15: Hormones & How to Have a Healthy Baby

Chris Kresser is a licensed acupuncturist and practitioner of integrative medicine. He researched to find his own health answers after conventional medicine wasn’t able to help his chronic disease and he now works to help others improve their health and their lives through better nutrition and lifestyle.

I’ve always been incredibly impressed by Chris’ research and work and I quote him often. I am so excited to share his research and work with you in this episode. If you are “pregnant or may become pregnant” this episode is incredibly important for you!

Natural Fertility

Chris became especially interested in fertility and hormone health when he and his wife had trouble conceiving and his research led him to unconventional answers about diet, lifestyle and stress. They went on to conceive and have a healthy (and beautiful) daughter and it is now a mission for him to help other couples do the same.

Chris created a whole course on this and I highly recommend it. You can find out more about it here.

Resources we mention

• The Healthy Baby Code Course
• The little known (but crucial) difference between folate and folic acid – ChrisKresser.com
• Wellness Mama on Folate vs. Folic Acid
• Chris’ Podcast Episodes: On prebiotics-You Are What Your Bacteria Eat: The Importance of Feeding Your Microbiome and mercury in fish and liver detoxification.
• 5 Reasons Why Concerns About Mercury in Fish Are Misguided (Chris)
• Manage your Stress (Chris)
• How stress wreaks havoc on your gut – and what to do about it (Chris)

Does Pregnancy Diet Matter?

Chris talks about the developmental origins hypothesis, or the idea that the diet of the mother (and father) before pregnancy and during pregnancy (for the mother) have an impact on the lifelong health of the child.

He talks about some amazing statistics on how birth weight and health at birth correlates to risk of heart attack and other problems. Babies with low birth weight were at increased risks for these problems, but babies born with a healthy weight and at full term had a lower risk.

We also delve in to a subject that I find fascinating: the link between the mother’s