The Pregnancy Myth That's Affecting Your Baby's Health | Jessie Inchauspé

0:00Few things are as uplifting as the greatest moments in sports. And nothing brings us together quite like Team USA at the Olympic Winter Games. From NBCUniversal's iconic storytelling to the innovative technology across Xfinity and Peacock, Comcast brings the Olympic Games home to America, sharing every moment with millions. When Team USA steps onto the world stage, we're not just watching, we're cheering together. This winter, we're all on the same team. Comcast, proud partner of Team USA. Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:41What would you say are the four things that moms should eliminate from their diet pre or during pregnancy? All the known toxic ones. So cigarettes, alcohol, as much as you can, drugs. I mean, all the stuff that your doctor will tell you. Those are the real ones to eliminate. when it comes to things like sugar, for example, we all have sugar cravings during pregnancy. And in fact, some studies done on animals are suggesting that during pregnancy, your brain gets more pleasure from sugar than when you're not pregnant. So it intensifies sugar cravings. And of course, would it be better to have zero sugar during pregnancy?

1:18Of course. Is that realistic? Absolutely not. So it's about eating sugar in a way that creates less impact. And apart from that, really, do you need to eliminate anything else? No, I think anything can be part of your pregnancy diet. But if you have these four key pillars in, you're going to have a really good baseline. Is there an issue with pregnant women who say, well, you know what, I'm craving this and I'm just going to eat as much as I want until I stop craving? There's no issue with women. I think there's an issue with the societal myth that when you're pregnant, you're going to gain weight anyway.

1:53Therefore, you should eat as much as you want to eat for two. There's an issue with this belief that's perpetuated in society that pregnancy is the time to eat whatever the heck you want because you're going to get fat anyway. It's really backwards. Actually, pregnancy is a moment where I believe we need to be extra aware and extra educated about what we're eating because everything you eat when you're pregnant goes straight to your baby's bloodstream. There's another myth, Lewis, that there's a filtering process going on, that your baby's just going to get what he needs and none of the stuff that he doesn't need.

2:25He gets all of it. He gets all of it. So the placenta is an organ that you grow in your uterus next to your baby. And the placenta brings your bloodstream and your baby's bloodstream in really close contact to exchange nutrition. Crazy. I know. Now the placenta is not a filter. The placenta trusts, largely trusts that whatever is in your bloodstream belongs in your baby's bloodstream. Which is why it's important to not drink alcohol, smoke cigarette or do illegal drugs because they're going to show up in your baby's bloodstream. It's the same for all the other nutrients. Let's say a woman who's pregnant is like, I'm just going to have the whole pint of ice cream every single day because I'm craving it and it's okay.

3:05And this is what moms have done for the last 50 years and whatever. Yeah. What is that? Like how much of that sugar rush is actually going into the bloodstream of the placenta and then impacting the fetus and then as the baby grows? Like how much does it impact throughout the stage of pregnancy? So the first trimester is the trimester where most of us feel nauseous. So I felt extremely nauseous and I could only eat carbs. I could only eat like a croissant and pain au chocolat basically for like four months. It was so good. And so in those phases, you do whatever you can, right? Just eat whatever you can.

3:37Survive. Survive. And in the first trimester, your baby's bloodstream and your bloodstream are not yet connected. The placenta is not in place yet. The placenta is in place from the second trimester onwards. You're only hurting yourself. Listen, when you're nauseous, you do whatever the heck you can to survive. So it becomes your bloodstream and your babies become really connected from the second trimester onwards. So your question was how much of the sugar that you eat ends up in your baby's bloodstream? All of it. when you have a blood sugar spike meaning your blood sugar levels increase after eating for example a big tub of ice cream your baby also has a blood sugar spike the exact same or no it's a little bit lower than yours but it's perfectly correlated and they know this because they do studies um on babies so for example at oslo university hospital the scientists recruited 200 women that were going to get a c-section and what they did is they drew blood from the mom's arms before the c-section and they measured their blood sugar levels and then the baby was born through cesarean and then they took blood from the umbilical cord of the baby the umbilical cord is an external cord that connects your baby's bloodstream to the placenta and it's actually perfectly representing the baby's own blood blood composition and they took blood from the umbilical cord and they showed the perfect correlation if a mom had lower glucose levels her baby also had low and healthy glucose levels.

4:59And as the mom's glucose levels increase, the baby's also perfect correlation. So your baby does not get just the glucose that he needs. He gets the glucose that is there. And so let's talk a little bit about glucose. So glucose has been a foundational part of my work for forever, for the past, you know, how long I've been doing this. And glucose is quite important. It's your body's fuel. It's your body's energy. You need to give glucose to your body by eating carbs. Now, a little bit is great. Too much causes issues in an adult body. So too many blood sugar or glucose spikes too often leads to being on a glucose roller coaster.

5:36Spike, crash, spike, crash. And that leaves you feeling not so great. It increases inflammation. It increases fat gain. How does it impact your nervous system? How does a glucose spike over and over again impact your nervous system and your ability to navigate the emotions of the world? Well, a big glucose spike can create stress in your body, right? Inflammation and stress. A big glucose spike can also impact your sleep and mean that you have less deep sleep. So if you take those in combination, that means your nervous system can become stressed chronically. How does it impact how you navigate the world?

6:12That was your question. I think for me, at least, it makes me more unstable. I feel less resilient. I feel that I have more emotional swings, more mood swings. My own journey came through mental health. So for me, big glucose spikes meant poor mental health. And when I kept my glucose level steady, I felt stronger. I felt calm, steady, sturdy, grounded.

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8:15Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

8:27One sweet melty bite of a Hershey's bar, and suddenly I'm right back sitting on the front porch with my grandmother on a slow summer afternoon. She doesn't say much, just breaks the bar in half and hands me a piece. I open my mouth to say whatever a nine-year-old wants to say. And she replies with a low, shh, listen. So we sat there, listening. That was the first time I learned that quiet can feel full. Hershey's, it's your happy place.