you, you go to the grocery store, it's not available. Obviously, you don't know that from your parents. You're left in a really, really difficult position. I know, I mean, is there also a connection between, and I'm asking because I genuinely don't know, is there a connection between diet and miscarriage? Mm.

44:59Jessie Inchauspé:So for a few core things, so folic acid is one. So that's why doctors will always tell you to take a folic acid supplement. Because if you have very low levels, then miscarriage is more likely. But choline is also associated with miscarriage when it's too low. And that's something people don't talk about. And listen, I was eating choline, I was taking my folic acid supplement, and I still had a miscarriage. So you can do your best, but some things are completely get out of your control, for sure, for sure. And the flip side of that is that even if you do nothing that's in this book, even if you've had kids before, they're probably going to be okay.

45:35Jessie Inchauspé:We're talking about small optimizations. We're talking about, as you saw, like 3 % to 4%, small stuff. I'm fine, you're fine. Our moms didn't eat any choline, omega-3s, a lot of sugar. We're okay. Humans are resilient. But if we know this, we need to tell people about it.

45:55Jay Shetty:Yeah. And I think it's also, as you grow older, you actually start to realize how much all these things matter more when it comes to long-term health. Like the vulnerability you mean? Yeah. Like mental health. Like you don't realize this in your twenties or when your kid's a teenager, when, you know, your body's doing all the best work, but when you hit your forties and your fifties and people go on, that's when you start to notice, oh, I've had inflammation in my body for years. People with mental health conditions that are based on that. When you look at all the impacts, like I appreciate what you're saying that humans are resilient will survive.

46:26Jay Shetty:But the reality also is that you start to see the vulnerabilities and the cracks in the body and the mind as we get older, that you don't appreciate when your kid's young and everything generally hopefully feels healthy and touch wood. I really appreciate you sharing your own experience because I'd say pretty much like 75 % of my friends who've tried to conceive in the last 24 months have experienced at least one miscarriage, if not more. And I feel like it's an area that isn't talked about enough. It isn't shared enough, unless you really are really close friends with quite a lot of people. And there seems to be at least some pain and maybe there's even guilt and shame attached to it for many mothers that I've spoken to.

47:08Talk to me about the fact that you thought you were doing everything right.

47:11Jay Shetty:And then you go through that. What is that experience like?

47:15Jessie Inchauspé:So I'll take you back to the beginning. So I'll tell you the whole story. So my husband and I decided to try to have a baby. This was two years ago or something. And I got pregnant really quickly in two months. And I had no cares in the world. I was just very nauseous. But I thought everything would be fine. So we go to the first ultrasound and they find a heartbeat. I'm like, oh, my God, great. My baby's going to be born in December. How wonderful. Oh, man, we've got to move now. You get into the process. I go back at the three-month mark. for the next ultrasound to check everything's fine. And I get to the doctor's office and I lay down and they put this gel on your belly and then they put this weird wand thing to see inside your belly.

47:57Jessie Inchauspé:And there was a screen in front of me that showed me the image in real time of what he was seeing. So he put the thing on my belly, turned the machine on, the image popped up on the screen and I just knew instantly that there was a big problem. The embryo on the image had not grown and it was, this is kind of a crude image, but it was sort of laying at the bottom of my uterus, a little bit like you would see a dead fish at the bottom of an aquarium. Like I could see that it was lifeless and just the ground was ripped out of under my feet. You know, I was like, oh my God, the embryo is dead. I had experienced what's called a silent miscarriage.

48:38Jessie Inchauspé:Silent being the keyword here, meaning I had no symptoms. Most people, when they have a miscarriage, they start bleeding. They have cramps and the body expulses the embryo. I had no symptoms. I had been walking around for a month with a dead embryo because they can see when it stopped developing and I had no clue. No idea. It was so freaking painful. So I needed to have a surgery where they take the embryo out, which was terrible. And it brought back all this trauma of my back surgery. It was just so bad. And then I just spiraled. And I think I saw you like two weeks after. And I was like, Jay, I'm really not okay.

49:20Jessie Inchauspé:And I felt like if emotions could kill me, I'd be dead. That's the intensity I was feeling. Because it's not just like you lost the pregnancies. You lost the entire narrative. You lost the life that you had projected and planned. All of a sudden, oh, in December, I'm not going to have a baby. It's so rough. And I was so scared. Am I going to be able to get pregnant again? Is this going to happen again? All of a sudden, all my friends were pregnant around me and they were fine. You know, it's just like, all of a sudden, everybody was pregnant on Instagram. I felt so, so, so sad. And I felt so angry.

49:52Jessie Inchauspé:And I didn't understand why it had to happen to me. I was like, why me? And then I started talking to my friends and family. I found out that my mom had had miscarriages and she had never told me. My stepmom, my grandmother, my closest friend. All of a sudden, the tongue's untied. But because I didn't know about these stories beforehand, I was not prepared. I had no clue that this could happen to me. Therefore, I fell from so, so high. I even told people I was pregnant the day I got the positive pregnancy test. Usually you wait until three months because that's when you know it's probably going to be okay.

50:26Jessie Inchauspé:I was like, oh my God, pregnancy test, positive. I called up everybody, oh my God, having a baby. I had no conception. And I'm somebody, I consider myself pretty well informed, but yet I was so lost. And then the grief was so deep and so painful. But yet at the same time, I wanted to try getting pregnant again. And I was asking myself, do I have to have fully grieved this pregnancy before I allow myself to have another pregnancy? And then I realized that that grief was always going to be there and coexist. I was never going to be able to completely say goodbye to it. So we tried again. I got pregnant again.

51:09Jessie Inchauspé:And then followed the most stressful moments of my life. Because every day I thought maybe there's a problem and I don't know.

51:16Jay Shetty:You wake up with that feeling. It's the worst.

51:19Jessie Inchauspé:Because for the first four or five months, you don't feel the baby. So I was just spiraling. I went to the doctor so many times. I was so embarrassed. I wanted so many ultrasounds. that I started seeing two different doctors and they didn't know about each other because I felt so embarrassed of how much I wanted to get. I got like 10 ultrasounds in the first three months, four months. 10. Usually you get like two. So anyway, it was terrible and it was really, really, really painful. And then when my son was born, I felt like I wasn't anxious anymore because I was like, okay, he's here, he's alive, he's okay.

51:53Jessie Inchauspé:But it was an awful experience. And I wish that more people had told me about their own miscarriages so that I felt a bit less alone. I would even find, I would go on Google and be like, celebrities who have had miscarriages and I saw, oh, Beyonce had a miscarriage. Okay, I feel less alone now. That's how much I wanted connection. That's how lost I felt.

52:13Jay Shetty:Yeah. Gabrielle Union's talked about it at length, her experiences of multiple and just, yeah, it's, gosh, I mean, it's, you know, it's one of those things that like, it doesn't matter how, even how common it is. It's like the loss and the grieving and the experience of it is so heavy.

52:32Jessie Inchauspé:And few people know how to hold space for it.

52:34Jay Shetty:Talk to me about that.

52:36Jessie Inchauspé:You're grieving. You're properly grieving. And I think it's one of the only griefs that people don't know how to manage. Usually when grief comes up in life, we kind of know what to do. We check in with the person. We say, are you okay? Do you want me to come over? With miscarriage grief, it feels different because it's invisible. Nobody physical died. and so I got a range of responses from people saying oh it's just nature doing its thing don't worry to people saying like okay we'll just move on and you know it'll work next time it was like you don't understand it's not about that and then there were amazing people who also just knew to just hold it but it makes it it makes a lot of us very uncomfortable because we don't know how to handle it and all you really all I really wanted was just people to say I'm so sorry this must be so hard yeah can i bring you a chocolate cake that's all i wanted yeah yeah so you it's just like it's just like any emotion you want it to be held better but we're not educated i mean you do great work to help people know how to how to deal this with emotion and hold it but yeah it's uh

53:39Jay Shetty:it's rough yeah it's shocking to me that people even still think they can say things like oh i'll just move on and work out like i and i get it it's coming from a good they want to be positive totally it's coming from a good place but it's like i think we're so far past the thinking that positive outpaces like a difficult emotion and that you can't just put a band-aid on it and be happy about it and and also just i think i love what you said it's it's giving people space to tell you how they feel and what's going on and that it is hard and if they say it isn't then that's okay too but yeah it's it's letting people tell you their story that's all you can do you you're not going to solve it or fix it.

54:20Jay Shetty:And I think that's where it comes from. It's like, we want to fix it, we want to solve it, because it's almost uncomfortable for us to sit there with them. And I really am happy that you shared it, because I'm hoping that a lot more people who listen to this will also look to you and go, wow, Jesse was doing everything right, and still this experience happened.

54:39Jessie Inchauspé:That's the thing. I was doing everything that I knew of. I was taking the supplements, I was eating the eggs, I was doing all the stuff. I wasn't doing any of the harmful things we know could impact a baby. I was not bungee jumping. I was not drinking vodka, you know.

54:54Jay Shetty:Is there any research to suggest what causes the miscarriages? Does anything exist?

54:58Jessie Inchauspé:Yeah. So you kind of see these pie charts that show you the percentage likelihood. So maybe it's a nutritional deficiency like folate or choline. Maybe it's a chromosomal abnormality, meaning that the chromosomes in the sperm and the egg were slightly messed up. And as you age, your eggs and your sperm have more abnormalities, which is why miscarriage is more common as you advance in age. So maybe my egg had a chromosome that was missing or a problem. Maybe my husband's sperm had a problem in his chromosomes. We don't know. But in a way, it's quote unquote good because miscarriage means that embryo is probably not viable.

55:38Jessie Inchauspé:other reasons could be your placenta which is um the the organ that helps grow the baby maybe there was an issue there maybe your body was not able to hold on to their pregnancy and it's probably a lot of stuff that we don't even know about but in most cases you can't control it and so that's why it's um it's stressful yeah yeah absolutely i can't imagine You have to hold it lightly, you know? And my therapist said something amazing. So when I was pregnant with my son, so my second pregnancy, and I was like four months in and I was still super stressed. I was like, well, what if I miss Kara? What if I lose him?

56:18Jessie Inchauspé:And she was like, you don't know how long you're going to have this baby. But for as long as you have him, you can choose to love him. because I was even keeping myself from love and from joy during my second pregnancy until like the fifth month mark because I was so anxious. I didn't want to reopen my heart because I was so scared.

56:43Jay Shetty:That's real.

56:44Jessie Inchauspé:And after she said that, I was like, okay, you know what? Yes, I can allow myself to love. And love is vulnerable. But I'm glad I did, but it was hard. Yeah, that was very hard. And we waited six months to tell our friends and family. That's how stressed we were. Six months. It's real. Yeah.

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1:00:25Jay Shetty:it's like one thing is going through a health problem on your own and then it's a whole nother thing when you're taking care of someone else and it's yeah i've seen my friends go through it and thankfully a lot of them have also had babies on their second or third time around and but yeah i've seen it just how hard it is for the couple too like we've been talking about the loss of you know the grieving that you're going through of the loss of the baby or the life you're going have but even how it affects the husband and wife or the boyfriend girlfriend partners whatever it may be just that's heavy too totally and it's not easy another thing you raise as challenges for moms in their nine months is fatigue and you know we've been talking about stress somewhat and that's how we went off in this direction but that fatigue that you get by being pregnant and that naturally wants you to have sugar and then naturally wants you to have carbs and fat like all the stuff that

1:01:21Jessie Inchauspé:we're trying so like what do you do when you're tired well i totally get it i was there too and what's interesting about the sugar is that you think it's giving you energy it's actually not it's giving you dopamine dopamine is the pleasure molecule in your brain so you feel kind of awake like whoa i'm awake you think it's energy it's not but it's okay because sugar helps us feel better and I totally am there. I was there too. So what I did is I always made sure to not have sugar on an empty stomach. Why? Because this is going to create a big spike and a big drop and more fatigue. And it's going to create a big spike that's also going to go into my baby's bloodstream.

1:01:59Jessie Inchauspé:So always sugar after a meal, never for breakfast, for example. And if I felt, sometimes I felt really, really hungry. Like I was just like, wow, I need to eat so much today. And that was probably my body telling me you need more food. So I would eat spaghetti. I would eat all the carbs I wanted. But again, I would do that in certain ways. So for example, I would always have the carbs after a veggie starter built around vegetables because the fiber in the veggies creates this protection in your intestine and it slows down how quickly glucose arrives into your bloodstream. So I was like, I'm going to eat the carbs that I'm craving, but with the hacks so that I reduce spikes and inflammation in my body and in my baby's body.

1:02:40Jessie Inchauspé:And all this is in the chapter in Nine Months That Count Forever about blood sugar and glucose. And you can use all of the hacks around my glucose work except one, which is vinegar. So if you want to do the vinegar hack during pregnancy, you have to make sure that it's pasteurized because you want to make sure that it's safe to consume for you and your baby. And the hack is the following. You take one tablespoon of vinegar in a big glass of water before you eat carbs. And this can reduce the glucose spike by up to 30%.

1:03:08Jay Shetty:Yes, this is your magic formula.

1:03:10Jessie Inchauspé:And the thing is here, what it does, it just slows down how quickly glucose arrives in your bloodstream because it slows down the digestion of the carbs. So it's not erasing the carbs. It's fine to have carbs. And as I mentioned, your baby needs more carbs as pregnancy progresses, but it's helping them arrive more calmly in your bloodstream, like not so brutally. And that's the whole point. We want to have the carbs we love with less spike, so less inflammation, and less drop, so less fatigue and more cravings.

1:03:39Jay Shetty:Yes.

1:03:40Jessie Inchauspé:It's all about like working with the cravings, you know?

1:03:42Jay Shetty:Any other hacks that we have to know that women listening need to know? Well, if you feel like moving, even just going for a quick walk can be super helpful.

1:03:52Jessie Inchauspé:Not only does it help with your blood sugar levels, but...

1:03:56Jay Shetty:I still walk for 10 minutes after eating dinner every night. Nice! That's amazing.

1:03:59Jessie Inchauspé:But during pregnancy, exercise seems to be doing something incredible. So this is one of my favorite studies that I discovered about pregnancy. So scientists took two groups of rats. Both groups were pregnant, and they put them in the same houses, same diet, same lighting, everything. The only difference was one group of rats had these tiny little treadmills, and they had to walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day every day during their pregnancy. The other group did not do any exercise. That was the only difference. Then the babies were born, and the scientists put the babies in these mazes, and they measured the baby's anxiety levels.

1:04:37Jessie Inchauspé:They found that the babies from the moms who exercised solved the mazes twice as fast.

1:04:44Jay Shetty:Wow.

1:04:45Jessie Inchauspé:And had 80 % fewer anxiety symptoms.

1:04:49Jay Shetty:No way.

1:04:50Jessie Inchauspé:The only difference was the physical activity during pregnancy.

1:04:53Jay Shetty:That's crazy.

1:04:54Jessie Inchauspé:So even if you just walk, it's going to help your glucose levels and going to help probably your baby's brain development. Those 10 ,000 steps. I mean, listen, when you're pregnant, one step feels like 10 ,000 steps. So what's realistic? Do what you can. Do what you can. I loved walking. Personally, I went and weight lifted at the gym until like my eight and a half month of pregnancy. And it was very hard, but it felt good after I was done. That's the only thing I could do all day. I was like, okay, I'm going to the gym today. And I would just muster up all my courage with my big belly. And I was living in Montmartre in Paris, which is very on top of this hill.

1:05:30Jessie Inchauspé:And I was living in this apartment, which was a fifth story walk up.

1:05:34Jay Shetty:Oh my God.

1:05:35Jessie Inchauspé:Yeah. So I moved when I was eight months. But before that, I just naturally was in a situation where I had to walk all the time. That's crazy. Yeah. So do what you can, even if you can't move. One of my favorite hacks is the calf raise hack. So you put your feet on the ground like this and you do some calf raises. So you do like push-ups with your shins, with your calves. This is very powerful at reducing a glucose spike after a meal and also counts as exercise.

1:06:00Jay Shetty:To solve it twice as quick and have that much less anxiety, that's huge.

1:06:05Jessie Inchauspé:And listen, this is in rats. Do we know if it's happening in humans? We don't know. We just know that exercise is very good during pregnancy and babies of moms who exercise tend to have better emotional regulation. But we haven't done a study being like, okay, two groups of moms, same house, same diet, same lighting, one treadmill. We can't do that. We can't do that. But animal studies are really, really helpful.

1:06:26Jay Shetty:Yeah. What do pregnant moms do if they're experiencing a lot of bloating?

1:06:31Jessie Inchauspé:That's a very good question. I think some of the bloating is hormonal, especially in the first trimester. And then probably similar stuff as you would do the rest of the time. So counterintuitively, you actually want to have more fiber. Sometimes if you increase fiber very quickly, it's going to lead to a lot of bloating. So you want to make sure you're doing that slowly. And then honestly, sugars is a big one. If you reduce your sugar intake, generally bloating goes down. And sometimes you have food sensitivities that can increase bloating also. But that's a big topic, yeah.

1:07:02Jay Shetty:One thing we haven't talked about before we get into a game we made for you. A game? Yeah. one thing we haven't talked about is how does the man's diet affect his sperm and affect you know we touched on it briefly when we were talking about miscarriages but like how important is that? how valuable is that?

1:07:23Jessie Inchauspé:so the man's diet before conception is going to set up his sperm quality for sure we know that the problem is from the moment conception happens the entire responsibility of the diet is in the female body. Yeah, of course. For example, so women have these eggs, right? And the sperm meets the egg. The sperm only brings DNA. He's not bringing anything else. The egg is 10 ,000 times bigger than the sperm because it contains DNA and also food. So the mom's diet is more important to the development than the dad's diet. The dad's diet is important preconceptions. For example, my husband, three months before trying to get pregnant both times, he cut out all alcohol, he was exercising a lot, he was really careful with his sugar, he did all of that, and then he kind of threw me the ball and I was in charge.

1:08:14Jessie Inchauspé:But it is helpful for the dad to have a healthy lifestyle, especially preconception.

1:08:19Jay Shetty:Yeah. It's just, I feel like none of this is ever talked about. Yeah. Like, we almost, like, just have kids without thinking about it. And listen, it works, right?

1:08:27Jessie Inchauspé:Like, it works.

1:08:27Jay Shetty:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:08:28Jessie Inchauspé:But if, in a world where we have all these incredible scientific studies, we need to know about them.

1:08:33Jay Shetty:It works, but I also think we're noticing long-term the ramifications of... That's the thing.

1:08:38Jessie Inchauspé:Let me make you a little list of my problems. So, I have an unhealthy obsession with cats. I don't think that's a problem. You know, I have existential crises all the time. Lots of mental health issues. Depersonalization, dissociation, anxiety, depression. Cusp of prediabetes when I was 25. Like, I was two points away from prediabetes. Problems with emotional regulation. Like emotions can really overwhelm me. I am really bad at running fast. I mean, the list goes on, okay? Some of these things, maybe they're genetic. Some of these things, maybe they have to do with my mom's diet in the room. Maybe they have to do with my child experiences.

1:09:16Jessie Inchauspé:Like who knows? But for sure, the nine months of pregnancy calibrate things. They're a window of outsized influence. And so today, after knowing about all the sides, And I'm certain that my mom's diet, if it had been slightly more higher in choline, omega-3s, protein, and lower in sugar, I'm sure that I would feel different today.

1:09:38Jay Shetty:Yeah. And those are all doable. They're practical. Exactly. They make sense. Exactly. And add on the couple of hacks that you just mentioned.

1:09:44Jessie Inchauspé:So what's wrong with you now? Let's make a list. Yeah, exactly.

1:09:46Jay Shetty:I'm like, I've got plenty as well. I've got plenty of good stuff too. So I'm trying to think about what my mom would have done right with like, and then of course there's so much nurture. But there is, what is fascinating is when I talk to my friends who have kids, of course, I'm only talking to people, I don't have kids. When I talk to my friends who have kids, they're like, oh my God, that kid came out completely different to the other one. Like kids have personalities, kids have their own way of being, they have their own aura and life. And so there is so much that's being affected by how they're created because all babies don't just come out all the same as well.

1:10:19Jessie Inchauspé:Absolutely. And then depending on your diet, you will program your kids differently.

1:10:23Jay Shetty:Yeah.

1:10:23Jessie Inchauspé:If you have a different diet during two pregnancies, your baby's epigenetics will be different. And then, of course, you have whatever you want to call the soul or what it is. And then you have how you grow up. You have your experiences. They shape you. Everything is important.

1:10:38Jay Shetty:What's a study that hasn't been done that you'd wish we could do to understand pregnancy better?

1:10:43Jessie Inchauspé:It would be very unethical. If we really wanted to measure the impact, we would recruit a thousand women. and half of them we would say, eat what you normally were going to eat, don't worry about it. And the other half, we would make sure that they're getting all the nutrients I talk about in this book and we would supplement them and give them all the choline, all the protein, all the omega-3s. We would make sure they're below the WHO recommendation for sugar and then the babies come out and we would follow them for 30, 40, 50 years and we would see what happened. Actually, while this is impossible, something happened in the UK that was kind of close.

1:11:20Jessie Inchauspé:Do you know about this? No. Okay. No idea. So from 1940 to 1953 in the UK, there was a sugar ration, meaning the government reduced the amount of sugar that everybody could eat on a daily basis. People had a ration, an allowance. Everybody had 40 grams of sugar allowed per day. This was during the war and it was a way to manage resources. So everybody got 10 sugar cubes a day. That's it. moms, grandparents, pregnant moms, everybody 40 grams of sugar per day. This lasted 13 years. Then all of a sudden, the ration was lifted. People went back to eating what they usually ate, which meant 80 grams of sugar per day.

1:12:01Jessie Inchauspé:So all of a sudden, everybody in the UK went from 40 grams to 80 grams of sugar per day. And scientists in the early 2000s were like, oh, this is really interesting because this means that we have babies who are developing when pregnant moms ate 40 grams of sugar. And then just after, we have babies developing when moms were eating 80 grams of sugar during pregnancy. And the scientists wondered if they could see any differences in the baby's health because the only thing that had changed was the amount of sugar. So they called up, well, they found the medical records and they called 60 ,000 people.

1:12:32Jessie Inchauspé:And they saw that the babies who were developing when sugar was lower had a 15 % lower likelihood of having developed type 2 diabetes in their lifetime.

1:12:42Jay Shetty:Wow.

1:12:43Jessie Inchauspé:Compared to their peers, who were developing and born after the sugar ration who had a higher likelihood of diabetes. So what does this mean? It means that reducing our sugar intake during pregnancy is associated with lifelong benefit, less vulnerability to diabetes, lifelong in your baby for their entire life. And the only change was the number of sugar cubes per day. Isn't that amazing? Today, most moms eat 80 grams of sugar per day, which is the level that was shown to have higher diabetes risk. The WHO recommends 25 grams, which is lower than the sugar ration. So even if you just look at your diet during pregnancy, you're like, okay, I'm going to try to just reduce my even 5 grams, 10 grams, one sugar.

1:13:28Jessie Inchauspé:Instead of having an orange juice, I'm going to have a whole orange. That's 20 grams of sugar gone. Just these small tweaks can have an outsized impact on your baby's vulnerability to disease.

1:13:38Jay Shetty:Yeah, that's unbelievable. I mean, that's so useful. So useful. So useful to be able to pull on that. And you've done so much, honestly, to help us understand sugar better. And even in pregnancy, I feel like that's such a big, important marker. Jesse, we came up with a this or that game for you, pregnancy edition. Okay, I love it. This was inspired by your book, Nine Months That Count Forever. And so it's dedicated to you and your book. So Jesse, this or that, because you did the final five last time. So question number one, carbs first or protein first when you're nauseous?

1:14:12Jessie Inchauspé:Oh, protein first. Protein all the time. It will help a lot.

1:14:15Jay Shetty:Okay. Small frequent snacks or fewer, more balanced meals?

1:14:20Jessie Inchauspé:If you're very nauseous, the small frequent ones really, really helps. I was eating an almond every five minutes, basically. But ideally, it's always going to be better to have bigger meals. But also, as you get more pregnant, as pregnancy progresses, your stomach gets smaller. So because your uterus is pushing on it, so you have to eat smaller meals. So it's not a huge deal. Just make sure that you're eating the right stuff, like the protein and the fish and the eggs.

1:14:44Jay Shetty:Very useful. Good advice. All right. Morning sickness the entire pregnancy or intense cravings?

1:14:50Jessie Inchauspé:Like, what do I prefer?

1:14:51Jay Shetty:Yeah.

1:14:52Jessie Inchauspé:Cravings.

1:14:53Jay Shetty:Pushing through nausea to eat for nutrients or meeting your body where it is.

1:14:57Jessie Inchauspé:Oh, come on. That's easy. Meeting your body where it is.

1:15:00Jay Shetty:We're just checking. We're like trying to help everyone out. Following strict pregnancy food rules or reducing stress around food.

1:15:10Jessie Inchauspé:Reducing stress around food and knowing that by doing these four key things, you're helping your baby a lot.

1:15:16Jay Shetty:More rest or gentle daily movement. Ooh, both if you can. Strength training or cardio during pregnancy?

1:15:26Jessie Inchauspé:Ooh, great question. Whatever you do, whatever you can do. Okay. Yeah, both are great. So do the one that you can do.

1:15:33Jay Shetty:And you said you were doing weight training. That was what you were doing, yeah. Eating within an hour of waking or waiting until appetite kicks in?

1:15:41Jessie Inchauspé:Oof, depends on the nausea.

1:15:43Jay Shetty:Okay.

1:15:43Jessie Inchauspé:If you're very nauseous, you got to eat immediately. Otherwise, listen to your body's cues, for sure.

1:15:48Jay Shetty:I can't believe there's no solve to the nausea. I know, man. I can't believe that.

1:15:51Jessie Inchauspé:There's not a lot of budget in women's health, you know? Come on, guys. Got to invest in here.

1:15:56Jay Shetty:We've got to figure that out. That sounds so uncomfortable. Cold foods or warm foods when nausea hits?

1:16:02Jessie Inchauspé:I never thought about that. Whatever you can stomach. It doesn't make any difference. There's no science on that, no.

1:16:08Jay Shetty:Got it. Energy peaks at 3 a.m. or fatigue peaks at 3 p.m.?

1:16:15Jessie Inchauspé:Oh, man. If I had to choose one, I think fatigue at 3 p.m. if I don't have to work so I could have a little nap. I started napping when I was pregnant. That was a new thing.

1:16:25Jay Shetty:Nice. Feel like a human calculator for carbs all day or completely forget nutrition exists?

1:16:33Jessie Inchauspé:Oh my God. Well, if I completely forgot that nutrition existed, no, I could not do that. I also don't want to be a calculator and be obsessed. Okay, pass. Joker.

1:16:46Jay Shetty:Okay, two more. Prioritize stable glucose in the first trimester when nausea hits or the third trimester when energy drops?

1:16:53Jessie Inchauspé:Third trimester. I think in terms of the baby's brain development, it's at its peak in the third trimester. The first trimester is also important. Organs are developing, etc.

1:17:03Jay Shetty:Talk to me about that. Talk to me about what's happening in the first three months, the second three months, and the third trimester.

1:17:08Jessie Inchauspé:So the main difference is that in the first trimester, your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream are not yet connected. So your baby is relying on this kind of milk that your uterus produces for energy nutrients. In the second trimester, the placenta comes into play and connects your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream. At that point, it's like a symbiosis is established and your blood and your baby's blood are exchanging nutrients and waste at all times. So from that point on, you're more connected. Now, yes, first trimester is important. Lots of stuff is happening. But truly, if you look at nutrients, and especially in terms of the amount of nutrients you're going to need, how much choline, how much protein, how much omega-3s, it's the second and third trimester that are really key to make sure you're getting enough.

1:17:57Jessie Inchauspé:And it's also the second and third trimester where usually you're not nauseous. So it's easier to make the right choices.

1:18:02Jay Shetty:Amazing. Very cool. Great advice. All right, last one. What's worse, skipping meals or eating sugar without protein?

1:18:11Jessie Inchauspé:oh my god what's worse yeah i don't think skipping meals is bad if you're not hungry okay if you're not hungry you don't have to force yourself but this goes for everybody if you do skip a meal though make sure that the next time you eat you're eating protein fat or fiber first because your stomach is going to be very empty so very sensitive so i would say worse is eating sugar without protein but also if you have sugar without protein it's also fine these These are hard. These were hard. These are hard. I got you.

1:18:39Jay Shetty:Honestly, though, Jesse, I want to say that, you know, you're writing this book, Nine Months That Count Forever, How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes Your Baby's Future. When I first, I think when you first sent me the cover through or you first told me about the name, I'd never thought about it like that. And it sounds so ridiculous to say that, but I never really realized. I was like, yeah, it is nine months. That counts forever. and I was like wow like that that sentence in and of itself is just so powerful and so emphatic because you don't think about it like that you think you have the kid's whole life to do stuff and you do but these nine months are having such a big impact the fact that you've been able to simplify it is always in the best way that only you know how to do to four core things that we can all work on and think about I'm so grateful to you truly I know that I'm going to recommend this to every single one of my friends who is trying to have a baby, thinking about having a baby.

1:19:33Jay Shetty:Don't worry, I won't give it to friends who are not thinking about it. But genuinely, I think it's incredible to have a guide that is so dedicated to this very specific challenge that, like you said, is no one's fault and no one is responsible for apart from the food systems, governments and everyone around us. So thank you for doing the hard work. I really mean that. I really mean that. It's very rare that you have a book that you're like, oh, I know exactly when to give this to someone. And everyone who's listening and watching, I hope this is the book that you're buying for friends, family members, nieces, nephews, cousins, whoever it may be, because yeah, it's going to change every child's life.

1:20:15Jay Shetty:So thank you so much.

1:20:16Jessie Inchauspé:Thank you, Jay, for inviting me back. I love our conversation.

1:20:19Jay Shetty:Me too. It's great to have you back. You're the best. Thanks, Jessie. If you enjoyed this podcast, you're going to love my conversation with Michelle Obama, where she opens up on how to stay with your partner when they're changing. If you're going through something right now with your partner, this is the episode for you. The world won't always like you, but you can't count on the world to like you. Lately, I've been trying to be more intentional, even with small decisions, like cooking at home instead of ordering out. It's simple, but it helps me save for things that truly matter That's why I love the State Farm Personal Price Plan It lets you bundle home and auto insurance To create an affordable price that fits your needs It's one of those thoughtful choices That support the life you're trying to build Talk to a State Farm agent today To learn how you can choose to bundle And save with the personal price plan Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state Coverage options as selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state.

1:21:31Jay Shetty:Success starts with your drive, and American public university is here to fuel it. With affordable tuition and over 200 flexible online programs, APU helps you gain the skills and confidence to move forward. Whether you're changing careers, starting fresh Or pursuing a lifelong passion Our programs are designed for people who never stop You bring the fire, APU will fuel the journey Learn more at apu.apus.edu I've been seeing a lot more EVs lately Parked in driveways, passing on the road Friends making the switch And they all say the same thing These cars are simpler, fewer parts, fewer repairs fewer headaches.

1:22:15Jay Shetty:That's what makes EVs worth considering. Less to break, less to fix. Even if you haven't made the move yet, it's hard to ignore the shift. They're more affordable, more available, and honestly, just make sense for everyday life. The way forward is electric. Learn more at electricforall.org.

1:22:35Jessie Inchauspé:This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

From the publisher

Pregnancy only lasts nine months, but what you eat during that time can shape your child for life.

Jay Shetty welcomes back biochemist, bestselling author, and “Glucose Goddess” Jessie Inchauspé for a conversation that goes even deeper into the impact she’s had on millions of lives. This time, they focus on something few people truly understand: pregnancy isn’t just a waiting period, it’s a critical window that can shape a child’s physical, mental, and metabolic health for life. Jay and Jessie unpack why so many parents feel under-informed, how outdated myths like “eat for two” still dominate the conversation, and what the science actually reveals about the nine months that truly count forever.

Jessie breaks down complex biology into simple, actionable insights. She explains how key factors: blood sugar balance, protein, choline, and omega-3s play a critical role in brain development, metabolism, and long-term disease risk for your child. Jay guides the conversation with curiosity and care, highlighting how small, intentional shifts during pregnancy can create lifelong resilience, while also acknowledging the systemic failures that leave parents without clear guidance or support.

In this interview, you'll learn:

How to Support Your Baby’s Brain With Just Four Key Nutrients

How to Reduce Blood Sugar Spikes That Affect Your Baby

How to Build Your Baby’s Brain Before They’re Born

How to Lower Your Child’s Lifetime Risk of Diabetes

How to Use Protein to Stabilize Energy and Nausea

How to Care for Your Mental Health After Miscarriage

How to Make Small Food Choices That Create Lifelong Impact

Life doesn’t come with a manual, we’re all doing the best we can with the information we have. When we learn more, we can make better choices, not just for ourselves, but for the people whose futures depend on ours.

Jessie’s latest book, 9 Months That Count Forever: How Your Pregnancy Diet Shapes Your Baby's Future, is available for pre-order now. Visit https://www.amazon.com/Months-That-Count-Forever-Pregnancy/dp/1668219123 

With Love and Gratitude,

Jay Shetty

JAY’S DAILY WISDOM DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

Join 900,000+ readers discovering how small daily shifts create big life change with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. 

Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast 

What We Discuss:

00:00 Intro

01:54 Debunking the Biggest Pregnancy Myths

04:50 The Four Nutrients That Shape Your Baby’s Future

07:26 How Gestational Diabetes Impacts a Child for Life

11:58 How Much Protein Do You Really Need During Pregnancy?

14:22 What an Ideal Pregnancy Diet Actually Looks Like

19:08 Are You Actually “Eating for Two?” 

21:41 You’re Born With the Brain Cells You’ll Keep for Life

24:29 When Food and Supplements Work Best Together

27:02 Avoid These Foods During Pregnancy!

31:28 How High Sugar Intake Affects Pregnancy

36:07 The Modern Food System Is Failing Families

39:03 What Can Contribute to Miscarriage

41:15 Understanding Silent Miscarriage

46:21 Processing the Grief of Pregnancy Loss

49:02 The Most Common Causes of Miscarriage

51:42 What Happens When You Eat Sugar on an Empty Stomach

54:24 The Importance of Movement During Pregnancy 

57:09 How to Reduce Bloating During Pregnancy

57:44 Does a Father’s Diet Affect Conception?

59:01 Using Food to Set Your Child Up for Life

01:01:20 What the UK Sugar Ration Taught Us About Health

01:04:33 This or That: Pregnancy Edition  

Episode Resources:

Website | https://www.glucosegoddess.com/ 

Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/glucosegoddess 

X | https://x.com/glucosegoddesss 

TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@glucosegoddess_ 

YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@GlucoseRevolution 

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/glucosegoddesss/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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