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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to Office Hours. This is our dedicated one-on-one space to go deeper, get clearer, and explore what truly moves the needle for your health.
Chapter 2: What are the essential prenatal vitamins for pregnancy?
I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and each week we're going to pull back the curtain and share the insights, the research, the lessons that don't always make it into our conversations with guests. Because at the end of the day, you are the CEO of your own health. And for many of you, your family's health too.
Chapter 3: How can I manage common pregnancy symptoms naturally?
And you might not feel it all the time, but you have far more power and agency than you realize. I'm glad you're here. This episode is brought to you by Function Health, empowering you to live 100 healthy years with over 160 lab tests at just $365 a year. Sign up today at functionhealth.com slash mark and use code mark 2026 to get $50 towards your membership.
Once you conceive, the questions don't stop.
Chapter 4: What nutrition strategies can prevent complications like preeclampsia?
They just multiply. Pregnancy is a time of profound transformation.
Chapter 5: What hormonal changes occur during the postpartum phase?
Your hormones shift, your metabolism changes, your nutritional needs increase, your nervous system adapts in ways that most women are not really prepared for. And postpartum, well, that may be one of the most misunderstood and underserved stages of a woman's life.
So in this Office Hours, we're slowing things down and answering your most common real-world questions about how to support your body during pregnancy and afterwards. We're going to talk about things like choosing the right prenatal vitamins and understanding the difference between folate and folic acid.
We're going to talk about managing nausea in pregnancy, acne, heartburn, which is common, and many other common pregnancy discomforts. We're going to talk about supporting mental health during pregnancy and why it matters for your well-being postpartum.
Chapter 6: How does postpartum hair loss occur and what can help?
We're going to talk about reducing the risk of complications in pregnancy like preeclampsia, which is high blood pressure in pregnancy. And we'll talk about nourishing your body in the third trimester to prepare for labor and recovery. And then we're going to move into postpartum. What happens with your hormonal shifts, thyroid shifts?
Chapter 7: How can I effectively recover from a C-section?
What happens in your pelvic floor? How do you heal that? How do you support your immune system?
Chapter 8: What are the emotional challenges during pregnancy and postpartum?
How do you deal with some of the mood changes that happen with all these shifts in hormones? What about hair loss? And how do you recover after a C-section? This isn't about doing everything perfectly. It's about understanding what your body is going through and learning how to support it with clarity, with some compassion, and a few evidence-based tools.
So whether you're pregnant now or you're planning ahead in the postpartum phase or supporting someone you love, my goal is to walk you through through a process to walk away feeling informed, to feel empowered, to not feel so alone. So let's talk about what happens once you conceive and how to support your body through pregnancy and postpartum.
All right, let's start with pregnancy and prenatal vitamins and the whole difference between folate or even methylfolate versus folic acid. And the question is, can prenatal vitamins be harmful if I can't process folate? Well, yes, and it's important to take the right forms of these nutrients, especially when you're pregnant.
Something called methylated folate is a very important form of this vitamin, also known as vitamin B9. It's different than folic acid, which is what's in most prenatal vitamins, which is often somewhat effective, but not always very effective. And there's a lot of genetics that play a role here. The form of the nutrient matters. You want to have the right product. So quality is so important.
And I would avoid anything with aesthetic fillers, colors, dyes, excipients. And there's some great brands out there. I like WeNatal. It's actually a prenatal for men and women. And we've done some shows on the podcast on male infertility. But guess what, folks? Men are half the equation in conception, so they matter. And then their health matters and they actually need prenatal too.
before it doesn't matter once you get pregnant obviously what the guy takes but before for sure uh so i like we natal there's many other brands like pure encapsulations has prenatal vitamins thorn has them there are many other companies to do but you want to use the best quality you possibly can all right what about question around nausea this is a big thing a lot of women get it some women don't but morning sickness nausea acne these are big things so we're going to talk about them
now if you're nauseous there's some real simple practical things you can do one is making sure your blood sugar is is balanced so you want to eat you know often smaller more frequent meals don't eat a lot of carbs and sugar there's certain herbs that can be helpful like ginger tea you can just slice up some ginger boil it vitamins matter b6 very important magnesium really matters and and there's actually um you know
some studies that show that if you take the B6 and magnesium, it can really help. And there's even sometimes medication like bendectin, which is a weird drug that's used for insomnia, often known as Unisom. And I don't like prescribing drugs that often, but sometimes for women who really have intractable nausea, it can be very helpful in the early period with the B6 at higher levels.
And you need probably like 50 milligrams. And you probably need pyridoxal 5-phosphate, again, a very special form The next thing you can do is support your liver and your gut health because that plays a role also by helping your microbiome, by supporting it with probiotics. And there's also ways to support your liver with healthy food and nutrients. So all that's really important.
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