Click here to listen to Episode 7 hosted by Dr. Elyssa.
Functional Medicine and Pregnancy
Did you know functional medicine could help optimize your health during pregnancy? Especially because the pregnancy journey brings up so many new questions, like:
- When is the best time to start thinking about nutrition in the pregnancy journey?
- How do I know my prenatal vitamin is working?
- Who do I need supporting me in the pre-conception phase?
On The Trimester Bubble, we’re happy to share some of the incredible experts and resources we have access to in Boulder, Colorado, so you can benefit from them wherever you are!
This week, Dr. Elyssa and Dr. Katherine sat down with Dr. Margo Gasta to discuss her work as a functional medicine dietitian and certified classical homeopath working with women on the path of pregnancy. We chatted about functional medicine and some of those common questions to help bring you some guidance along your journey!
When to Start Thinking About Nutrition
If you’re planning to get pregnant, it’s great to start thinking about nutrition now! Dr. Margo recommends getting labs done as a baseline and reviewing the results with your functional medicine practitioner.
Most of your nutrition should come from the food you eat, and you may need supplements to support as well. Talk to your doctor to see what’s best for you.
As Dr. Margo said, “If you don’t feel right, take time to explore that before getting pregnant.”
Creating Good Habits Pre-Pregnancy
Trimester 1 can bring a whole slew of physical and emotional shifts that make creating new habits even more difficult. So if you’re planning to get pregnant, consider taking a look at these areas to set yourself up well:
- Healthy eating. If you’re not getting enough of the “baby building materials” in your current diet, your growing baby will borrow from your reserves.
- Optimized digestion. If you deal with IBS or constipation pre-pregnancy, those symptoms are likely to get worse once you’re pregnant. These can also be a sign that you’re not fully absorbing your pre-natal vitamins or the great nutrients from your healthy eating habits.
- Meal planning. New to meal planning? Try out systems before you get pregnant so you can plan ahead for healthy, nutritious meals through your pregnancy as well.
- Remove environmental chemicals. When possible, swap out harsh cleaning chemicals for more natural ones. Swap regular produce for organic.
- Manage stress levels. Pre-pregnancy is a great time to develop stress-management tools. This might look like meditation, taking yoga classes, organizing your home in a supportive way, or learning breathing techniques.
Dr. Margo Gasta is a functional medicine dietitian and a certified classical homeopath. She has been practicing for 34 years, working with gastro-intestinal issues, chronic pelvic pain, autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
In this episode you’ll hear about:
- Dr Margo Gasta’s work as a functional medicine dietitian and certified classical homeopath
- When to start thinking about preconception nutrition
- Common underlying conditions in women preconception
- The importance of B vitamins and iron
- Getting nutrition through food vs supplements
- Digestion, constipation, and IBS pre-pregnancy
- Being aware of environmental chemicals
- Getting enough calories for breastfeeding
- Postpartum care: nutrition, depression, sleep
- Getting help after a hard birth
- Addressing chronic pelvic pain
- Advocating for yourself after giving birth – build a team
Resources in this Episode:
- Pain-Free Pregnancy registration
- Body & Balance website
- Learn more about Dynamic Body Balancing
- DBB Website
- Dr. Margo’s website
- Book: Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things
Learn:
- Episode 3: Pregnancy 101
- Episode 5: It Takes a Village – Doulas
- Microplastics in the Food We Eat
- The Benefits of Bone Broth
- Real Advice for Prenatal and Pregnancy Nutritional Care
Connect:
- Boulder Locals: Join our free, in-person Pain-Free Pregnancy community each quarter. Register here!
- Body & Balance: New patients start here
- About Dr Elyssa and Dr Katherine
- Connect with Body & Balance on Instagram
- Connect with Body & Balance on Facebook
- Connect with Dr. Margo on Instagram
- Connect with Dr. Margo on Facebook
- Enjoying the podcast? Be sure to subscribe and leave a review!
Disclaimer
This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of such advice or treatment from a personal physician. All readers/viewers/listeners of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. Neither Dr. Elyssa Wright nor Body and Balance Chiropractic. LLC nor the publisher of this content takes responsibility for possible health consequences of any person or persons reading, listening or following the information in this educational content. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.
Full Episode Transcript
Dr. Elyssa 00:00
Hey, everybody. I am Dr Elyssa and welcome back to the Trimester Bubble!
I’m a chiropractor and I need everybody bouncing facilitator here at Body and Balance Chiropractic. We support mamas, mamas to be, and babies by helping them live their best lives. Here on the podcast, we bring you education journal content for your pregnancy journey coming from both us and also our guest specialists. Whether you’re thinking about starting a family, you’re already pregnant or maybe you already have some kiddos at home.
Dr Elyssa 00:31
Each episode is here to help educate you and lift you up. We know that this can be a confusing and lonely time, and all of us here at the Trimester bubble really want to support you on this journey that is Mama hood and raising littles. So on today’s episode, we’re going to be talking with Dr. Margo Garza. Dr. Margo is a functional medicine dietitian and a certified classical homeopath.
Dr Elyssa 00:57
She’s been practicing for 34 years and works with gastrointestinal issues, chronic pelvic pain, autoimmune disease, chronic fatigue, ADHD, anxiety and depression. She has coauthored and published 11 articles, also coauthored a chapter in a functional nutrition textbook and has taught in a master’s degree program at Saybrook University. So we are excited to have her today. And let’s get chatting with Dr. Margo.
Dr Elyssa 01:36
Hey, everybody. Dr. Elyssa here. And today on the trimester bubble, we are very excited to have Dr. Margo guest with us. So welcome, Dr. Margo. Thank you. Nice to be here. We are talking about all things pre-conception and postpartum nutrition. But first, we wanted to get to know a little bit more about you. So tell us a little bit about how you got into the work you do.
What that looks like and kind of your journey to where you are today
Dr Margo Gasta 02:07
Hi there. I’m a doctorate level integrative and functional medicine dietitian, and I’m also a certified classical homeopath. And I started down this route about 34 years ago as mainly being interested in being a sports nutritionist or a sports dietician. And I worked with the Army, I worked with the VA, and then somewhere along the line I got hit with a bunch of health problems that I needed to figure out.
Dr Margo Gasta 02:34
And the only way to do that was through some additional education and training. So what sort of fell into my lap was clinical nutrition, which was a term being used at the time before functional nutrition or functional medicine came about. So I got involved in that training and just continued on that path and continue with homeopathy and learned how to get myself better.
Dr Margo Gasta 02:56
And then I started working solely in integrative functional nutrition in the year 2000, and that’s where I’ve stuck ever since. So what I work with our gastrointestinal problems. I work with autoimmune disease, chronic pelvic pain, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and I get a lot of women that show up that have had children, and all of a sudden they find themselves in a situation where their health is declining and so they’re seeking some help.
Dr Margo Gasta 03:28
And so that’s why I was thinking possibly pre-conception nutrition is a good topic to talk about preventing this before you get pregnant and then find yourself in a worse situation after delivery.
Dr Elyssa
Yeah, absolutely. I know Dr. Katherine and I see a lot of that in our practice where it’s – I’m sure you see it in all avenues. It’s they come in to the chiropractic office because of the physical pains, but we also see the fatigue, the overwhelm, the exhaustion and always keeping eyes open for those emotional changes postpartum of how do we support that?
And I agree, getting to fix the problem before the problem becomes a problem is always a good way to go.
Dr. Katherine
Do you mind just talking a little bit about so you work a lot with the diet dietician through the functional medicine route, what does it look like when you work with your clients?
Dr. Margo Gasta 04:42
Well, typically I start with a free discovery call to find out what’s going on and making sure that we’re a good match.
And then I give them some lengthy questionnaires to fill out with a big symptom checklist, because people oftentimes will forget some of the symptoms that they have that might tie into it. I look at any lab work that they’ve had done in the past couple of years, and then from there, you know, when we’re looking at lab work through a functional nutrition lens, we’re looking for optimal health.
Dr. Margo Gasta 05:06
So we’re using a narrower reference range rather than the wider reference ranges that are used for physicians to diagnose the disease. So we’re trying to put together patterns that we see like, hey, I might see low normal calcium, a low ferritin, low normal protein, but all these things are falling into the realm of normal. If it’s a physician’s looking at it, to me, it’s pointing out a pattern of some malabsorption and some things that could be going on that are leading to why they’re not feeling well.
Dr. Margo Gasta 05:37
So then we’ll run some other integrative test. I may also ask their doctor if they will run some additional conventional tests so we can get a bigger picture of what’s going on. And then we outline a program over several months that goes in different phases of trying to heal and get them back to a maintenance plan. And we tweak it as we go along.
05:58 Unknown
You know, some of their symptoms might get better, but some are remaining. So then we might do some further investigation or change the program a little bit until we can get them feeling much better to where they feel almost back to the normal self, hopefully.
Dr. Katherine
Yeah. That’s awesome. I love that you take a more of a deeper dive into their lives because I’ve heard from so many patients say like, my primary care provider said my labs are normal and then they just leave it.
It’s great to hear that you order some more tests and look for the real cause of what’s going on.
Dr. Margo Gasta
Yeah, and that’s definitely what happened to me in my training as a dietitian alone. Wasn’t adequate to address that. And when I went on with further training, I could see I could look back at my old lab work and be like, Wow, that would have jumped out to me.
Dr. Margo Gasta 06:49
Now, at this point with additional training, if only I had had myself. 34 years ago, you know, to look at some that would have been helpful. But but now we can be of benefit to people these days.
Dr. Elyssa
So let’s dive in to the good stuff and talk about, you know, what is pre-conception nutrition and how you know, at what point of like, all right, we’re thinking about trying for a family.
At what point does the nutrition piece have to come before the the trying piece?
Dr. Margo Gasta
Well, this is actually something that’s not talked about a lot and could probably use more research, but definitely several months prior. I think it’s best to be thinking about it six months to a year prior. But in the literature, they’ll say at least three months prior, start taking better care of yourself, eat a healthier diet, and so on.
Dr. Margo Gasta 07:51
One of the things that doesn’t get talked about is about 38% of non-pregnant women worldwide have anemia and anemia, pre pregnancy and in the first trimester can really result in preterm delivery and low body weight. But the other effect is are low birth weight, not low body weight. But the other effect is the quality of life on women and executive function sufferers, their mental health, their fatigue.
Dr. Margo Gasta 08:19
They’re trying to work. They’re trying to take care of kids and just how much of an issue that is. So when they come in and work with someone and do a nutritional workup ahead of time, we can assess and see where they’re at with their iron. And one thing that doesn’t get tested very often is ferritin. And I feel like it’s now being talked about how important it is to look at ferritin instead of just relying on hemoglobin and hematocrit.
Dr. Margo Gasta 08:45
And ferritin is your iron storage. And sometimes low iron levels will show up in certain before they show up in hemoglobin and hematocrit. But we can also look at their full lay their be six status. We can look at their diet and assess for choline and zinc and some of these other really important nutrients and get that on board and help them to become as optimally nourished before they get pregnant.
Dr. Margo Gasta 09:10
And also being at a healthy weight that they need to determine with their doctor what is a healthy weight for them. Because on either end of the spectrum, you can run into problems with the offspring having health problems later in life, in adulthood. So we’re trying to set the optimal health of the mother and the fetus. So then that offspring will grow up to be a healthy adult and have fewer health problems.
Dr. Elyssa 09:35
Make sense. Now, you just gave a list of different types of tests and vitamins. Can you kind of go through and like, why is proper ferritin important before you’re pregnant? Why are the B vitamins, folate, etc., etc.?
Dr. Margo Gasta
Yeah. And so we’re looking at with B vitamins and folate. We’re also looking at the neurological system and preventing things such as spinal bifida and birth defects.
Dr. Margo Gasta 09:59
And with iron, think of optimal oxygenation of all of your tissues and optimal growth of that really important with protein, you’re having to make all these new cells. You want enough protein for that And with calcium and we’re looking at the baby skeleton. Where is that calcium going to come from? If the mom is not getting to the diet, it’s going to be coming from the mother’s skeleton.
Dr. Margo Gasta 10:21
So we’re really trying to optimize. All of that is important, too. And also, when we’re looking at just toxins in general and heavy metals and things that we’re exposed to all the time, low levels, it’s really important to have adequate mineral, especially iron when we’re looking at being able to on a daily basis, get rid of those and not suffer the effects of some of that that we might come into contact with.
Dr. Margo Gasta 10:43
So there’s a whole lot of reasons for optimizing these nutrients and coaling is one that’s also being looked at. Neuro developmentally and with cognition of the offspring getting enough cooling in the diet with the mom and how important that is for the offspring. So we can do that all we can sit down and look at that diet. They can make a plan now, like if they’re not in a healthy eating regime and let’s say the mom and her partner are doing a lot of fast food takeout, eating at restaurants, not cooking, relying on frozen foods, it’s not a very nutrient dense diet.
Dr. Margo Gasta 11:18
And they’re getting a lot of inflammatory fats and they’re missing out on key nutrients with that. So if we can sit down now and help them to devise an organized system where it doesn’t take a lot of work and where they’ve got it down pat and how they’re going to pre cook and batch cook and freeze foods, we can get that in system, you know, get that system going before they become pregnant.
Dr. Elyssa 11:39
Yeah. Which I am sure anyone who’s ever been pregnant works with pregnancy sees it. That’s not something you want to be trying to figure out how to manage in your first trimester. Right?
Dr. Margo Gasta
Right. You’ve got enough going on. You’re feeling tired enough. You might be very nauseous and sick and you want a system in place ahead of time.
Dr. Katherine 11:57
Great. Have you found kind of with the general population, just eating a balanced diet is enough to get those key nutrients? Or do you find like a lot of that has to be supplemented.
Dr. Margo Gasta
Well, when they have done research on mothers who are getting a multivitamin plus folate plus iron, the outcome with the fetal health was much better.
Dr. Margo Gasta 12:25
So if you’re talking about pre-conception nutrition, I would recommend talking to your doctor. Of course, you know, everything should be done on an individual basis and getting recommendations for the ideal supplementation. But there’s a lot of nutrients that we are still discovering that we haven’t even found yet that are in food and they’re not available in a supplement.
Dr. Margo Gasta 12:49
So it’s really important to get started on a Whole Foods unprocessed diet and learn easy techniques for preparing these foods so you can get them in your diet easily.
Dr. Katherine
Yeah, that makes total sense.
Dr. Elyssa 00:13:01:18
And so we have the looking at the labs ahead of time so we can start to make changes with diet and a little bit of supplementation based off of your individual needs.
What other things do you look at from a pre-conception nutrition place?
Dr. Margo Gasta
Well, I look at let’s say they’ve got a situation like IBS or constipation or reflux, and it hasn’t been addressed yet. There’s probably something going on that they want to address ahead of time because things like constipation are going to get a lot worse during pregnancy and IBS can get a lot worse in general.
Dr. Margo Gasta 13:39
So I think, you know, I want to know what are all the symptoms that they’re having now through that checklist? Are they feeling achy and having chronic fatigue now? Are they having a lot of gastrointestinal symptoms now? Are they having insomnia now? Are they really stressed? And they’re using substances like coming home and drinking alcohol at night to unwind and can we do anything about that now while they’re thinking about getting pregnant to optimize their health and getting just some good coping skills in place and good habits in place.
Dr. Margo Gasta 14:09
And I work a lot with people on optimizing their schedule to like I walk them through from when they go to bed at night to when they wake up, when they first eat, when they feel best preparing food, how are they going to get exercise? And so we’re looking at a big holistic view of everything in their day, and that’s how we work with them.
Dr. Margo Gasta 14:27
On behavior change to try to optimize that and see what they can do now. And and it’s helpful for them to also keep track of their own schedule and see what’s going on and what they might want to change prior to trying to get pregnant.
Dr. Elyssa
And I love all those pieces and I love that you brought up digestion because I think one of the things we always forget is it’s like, All right, I’m thinking about getting pregnant.
I’m going to start taking a prenatal and there’s no conversation about whether or not that prenatal is being absorbed.
Dr. Margo Gasta
And the other part that you brought up, thank you for this is there’s so many different types of iron available, and some of those types of iron can really make people feel terrible. They can get, you know, sharp pains in their stomach.
Dr. Margo Gasta 15:14
They can feel nauseous from it. So finding a type of iron that’s easy to digest and works with their system and doesn’t cause terrible constipation for them is really helpful as well. But you’re right, making sure you’re actually digesting well so you can digest and break down that multivitamin now and all of the other food. Absolutely. The things that aren’t in the supplement.
Unknown 15:38
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Dr. Katherine 15:41
So looking postpartum, are there any big actions and players that women should look to implement postpartum with their diet and just how they’re treating their body?
Dr. Margo Gasta 15:55
Yes. And, you know, the fatigue that comes with that, getting enough calories for breastfeeding is really important. I think the other thing that maybe isn’t talked about enough and you’ll hear different, you know, when people are working with different populations, what they find.
Dr. Margo Gasta 16:09
But there’s a lot of pressure on women to get down to their baseline weight before they were pregnant. And I think that can really be a mistake and it can interfere with how they nurse themselves to get enough calories for breastfeeding. So I think really taking a step back on that and just taking care of yourself, getting enough rest, making sure you have help coming in and being astute about postpartum depression, I think is really important that you brought up earlier.
Dr. Margo Gasta 16:37
And I think the partners can also suffer from it, too. And I haven’t actually looked at research. I’ve heard inklings about that, too, that the husband can also get depression. And I think sometimes this might be more common after a difficult birth. But I also think that if you’ve had a difficult birth, it doesn’t get talked about enough and how that affects the mom afterwards for months or years afterwards.
Dr. Margo Gasta 17:02
And I think it just needs to be put out there and recognize the to get help if you had a hard birth.
The other thing that I think can really sideline women is having chronic pelvic pain and not having that adequately taken care of. You know, they might go back to their doctor and they’re like, I don’t know why you’re having this, but, you know, realize that there’s pelvic floor, physical therapists, that there might be something that we need to test in their gut that’s going on, the possibility of endometriosis that’s flaring up after pregnancy that they never knew they had.
Dr. Margo Gasta 17:38
So there’s a whole bunch of things where women can be gaslit and blown off and not listened to. So I guess the important thing is advocate for yourself and see people such as yourselves because you guys are all very aware of that. See pelvic floor, see, see a functional medicine nutritionist or doctor and do some more investigation into that instead of just suffering with that because you could suffer for years afterwards.
Dr. Elyssa 18:02
Yeah I know we we have seen it where Yeah it’s how do we find this team so you can feel better faster and it is very much so a team approach.
Dr. Margo Gasta
And aren’t you glad that you’re there for those people, Right. Like me, You know, I think I feel good about sending people to you guys and have you be aware of things and be on top of it and help and able to help them out.
Dr. Elyssa 18:27
Yeah, that’s one of the great things when Dr. Katherine and I talked about bringing the podcast back because there was a version of it before and updating it, it was a we live in an area where we have all of these resources and how do we share these resources beyond our city limits to go open up more thought processes of how do we support this time from pre-conception all the way through postpartum?
And we always tell our patients postpartum is not six weeks, postpartum is a lot longer than six weeks. And rebuilding the mental health, the physical health, the emotional health is is a little bit of an adventure.
Dr. Margo Gasta
It is. And I think it’s really hard for people without family around to help other family members. And I think, you know, 100 years ago.
Dr. Margo Gasta 19:28
So you had more of a village and you had extended family to help take care of you and take care of that baby. And I think we really have to stick it out. People need to have a plan in place for what they’re going to do. And how are moms going to get support of their groups that they can join to get support, you know, afterwards if they’re struggling and and for the next couple of years, I think it’s really important.
Dr. Elyssa 19:50
Yeah. Finding the tribe. Yeah.
Dr. Margo Gasta 09:53
And I think the other thing to be aware of with pre-conception nutrition and I don’t want to freak people out and make them too nervous but looking at your chemicals, you know, your cleaning chemicals, your lawn chemicals, your body care chemicals and we don’t have a lot of information about what’s happening. But looking on Environmental Working Group website and reading about safer products, I think is really important because we know lotions and things can absorb right through our skin.
Dr. Margo Gasta 20:24
We don’t know what that’s doing to the fetus. So I think trying to choose as healthy as possible products and none of us can live in a bubble, but I think that’s an important thing to bring up if you are able to access that information, if you are able to get organic food, which is not accessible to everyone, and it’s more important to even eat a healthy diet than that.
Dr. Margo Gasta 20:43
But if that’s a possibility for you and accessible to to think about that and do some research into that as well.
Dr. Elyssa
Do you have any any thoughts or a little quick tips that if you can’t get organic food, do you have a favorite natural wash to kind of clean your vegetables any way to try to help get some of those chemicals?
Dr. Margo Gasta 21:09
You know, they do make sprays. I would actually have to look that up and see what what is currently recommended, because there’s a lot of things like baking soda, vinegar, things like that. It’s like is it actually researched, you know, and see also asking from a personal perspective, because I have not come across what that is. I was just trying to see if maybe you had it right.
Dr. Margo Gasta 21:30
But still, you know, still eating those fruits and vegetables is so much better than not eating them. Whether or not it’s organic is so important to get those nutrients in our diet.
Dr. Elyssa
Yeah, absolutely. And when it comes to body care products, I really encourage, you know, use the oils, coconut oil, great, the Shea butters. And, you know, there’s so many recipes now on Pinterest of how you can get things and make it yourself and then you know what’s in it.
Some great reminder of what goes on. Our skin goes into our body. Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Katherine
Did you have a book that you recommend in Dr. Elyssa? Is it like a rubber ducky?
Dr. Elyssa
Yeah. So I like looking for my book on the shelf of books. That’ll take me 45 minutes to find it. It is Death by Rubber Duck, I believe, what the title is, and it was to researchers who went and they put a bunch of plug in the fragrance plug ins in their house and they took their blood before and they took their blood after.
Dr. Elyssa 22:37
And they did that with plug ins. They did it with Teflon pans. And each chapter is a different chemical that you would run into in your household. And they did the research of tested their blood before and after. So it is a really interesting read, right? Yeah. Of just what do these chemicals do? And I always encourage people to shift one thing at a time.
Dr. Elyssa 23:03
Like if people read that book, I’m like, read one chapter, put it away, make your changes, come back a few months later, read another chapter. Because that’s where when I first started going into this, I got myself into a little bit of a fear place and was like throwing away everything in my house.
Dr. Margo Gasta
You can you can get overwhelmed, you can get very anxious.
Dr. Elyssa 23:25
So we just got to bring it down a level and do what we can do. What can we change? Yeah, Yeah. And then when you throw everything away, you’re like, shoot, now I have to buy everything. And it turns into that. I needed that. But yeah, that’s a really fun book of the beginnings of research. And now and that’s probably 15, 20 years old at this point.
Dr. Margo Gasta 23:47
So I don’t know if they’ve done an updated version, but that’s great. What was it called again? Death was the rubber duck. That’s right. That’s great. Which I also appreciate the title.
Dr. Elyssa 24:01
So we have, you know, we want to look at underlying conditions before conception. And I know we touched on a few of those. Are there any more that are kind of heavy hitters for you of definitely want to dig in before conception now we talked concepts well
Dr. Margo Gasta
yeah, constipation, chronic fatigue, insomnia, you know, what can we change now not handling stress levels as you know when you’re stressing and pregnant, it’s so nice if you can establish a routine before that to limit
Dr. Margo Gasta 24:36
Your stress levels as much as possible. Yeah. Right now and just I think getting into healthy routines is a big one and making little baby steps, you know, just little baby steps in health that are cumulative to help you feel more optimal and have a better quality of life. But that’s kind of what I would do. It’s definitely I look at it from a custom viewpoint, so it’s I’m I’m having a little bit of difficulty trying to think of what else.
Dr. Margo Gasta 25:05
But when someone comes in, I guess it’s, if you don’t feel right and you know you don’t feel right, really go ahead and take the time to explore that before getting pregnant.
Dr. Elyssa
I think that is the perfect advice because that is what the digging deeper with functional medicine is, is it’s like something doesn’t seem right, even though this paper of numbers says I’m okay.
Dr. Elyssa 25:30
So I think that’s a great way to get the mind connected of like and I think extra support.
Dr. Margo Gasta
Yeah and I think one of those examples that people kind of blow off is reflux and their babies can get reflux too. But you think of kind of the conventional treatment for reflux might be take these foods out of your diet, like don’t eat tomatoes, don’t eat spicy food, elevate your head and then take an acid like medication.
Dr. Margo Gasta 25:58
And I think that we need to look at reflux as a much deeper issue. Like what are some of the things if someone comes in for reflux, what are we looking at? We we want to make sure they don’t have celiac. We want to make sure they don’t have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Do they have slow motility in their gut, including constipation?
Dr. Margo Gasta 26:15
Do they have irritation in their gut lining that we want to take care of and maybe reflexes are only a sign right now that they’re not absorbing well, and there’s irritation going on. So I’m going to take that as a people might consider that pretty innocuous or kind of a harmless symptom. But I look at that as a tip of the iceberg and we might want to do some more exploration of that.
Dr. Margo Gasta 26:36
So I guess that’s where I’m at, if that doesn’t feel right, you know, reflex is going to get worse from pregnancy. So if you’re having it now ahead of time, let’s sit down and figure out what might be causing that before you get pregnant and see if we can’t get you feeling better.
Dr. Katherine 26:49
And then one of the last questions we have for you, what is your state of health that you want to plant with our listeners?
Dr. Margo Gasta
I feel like you can have dramatic benefits on your quality of life by just making behavior change and small behavior changes. So that would be my seat of health is really, as I was talking about, look at your schedule and keep track and write down what you’re doing every day just for a week or two and see what you’re doing.
Dr. Margo Gasta 27:25
Pay attention to Are you reading whole grains? Are you eating enough leafy greens? Are you exercising? How much sleep are you getting? How much alcohol are you drinking? And just pay attention to that because I feel like small things like that, like flossing your teeth, you’re taking really good care of your dental health, can save so much money on health care and over the span of decades can improve your quality of life.
Dr. Margo Gasta 27:48
So much so those are my I guess my seeds of health is really looking at behavior change.
Dr. Katherine
Yeah, no, I love that. And you can start small in these little things that you do now, as you said, can pay off so much in the future. And it’s easier. We see in our office it’s it’s much easier to help our patients when their symptoms are little before they turn into these big, big chronic issues.
Dr. Katherine 28:17
I’m sure. Yes, You see that as well.
Dr. Margo Gasta
Yeah, absolutely. Good point. Tip of the iceberg, small symptom. Take care of it.
Dr. Elyssa
Is there anything else you want to share with our listeners before we wrap up today?
Dr. Margo Gasta
I can’t think of anything else, but I do think nutrition is one of the things we have the most control over when we’re pregnant and it can make such a big difference on the health outcomes of not just your fetus right when they’re born, but their whole health through their adult life.
So I guess that’s a don’t underestimate the power of nutrition. So what I would say can help so much.
Dr. Elyssa
I love that. Well, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today. And to our listeners, all of Dr. Margo’s information is going to be in our show notes, so make sure you check it out and feel free to reach out with any questions.
Dr. Margo Gasta 29:12
So thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Nice to see you both, too.
Dr. Elyssa 29:27
Thank you so much for joining us on the Trimester Bubble. We appreciate your support. If you know another mama or mama to be who could use the information in this episode, please share the link with them and spread the word. And thank you so much to Dr. Margo. She was a wealth of information and we hope that you enjoyed it.
Dr. Elyssa 29:50
Remember, we always love hearing from you. So send us a message and let us know any thoughts or questions that you had on the episode. Until next time. Bye.
