Jay Shetty PodcastThe SUGAR Expert: This is What Too Much Sugar Does to Your Baby (Eat Carbs This Way Instead)
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
70 min read · 14,125 words- 0:00 – 0:17
Intro
- JSJay Shetty
[intro music]
- 0:17 – 3:13
Debunking the Biggest Pregnancy Myths
- JSJay Shetty
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?
- JIJessie 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 gonna 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, uh, 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?
- JSJay Shetty
I have heard that expression, yes.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Okay. So I was told when I was pregnant by people in the street, "Oh, you have a bun in the oven." And I think this is where most of our problems starts 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-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
No, but seriously, that you are this passive box of heat and time. It implies that when you're pregnant, all you gotta do is keep the temperature at the right temperature and just wait. And then it also implies something a bit more subtle. 'Cause 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 gonna stay a brownie. The oven doesn't change the recipe, right? 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 gotta do is wait and let nature do its thing, and the baby's gonna 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. It's like you're 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 gonna determine how it adapts and what it becomes.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And as the mom, you're the soil.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie 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
- 3:13 – 5:49
The Four Nutrients That Shape Your Baby’s Future
- JIJessie Inchauspé
today.
- JSJay 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?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
It is that simple.
- JSJay Shetty
Really?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah, it is that simple.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Glucose, we meet again. So the amount of glucose circulating in your bloodstream during pregnancy is gonna 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. 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
No.
- JIJessie 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, 'cause this stuff is essential.
- JSJay Shetty
So Einstein's mom basically had an amazing diet.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
Like-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Well, who knows? Maybe she didn't know this stuff. I think back in the day, they ate a f- a little more organ meats and, you know, 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 are not getting enough. For protein, it's 70%. For omega-3s, it's 75%. 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, our 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.
- JSJay Shetty
What's
- 5:49 – 10:23
How Gestational Diabetes Impacts a Child for Life
- JSJay Shetty
the negative impact of, for example, the three times the glucose, not enough of the omega-3s, not enough protein? Like, what-- how bad can it get?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm.
- JSJay Shetty
And what are the ex- sad experiences that mothers are having during and post-pregnancy that they may not even be connecting to those things?
- JIJessie 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 fo- 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 will be fine. 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's 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Versus 4% of kids of moms who did not have gestational diabetes.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You're on average gonna 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. 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 d- 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 a 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. 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 h- very high glucose levels have babies who have the genes linked to, 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 a vegan, so I think protein is a big one for you.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Okay. So animal studies show us that if a mom doesn't have enough protein during pregnancy, even if she has enough calories, so it's not about she doesn't have enough food, 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 gonna be born into a world with not a lot of protein, so you should keep your muscle mass small."
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So he's getting a message. Your baby's getting information about the world he's gonna be born into with what you're eating during pregnancy. He can't see anything. He can kinda hear through the water, but, you know-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 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 gonna think, "Okay, I gotta create my body and set up myself in a way that I'm gonna survive optimally in a low protein world." This moment of pregnancy is preparing him for the rest of his life.
- 10:23 – 12:46
How Much Protein Do You Really Need During Pregnancy?
- JSJay Shetty
Is there a recommended protein amount for pregnant moms?
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
That's a lot.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's a lot.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 kn- 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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. 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-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... were in their mother's belly.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So we're not equal. Like, who we are today, you and me, we're gonna be more or less vulnerable to things depending on what happened when our mom was pregnant with us.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. I mean, and, and you can feel that as well. Like, you can... As you were saying certain things, I'm like, I need to go ask my mom what she was eating when-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's what I did.
- JSJay Shetty
Did you do that? [laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I called her. I was like, "Mom, okay."
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
"So I have this little list here. How much choline did you have? What, how many eggs?" She was like, "No, it was the '90s, honey. Like, in the '90s we only ate sugar and low fat foods."
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I thought, "Man, that's why. That makes sense."
- JSJay Shetty
That's why you're so smart.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
I'm like, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
No, but actually, you know, I'm fine.But if I'm honest-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] I'm fine
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... I'm, 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
We don't know.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
We're never gonna know. But the, 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.
- 12:46 – 17:32
What an Ideal Pregnancy Diet Actually Looks Like
- JSJay Shetty
If you were talking to a room full of pregnant moms right now who are just starting their journey, their, their nine months, they're all gonna take a copy of your book away home because it's gonna help them through the next nine months, what's the first thing you'd want them to know today-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
... that's gonna shift the next nine months?
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Is there any way of avoiding that nausea-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Nope
- JSJay Shetty
... that moms... There's nothing?
- JIJessie 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 some few, 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Um, you could do that. Ginger helps. Exercise also helps actually. But mostly it just sucks, man. It just sucks.
- JSJay Shetty
Did you try anything that was crazy or like a myth and then busted it and realized this doesn't work for sure?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I was like, "I'm the glucose freaking goddess, and I know all this stuff, and all I can- I've been able to eat for the past month is croissant and pain au chocolat."
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
That sounds amazing.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
No, it's 'cause the carbs were the only thing that didn't make me wanna throw up.
- JSJay Shetty
But for first three months-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... you're okay.
- JIJessie 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 gonna give your baby all the choline that he needs. Two, make sure you have a protein at every single meal.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
This is gonna 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 than you might think. And four, watch your sugar.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Because cravings are strong during pregnancy.
- JSJay Shetty
That's what I was about to say, so the cravings is not a myth. That's a real thing.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Depending on who you are, you're gonna have different cravings. Like I was craving kiwis and red meat.
- 17:32 – 19:24
Are You Actually “Eating for Two?”
- JIJessie Inchauspé
et cetera.
- JSJay Shetty
What are you actually eating for? That idea of you're eating for two, are you just eating for one? Like why, why is it... And if wife-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You're eating for like 1.2.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So it's-
- JSJay Shetty
So the double is a mistake because you could overdose on the sugar and-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
It's a total myth.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 gonna 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's it. At the very end of pregnancy, you need one cup and a half of rice extra per day. And at the v- at the beginning of pregnancy you need no extra glucose. Second trimester, very little. So we need-... tell people about this [laughs] 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."
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 gonna also register more glucose in his body than what he needs.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You're connected. You're connected. It's like if it's high in your blood, it's gonna be high in your baby's blood. If it's low in your blood, it's gonna be low in your baby's blood. If you don't eat any eggs or any choline whatsoever, your baby's not gonna get enough, and that's the whole point. You have to learn about this stuff, 'cause nobody's telling you, unfortunately.
- 19:24 – 23:57
You’re Born With the Brain Cells You’ll Keep for Life
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. I ca- I can't believe that this hasn't become necessary learning-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... 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.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
And there's no exam, there's no test-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
... there's no education. You know, we, we obviously have to take a driving test, right? We, we take exams to get jobs. It just feels like having a baby feels bigger and harder than all of those things.
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
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- JIJessie Inchauspé
It's getting what it can. The mother's reserves are gonna be depleted-
- JSJay Shetty
Right
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... up to a point. There's a limit, 'cause biology will always favor the mom staying alive. So all of the mom's choline is gonna get given to the baby, but up to a point. The mom's muscle mass is gonna start shedding to give the baby protein. The mom's omega-3 reserves are gonna 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Um, and I mean, same with sugar, right? It's like if you eat a lot of sugar, your baby's gonna be processing a lot of sugar. Now, humans are resilient and nature has a way, and so the baby will probably be fine, probably.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But you're silently setting up that baby for more vulnerability.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You're silently programming his, 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Can you feel them?
- JSJay Shetty
No. [laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
I hope they're there.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So you have a- about 100 billion neurons, and these are the brain cells that connect information-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... that process information. These are the same neurons that you had the day you were born.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Neurons never get replaced. They stay with you from the moment you're born until you die.
- JSJay Shetty
So they're getting older.
- JIJessie 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, 'cause 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.
- 23:57 – 26:30
When Food and Supplements Work Best Together
- JSJay Shetty
Do you recommend people getting those from supplements or from food? And what does that look like?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Food is always better absorbed and always cheaper.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
However, if you don't eat any animal foods, you should take the supplements. It's just gonna be much easier. For example, choline. So four eggs a day is the amount you need, um, for your baby. If you're vegan, that would mean you have to eat eight pounds of soybeans per day. Eight pounds-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... to get enough choline.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So take a supplement.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
It'll be way, way easier.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Way easier.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
For omega-3s, you can only find them in fish-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... or in algae or krill. So if you're vegan, you wanna take, um, some supplements made from algae.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Now, I still supplemented with extra omega-3s and extra choline.Just because
- JSJay Shetty
Just to be safe
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I wanted to put as much as I could there.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But supplements are great, but again, like, if you're only supplementing, the molecules are still gonna be a bit less well-absorbed than if you take the real food.
- JSJay Shetty
Is there any way of knowing whether all of what you did has helped your son?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I mean, he's wonderful.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
He's very smart.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Super awake, like, uh, éveillé, which means, like, just, you know.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
He's, he's really present. Is there any way I could know? I don't think so.
- 26:30 – 30:03
Avoid These Foods During Pregnancy!
- JSJay Shetty
What are the foods that mothers when they're pregnant need to avoid?
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
That's crazy.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah, it's crazy.
- JSJay Shetty
And what impact does that have?
- JIJessie 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 s- they show that even the equivalent of one glass a day leads to 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.
- JSJay Shetty
What kind of toxic chemicals are the ones we don't think about? The ones that you had to really clear out.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Hmm, that's a good question. I think the big ones is, like, asbestos, mold, um-
- JSJay Shetty
Cleaning products in the house?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... pesticides. So there's no studies on those-
- JSJay Shetty
Okay
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... but, yeah, probably. It's a good idea. I try to clean everything with vinegar. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. [laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I either drink it or I clean with it.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Uh, that's a good idea. I also was very careful with plastics. So I was wearing Invisaligns, you know-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 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.
- JSJay Shetty
So even drinking from a plastic water bottle, for example.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I try to avoid that.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
For myself also, 'cause the microplastics.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You wanna 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 ha- I, I lose it all the time, but I buy a nice aluminum water bottle, and then I lose it after four days-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... and I have to buy another one.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But I try to drink out of those, for sure.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And then the 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?
- 30:03 – 35:34
How High Sugar Intake Affects Pregnancy
- JSJay Shetty
And what's that training the baby's body to do?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Well, it does exactly what you do, meaning it registers inflammation, and it also has to deal with the spike.
- JSJay Shetty
So it has to crash.
- JIJessie 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 gonna 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
- JSJay Shetty
And the most baby's really cute.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... absolutely.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah [laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Super cute.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But if there's a lot of fat, it's a sign that your baby had to deal with-
- JSJay Shetty
Right
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... a very high glucose environment when he was in your belly.
- JSJay Shetty
Are they taking energy away from other areas of growth-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm
- JSJay Shetty
... by having to process that?
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
So it's setting them up for having in- inflammatory body long term.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
It's doing a few things. Yes. One thing, yes. Second thing is it's training their body that to, to put on fat.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And then the other thing that happens, Jay, has to do with your baby's brain, 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. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
250,000 neurons per minute during pregnancy. Da, da, da, da, da, da. 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, [laughs] I'm a 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. I'm gonna go grab it-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... and destroy it." "Mm, that neuron is not connecting very well, or it looks a bit weird. I'm gonna go grab it and destroy it."
- 35:34 – 38:24
The Modern Food System Is Failing Families
- JSJay Shetty
How do you encourage moms to think about the stress component of this or which I'm sure you had to navigate yourself?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah. I think the first thing we need to understand, this is not the mom's fault.
- JSJay Shetty
100%.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
100%.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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, uh, even at the hospital, is bad for us, and it's leading to all sorts of stuff, from heart disease to diabetes. I mean, peop- we're all sick because of our food system, and it's also failing pregnant moms.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Like, it's failing everybody else.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And so just like with everything else, we have to say, "Shit, we are in a bad situation. The food around us is not helping us. What can I do? What are small things I can do to try to put the odds back in my favor?"
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And just like with my glucose hacks, I teach people how to, you know, uh, 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 pressureLike, you're building a human, and I'm never gonna be able to take that pressure away. I felt it too.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But I'm hoping that with this book, I'm gonna lead moms away from, like, the overwhelming Instagram information-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... and that barrage of, like, stuff, and be like, "These are four things that if you do them, you're gonna have an outsized positive effect on your baby's development-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... and long-term health."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, it's just four things, yeah.
- JIJessie 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'm, I could have done it better. I, I'm gonna 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.
- JSJay Shetty
And I appreciate you saying it's not, you know, the woman's fault because-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Biologically-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... Jay-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... babies are developing in female bodies, and that's just biology.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But everybody is responsible for the society we live in.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
We're not gonna hold moms responsible for the food at the grocery store.
- 38:24 – 40:43
What Can Contribute to Miscarriage
- JSJay Shetty
is there also a connection between... And, and I'm asking because I genuinely don't know. Is there a connection between diet and miscarriage?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm. 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 out of your control-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 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 gonna be okay. We're talking about small optimizations. We're talking about, as you, as you saw, like 3% to 4%, small stuff. I'm fine. You're fi- you're fine. Our moms didn't eat any choline, omega-3s, ate a lot of sugar. We're okay. Humans are resilient. But if we know this, we need to tell people about it.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, and, and I think it's also as you grow older, you actually start to realize [laughs] how much all these things matter more-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm
- JSJay Shetty
... when it comes to long-term health.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Like the vulnerability, you mean?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, like mental health. Like, you don't realize this in your 20s or when your kid's a teenager when, you know, your body's doing all the best work. But when you hit your 40s and your 50s 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. You've-- When you look at all the impacts, like, I appreciate what you're saying, that humans are resilient, we'll survive, 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-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Totally
- JSJay Shetty
... hopefully feels healthy and touch wood. I really appreciate you, uh, 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. Talk to
- 40:43 – 45:48
Understanding Silent Miscarriage
- JSJay Shetty
me about the fact that you thought you were doing everything right, and then you go through that. What is, what is that experience like?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So I'll take you back to the beginning.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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, no cares in the world. I was just very nauseous, but I, I, 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 gonna be born in December. How wonderful. Oh man, we've gotta 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, like-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... to see inside your belly. And there's, 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, 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 this, 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, silent being the key word 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, 'cause they can see when it stopped developing, and I had no clue.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... of my back surgery. It was just so bad. And then I, I just spiraled, and I think I saw you, like, two weeks after, and I was like, "Jay, I'm really not okay." And I felt like if emotions could kill me, I'd be dead. That's the intensity I was feeling. 'Cause it's not just like you lost a pregnancy. It's 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 gonna have a baby. It's so rough, and you're s- I was so scared. Am I gonna be able to get pregnant again? Is this gonna 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, and I didn't understand why it had happened 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 tongues untied. But because I didn't know about these stories beforehand, I was not prepared.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 gonna be okay. I was like, "Oh my God, pregnancy test positive." I called up everybody, "Oh my God, I'm having a baby." I had no conception, and I'm somebody who, I consider myself pretty well informed.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But yet I, I was, 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?"
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And then I realized that that grief was always gonna be there and coexist. I was never gonna be able to completely say goodbye to it. So we tried again. I got pregnant again, and then followed the most stressful nine months of my life because every day I thought-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... maybe there's a problem and I don't know.
- JSJay Shetty
You wake up with that feeling. It's the worst.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
'Cause for the first four, 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, wanting-- I wanted so many ultrasounds-
- JSJay Shetty
Of course
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... that I started seeing two different doctors, and they didn't know about each other 'cause I felt so-
- JSJay Shetty
You're cheating on them [laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... embarrassed of how much I wanted to get ul-
- JSJay Shetty
Of course
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 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. Um, and then when my son was born, I felt like I wasn't anxious anymore [laughs] 'cause I was like, "Okay, he's here. He's alive. He's okay." But it was an awful experience, and I wish that more people had told me about their own miscarriages-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... so that I felt a bit less alone. I would even fi- I would go on Google and be like, "Celebrities who have had miscarriages," and I saw, oh, Beyoncé had a miscarriage. Okay, I feel less alone now.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's how much I wanted connection.
- 45:48 – 48:28
Processing the Grief of Pregnancy Loss
- JSJay Shetty
Gabrielle Union's talked about it at length, her experiences of multiple and just... Yeah. It's, it's, uh, gosh, I mean, it's, you know, i- it's, 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.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And few people know how to hold space for it.
- JSJay Shetty
Talk to me about that.
- JIJessie 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 'cause it's invisible.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Nobody physical died.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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, well, 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-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... it, it makes a lot of us very uncomfortable 'cause 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."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, of course.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
"Can I bring you a chocolate cake?"
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's all I wanted.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So you, it's just like, it's just like any emotion.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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, it's rough.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. It's, it's shocking to me that people even still think they can say things like, "Oh, well, just move on. It'll work out." Like, I- and I get it. It's coming from a good-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
They wanna be positive
- JSJay Shetty
... Totally.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
It's coming from a good place.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
But it's like, I think we're so far past the thinking that positive outpaces-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... like, an-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah
- 48:28 – 51:10
The Most Common Causes of Miscarriage
- JIJessie Inchauspé
you know?
- JSJay Shetty
Is there any research to suggest what causes a miscarriage is? Does anything exist?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah. SoYou kinda 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-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... which is why miscarriage is more common as you advance in age.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But in a way, it's, quote-unquote, "good" because a miscarriage means that embryo is probably not viable.
- JSJay Shetty
Right.
- JIJessie 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 onto the pregnancy, and it's probably a lot of stuff that we don't even know about.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But in most cases, you can't control it, and so that's why it's, um, it's stressful.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, I can't imagine it. I mean-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You have to hold it lightly, you know?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 miscarry? B- what if I lose him?" And she was like, "You don't know how long you're gonna have this baby. But for as long as you have him, you can choose to love him."
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I didn't wanna reopen my heart-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 'cause I was so scared.
- JSJay Shetty
That's real.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And after she said that, I was like, "Okay, you know what? Yes, I can allow myself to love."
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And love is vulnerable.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- 51:10 – 53:54
What Happens When You Eat Sugar on an Empty Stomach
- JSJay Shetty
thing you raise as challenges for moms in their nine months is fatigue.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm-hmm.
- JSJay Shetty
And, you know, we've been talking about stress somewhat, and that's how we went off in this direction. But that fatigue-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Oh
- JSJay Shetty
... that you get by being pregnant, and that naturally wants you to have sugar, and that naturally wants you to have carbs and fat, like, all the stuff-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... that we're trying to... So, like, what do you do when you're tired?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Dopamine is the pleasure molecule in your brain, so you feel kind of awake, like, "Whoa, I'm awake."
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You think it's energy. It's not.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Why? Because this is gonna create a big spike and a big drop and more fatigue.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And it's gonna create a big spike that's also gonna go into my baby's bloodstream. So always sugar after a meal. Never for breakfast, for example. And if I... 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-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... because the fiber in the veggies creates this protection in your intestine, and it slows down how quickly glucose arrives into your bloodstream.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So I was like, I'm gonna eat the carbs that I'm craving, but with the hacks-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... so that I reduce spikes and inflammation in my body and in my baby's body.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And all this is in the chapter in 9 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 do wanna do the vinegar hack during pregnancy, you have to make sure that it's pasteurized because you wanna 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%.
- JSJay Shetty
Yes, this is your, your magic formula.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And the thing is here, what it does, it just slows down how quickly glucose arrives in your bloodstream-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 'cause 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-
- 53:54 – 56:37
The Importance of Movement During Pregnancy
- JSJay Shetty
to know, that women listening need to know?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[sighs] Well, if you feel like moving, even just going for a quick walk can be super helpful. Not only does it help with your blood sugar levels, but-
- JSJay Shetty
I still walk for 10 minutes after eating dinner every night
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... Nice.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's amazing.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But during pregnancy, exercise seems to be doing something incredible.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So this is one of my favorite studies, okay, that I discovered about pregnancy. So scientists took two groups of rats. They, 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 babies' anxiety levels. They found that the babies from the moms who exercised solved the mazes twice as fast-
- JSJay Shetty
Wow
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... and had 80% fewer anxiety symptoms.
- JSJay Shetty
No way.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
The only difference was the physical activity during pregnancy.
- JSJay Shetty
That's crazy.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So even if you just walk, it's gonna help your glucose levels and gonna help probably your baby's brain development.
- JSJay Shetty
Those 10,000 steps.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
I mean, listen-
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... when you're pregnant, one step feels like 10,000 steps.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So we-
- JSJay Shetty
So what's realistic?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Do what you can.
- JSJay Shetty
Okay.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Do what you can. I loved walking. I was... Personally, I went and weight lifted at the gym [laughs] up until, like, my eight and a half month of pregnancy, and it was very hard, but it felt good after I was done.
- JSJay Shetty
Wow.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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, uh, on top of this hill, and I was living in this apartment which was a fifth story walk-up.
- JSJay Shetty
Oh my God.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah, so I moved when I was eight months, but before that, I just naturally was in a situation [laughs] where I had to walk all the time.
- 56:37 – 57:14
How to Reduce Bloating During Pregnancy
- JSJay Shetty
do pregnant moms do if they're experiencing a lot of bloating?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm. That's a very good question. I think some of the bloating is hormonal, especially in the first trimester.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Um, and then probably similar stuff as you would do the rest of the time. So counterintuitively, you actually wanna have more fiber.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Um, sometimes if you increase fiber very quickly, it's gonna lead to a lot of bloating, so you wanna 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And then sometimes you have food sensitivities that can increase bloating also, uh, but that's a big topic, yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm. One thing we haven't talked about,
- 57:14 – 58:31
Does a Father’s Diet Affect Conception?
- JSJay Shetty
before we get into a game we made for you, uh-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
A game?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. [laughs] Uh, one thing we haven't talked about is how does the man's diet affect his sperm and affect... You know, we, we touched on it briefly when we were talking about-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah
- JSJay Shetty
... miscarriages, but, like, how, how important is that? How valuable is that?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So the man's diet before conception is gonna set up his sperm quality.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
For sure. We know that. The problem is, from the moment conception happens, the entire responsibility of the diet is in the female body.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, of course.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
For example, so women have these eggs, right? And the sperm me- 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Mm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 kinda threw me the ball, and I was in charge. [laughs] But it is helpful for the dad-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... to have a healthy lifestyle, especially preconception.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. It's just, I feel like none
- 58:31 – 1:00:47
Using Food to Set Your Child Up for Life
- JSJay Shetty
of this is ever talked about.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Like, we almost, like, just have kids without thinking about it, and there's no-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And listen, it works, right?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Like, it works.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But if, in a world where we have all these incredible scientific studies-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... we need to know about them.
- JSJay Shetty
It works, but I also think we're noticing long-term the ramifications of-
- JIJessie Inchauspé
That's the thing.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Like, let me make you a little list of my problems.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So I have a unhealthy obsession with cats. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] No, I don't think that's a problem, is it?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
You know, I have existential crises all the time.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Lots of mental health issues, depersonalization, dissociation, anxiety, depression, cusp of prediabetes when I was 25, like, I was two points away from prediabetes, um, 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 womb. Maybe they have to do with my child e- child experiences, like, who knows? But for sure, the nine months of pregnancy calibrate things. They're a window of outsized influence.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And so today, I'm, after knowing about all the science, 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And the-
- JSJay Shetty
And those are all doable. They're practical.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Exactly.
- JSJay Shetty
They make sense.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Exactly.
- JSJay Shetty
And add on the couple of hacks that you just mentioned.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So what's wrong with you now? Let's make a list.
- 1:00:47 – 1:04:02
What the UK Sugar Ration Taught Us About Health
- JIJessie Inchauspé
is important.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. What's a study that hasn't been done?That you'd wish we could do to understand pregnancy better
- JIJessie Inchauspé
It would be very unethical. If we really wanted to measure the impact, we would recruit 1,000 women, and half of them we would say, "Eat what you normally were gonna 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, then we would follow them for 30, 40, 50 years, and we would see what happened.
- JSJay Shetty
Hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Actually, while this is impossible, something happened in the UK that was kind of close.
- JSJay Shetty
Hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Do you know about this?
- JSJay Shetty
No.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Okay.
- JSJay Shetty
No idea.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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. 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, "Huh, this is really interesting," because this means that we have babies who were 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 babies' health, 'cause the only thing that had changed was the amount of sugar.
- JSJay Shetty
Sugar, yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
So they called up... Well, they found the medical records, and they called 60,000 people, 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-
- JSJay Shetty
Wow
- JIJessie 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-
- JSJay Shetty
Mm-hmm, mm
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... less vulnerability to diabetes lifelong in your baby for their entire life.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
And the only change was the number of sugar cubes per day.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Isn't that amazing?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Today, most moms eat 80 grams of sugar per day, which is the level that was shown to have higher diabetes risk.
- JSJay Shetty
Hmm.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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 gonna try to just reduce by even 5 grams-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... 10 grams-
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah
- JIJessie Inchauspé
... one sugar. Instead of having an orange juice, I'm gonna have a whole orange." That's 20 grams of sugar gone. Just these small tweaks can have an outsized impact-
- JSJay Shetty
Yes
- 1:04:02 – 1:10:51
This or That: Pregnancy Edition
- JSJay Shetty
came up with a This or That game for you, Pregnancy Edition.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Okay, I love it.
- JSJay Shetty
This was inspired by your book, 9 Months That Count Forever, and so it's dedicated to you and your book. So Jessie, this or that, because you did the final five last time. So question number one, carbs first or protein first when you're nauseous?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Oh, protein first. Protein all the time. It will, it will help a lot.
- JSJay Shetty
Okay. Small frequent snacks or fewer, more balanced meals?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Ugh. If you're very nauseous, the small frequent ones really, really helps. I was eating an almond every five minutes, basically. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
But ideally, it's always gonna 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.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
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. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
Very useful. Good advice. All right. Morning sickness the entire pregnancy or intense cravings?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Like, what do I prefer?
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. [laughs]
- JIJessie Inchauspé
[laughs] Cravings. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] Pushing through nausea to eat for nutrients or meeting your body where it is?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Oh, come on. That's easy. Meeting your body where it is.
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] We're just checking. We're, you know, we like trying to help everyone out. Uh, following strict pregnancy food rules or reducing stress around food?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Mm. Reducing stress around food and knowing that by doing these four key things, you're helping your baby a lot.
- JSJay Shetty
More rest or gentle daily movement?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Ooh, both, if you can. [laughs]
- JSJay Shetty
[laughs] Strength training or cardio during pregnancy?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Ooh, great question. Whatever you do. Whatever you can do.
- JSJay Shetty
Okay.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah, both are great, so do the one that you can do.
- JSJay Shetty
And you, you said you were doing weight training.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
That was what you were doing.
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Yeah, yeah.
- JSJay Shetty
Yeah. Eating within an hour of waking or waiting until appetite kicks in?
- JIJessie Inchauspé
Oof. Depends on the nausea.
Episode duration: 1:10:51
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