What Actually Needs to Be in Your Prenatal Vitamins with Bridgitte Mallinson of Gut Personal
Show Notes:
[1:43] Our Review of the Week, Cristina Trouy, said "As a first time mom, I did so much research before we tried to conceive because I wanted to determine what kind of birth would be best for me, and I wanted to prepare as best I could for pregnancy. Coming across Stephanie’s podcast was the biggest blessing! It was exactly what I needed to make an educated decision regarding what was best for me and my baby. After listening to her extensive knowledge on everything birth related, I decided that a home birth was what I wanted! I love how Stephanie takes you through the whole process of birth all the way up to what to expect postpartum. Because of this podcast, I knew how to advocate for myself, how to select a midwife, how to prepare my mind and body for birth, how to stay healthy during pregnancy . . . I could go on and on. She discusses almost everything you could ever need to know about birth. Because of the confidence I gained through the information in this podcast, I was able to deliver my baby at home even though she flipped last minute and was breech. Reminding myself that “If they can do it, I can do it” got me through 30 hours of labor. I am so thankful and blessed that Stephanie has taken the time and energy to put out this podcast. I tell every expectant mother I know about it! Thank you!"
[3:40] Our guest today is Bridgitte Mallinson, a functional medicine dietitian, business mentor, and the founder and CEO of GutPersonal, a supplement company that empowers women to eliminate gut issues for good through a personalized approach. After healing a lifelong struggle with her gut, Bridgitte has spent a decade studying functional medicine and nutrition as a registered functional dietitian. She launched GutPersonal as her way to change the world in a big way.
[5:46] Bridgitte discusses the difference between a dietician and a functional medicine dietician. Functional medicine really tries to get at the root cause of issues. For example, when she was a registered dietician, she was diagnosed with IBS, migraines, hypothyroidism, ADHD, all of these things. She would just be given medication after medication. Our woman's intuition comes in where you're like this doesn't make sense. She found functional medicine, and instead of saying, "you have all these diagnoses," it asks why. They do a lot of testing, gut testing, hormone testing, vitamin testing, etc.
[7:18] Bridgitte talks about her journey of healing herself through functional medicine. As a registered dietitian, she went to school for seven years and still didn't have the answers. When she found functional medicine, she went back to school for three more years. The first big thing that she did learn in functional medicine is that the root of all health is your gut health. Hormones are just responders to other things in our body. When your gut health is off, so many things are off in your body. When she healed her gut, six months later, she got off all the medication.
[8:35] What's measured in a poop test with Gut Personal? A regular GI is testing one or two things. Their test is five pages of:
- "What does your good gut bacteria and microbiome look like?"
- "What bad bacteria do you have?"
- "What bad yeast do you have in the gut?"
- "How well are you breaking down and absorbing your food?"
- "How's your immune system?"
- "Do you have parasites?"
- "Do you have worms?'
- "Are you sensitive to gluten?"
It's looking at so many things to give a full picture of what might be influencing your health and what you need to do.
[11:06] One, the first thing that's most important when thinking about safe supplementation is finding the right, safe companies. You also need to be educated enough, and this is where finding a practitioner to help you personalize for yourself what you need. You want to make sure you're not taking too much of things which is another important part of supplement safety.
[14:24] What do you recommend for moms specifically knowing that 99% of moms are going to be offered a prenatal vitamin from their provider that probably is not the best thing for them? Bridgitte started to look at the prenatals that were available to women at a high, grocery store. Half of them had competing nutrients, for example, iron and calcium. You cannot take iron and calcium together. Calcium competes with iron absorption and blocks it in the body. Half of the prenatals had these two things, which just tell her that they were just marketing a prenatal to market a prenatal. They don't actually care about the health of women. Other prenatals weren't even doing third party testing to make sure there are no heavy metals. Another thing was half of the prenatals had folic acid. Most women can't use and absorb folic acid. It really needs to be a form of folate.
[19:25] Let's take a deep dive into vitamins and minerals that are in prenatals. The most important to take choline is really important for baby's brain development. You also need:
- Methylated B vitamins (four)
- Fat soluble vitamins, Vitamin A, D, E, K
- Vitamin C
- Zinc
[21:43] What should moms be doing besides supplements? Supplements are supposed to be just that, a supplement. We need to focus on our diet, our health, our nutrition, exercise, that kind of stuff. Magnesium is very important for pregnancy too. The two most common things that pregnant women struggle with are insomnia and constipation, right? A magnesium deficiency is at the root of both of those. It really supports bowel movements. It supports reducing your stress response and sleeping better.
[26:05] Let's chat about Group B strep! It is something that can overgrow when the immune system in the gut and vaginal microbiome is off. Bridgitte is really passionate about advocating for this because some women are only tested at the beginning of pregnancy. If it's positive, you have to have antibiotics during labor, which is really rough on your gut microbiome.
[28:44] What do you recommend for moms once they have that baby and they're recovering postpartum? You have to continue taking your prenatal at least six months to a year. Your body is basically recovering. Drink a ton of water.
[31:04] - Where to find Bridgitte:
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