Book Report: The Better Baby Book

The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby by Lana Asprey and David Asprey

I have followed Bulletproof and Dave Asprey for a number of years and knew about his first book topic was on babies, however, I was past that stage of my life.  Fast forward to when a friend became pregnant and had a number of questions. I read thru this and immediately wish it was out before our pregnancies.

With the proper understanding that the health of the mother and father at a cellular level directly ties to the health of the new baby-to-be-created, there are a number of actionable items discussed to focus on here.

Diet

Fats

They point out that if you take away water from the body, the remaining makeup is 60% fat, so it isn’t a bad word.

Our livers use healthy fats to make cholesterol when we need it. Our bodies then use the cholesterol as a building block for cell walls and hormones and even to bind to and excrete some toxins that are harmful to a growing baby. Cholesterol is a fundamental brain component—we can’t live without it.

Asprey, Lana. The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby (p. 32). Turner Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

Baby’s brains grow from 0 to substantial at lightning speed, they need fat and cholesterol. They walk thru that the right types of fats; omega-3’s, quality saturated (grass-fed butter), and monounsaturated (olive oil) are critical. Low-fat diets do not advance the cause here.

• Meat and butter from Grass-Fed Animals
• Utilize free range eggs
  • they even advocate for using raw if sourced properly to ensure the nutrients aren’t damaged in the cooking process
• Low-mercury fish
  • wild caught salmon
• Vegetables and low-sugar fruit
  • organic is the best choice
  • eat a good amount raw
  • utilize avocados
  • The lowest-sugar fruits are lemons and limes, followed by blackberries, cranberries, grapefruit, passion fruit, raspberries, and strawberries.Asprey, Lana. The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby (p. 96). Turner Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.
• Quality Nuts
  • peanuts aren’t nuts, but rather legumes which can have negative effects
  • Almonds
  • brazil nuts
  • cashews
  • hazelnuts
  • macadamia
  • Chestnuts
  • pecans
  • pine nuts
  • pistachio
  • walnuts
• Collagen
  • a critical part of the skin and connective tissues
  • often under-consumed
  • supplements can be helpful
  • grass fed sourcing important
• Dark chocolate!
• Thyroid health plays an important role in metabolism very important for pregnancy.
  • get tested by a practitioner familiar with the functional medicine approach to thyroid, which involves measuring more than just “TSH” in the lab.
• Prenatal Supplements
  • the essentials
    • A,B,C,D,E, and K
  • B vitamins
    • very important no folic acid (need natural folates) and no cyanocobalamin (looking for methylcobalamin or hydroxocobalamin)
  • Iron is best obtained from food, but monitor blood levels to ensure adequate
  • Iodine, important for thyroid health, but too much can be problematic as well
    • You can also do a quick test to get a feel for your iodine level: put a drop of Lugol’s 5 percent iodine on your forearm. The drop should leave a dark-orange stain on the skin that slowly fades as the iodine is absorbed through your skin into your body. If the stain is gone within four hours, there’s a good chance you’re deficient in iodine, but if it’s still there after twenty-four hours, your body probably has plenty of iodine. You’ve just witnessed your body’s amazing ability to absorb substances it needs through the skin and repel substances it doesn’t need.Asprey, Lana. The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby (p. 146). Turner Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.
  • Probiotics
    • During pregnancy, the advantage of taking probiotic supplements instead of fermented probiotic sources like kombucha, kefir, or yogurt is that the exact strains you’re getting are tightly controlled. The cultures used in fermented foods aren’t always tightly controlled, so you run the risk of ingesting organisms like yeasts, which produce toxins.Asprey, Lana. The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby (p. 147). Turner Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.
  • Krill or Fish oil
    • DHA is a component in fish oil that is involved in brain development, look for sufficient amounts in a quality supplement.
• Toxin avoidance is a huge
  • Mold is a big contributor to suboptimal health
    • grains are a major source fo mold toxins
  • Heavy metals
    • would be good to be tested
    • We can send off a hair sample to get an indication
  • Air quality
    • I have an air quality tester that can help pick up some potential issues
  • Water
    • water can contain many chemicals and toxins depending on the source. It is very important to avoid treated water, opt for purified.
  • Electromagnetic Fields (EMF’s)
    • this is a new area of focus that will be detailed with new info coming out.
      • there are MANY health consequences of chronic EMF’s
    • Cell phones, wi-fi, etc
    • I have a tester for EMF generation as well, it was very educational to see the levels of various commonly used items. I am actually typing this on a laptop pad that helps to deflect EMF’s away from the body.
  • 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.Asprey, Lana. The Better Baby Book: How to Have a Healthier, Smarter, Happier Baby (p. 196). Turner Publishing Company. Kindle Edition.

This article was done in more of a bullet point format to convey a taste of the array of considerations into making the body optimal for the new baby. The nice thing is that most of this overlap consistently with most of the dietary strategies I commonly work with, for the reason that it fuels the body properly. Some of the supplement strategies can be deployed after consultation and customization. If you are heading down this exciting road, please reach out and we can evaluate how some of these strategies can be implemented on your path.

This Book Report collection is meant to provide some of the best take-home points from the health and science genre I read. I will continue to go thru my notes of the 160+ and counting (as of January 2019) Kindle books I have on file. To view ALL the notes I saved on this one AND many others without a Book Report post yet, THAT IS ALSO SEARCHABLE, please click here.