The Better Baby Book (22 page)

High-voltage transmission lines—the extra-tall power lines that run on pylon towers instead of poles—give off very strong EMFs—so if possible, don't live near them. The significant EMF exposure from high-voltage lines has been linked to child cancers and birth defects. If you already live near transmission lines and moving isn't an option, it's possible to install grounded metal shielding in your house for protection.

Cell phones are another source of EMFs. In 1998, retired electrical engineer Lloyd Morgan of the Central Brain Tumor Registry, found out he had a brain tumor. His neurosurgeon told him that EMF exposure was a possible cause. Morgan decided to explore the link between EMFs and brain tumors more carefully. He conducted a study that found that overexposure to cell phone radiation can lead to brain tumors, DNA damage, and infertility, and his study has been endorsed by more than forty doctors and scientists.

Not many people know it, but cell phone user manuals warn customers to keep the cell phones away from their bodies, even when the phone is not in use. In one study, scientists reviewed eleven different reliable studies of people who had used cell phones for more than ten years, and they found that cell phone use approximately doubles the risk of getting brain cancer on the side of the head to which the cell phone was usually held.

We weren't about to go back to the dark ages and give up our cell phones and electronics, but we did reduce our exposure to extra EMFs. Here's the plan we devised, which we still follow today:

• When carrying a cell phone in a pocket, we either turn it off or put it on airplane mode if we're not expecting an immediate call. Airplane mode reduces the EMF output substantially. Lana carries the phone in her purse instead of her pocket. When using a cell phone, we put it on speakerphone whenever possible. If we need to make a private phone call, we use a wired headset. After a while this became habit and we didn't notice doing it anymore.
  
• Cordless landline phones emit a constant EMF field throughout the house. We thought this was one EMF source we could eliminate altogether, so we replaced our cordless phones with regular corded phones. We found high-quality phones with good speakerphones and headsets that work across the room.
  
• Given all of the findings on EMFs, as well as the changes created in proteins from the high heat, microwave ovens just don't seem worth the trouble. We use a halogen convection oven instead, which is nearly as fast as a microwave, makes better-tasting food, and is safer.
  
• We upgraded our computer monitors and televisions to LCD, LED, or plasma screens. The old screens emit far more EMFs. If we still had an older TV, we would stay four to five feet away from it.
  
• We never set our laptop computers on our laps or in direct contact with our bodies, and we try to use them on battery power, since they have a lot more EMF when plugged in. Lana never set her laptop on her lap while pregnant.
  
• We replaced our plug-in alarm clocks with battery-powered ones, or we moved a plug-in one four to five feet away from the head of our bed.
  
• Hair dryers use high frequencies to drive the motor quickly and produce heat. Lana didn't use a hair dryer during pregnancy unless she was in a hurry.
  
• We never keep an electric blanket on while we sleep.
  
• We installed an easy-to-reach on-off switch for our WiFi access point so we could turn it off when we weren't using it and while we slept. We also ran Ethernet cables to our desks for Internet access so we could keep the WiFi off while we worked at our computers for longer periods.
  
• We installed affordable plug-in EMF filters on some of the outlets in our house.
  
• We made sure that our bed and our baby's crib didn't contain metal. Metal picks up ambient EMFs in the room and conducts them.
  
• Lana stopped wearing bras that contain metal. Lots of women actually report feeling better from switching to metal-free bras.
  

Were we paranoid? Quite possibly. But we're certain the changes we made didn't introduce any
additional
risk, and there's ample evidence that they did lots of good. You don't have to do everything on this list to improve your pregnancy; even one thing, like the EMF filters listed on
www.betterbabybook.com/emf
, can have a big impact.

11

Endotoxins: The Toxins Produced inside You

Endotoxins
are toxins produced inside our bodies either by our own cells or by the bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that live inside us. Because endotoxins are produced inside the body, we have to deal with them differently from toxins that come from the outside. For toxins that come from the outside, we do our best to avoid the source. For endotoxins, our goal is to help the body produce fewer and eliminate them as easily, quickly, and safely as possible.

People have lots of organisms living inside their bodies—trillions, in fact. Some of the organisms that live inside us are always harmful, like ringworm or flatworm parasites (not everyone has them, but many people do). Others, like the yeast
Candida albicans
, are always present in the body but can become a problem when they are allowed to grow and reach higher levels.

Many of the organisms help us. You wouldn't be healthy without the good probiotic bacteria in your GI tract. The word
probiotic
means “for life.” These bacteria play an important role in digestion, and fight the harmful microbes in us. Without these little guys, your food wouldn't be nearly as useful to you, and harmful bacteria could flourish and promote disease.

Probiotic flora pass into newborn babies through mother's milk—so they're there to help you from the very beginning. About four pounds of your weight comes from gut flora alone, and the number of individual bacteria living in your gut far exceeds the number of cells in your body.

The harmful organisms that live inside us excrete waste just as people do.
Endotoxins
is really just a fancy word for this waste. Many people don't eliminate endotoxins as easily or as quickly as they should. This can result in symptoms ranging from annoying ailments to chronic diseases. Endotoxins create an environment in a mother's body that's not ideal for her own health or for a growing fetus's.

Our goal was to help Lana's body get rid of endotoxins before they reached our babies. In this section, we explain two scenarios that lead to higher endotoxin levels in a mother's body and describe what you can do to reverse the situation.

First, sometimes endotoxins remain inside the body and are not eliminated. We explain techniques that help the body to eliminate them. Second, sometimes endotoxins are produced too quickly for the body to handle. In this case, the answer is to help the body kill the harmful microbes that are producing the endotoxins—that is, treat the source (the harmful bacteria) and not the symptoms (the endotoxins). We explain how to get rid of harmful intruders, prevent them from returning, and make your body a safe, clean home for your baby.

The GI tract—the stomach, the small intestine, and the colon (or large intestine)—is one of body's main systems and comes into contact with the outside world every time we eat. We can't live without food, but sometimes food contains bacteria or fungi we don't want in our bodies. The GI tract usually does a great job of absorbing nutrients from foods and eliminating intruders.

Our probiotic gut flora help the GI tract by creating digestive enzymes and fighting intruders. They're central to the delicate balance in a healthy GI tract. Problems with endotoxins begin either when our probiotic flora population becomes weaker or when harmful intruders become too numerous for our probiotic flora to handle. Proper digestion is so important to health that Hippocrates, one of the first doctors in recorded history, said that “bad digestion is the root of all evil.” Let's look at how bad digestion happens so we can make good digestion routine.

Intestinal imbalance occurs when the number, type, or location of intestinal flora is changed from its natural equilibrium. A variety of diseases and digestive problems are caused by intestinal imbalance. These include stomach pains, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, skin infections, itchy skin, eczema, psoriasis, acne, yeast infections, new food allergies, fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, mood swings, irritability, headaches, and intense craving for sugar. In extreme cases, diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, or rheumatoid arthritis may develop.

These ailments are naturally stressful for a pregnant mother to deal with, so the result is that the fetus is exposed not only to higher levels of endotoxins but also to higher levels of stress hormones, both of which promote defense mode at the expense of growth. Let's look at two examples:

The most common causes of intestinal imbalance are antibiotics, stress, eating too much sugar, and consuming sulfites (common in our food supply).

Antibiotics kill the good bacteria along with the bad. Unfortunately, your probiotic population takes longer to recover than harmful microorganisms do. When the course of antibiotics is complete, harmful bacteria multiply and grow faster because they face less resistance from your now weakened probiotic population. Yeasts thrive the whole time because they're immune to antibiotics, and the probiotics that fight them have been weakened. The longer the dosage and the stronger the antibiotic, the worse it is for your probiotic population and the more likely it is to result in intestinal imbalance. Antibiotics result in weaker probiotic levels for months after the course is finished, so even infrequent use is harmful to gut balance. Antibiotics cure diseases and save lives, but it's important to take probiotics after using them.

Psychological stress also harms probiotics. The probiotic flora in young primates decreases when they're first separated from their mothers. Similarly, Soviet cosmonauts had low probiotic levels when they returned from stressful space travel. The decreased levels persisted for several days after their safe return to Earth. Stress also results in a sustained increase in our fight-or-flight hormones. These hormones make it easier for harmful microorganisms to thrive.

Harmful pathogens in the GI tract live on sugar and carbohydrates—especially
Candida
. When
Candida
has lots of food to eat, it overgrows easily. Using antibiotics while eating sugar is a prime recipe for
Candida
overgrowth: the antibiotic weakens the probiotic population while the
Candida
(a fungus) lives on, happily eating sugars and carbs. A diet too high in sugar and carbs can also slow down bowel transit time, giving food more time to ferment in the gut. Fermentation produces endotoxins.

Sulfur compounds—sulfates and sulfites—are used as preservatives in many of today's foods. Common examples are dried fruits, dehydrated vegetables, packaged fruit juices, baked goods, white bread, alcoholic beverages, and shellfish. When you eat these sulfur compounds, they increase the growth of potentially harmful pathogens in the GI tract. This happens because some kinds of gut bacteria change sulfur compounds into sulfide, which can damage the mucus lining of the intestinal wall. The weakened mucus lining allows harmful bacteria to grow more easily, resulting in intestinal imbalance.

Intestinal imbalance can also result from undigested protein passing into the colon. If this happens, the undigested protein can ferment and produce endotoxins before it's eliminated.

Here's a checklist for keeping a balanced GI tract:

• Probiotic supplements help to keep the GI tract in balance. Our website,
  www.betterbabybook.com/probiotics
  , contains a list of our favorite brands.
  
• Avoid using antibiotics if you can. If your doctor prescribes them, supplement with a higher dose of probiotics after the course is complete.
  
• Keep your stress level as low as possible, because stress kills your probiotic flora. We cover stress reduction in chapter 15.
  
• Eat a diet low in sugars and carbs. Chapters 4 and 5 talk all about diet and explain lots of other benefits of avoiding sugars and carbs.
  
• Avoid foods that contain sulfites and sulfates (see list above).
  

12

How to Deal with Toxins

Usually we try to avoid toxins. Endotoxins are a little different; we cannot really avoid them, because they're produced inside us. But we can do our best to stop them from being produced and to clean them out. Our bodies are great at eliminating toxins on their own, but there are lots of products that help us to detox faster and easier. Here are the substances we used during pregnancy.

Activated Charcoal

You'll find activated charcoal at your local pharmacy. It's used in poison control centers and emergency rooms worldwide because it's such an effective detoxifier. It's also used in air and water purifiers, kidney dialysis machines, and the like. Activated charcoal has been proved harmless even in large doses—it just passes through the GI tract. Activated charcoal is extremely porous inside and out. It can adsorb many times its own weight in toxins.

Adsorption
is different from
absorption
.
Adsorb
means to actively capture something, whereas
absorb
means to passively soak something up. Activated charcoal adsorbs toxins, which means that it proactively seeks them out, captures them, and carries them out of the body. It adsorbs a majority of organic chemicals, many inorganic chemicals, and a variety of other toxins, including mycotoxins and endotoxins.

Activated charcoal adsorbs so much that if you take it with any prescription drug, it can almost neutralize the drug's effect. When you ingest activated charcoal, it purifies your digestive fluids, adsorbs toxins and drugs, prevents their reabsorption into your body, and decreases the liver's workload.

You'll find activated charcoal sold as powder, capsules, and tablets. We use the powder, and in the finest grade we can find (it's less gritty this way). The capsules don't contain much, so you have to take about twenty capsules to get one to two tablespoons of activated charcoal. Not only is taking twenty capsules a bit unpleasant, it also gets expensive.

For a general detox before pregnancy, we recommend anywhere between one teaspoon and one tablespoon of activated charcoal powder mixed with cool water one to three times per day on an empty stomach. You should do this for at least a month before getting pregnant. Using cool water is important, because if the water is hot, the charcoal will deactivate and lose a lot of its adsorptive power. While activated charcoal has almost no taste, it can be a little gritty and goes down more smoothly if you add bentonite clay, which we discuss next. Both of these can be constipating, so you may need more fiber or magnesium, too. Reduce or eliminate the dose until things are running smoothly.

While you are pregnant, we suggest taking a teaspoon of activated charcoal with any meal that contains the foods we recommended not to eat in chapter 4 or with anything else you know is unhealthy. The activated charcoal will help to keep the toxins in these foods away from your baby. There's no need to take activated charcoal daily while you're pregnant, but if you start to feel nauseous or get morning sickness symptoms like bloating, gas, vomiting, stiff joints, or a headache, one to two tablespoons on an empty stomach can help. During pregnancy, low levels of toxins can cause these symptoms. Using activated charcoal to relieve these symptoms during pregnancy is nothing new—it was mentioned as early as 1898 in
King's American Dispensatory
, a book first published in 1854 that covers the use of herbs used in American medical practice.

Bentonite Clay

Bentonite clay is a powerful detoxifier that has been used internally and externally throughout history. Bentonite is found throughout the Great Plains in the United States. Originally, it was formed from heat and volcanic activity, which instilled it with a negative electromagnetic charge.

When bentonite comes into contact with the water in your GI tract, it “awakens” as the water releases its negative charges and makes it highly porous and adsorptive, just like activated charcoal. This release stimulates a healing energy flow throughout the body as the clay attracts and adsorbs positively charged toxins and acts as a sponge absorbing others. Bentonite clay even adsorbs heavy metals, some mycotoxins (including aflatoxin), and some pesticides and herbicides. Since the clay is not assimilated into the body, any toxins it adsorbs or absorbs on its way through the GI tract leave with it. This eases the burden on the liver and kidneys.

Bentonite clay is one of the oldest, safest, and cheapest ways to detox. It has a mild, creamy, nondescript flavor. Like activated charcoal, it's best taken on an empty stomach. You'll find bentonite clay in liquid and powder forms. We use the liquid, because there's an ideal ratio of water to clay that makes the clay most effective, and liquid bentonite products are mixed at this ratio. Lana took one tablespoon of bentonite per day on an empty stomach before and during pregnancy. When she took it with charcoal, she took a lower dose of each to avoid constipation.

Chlorella

Chlorella is a microscopic algae that grows in fresh water. You take it as a supplement in little tablets. Chlorella works to repair nerve tissues (including the brain) and helps to prevent cancer. It enables probiotics to grow, promoting intestinal balance and reducing endotoxins. Finally, as a powerful natural chelator, chlorella helps the body to eliminate toxic heavy metals. It also aids in detoxifying the body from pesticides and herbicides.

When you buy chlorella, it's important to choose “broken cell wall” chlorella. Chlorella algae cells have strong cell walls, so if the walls aren't broken ahead of time, the chlorella typically passes right through the body without much benefit. We recommend taking twenty to thirty tablets daily for a month or two. After our initial cleanse, we just take chlorella when we eat seafood or think we might have been exposed to heavy metals.

Chlorella contains lots of iron. The body needs iron, but not too much. This means that chlorella is great to take as a temporary detox, but not all the time. For the same reason, don't take chlorella at the exact same time as vitamin C, because that would facilitate iron absorption.

Cholestyramine

Cholestyramine is one of the original drugs designed to lower cholesterol. Questran is a popular brand. Normally the liver excretes liver bile at the beginning of the small intestine, and the bile is reabsorbed at the end of the small intestine. Cholestyramine works to lower cholesterol by binding with bile acids and escorting them out of the body. Cholestyramine is also very good at binding with certain mycotoxins—especially fumonisin—and can help the body to eliminate them. Its ability to eliminate liver bile from the body also makes it useful for removing remnants of harsher prescription drugs. Cholestyramine is a prescription drug, so you'll have to consult your physician to use it.

Drugs versus Supplements

Drugs, whether they're over the counter, prescription, social (such as nicotine and alcohol), or illicit (such as narcotics), are often toxic to the body. That's why the drug effects don't last forever—your body works to get rid of them, and when it does get rid of them, the effects disappear.

Supplements, in contrast, are often substances that you'll find in food sources, and the body has no special need to get rid of them. If the effects of a supplement wear off, it's because the body has used them up, not because they've been purposefully eliminated. Taken in proper amounts, supplements are usually helpful and ease the burden of select systems throughout the body.

Prescription and Over-the-Counter Drugs

Although modern drugs save lives and often make us more comfortable, many of them harm a growing fetus. Many drugs are contraindicated during pregnancy. We think it's best to avoid using nearly all drugs during pregnancy if possible. Merck, one of the largest international drug manufacturers, acknowledges on its website that “drugs, unless absolutely necessary, should not be used during pregnancy because many can harm the fetus.” For example, antidepressants can elevate the risk of preterm birth.

We think drugs shouldn't be used right before pregnancy, either. They may linger in the body, cross the placenta, and have the same adverse effects on the fetus as though they were being used currently, though perhaps without the same degree of damage. One way or another, keeping drugs away from the fetus was a top priority for us. When it came to the lives and health of our children, we wanted to be conservative.

We've reproduced a list of drugs and their effects on pregnancy at
www.betterbabybook.com/pharmadrugs
. If you've taken or been otherwise exposed to the drugs on that list, the detox techniques we discussed can help to protect your baby. Activated charcoal is one of the most effective techniques for removing drugs from the body. Conveniently, it's also one of the cheapest and easiest.

Although it's important to keep drugs away from your baby, drugs can save lives, but always work with your physician when you start
or stop
taking prescription drugs.

Social and Illicit Drugs

Detoxing before and during pregnancy is critical if you've smoked tobacco, consumed alcohol excessively, or have used or been exposed to illicit drugs within a year of conception. The research supporting this is so thorough and so widely publicized that we won't rehash it here. All of the details are available at
www.betterbabybook.com/drugs
. Fortunately, the detox techniques we discuss in this book are just as good at removing social and illicit drugs from the body as they are at removing pharmaceutical drugs and other toxins.

Morning Sickness and Toxins

Morning sickness is one of the ways a woman's body protects her baby from toxins in food. When you don't eat toxins, you don't get as much morning sickness. We know that with pregnant animals (cows, pigs, horses, and chickens), “feed rejection” is caused by contaminated food, even if the contamination is below the level at which an animal can taste it. A wide range of toxins can cause morning sickness in pregnant women.

Toxins make everyone sick, but pregnant women are naturally more sensitive to toxins in order to protect their babies. This is a convenient mechanism, because babies are easily hurt by toxins. A Cornell University study tested whether morning sickness was a mechanism to protect the baby from toxins or whether it was caused by a conflict between the mother and the baby's need for nutrition. The researchers observed that morning sickness reduces miscarriage, is positively correlated with toxin levels in mother's diet, and is closely related to food cravings and aversions. They concluded that morning sickness was indeed protecting the baby.

Lana didn't get morning sickness during either pregnancy. We think this happened because she detoxified her body extensively before each pregnancy and ate foods that were at very low risk for contamination with toxins during both pregnancies.