May 27, 2024 • 39 mins
Today, your favorite midwives discuss the importance of proactive approaches in preventing gestational diabetes through lifestyle choices and healthcare support. You can expect them to dive into:
-Benefits of Early Prenatal Care
-Importance of Blood Sugar Monitoring
-Hormone Optimization through Diet
00:00 Introduction
00:29 Benefits of Midwifery Care
01:33 Challenges in Accessing Midwifery Care
04:00 Listener Review: Alli Weird 93
25:14 Screening and Risk Factors for Gestational Diabetes
17:48 Tips for Preventing Gestational Diabetes
30:56 Importance of Hormone Balance
Links to all the extra good stuff:
Fullscript Protocol for Gestational Diabetes: HERE
Real Food for Gestational Diabetes: HERE
Childbirth Education Wait List: HERE
Join our email community: HERE
Submit your answer-on-the-show questions: HERE
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to catch every episode. Follow us on Instagram for extra education and antics between episodes at: @beautifulonemidwifery
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to At Home with Kellyand Tiffany, where naturally
minded women gather together aswe pursue simplicity and
confidence in healthalternatives, so we can show up
better in our busy lives andfeel more at home in our bodies.
Join your favorite home birthmidwife duo for conversation,
candor, and community.
You're at home with Kelly andTiffany.
(00:21):
I am Kelly I'm Tiffany.
And today we get to talk aboutpreventing gestational diabetes.
I am extra excited to talk aboutthis because we get this
question all of the time.
We are very focused on beingproactive, both before
pregnancy, during pregnancy.
And this is one of those thingsthat most women that care that
they get is very reactive.
(00:43):
And so it's fun to be able toshare that info about.
Prioritizing and beingproactive.
Oh, absolutely.
And look, I think it's justwhere midwifery shines.
In this space where we're like,whoa, actually do have more
time, more energy, more care.
I have a greater wheelhouse foralternatives.
(01:05):
I have training and experiencethat allows me to support you
holistically.
It's just a better care modelall the way around.
Yeah.
I mean, I think sometimes we'retold that we sound like we're
biased and we're like, Yep.
100%.
We are.
Every woman I think deservesthis type of care, no matter
(01:26):
where they want to birth orwhatever their plans are or
whatever the situation is withhigh risk, low risk, whatever.
More women need this access tothis type of care.
Yeah.
Unfortunately not everybody hasaccess to midwifery care also.
Unfortunately.
We.
We inadvertently all of uscontribute to proliferating the
(01:47):
medical model of care in thiscountry.
With all of the many, manyfactors that allow that to be
the, the 98%.
Place for women to receive care.
So I think the best that we cando these two little midwives in
this corner of the world.
His share the information thatwe have allow people to
understand that there arealternatives that there, that
(02:10):
there are things that you can doto.
Potentially have someempowerment in some of these
areas and just let that be, letthat be a truth that exists.
And what you do with that isgoing to be, you know, up to you
ladies.
Up to you.
Love it.
Okay.
So today we have a review toread.
(02:30):
I am so excited because inbetween.
The groups of podcasts that wehave recorded in this season so
far, and then us now.
Doing another chunk ofrecordings.
We have gotten so many wonderfulreviews so I'm excited about the
review that I get to read today,but I'm also anticipating.
(02:53):
The next nine episodes that wedo are also going to have
amazing reviews to read.
And I just wish I could readthem all right now because I did
review them all just now.
And.
I.
I know we keep saying this.
I realized that this issomething we're repeating over
and over, but it truly.
(03:15):
Allows us to continue becauseyour words are a fuel to my
soul.
And again, I'm sorry.
We have to keep saying this, butsometimes I'm wondering, is
this.
And does this impact anything atall?
Like, is this worth the effort,time to like create episodes,
(03:35):
record them, edit them, get themout there.
Talk about them.
All of that.
And at the end of the day, likewe're not, we're not hopping
into look at the reviews everyday.
And so when we do take a momentto look and you guys take a
moment out of your busy lives.
Just to encourage us.
It really does mean a lot.
That's my it's my love languagetoo.
(03:56):
It's like words of affirmation.
I'm like, oh, thank you.
Just for giving me the fuelagree.
Yep.
Okay.
So today I'm going to read areview it's by Alli weird 93.
You're weird.
And this is how we know this isour person.
Weirdo.
Keeping it weird in the actualhandle and her.
(04:18):
Title of this review.
Of course, it's five stars.
You guys know we will not readanything less.
That title is my favorite show.
Oh.
There's a lot of shows outthere.
I've gotten a lot of favoriteshows.
Yep.
This is one of the, this.
Is my favorite one that wecreate.
But I do like listening to otherones.
Yeah.
There's there's a lot to listento and to be called the
(04:39):
favorite.
That's saying something.
I treasure absolutely treasure.
Okay.
Allie says I wait every week tolisten to this podcast.
They cover pretty much everyquestion a mom to be has.
Not only that they respond ontheir Instagram and offer help
or resources.
The work that they do hasinspired me to try and be a
doula.
Thanks.
You guys.
(05:00):
Oh, That's super sweet.
So good, Allie.
Thank you.
You know, if you let us knowthat we read your review, we
will buy you a drink.
All for you.
What's what's great about thattoo, is we hear mention of
Instagram and I've been onInstagram the last, like little
chunk of time.
And.
It really does matter that we.
(05:23):
That we pay attention to it andlike interact in that space.
There are so many women who saysomething similar like that, of
like, oh, the information thatyou shared, or just like the
response to a comment or to aDM, like changed so much for me,
or I can't even believe that youdid that and took the time out
and I'm like, yeah, this.
This takes a lot of time out,but like, it's, it's like we
(05:43):
were saying it's worth itbecause then we get to encourage
people who may not have accessto.
Information.
Yeah.
And I think like knowing thatthere's a place to go from here.
Podcasting, you know, we've saidit before.
It's like very one-sided, butthere are we've live in other
spaces where you can interactwith us and get more
(06:04):
information.
And I would say Instagram isprobably the highest value of
content that we provide.
I think the podcast is reallygreat because we can deliver a
lot of information in a shortperiod of time.
And women can like ingest thatwhile they listen.
But Instagram has a very highvolume of.
(06:25):
Information and interaction.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like a steady.
Yes.
Yeah, pretty much daily.
But you can anticipate somethinghappening there, something.
So join us over there.
We're at beautiful one.
midwifery.com.
Nope.
Beautiful one midwifery.
Yeah.
Beautiful one.
A bit of a freak.
Yeah.
But the, but if you want to goto our website, you just put
(06:46):
a.com in there and, and thatcan, somewhere on there, we'll
link you to our Instagram.
You'll find it.
I trust that you will.
Smart lady.
Okay.
Before we get going onpreventing gestational diabetes,
I'm going to draw everyone'sattention to a full script
protocol.
Call that we have all aboutblood sugar balancing.
(07:07):
And it's just so pertinent towhat we're talking about here
today, because of course,gestational diabetes is a
disease process of blood sugar,instability, and any single
woman at any stage in her lifecan improve outcomes and health
and.
Absolutely everything with bloodsugar stability.
(07:29):
And there's a lot of ways to dothat.
We're going to talk about someof those strategies today, but
this protocol is available onour Fullscript account.
That is our professionalsupplement dispensary.
We pass along 25%.
Discounts on these professionalssupplements.
So you're getting.
Really high grade.
Valuable supplementation, butyou're getting it for a fraction
(07:53):
of the retail cost.
And we're really excited to beable to partner with Fullscript
and pass that along to you guys.
So that link is going to live inour show notes.
You can jump into there and seethat protocol.
But just for those of you whoare curious about what is on a
blood sugar balancing protocol.
I will bring it up here for you.
(08:16):
I will say also the protocols,like just the access to some of
the plans and protocols inthere, like all of the, the.
The information that we havelisted, the supplements that we
have listed, how much, howoften, what that all looks like
is listed in there, like in theinformation.
And that's just free to look at.
Right.
And so you can sign up, checkall of these things out, but
(08:37):
it's everything from likemenopause support to fibroid
stuff to.
Nausea in pregnancy, like amillion different ideas and
recommends.
Commendations and stuff.
So it is, that is a high valueplace to.
If you were looking for.
Just holistic support as well.
Yeah.
And just for, just to know thatwe have our stamp of approval on
those items that we havethoughtfully curated, what we
(09:00):
think is the very best vitamin Dthe very best.
You know, immune boostingsupplements, the very best
multivitamin, et cetera.
You guys have that opportunityto be in our clinician brains
with some of those pieces.
So here's what we have in bloodsugar.
Balancing support.
Protocol on Fullscript.
It's a chromium.
(09:21):
Grassfed beef pancreas.
Cinnamon.
Trace mineral drops, magnesiumglycinate.
Ginger extract in turmeric.
That is a well-roundedrecommendation.
And it has like, here's how muchyou should be taking a day when
you know how many to take ofthat thing a day.
(09:42):
All of that's in there.
Yeah.
So you don't have to beconnected to the protocol in
order to take advantage ofobviously the supplements that
we just listed out to you, youcan, you can find those
anywhere, find those anywhere.
Absolutely.
But if you want to see thedosing and.
And the really quality.
Formulas, we have it for youwaiting there.
Yeah.
And.
I have price pointed a fewthings just for my own benefit
(10:04):
as well.
And while sometimes Amazon andwhatever has sales.
Fullscript wins.
Every time.
Yep.
Especially with the discount.
Helps a lot.
Okay, so let's jump in here.
Why does somebody want to evenavoid gestational diabetes in
the first place?
What is like the gravity ofthat?
Yeah, I mean, an actualdiagnosis of that is going.
(10:28):
To impact severely.
The.
The options that are ahead ofyou, the recommendations that
are given to you, the potentialcomplications that can arise
with you with baby, with yourpregnancy, with your birth, with
your postpartum.
Awesome.
You do kind of, you get intothis next tier of, um, risk
(10:49):
status.
And so.
I'm trying to desire to not onlyhave the healthiest pregnancy
possible, but the lowest riskone and the lowest intervention
one possible is, is a worthy.
Goal.
Yeah.
I mean, like there's two piecesof this in my mind.
One is.
The actual real problem and riskthat is associated with your
(11:12):
health and your baby's health.
If you do truly have gestationaldiabetes.
But the bigger piece quitehonestly, is the politics.
Around this thing.
And I mean, gosh, that's notgoing to surprise anybody who
has listened to us.
Digest other pieces of medicalmanagement.
But you can be diagnosed withgestational diabetes for.
(11:36):
REL something that is relativelyeasy to correct.
And you're in a care model whereyou were not going to be given
the resources or the time or thepatients in order to correct
that piece.
And then having that label,which you may not have the
actual risk, or you might have agrowing risk throughout your
pregnancy.
(11:56):
That's not being addressed.
Properly because they're like,oh, you have gestational
diabetes here.
Do this, eat this, take thismedication.
Oh.
And by the way, Now you're goingto get slapped with this label,
which can include.
Additional surveillance for babywhich leads to potentially
(12:17):
higher interventions.
Which is you know, mostpractitioners are going to
wreck.
Strongly recommend that womenwith gestational diabetes are
induced at 39 weeks.
And that just comes with a wholeother cascade of issues for
women.
And so.
That is the issue that we end updealing with more often.
(12:40):
Is keeping women away from thatdiagnosis.
So we were working withsomebody.
Earlier this.
This year who had true.
Blood sugar instability issues.
And she asked us in one of herappointments.
Do I just do national diabetes.
I'd like, we kind of, haven'tbeen hot on it a little bit.
Right.
It was like, At first told herlike, well, no, Well, then I was
(13:05):
like, well, I'm not writing itin your chart.
But yes.
Yes.
Like what is your body doing inthis pregnancy?
Yeah.
Like it, and especially if youwere just left to your own
devices or continuing on with.
Eating, whatever it is that youfelt like you wanted or not.
You know, following along withwhat your blood sugar is
(13:26):
actually doing.
Yeah, you would you, and youwould noticeably start to
snowball.
Into more complicated situation.
Without having to step in andintervene and change the course
of some things.
Yeah.
So like, there's this, there'sthis piece of like a, I don't
know, like Figuring things outfrom a clinical perspective, you
(13:47):
know, like when we're trying todecide.
Like, was that a hemorrhage?
Was it not?
Was that a shoulder dystocia?
It was the not, you know, likewhat's the, what's the line
there.
And sometimes I tell myself it'swhen you have to intervene to
course correct.
Anytime.
You're like, oh, we actuallymean to do something here in
order to get you back on abetter path or to get you off of
this dangerous path, then you'relike, yeah, we, we had to do
(14:09):
something.
The only reason that you're notpotentially like in this giant
gestational diabetes pit isbecause we're doing all the
things and we're keeping, we'rekeeping it normal and stable for
you.
So without those interventions,she absolutely would have had.
Additional complication.
Yeah.
And she was able to hand it backin with diet, with supplements,
(14:32):
with the things that we're kindof chatting about today.
But what I found the mostinteresting is that if she
wasn't in our care, therecommendations for what would
be available to her and what thenext steps would be and how she
should be eating probably nottoo many recommendations of
supplements and.
You know, other pieces oflifestyle stuff wouldn't have
been offered or wouldn't havebeen a part of the picture.
(14:55):
And I say that prettyconfidently knowing how many
clients we've had, who have hadthe diagnosis or who have like
flirted with the diagnose.
Gnosis in a previous pregnancyand then learning some new
things and implementing thosethings in pregnancy and being
like, oh wow.
That, that those recommendationsI was given were.
Actually hurting me.
Or, you know, kind of leading mefurther into This gestational
(15:18):
diabetes.
Like you said pit.
Yeah.
And so the way that we ended upactually developing any type of
response to preventinggestational diabetes was.
Was taking care of women who hadbeen diagnosed with gestational
diabetes and future pregnancy isand saying, is there anything
that I can do to keep this fromhappening again?
Again, because I think if youasked a traditional care
(15:39):
provider in a medical setting,they would be like, well, it
just happens to some people anddoesn't happen to others.
And so it might happen to youagain, it might not.
And it's like, absolutely not.
Like let's.
Let's look at some of those.
Let's look at some of thosepieces to try to understand.
What's happening metabolicallyand.
Give some context to apreventative approach.
(16:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
I really do see.
C also like just this idea ofIs, am I fully having an issue
here?
Like it, should I be diagnosed?
Do I need insulin?
Like going down that routeversus what can I do to be as
proactive as possible to helpdecrease the potential of
getting there.
And that's really what we'retalking about because.
(16:24):
You could potentially doeverything that we were saying.
Perfect.
We, and something may be.
Up in your body that like, I amsorry.
You may need.
Some extra medical support forthis issue.
With that being said, Everybodythat we have walked through
utilizing.
This and some people have towork.
Incredibly hard that we've beenable to kind of.
(16:46):
Of course, correct.
As, as much as possible to keepthings safe.
Yeah.
And everyone listening knowsthat like I am not the perfect
midwife.
It's been demonstrated many,many times, but one of em, one
of the largest frustrations.
Of my career.
Has been working really.
Really really hard on this piecewith some people.
(17:10):
I don't know if we have workedharder with some of our clients.
Then try that, like trying topreserve.
A home birth as an option, asafe option for them then.
W then trying to keep bloodsugar stabilized.
And some of that I think islike, food can be triggering for
some people.
(17:30):
The idea of changing, almosteverything that you potentially
are doing.
Some for some women it's like,oh, I just need to take this
particular thing out.
Out or eat some fat with myprotein, that breakfast and
everything is fine.
And then some women it's own.
No, no, no.
Don't keep going back to thatsame thing that you read should
be fine because clearly yourbody isn't doesn't want to.
(17:51):
Or isn't responding well to it.
And so having to actually changepotentially the entire day of
eating and the way of eating andthe amount and the timing and
the, all of that, like.
It is a big ask, but that isthat's part of this agreement
that we come into with ourclients.
Like, yeah, we may have to dosome hard stuff together and
(18:13):
it's going to be worth it.
And if you don't think it'sworth it.
Then this.
Partnership.
Ownership is potentially not.
Not worth it or, you know what Imean?
Like maybe you do need.
Something else.
Yeah, it brings up a lot ofstuff.
Yeah.
Communication.
Habits, how you deal withstress.
There's so many factors, right?
That are in pregnancy already.
(18:34):
And then having a complicationthat needs to be managed.
Not just every single day, butevery single meal.
And I don't know about you, butI felt very deeply that when I
was pregnant, food waspotentially sometimes many days.
My only source of true comfort.
Yes, this is where my happinesslies.
(18:54):
Yep.
In this meal.
Yep.
Oh, okay.
So when women come into ourpractice, we have.
Way of screening every buddy.
For many things, but especiallyfor potential complications.
And one of those is gestationaldiabetes.
And so women who have a set ofrisk factors, we're just going
(19:15):
to address them.
We're just going to say like,oh, well you have a couple of
these things that are somewhatmarked against you.
Metabolically.
Let's be smart about how weapproach that in the beginning
of pregnancy.
So there's like this there's alittle bit of this.
I don't know what you would callit.
Trend.
There's a trend around that I'mnoticing where women are not
engaging in prenatal care asearly as possible.
(19:39):
They're kind of like justwaiting for.
I don't know, they don't want tobe inconvenient.
They don't want to go seesomeone in person.
They don't, I don't know what itis exactly.
But this, this type of screeningis one of the reasons why you
should get prenatal care as soonas possible, because there's
things that can be flagged.
In your history.
In your family history in yourmedical history, just in what is
(20:01):
happening in your body in thevery beginning of pregnancy that
we can work on.
Of course correcting to avoidcomplications later.
Yeah.
I mean, we've done stuff withwomen who are six weeks pregnant
and they're like, okay, here's,here's the information that we
got from your lab draw.
Here's the stuff that you havetold us or your previous
experiences or whatever.
Here's here's what we can domoving forward.
(20:21):
And here's a plan to put inplace.
Oh, that's a huge amount of timethat we have to work on this.
Like that is, that is anabsolute benefit and a bit of a
luxury.
Too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
So here are the things we'relooking for, for women as we're
screening them in their initialvisit.
Someone who scores higher ontheir hemoglobin A1C.
So 5.7 is considered to bepre-diabetic anybody who gives
(20:47):
us a value of like 5.4 orhigher.
We're kind of like, well, you'reteetering towards this area that
you potentially have not hadblood sugar stability.
In these past few months leadingup to pregnancy.
And so that puts you at agreater risk for developing
gestational diabetes or justblood sugar instability in
general, which goes along with ahost of other pieces in
(21:10):
pregnancy, including can make.
The morning sickness, moresevere can make mood swings more
severe can make sleep difficult.
There's so many things thatblood sugar stability.
Contributes to somebody who hasa history of gestational
diabetes, of course, or insulinresistance or.
Women who have PCO S that.
(21:31):
That all kind of gets lumped inwith like, oh, there's some
things going on here that weneed to check in on like the
health of your pancreas and howyour body handles things.
Metabolically.
A family history of diabetes, orif your mom or your aunts or
your sisters have hadgestational diabetes, somebody
close to you in your familyline.
(21:52):
That will increase your risk ofpotentially having some issues
also.
And then anybody who is obese ormore technically has a BMI over
26 is in a higher risk categorytoo, because obviously there's
just.
More metabolic potential goingon there.
Yeah.
And so if you see yourselfchecking any of those boxes, one
(22:15):
or more of those it's somethingto keep just on your radar.
Certainly not saying this isyour future, but like these
definitely have been correlatedwith a higher risk.
And I think what's, what'shelpful to remember too is also.
When you are pregnant, you maynot have.
Symptoms either.
So a lot of women will be like,well, yeah.
(22:36):
Yeah, that may be higher on thatparticular, like, my A1C may be
a little bit higher, but likeI've S I sleep great.
I don't feel any like bloodsugar crashes or I don't feel,
you know, I feel really good orwhatever.
You may.
You may still have some bloodsugar instability happening and
not necessarily have.
Some like glaring signs and, youknow, red flags waving in your
(23:00):
everyday life.
So it can be really helpful todig a little bit deeper and try
to understand a bit more aboutwhat's actually going on in your
body.
Yeah.
And if you're somebody who isnot pregnant yet, and you do
have some of these risk factorsbefore you even get pregnant,
this is absolutely somethingthat should be worked on before.
You even get pregnant becausewomen who have blood sugar,
(23:23):
instability issues, they canpass that.
Come on to their children andpregnancy.
Then of course, like thatincreases your baby's life long
risk of developing diabetes andtheir life.
And.
It, anyone who has gestationaldiabetes and pregnancy also has
an increased chance ofdeveloping type two diabetes
(23:44):
later in their life.
I mean, it's just an importantthing to pay attention to as
women across the board.
so we could get into a milliondifferent aspects of this, like
in terms of testing options and.
All of the things.
What we really want to talkabout though, is that you can
take home some reallyfoundational pieces of like,
(24:05):
what can I actually, what can Iactually do about this
information?
So we're not necessarily talkingabout.
The imaging in pregnancy or likeglue Cola drinks or whatever,
just mostly taking this idea oflike, what can you do to
actually prevent this.
While you're sitting at homelistening to this.
Now I think the greatest toolthat women have is seeing the
(24:26):
correlation between what theyeat and how their blood sugar
responds to it in.
Live moments of what they'reactually eating every single
day, because that is going toinfluence.
Absolutely everything.
And everybody has a little bitof a different reaction to
different.
Types of food.
I mean, some women can eat threecups of rice and have zero issue
(24:47):
and some women can have, youknow, Like one bite of.
Banana and be not.
Okay.
And that was part of what we've,that's part of the fine tuning
that kind of ends up happeningwith women with blood sugar,
instability, and pregnancy isjust playing around with foods
and seeing like what's gonnawork for you.
What's not.
So repeat having.
Having early and repeat screensof blood glucose checks at home.
(25:11):
That means getting a monitor.
Getting familiar with how tocheck your blood sugar at home,
doing it at regular intervals,especially if you have foods
that are high sugar, high carbHi glucose.
And you want to see how yourbody's actually.
Reacting to that.
Yeah.
That is probably the bestindicator of like, what exactly
(25:34):
is going on because you get tosee in real time what your body
is actually doing with that.
And again, if we're talkingabout preventing and you're
potentially not even pregnantyet.
Of course things can like changein pregnancy and how your body
is responding to things.
But if you get reallycomfortable with, Hey, this is
generally how my body respondsto things.
You are going to go intopregnancy much more confident on
(25:57):
how to manage these piecesyourself rather than giving up
that sort of power.
To somebody else.
So this is, this is like for somany reasons.
A really helpful.
I guess kind of rhythm to getinto, I personally will ch I'll
go on like little tangents everyso often and just kind of check
what's going on with my ownblood sugar as I've had.
(26:19):
Kind of instability or likeresistance type things that have
happened in the past.
And so it's very helpful for meto just make sure, like, am I
continuing to be on the righttrack?
Even though pregnancy isn't onmy radar.
Because this matters so much inso many areas of life.
Yep.
Absolutely.
So then the other piece that wewant women to kind of like
(26:40):
adopt.
In any phase of life, butespecially if you're in the
beginning of a pregnancy orentering into pregnancy, trying
to avoid.
Gestational diabetes ismodifying your style of eating.
And this is something that I'mconstantly refining myself, but
I went on vacation With a bunchof family members, like a bunch
(27:02):
of our cousin group went toGreece a couple of years ago.
And I'm on vacation and I'meating very vacation E yet at
the end of the vacation, one ofmy cousins texted me and she's
like, can we talk about the wayyou were eating?
Because it seemed like you werevery intentional about certain
pieces.
And I think I need that becausethere was an ease in which you
(27:25):
were able to navigate your foodoptions.
And you were still able to enjoyeverything that you wanted to,
but it looked like you werereally purposeful with some of
those pieces.
And I was, I didn't even thinkabout it.
I'm just like, oh good.
All that's a habit now of minethat I just.
Just eat for glucose.
So stability.
Citi.
No matter where I'm at or whatI'm doing.
I just know.
(27:46):
How to pair foods together, howto choose lower glycaemic
options, how to make sure thatthere's always a lot of protein
and fat.
Especially if I'm enjoying hyperhigher card foods and just be
eating as much real food aspossible, just fueling my body
well with like good foodchoices.
Yeah.
And like what a, what a sweetthing to hear, like What your
(28:09):
perception was just, I'menjoying myself.
I'm not withholding anything,but I'm doing so wisely.
And I think a lot of times whenwe start talking about, okay,
let's modify food, let's lookat, you know, what.
You should be eating.
I think people start thinkingabout, okay, well, all the.
Things that I can't eat now.
And so if we start to shift to,to think about a more
(28:29):
positively, how can I eat tobalance my blood sugar?
How can I eat in a way that likemy body will respond?
Well, this idea of thislow-glycemic index kind of
foods.
When you're able to focus alittle bit more about what, what
you can eat or how to implementsupportive pieces, if you're
eating things that potentially,you know, Maybe this doesn't
fall into this whole blood sugarsupportive thing, but like you
(28:53):
mentioned, I know how to pair itwell, so I am not feeling like
I'm completely devoid of alljoy.
In my food choices.
We got like flexibility, right?
We want to be in a place offlexibility with ourselves.
And I mean, with food as women,I mean, gosh, it's just, it can
be so complicated.
So then the next piece islooking at what is happening
(29:14):
hormonally and how do we supportthat in your body?
The right ratio of protein isreally important because the
pancreas runs on amino acids.
And so, although it's ideal toget this certain amount of
protein every single day,especially during.
During pregnancy, we tell women,if you focus on a protein size
(29:36):
and every single meal that isabout the same size as your
Palm.
Of your hand, you're going toget about 30 or 40 grams of
protein.
With that, and that is what youshould be sticking with in order
to get enough protein in thatactual meal.
So if you are starting with ahuge amount of protein, And that
(29:57):
is your focus for the meal.
Is that big chunk of protein onyour plate?
Almost for, for many healthywomen.
Women.
It almost.
Almost doesn't matter what elseyou fill your plate with.
And I mean, it.
Kind of does, but.
But it's so important that youstart with this protein piece
that like that is going to beyour focus, making sure that you
get enough protein and then youcan start adding in some other
(30:20):
things.
And you also want to optimizehormone.
Balance because.
Insulin is a hormone.
And that is insulin.
Is the hormone that your.
Your body produces when you havean influx of glucose in your
bloodstream.
So you eat something, your bodyturns it into sugar and your
body's response is oh, I need tokeep this sugar level maintained
(30:43):
and leveled, and it releasesinsulin from your pancreas in
order to do that.
And so we need 20 or 30 grams ofprotein in every single meal in
order to optimize that hormonebalance and keep insulin stable.
And we always want to be surethat we're including fat and
protein, even with our snacks.
(31:04):
So even as you just quicklygrab.
A granola bar or an apple or ahandful of crackers or a piece
of bread or something, you haveto pair it with.
A chunk of fat or another.
PR like another protein ishsnack in order to keep that
(31:25):
insulin piece as stable aspossible.
Yeah.
And you may need to like think.
Ahead, prepare some thingsahead, have some quick to grab
types of options so that you cando that first and then decide,
okay, what am I, what else am Igoing to eat?
Kind of thing.
Just so that you're staying niceand stable.
I think it's helpful to remembertoo, like, as you're talking
about insulin, you're talkingabout your.
Pancreas, your pancreas can getreally exhausted if it just
(31:49):
constantly has.
To pump out insulin becauseyou're eating in a way that is
spiking your blood sugarconsistently.
And so this is where, right,like resistance comes from.
And so.
Optimizing that and prioritizingthat idea of balance.
We'll help.
Everything in your body not beas taxed and to be those
(32:11):
hormones, to be able tocommunicate as well as they
possibly can, because eventuallyif we're just continuously
putting our pancreas in aposition where it's just.
Constantly having to work sohard.
At some point it doesn'tnecessarily give up, but it's
just like, I I'm exhausted.
Or the other pieces in yourbody, or like, we're not
listening anymore.
Stop, stop.
We don't like.
(32:31):
Okay, that's great insulin.
You've been here all day.
Go home.
Kind of thing.
And so just helpful.
To think about the way thatcommunication happens in your
body, because because it reallydoes matter.
Welcome to At Home with Kellyand Tiffany, where naturally
minded women gather together aswe pursue simplicity and
confidence in healthalternatives, so we can show up
better in our busy lives andfeel more at home in our bodies.
Join your favorite home birthmidwife duo for conversation,
candor, and community.
You're at home with Kelly andTiffany.
(00:21):
I am Kelly I'm Tiffany.
And today we get to talk aboutpreventing gestational diabetes.
I am extra excited to talk aboutthis because we get this
question all of the time.
We are very focused on beingproactive, both before
pregnancy, during pregnancy.
And this is one of those thingsthat most women that care that
they get is very reactive.
(00:43):
And so it's fun to be able toshare that info about.
Prioritizing and beingproactive.
Oh, absolutely.
And look, I think it's justwhere midwifery shines.
In this space where we're like,whoa, actually do have more
time, more energy, more care.
I have a greater wheelhouse foralternatives.
(01:05):
I have training and experiencethat allows me to support you
holistically.
It's just a better care modelall the way around.
Yeah.
I mean, I think sometimes we'retold that we sound like we're
biased and we're like, Yep.
100%.
We are.
Every woman I think deservesthis type of care, no matter
(01:26):
where they want to birth orwhatever their plans are or
whatever the situation is withhigh risk, low risk, whatever.
More women need this access tothis type of care.
Yeah.
Unfortunately not everybody hasaccess to midwifery care also.
Unfortunately.
We.
We inadvertently all of uscontribute to proliferating the
(01:47):
medical model of care in thiscountry.
With all of the many, manyfactors that allow that to be
the, the 98%.
Place for women to receive care.
So I think the best that we cando these two little midwives in
this corner of the world.
His share the information thatwe have allow people to
understand that there arealternatives that there, that
(02:10):
there are things that you can doto.
Potentially have someempowerment in some of these
areas and just let that be, letthat be a truth that exists.
And what you do with that isgoing to be, you know, up to you
ladies.
Up to you.
Love it.
Okay.
So today we have a review toread.
(02:30):
I am so excited because inbetween.
The groups of podcasts that wehave recorded in this season so
far, and then us now.
Doing another chunk ofrecordings.
We have gotten so many wonderfulreviews so I'm excited about the
review that I get to read today,but I'm also anticipating.
(02:53):
The next nine episodes that wedo are also going to have
amazing reviews to read.
And I just wish I could readthem all right now because I did
review them all just now.
And.
I.
I know we keep saying this.
I realized that this issomething we're repeating over
and over, but it truly.
(03:15):
Allows us to continue becauseyour words are a fuel to my
soul.
And again, I'm sorry.
We have to keep saying this, butsometimes I'm wondering, is
this.
And does this impact anything atall?
Like, is this worth the effort,time to like create episodes,
(03:35):
record them, edit them, get themout there.
Talk about them.
All of that.
And at the end of the day, likewe're not, we're not hopping
into look at the reviews everyday.
And so when we do take a momentto look and you guys take a
moment out of your busy lives.
Just to encourage us.
It really does mean a lot.
That's my it's my love languagetoo.
(03:56):
It's like words of affirmation.
I'm like, oh, thank you.
Just for giving me the fuelagree.
Yep.
Okay.
So today I'm going to read areview it's by Alli weird 93.
You're weird.
And this is how we know this isour person.
Weirdo.
Keeping it weird in the actualhandle and her.
(04:18):
Title of this review.
Of course, it's five stars.
You guys know we will not readanything less.
That title is my favorite show.
Oh.
There's a lot of shows outthere.
I've gotten a lot of favoriteshows.
Yep.
This is one of the, this.
Is my favorite one that wecreate.
But I do like listening to otherones.
Yeah.
There's there's a lot to listento and to be called the
(04:39):
favorite.
That's saying something.
I treasure absolutely treasure.
Okay.
Allie says I wait every week tolisten to this podcast.
They cover pretty much everyquestion a mom to be has.
Not only that they respond ontheir Instagram and offer help
or resources.
The work that they do hasinspired me to try and be a
doula.
Thanks.
You guys.
(05:00):
Oh, That's super sweet.
So good, Allie.
Thank you.
You know, if you let us knowthat we read your review, we
will buy you a drink.
All for you.
What's what's great about thattoo, is we hear mention of
Instagram and I've been onInstagram the last, like little
chunk of time.
And.
It really does matter that we.
(05:23):
That we pay attention to it andlike interact in that space.
There are so many women who saysomething similar like that, of
like, oh, the information thatyou shared, or just like the
response to a comment or to aDM, like changed so much for me,
or I can't even believe that youdid that and took the time out
and I'm like, yeah, this.
This takes a lot of time out,but like, it's, it's like we
(05:43):
were saying it's worth itbecause then we get to encourage
people who may not have accessto.
Information.
Yeah.
And I think like knowing thatthere's a place to go from here.
Podcasting, you know, we've saidit before.
It's like very one-sided, butthere are we've live in other
spaces where you can interactwith us and get more
(06:04):
information.
And I would say Instagram isprobably the highest value of
content that we provide.
I think the podcast is reallygreat because we can deliver a
lot of information in a shortperiod of time.
And women can like ingest thatwhile they listen.
But Instagram has a very highvolume of.
(06:25):
Information and interaction.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like a steady.
Yes.
Yeah, pretty much daily.
But you can anticipate somethinghappening there, something.
So join us over there.
We're at beautiful one.
midwifery.com.
Nope.
Beautiful one midwifery.
Yeah.
Beautiful one.
A bit of a freak.
Yeah.
But the, but if you want to goto our website, you just put
(06:46):
a.com in there and, and thatcan, somewhere on there, we'll
link you to our Instagram.
You'll find it.
I trust that you will.
Smart lady.
Okay.
Before we get going onpreventing gestational diabetes,
I'm going to draw everyone'sattention to a full script
protocol.
Call that we have all aboutblood sugar balancing.
(07:07):
And it's just so pertinent towhat we're talking about here
today, because of course,gestational diabetes is a
disease process of blood sugar,instability, and any single
woman at any stage in her lifecan improve outcomes and health
and.
Absolutely everything with bloodsugar stability.
(07:29):
And there's a lot of ways to dothat.
We're going to talk about someof those strategies today, but
this protocol is available onour Fullscript account.
That is our professionalsupplement dispensary.
We pass along 25%.
Discounts on these professionalssupplements.
So you're getting.
Really high grade.
Valuable supplementation, butyou're getting it for a fraction
(07:53):
of the retail cost.
And we're really excited to beable to partner with Fullscript
and pass that along to you guys.
So that link is going to live inour show notes.
You can jump into there and seethat protocol.
But just for those of you whoare curious about what is on a
blood sugar balancing protocol.
I will bring it up here for you.
(08:16):
I will say also the protocols,like just the access to some of
the plans and protocols inthere, like all of the, the.
The information that we havelisted, the supplements that we
have listed, how much, howoften, what that all looks like
is listed in there, like in theinformation.
And that's just free to look at.
Right.
And so you can sign up, checkall of these things out, but
(08:37):
it's everything from likemenopause support to fibroid
stuff to.
Nausea in pregnancy, like amillion different ideas and
recommends.
Commendations and stuff.
So it is, that is a high valueplace to.
If you were looking for.
Just holistic support as well.
Yeah.
And just for, just to know thatwe have our stamp of approval on
those items that we havethoughtfully curated, what we
(09:00):
think is the very best vitamin Dthe very best.
You know, immune boostingsupplements, the very best
multivitamin, et cetera.
You guys have that opportunityto be in our clinician brains
with some of those pieces.
So here's what we have in bloodsugar.
Balancing support.
Protocol on Fullscript.
It's a chromium.
(09:21):
Grassfed beef pancreas.
Cinnamon.
Trace mineral drops, magnesiumglycinate.
Ginger extract in turmeric.
That is a well-roundedrecommendation.
And it has like, here's how muchyou should be taking a day when
you know how many to take ofthat thing a day.
(09:42):
All of that's in there.
Yeah.
So you don't have to beconnected to the protocol in
order to take advantage ofobviously the supplements that
we just listed out to you, youcan, you can find those
anywhere, find those anywhere.
Absolutely.
But if you want to see thedosing and.
And the really quality.
Formulas, we have it for youwaiting there.
Yeah.
And.
I have price pointed a fewthings just for my own benefit
(10:04):
as well.
And while sometimes Amazon andwhatever has sales.
Fullscript wins.
Every time.
Yep.
Especially with the discount.
Helps a lot.
Okay, so let's jump in here.
Why does somebody want to evenavoid gestational diabetes in
the first place?
What is like the gravity ofthat?
Yeah, I mean, an actualdiagnosis of that is going.
(10:28):
To impact severely.
The.
The options that are ahead ofyou, the recommendations that
are given to you, the potentialcomplications that can arise
with you with baby, with yourpregnancy, with your birth, with
your postpartum.
Awesome.
You do kind of, you get intothis next tier of, um, risk
(10:49):
status.
And so.
I'm trying to desire to not onlyhave the healthiest pregnancy
possible, but the lowest riskone and the lowest intervention
one possible is, is a worthy.
Goal.
Yeah.
I mean, like there's two piecesof this in my mind.
One is.
The actual real problem and riskthat is associated with your
(11:12):
health and your baby's health.
If you do truly have gestationaldiabetes.
But the bigger piece quitehonestly, is the politics.
Around this thing.
And I mean, gosh, that's notgoing to surprise anybody who
has listened to us.
Digest other pieces of medicalmanagement.
But you can be diagnosed withgestational diabetes for.
(11:36):
REL something that is relativelyeasy to correct.
And you're in a care model whereyou were not going to be given
the resources or the time or thepatients in order to correct
that piece.
And then having that label,which you may not have the
actual risk, or you might have agrowing risk throughout your
pregnancy.
(11:56):
That's not being addressed.
Properly because they're like,oh, you have gestational
diabetes here.
Do this, eat this, take thismedication.
Oh.
And by the way, Now you're goingto get slapped with this label,
which can include.
Additional surveillance for babywhich leads to potentially
(12:17):
higher interventions.
Which is you know, mostpractitioners are going to
wreck.
Strongly recommend that womenwith gestational diabetes are
induced at 39 weeks.
And that just comes with a wholeother cascade of issues for
women.
And so.
That is the issue that we end updealing with more often.
(12:40):
Is keeping women away from thatdiagnosis.
So we were working withsomebody.
Earlier this.
This year who had true.
Blood sugar instability issues.
And she asked us in one of herappointments.
Do I just do national diabetes.
I'd like, we kind of, haven'tbeen hot on it a little bit.
Right.
It was like, At first told herlike, well, no, Well, then I was
(13:05):
like, well, I'm not writing itin your chart.
But yes.
Yes.
Like what is your body doing inthis pregnancy?
Yeah.
Like it, and especially if youwere just left to your own
devices or continuing on with.
Eating, whatever it is that youfelt like you wanted or not.
You know, following along withwhat your blood sugar is
(13:26):
actually doing.
Yeah, you would you, and youwould noticeably start to
snowball.
Into more complicated situation.
Without having to step in andintervene and change the course
of some things.
Yeah.
So like, there's this, there'sthis piece of like a, I don't
know, like Figuring things outfrom a clinical perspective, you
(13:47):
know, like when we're trying todecide.
Like, was that a hemorrhage?
Was it not?
Was that a shoulder dystocia?
It was the not, you know, likewhat's the, what's the line
there.
And sometimes I tell myself it'swhen you have to intervene to
course correct.
Anytime.
You're like, oh, we actuallymean to do something here in
order to get you back on abetter path or to get you off of
this dangerous path, then you'relike, yeah, we, we had to do
(14:09):
something.
The only reason that you're notpotentially like in this giant
gestational diabetes pit isbecause we're doing all the
things and we're keeping, we'rekeeping it normal and stable for
you.
So without those interventions,she absolutely would have had.
Additional complication.
Yeah.
And she was able to hand it backin with diet, with supplements,
(14:32):
with the things that we're kindof chatting about today.
But what I found the mostinteresting is that if she
wasn't in our care, therecommendations for what would
be available to her and what thenext steps would be and how she
should be eating probably nottoo many recommendations of
supplements and.
You know, other pieces oflifestyle stuff wouldn't have
been offered or wouldn't havebeen a part of the picture.
(14:55):
And I say that prettyconfidently knowing how many
clients we've had, who have hadthe diagnosis or who have like
flirted with the diagnose.
Gnosis in a previous pregnancyand then learning some new
things and implementing thosethings in pregnancy and being
like, oh wow.
That, that those recommendationsI was given were.
Actually hurting me.
Or, you know, kind of leading mefurther into This gestational
(15:18):
diabetes.
Like you said pit.
Yeah.
And so the way that we ended upactually developing any type of
response to preventinggestational diabetes was.
Was taking care of women who hadbeen diagnosed with gestational
diabetes and future pregnancy isand saying, is there anything
that I can do to keep this fromhappening again?
Again, because I think if youasked a traditional care
(15:39):
provider in a medical setting,they would be like, well, it
just happens to some people anddoesn't happen to others.
And so it might happen to youagain, it might not.
And it's like, absolutely not.
Like let's.
Let's look at some of those.
Let's look at some of thosepieces to try to understand.
What's happening metabolicallyand.
Give some context to apreventative approach.
(16:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
I really do see.
C also like just this idea ofIs, am I fully having an issue
here?
Like it, should I be diagnosed?
Do I need insulin?
Like going down that routeversus what can I do to be as
proactive as possible to helpdecrease the potential of
getting there.
And that's really what we'retalking about because.
(16:24):
You could potentially doeverything that we were saying.
Perfect.
We, and something may be.
Up in your body that like, I amsorry.
You may need.
Some extra medical support forthis issue.
With that being said, Everybodythat we have walked through
utilizing.
This and some people have towork.
Incredibly hard that we've beenable to kind of.
(16:46):
Of course, correct.
As, as much as possible to keepthings safe.
Yeah.
And everyone listening knowsthat like I am not the perfect
midwife.
It's been demonstrated many,many times, but one of em, one
of the largest frustrations.
Of my career.
Has been working really.
Really really hard on this piecewith some people.
(17:10):
I don't know if we have workedharder with some of our clients.
Then try that, like trying topreserve.
A home birth as an option, asafe option for them then.
W then trying to keep bloodsugar stabilized.
And some of that I think islike, food can be triggering for
some people.
(17:30):
The idea of changing, almosteverything that you potentially
are doing.
Some for some women it's like,oh, I just need to take this
particular thing out.
Out or eat some fat with myprotein, that breakfast and
everything is fine.
And then some women it's own.
No, no, no.
Don't keep going back to thatsame thing that you read should
be fine because clearly yourbody isn't doesn't want to.
(17:51):
Or isn't responding well to it.
And so having to actually changepotentially the entire day of
eating and the way of eating andthe amount and the timing and
the, all of that, like.
It is a big ask, but that isthat's part of this agreement
that we come into with ourclients.
Like, yeah, we may have to dosome hard stuff together and
(18:13):
it's going to be worth it.
And if you don't think it'sworth it.
Then this.
Partnership.
Ownership is potentially not.
Not worth it or, you know what Imean?
Like maybe you do need.
Something else.
Yeah, it brings up a lot ofstuff.
Yeah.
Communication.
Habits, how you deal withstress.
There's so many factors, right?
That are in pregnancy already.
(18:34):
And then having a complicationthat needs to be managed.
Not just every single day, butevery single meal.
And I don't know about you, butI felt very deeply that when I
was pregnant, food waspotentially sometimes many days.
My only source of true comfort.
Yes, this is where my happinesslies.
(18:54):
Yep.
In this meal.
Yep.
Oh, okay.
So when women come into ourpractice, we have.
Way of screening every buddy.
For many things, but especiallyfor potential complications.
And one of those is gestationaldiabetes.
And so women who have a set ofrisk factors, we're just going
(19:15):
to address them.
We're just going to say like,oh, well you have a couple of
these things that are somewhatmarked against you.
Metabolically.
Let's be smart about how weapproach that in the beginning
of pregnancy.
So there's like this there's alittle bit of this.
I don't know what you would callit.
Trend.
There's a trend around that I'mnoticing where women are not
engaging in prenatal care asearly as possible.
(19:39):
They're kind of like justwaiting for.
I don't know, they don't want tobe inconvenient.
They don't want to go seesomeone in person.
They don't, I don't know what itis exactly.
But this, this type of screeningis one of the reasons why you
should get prenatal care as soonas possible, because there's
things that can be flagged.
In your history.
In your family history in yourmedical history, just in what is
(20:01):
happening in your body in thevery beginning of pregnancy that
we can work on.
Of course correcting to avoidcomplications later.
Yeah.
I mean, we've done stuff withwomen who are six weeks pregnant
and they're like, okay, here's,here's the information that we
got from your lab draw.
Here's the stuff that you havetold us or your previous
experiences or whatever.
Here's here's what we can domoving forward.
(20:21):
And here's a plan to put inplace.
Oh, that's a huge amount of timethat we have to work on this.
Like that is, that is anabsolute benefit and a bit of a
luxury.
Too.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay.
So here are the things we'relooking for, for women as we're
screening them in their initialvisit.
Someone who scores higher ontheir hemoglobin A1C.
So 5.7 is considered to bepre-diabetic anybody who gives
(20:47):
us a value of like 5.4 orhigher.
We're kind of like, well, you'reteetering towards this area that
you potentially have not hadblood sugar stability.
In these past few months leadingup to pregnancy.
And so that puts you at agreater risk for developing
gestational diabetes or justblood sugar instability in
general, which goes along with ahost of other pieces in
(21:10):
pregnancy, including can make.
The morning sickness, moresevere can make mood swings more
severe can make sleep difficult.
There's so many things thatblood sugar stability.
Contributes to somebody who hasa history of gestational
diabetes, of course, or insulinresistance or.
Women who have PCO S that.
(21:31):
That all kind of gets lumped inwith like, oh, there's some
things going on here that weneed to check in on like the
health of your pancreas and howyour body handles things.
Metabolically.
A family history of diabetes, orif your mom or your aunts or
your sisters have hadgestational diabetes, somebody
close to you in your familyline.
(21:52):
That will increase your risk ofpotentially having some issues
also.
And then anybody who is obese ormore technically has a BMI over
26 is in a higher risk categorytoo, because obviously there's
just.
More metabolic potential goingon there.
Yeah.
And so if you see yourselfchecking any of those boxes, one
(22:15):
or more of those it's somethingto keep just on your radar.
Certainly not saying this isyour future, but like these
definitely have been correlatedwith a higher risk.
And I think what's, what'shelpful to remember too is also.
When you are pregnant, you maynot have.
Symptoms either.
So a lot of women will be like,well, yeah.
(22:36):
Yeah, that may be higher on thatparticular, like, my A1C may be
a little bit higher, but likeI've S I sleep great.
I don't feel any like bloodsugar crashes or I don't feel,
you know, I feel really good orwhatever.
You may.
You may still have some bloodsugar instability happening and
not necessarily have.
Some like glaring signs and, youknow, red flags waving in your
(23:00):
everyday life.
So it can be really helpful todig a little bit deeper and try
to understand a bit more aboutwhat's actually going on in your
body.
Yeah.
And if you're somebody who isnot pregnant yet, and you do
have some of these risk factorsbefore you even get pregnant,
this is absolutely somethingthat should be worked on before.
You even get pregnant becausewomen who have blood sugar,
(23:23):
instability issues, they canpass that.
Come on to their children andpregnancy.
Then of course, like thatincreases your baby's life long
risk of developing diabetes andtheir life.
And.
It, anyone who has gestationaldiabetes and pregnancy also has
an increased chance ofdeveloping type two diabetes
(23:44):
later in their life.
I mean, it's just an importantthing to pay attention to as
women across the board.
so we could get into a milliondifferent aspects of this, like
in terms of testing options and.
All of the things.
What we really want to talkabout though, is that you can
take home some reallyfoundational pieces of like,
(24:05):
what can I actually, what can Iactually do about this
information?
So we're not necessarily talkingabout.
The imaging in pregnancy or likeglue Cola drinks or whatever,
just mostly taking this idea oflike, what can you do to
actually prevent this.
While you're sitting at homelistening to this.
Now I think the greatest toolthat women have is seeing the
(24:26):
correlation between what theyeat and how their blood sugar
responds to it in.
Live moments of what they'reactually eating every single
day, because that is going toinfluence.
Absolutely everything.
And everybody has a little bitof a different reaction to
different.
Types of food.
I mean, some women can eat threecups of rice and have zero issue
(24:47):
and some women can have, youknow, Like one bite of.
Banana and be not.
Okay.
And that was part of what we've,that's part of the fine tuning
that kind of ends up happeningwith women with blood sugar,
instability, and pregnancy isjust playing around with foods
and seeing like what's gonnawork for you.
What's not.
So repeat having.
Having early and repeat screensof blood glucose checks at home.
(25:11):
That means getting a monitor.
Getting familiar with how tocheck your blood sugar at home,
doing it at regular intervals,especially if you have foods
that are high sugar, high carbHi glucose.
And you want to see how yourbody's actually.
Reacting to that.
Yeah.
That is probably the bestindicator of like, what exactly
(25:34):
is going on because you get tosee in real time what your body
is actually doing with that.
And again, if we're talkingabout preventing and you're
potentially not even pregnantyet.
Of course things can like changein pregnancy and how your body
is responding to things.
But if you get reallycomfortable with, Hey, this is
generally how my body respondsto things.
You are going to go intopregnancy much more confident on
(25:57):
how to manage these piecesyourself rather than giving up
that sort of power.
To somebody else.
So this is, this is like for somany reasons.
A really helpful.
I guess kind of rhythm to getinto, I personally will ch I'll
go on like little tangents everyso often and just kind of check
what's going on with my ownblood sugar as I've had.
(26:19):
Kind of instability or likeresistance type things that have
happened in the past.
And so it's very helpful for meto just make sure, like, am I
continuing to be on the righttrack?
Even though pregnancy isn't onmy radar.
Because this matters so much inso many areas of life.
Yep.
Absolutely.
So then the other piece that wewant women to kind of like
(26:40):
adopt.
In any phase of life, butespecially if you're in the
beginning of a pregnancy orentering into pregnancy, trying
to avoid.
Gestational diabetes ismodifying your style of eating.
And this is something that I'mconstantly refining myself, but
I went on vacation With a bunchof family members, like a bunch
(27:02):
of our cousin group went toGreece a couple of years ago.
And I'm on vacation and I'meating very vacation E yet at
the end of the vacation, one ofmy cousins texted me and she's
like, can we talk about the wayyou were eating?
Because it seemed like you werevery intentional about certain
pieces.
And I think I need that becausethere was an ease in which you
(27:25):
were able to navigate your foodoptions.
And you were still able to enjoyeverything that you wanted to,
but it looked like you werereally purposeful with some of
those pieces.
And I was, I didn't even thinkabout it.
I'm just like, oh good.
All that's a habit now of minethat I just.
Just eat for glucose.
So stability.
Citi.
No matter where I'm at or whatI'm doing.
I just know.
(27:46):
How to pair foods together, howto choose lower glycaemic
options, how to make sure thatthere's always a lot of protein
and fat.
Especially if I'm enjoying hyperhigher card foods and just be
eating as much real food aspossible, just fueling my body
well with like good foodchoices.
Yeah.
And like what a, what a sweetthing to hear, like What your
(28:09):
perception was just, I'menjoying myself.
I'm not withholding anything,but I'm doing so wisely.
And I think a lot of times whenwe start talking about, okay,
let's modify food, let's lookat, you know, what.
You should be eating.
I think people start thinkingabout, okay, well, all the.
Things that I can't eat now.
And so if we start to shift to,to think about a more
(28:29):
positively, how can I eat tobalance my blood sugar?
How can I eat in a way that likemy body will respond?
Well, this idea of thislow-glycemic index kind of
foods.
When you're able to focus alittle bit more about what, what
you can eat or how to implementsupportive pieces, if you're
eating things that potentially,you know, Maybe this doesn't
fall into this whole blood sugarsupportive thing, but like you
(28:53):
mentioned, I know how to pair itwell, so I am not feeling like
I'm completely devoid of alljoy.
In my food choices.
We got like flexibility, right?
We want to be in a place offlexibility with ourselves.
And I mean, with food as women,I mean, gosh, it's just, it can
be so complicated.
So then the next piece islooking at what is happening
(29:14):
hormonally and how do we supportthat in your body?
The right ratio of protein isreally important because the
pancreas runs on amino acids.
And so, although it's ideal toget this certain amount of
protein every single day,especially during.
During pregnancy, we tell women,if you focus on a protein size
(29:36):
and every single meal that isabout the same size as your
Palm.
Of your hand, you're going toget about 30 or 40 grams of
protein.
With that, and that is what youshould be sticking with in order
to get enough protein in thatactual meal.
So if you are starting with ahuge amount of protein, And that
(29:57):
is your focus for the meal.
Is that big chunk of protein onyour plate?
Almost for, for many healthywomen.
Women.
It almost.
Almost doesn't matter what elseyou fill your plate with.
And I mean, it.
Kind of does, but.
But it's so important that youstart with this protein piece
that like that is going to beyour focus, making sure that you
get enough protein and then youcan start adding in some other
(30:20):
things.
And you also want to optimizehormone.
Balance because.
Insulin is a hormone.
And that is insulin.
Is the hormone that your.
Your body produces when you havean influx of glucose in your
bloodstream.
So you eat something, your bodyturns it into sugar and your
body's response is oh, I need tokeep this sugar level maintained
(30:43):
and leveled, and it releasesinsulin from your pancreas in
order to do that.
And so we need 20 or 30 grams ofprotein in every single meal in
order to optimize that hormonebalance and keep insulin stable.
And we always want to be surethat we're including fat and
protein, even with our snacks.
(31:04):
So even as you just quicklygrab.
A granola bar or an apple or ahandful of crackers or a piece
of bread or something, you haveto pair it with.
A chunk of fat or another.
PR like another protein ishsnack in order to keep that
(31:25):
insulin piece as stable aspossible.
Yeah.
And you may need to like think.
Ahead, prepare some thingsahead, have some quick to grab
types of options so that you cando that first and then decide,
okay, what am I, what else am Igoing to eat?
Kind of thing.
Just so that you're staying niceand stable.
I think it's helpful to remembertoo, like, as you're talking
about insulin, you're talkingabout your.
Pancreas, your pancreas can getreally exhausted if it just
(31:49):
constantly has.
To pump out insulin becauseyou're eating in a way that is
spiking your blood sugarconsistently.
And so this is where, right,like resistance comes from.
And so.
Optimizing that and prioritizingthat idea of balance.
We'll help.
Everything in your body not beas taxed and to be those
(32:11):
hormones, to be able tocommunicate as well as they
possibly can, because eventuallyif we're just continuously
putting our pancreas in aposition where it's just.
Constantly having to work sohard.
At some point it doesn'tnecessarily give up, but it's
just like, I I'm exhausted.
Or the other pieces in yourbody, or like, we're not
listening anymore.
Stop, stop.
We don't like.
(32:31):
Okay, that's great insulin.
You've been here all day.
Go home.
Kind of thing.
And so just helpful.
To think about the way thatcommunication happens in your
body, because because it reallydoes matter.
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