Depending on your background, community, and lifestyle, the concept of eating placenta—“placentophagy”—may seem totally normal or completely shocking.  In case you’re new to the mostly underground world of placenta consumption, it is the postpartum maternal...

During pregnancy, the requirement for iron, like many nutrients, increases significantly.  However, iron is a micronutrient that requires a delicate balance. Too little iron can have adverse effects on the mother and fetus, and over-supplementing can have harmful...

Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a complex disease affecting the female reproductive organs. It is the most common female reproductive disease worldwide, affecting an estimated 5-15% of women. However, these numbers may not be completely accurate, as PCOS is known to be...

The immune system undergoes incredible changes to support a healthy pregnancy. These changes begin at the moment of implantation when the immune system mounts an initial inflammatory response that begins to shift to favor a robust anti-inflammatory response (reliant...

A few months ago, I wrote a blog focused on why women get preeclampsia. Of course, well-known risk factors like a history of hypertension, ethnicity, and age all contribute to the likelihood of preeclampsia.  However, my research uncovered even more risk factors,...

Last month, I wrote a blog on the importance of vitamin D during preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum. In that blog, we touched on the importance of vitamin D in preventing gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM)—vitamin D deficiency poses a higher risk of GDM (1). ...

Autoimmunity (AI) is best described as a confused immune system that sees you as a dangerous invader and mounts a detrimental attack. Over 4% of people globally are affected by one or sometimes multiple of the approximately 80 autoimmune diseases, with the most common...

What comes to mind when you think of eating for bipolar disorder?  Bipolar affective disorder, or manic-depressive disorder, is a psychological disease leading to sometimes extreme fluctuations of mood and energy. The United States leads the world in bipolar diagnoses...

Vitamin D is a secosteroid hormone with numerous functions throughout the body. It’s needed for bone metabolism via the regulation of calcium and phosphorus, modulation of the immune system (1), and acts as an epigenetic modifier (2).  Because vitamin D regulates many...