SHOW NOTES LINKS:
- Dr. Leah Hechtman’s Website
- MINDD Foundation Website
- MINDD FORUM Sydney May 1, 2, 3 2025 MORE INFORMATION
🎧 Related Podcast Episodes from Unstress Health:
- Professor Marc Cohen – Understanding Toxicity and Extreme Wellness Introduction
- Leah Hechtman – Our Microbiome Through Our Lifecycle Introduction
TIMESTAMPS (Concise for YouTube):
0:00 – Intro to the episode & guest introduction
3:45 – The MINDD Forum: What it is & why it matters
5:00 – Maternal health & the impact on future generations
7:30 – The role of environmental toxins in fertility & pregnancy
10:15 – The growing infertility crisis: Causes & solutions
14:00 – Microchimerism explained: How mothers & babies share cells for life
20:30 – The microbiome’s role in pregnancy & child development
24:00 – C-Section vs. Vaginal Birth: How it affects a baby’s microbiome
27:45 – The link between trauma, brain development & chronic illness
30:20 – How progesterone influences maternal & child brain health
34:12 – The importance of integrative healthcare for pregnancy & fertility
38:45 – Closing thoughts & how to connect with Dr. Leah Hechtman
How Maternal Health Shapes Fertility & Child Development
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:00:01] Hi, Dr. Ron here, and I want to invite you to join our Unstress Health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach. To human health and to the health of the planet, the two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q &As on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health advisory panel. Now we’ve done hundreds of podcasts all worth listening to, with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership, we have our Unstress Lab podcast series, where we take the best of several guests and carefully curate specific topics for episodes, which are jam packed full of valuable insights. So join the unstressed health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel click on the link below or just visit unstresshealth.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you. Hello and welcome to Unstress Health. My name is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Well, for almost over 20 years, I’ve been a very proud supporter of the MINDD Foundation and MINDD is an acronym for Metabolic, Immunological, Neurological, Digestive, and Developmental Issues. In children in particular, and let’s face it, children are the canaries in the coal mine. And if their health is suffering, and the evidence is very clear that it is. then there is an issue there which we should all be aware of and address. And the MINDD Foundation provides health practitioners and parents and patients and individuals with some amazing resources. And each year, well, almost every year, they have a forum. And this year, the forum is at Darling Harbour in Sydney on May 2nd and 3rd. Now, when you look at the statistics of children’s health and. If you’re watching this on the YouTube channel, you’ll be I can show you statistics for both Australia on the one hand, where, for example, four in 10 have allergies, one in 10 have asthma, one in eight have a mental health condition, one in 10 have ADHD and one in 63 have autism. Well, if we then transfer to America. That is a very sad and sorry state as well, where 1 in 36 have autism in Australia, 1 in 63. Now, it bears mentioning that 20 years ago, that number was something like 1 in 10 ,000. So yes, diagnosis may be an issue here, but the change is a serious one and one that needs to be addressed. mental health conditions, one in five, one in eight in Australia, one in four in the UK. Look, if you’re watching this on the YouTube channel, you can explore. You can pause and look at some of these disturbing statistics. Well, the MINDD Foundation Forum coming up in May has some amazing speakers. And I’m privileged over these next two or three weeks to introduce several of them to you. And the first one I have the pleasure of introducing is Dr. Leah Hechtman. Now, Leah is a globally respected naturopathic clinician here in Sydney, Australia, specialising in fertility Pregnancy and comprehensive reproductive health. With over two decades of clinical experience, she’s also a renowned researcher, author, and educator in her own field. As I mentioned, she is presenting at the MINDD Forum. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Leah Hechtman. Welcome to the show, Lea.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:04:02] Thank you for having me.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:04:04] Leah, the MINDD Forum is coming up in Sydney in May and the MINDD Foundation does some great work. Your presentation is called, it’s a mouthful, Maternal Imprint, Shaping Health, Brain Development, and Humanity’s Future. Well, can you give us a bit of an overview of what people at that conference could expect to learn from that?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:04:27] So MINDD Foundation is such an incredible organisation and you and I both have given a lot of time to it because we see the value in it and when Leslie approached me and said come and do a presentation, one of my great passions is about the capacity of a woman to change as she evolves into becoming a parent and the profound influence that she can have on the next generation. And so the geek in me wants to go into all the science with it. the spiritual part of me wants to look at the emotional and spiritual connection between our children and how science is catching up to what that means but ultimately it’s about empowering the audience and empowering people in a way that the more we understand what we can do the more it gives us a capacity to realise the changes are actually essential but also that they’re meaningful rather than don’t do this don’t do this don’t do this it becomes I understand what it can do and how it can actually transform our children.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:05:19] It’s so interesting, isn’t it? Because I mean, traditionally, we would have lived in a village. And as we grew up, we would have seen tens, if not hundreds of births and all sorts of different forms of life. And here we are often in our 20s and 30s and even later nowadays. And we suddenly find ourselves with a young child. And, oh, my God, what an experience that is. So this kind of support is just could never be more important in our human journey.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:05:48] 100%. Yes.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:05:50] I mean, a lot of statistics are showing that there are some pretty alarming childhood chronic conditions coming up. When we talk about public health, people often say, oh, well, we’re getting older. That’s why we’re getting sicker. But actually, the kids are the canaries in the coal mine, aren’t they? And they are getting sicker. I mean, autism is one example. How does your research on maternal influence relate to those concerning trends? What do you think’s going on?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:06:18] Probably the biggest is the environment, yeah. So our environmental exposure is influencing the health of, we’ll just talk about mothers for a minute, is influencing the health of our mothers and the health of their mitochondrial RNA. And we know that mitochondrial RNA only comes from the mother. It’s like a handful of papers that suggest from the father as well, but hasn’t been consistent. So we’re gonna stick with that science for the minute, which means that all of that precursor information and all of that DNA transference is predominantly managed. improved and suggested from the mother. So then what that indicates is that the health of her and her exposures are going to determine what happens. And, you know, we’ve got research now that shows that the egg, the oocyte of the mother, sends the signals out to find the sperm, the sperm then send a signal to meet it. She then selects the sperm itself, tidies up the sperm, tidies up the DNA that is passed over, then tidies herself up, and then enables the fertilisation to occur. And if she doesn’t have optimal health in that oocyte itself, then that directly correlates to the health of the child. So if she’s exposed to something, then that’s gonna cause damage to some of that information in the oocyte, which is then gonna cause subsequent challenge for the developing embryo itself. So the health of the mother is unbelievably paramount because it directly determines what information is passed on to the next generation and how is it passed on and how the pregnancy will continue and the health of them in utero. Let’s go back.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:07:42] Yeah, which kind of, you know, at the risk of blaming the victim, you know, the mother here, we are all exposed to so much, yet we’re not all delivering babies. But this is this is the litmus test, isn’t it really?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:08:00] Yeah, yeah. And for so long, particularly in fertility, because that’s where I predominantly work, but for so long it’s been, okay, a guy has sperm, no issue to the guy, and the egg is old or the mum’s been exposed to something and that’s what it is. But now we’re really understanding that, yes, the efficiency and the health of the egg determines the outcome. But if the sperm comes along and it’s been exposed to a whole host of environmental aspects, or it has nutritional deficiencies or whatever it is, the egg then tries to fix it. before she fixes herself or fixes the oversight. So it’s like both parties, the healthier both of them are, the less the exposure to both of them, the better the quality of the baby.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:08:36] Yeah, and you mentioned fertility, and I know your focus is very much on that. I wondered if you might just comment on what is… Because it’s a big issue in our society, isn’t it? I mean, people decide, oh, I’m going to have a baby when I’m X, Y or Z years old. It doesn’t always work out that way. Does it? What is some… What’s the statistics on fertility in Australia or globally here for people?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:09:01] The global birth rate is declining. Yes, it’s declining and it’s now under the reproductive rate in certain countries around the world. And there are suggestions that infertility is greater and challenges in pregnancy is greater, but it’s also choices. People are choosing to have smaller families and or not choosing to have children. So I think it’s tricky to understand it, but definitely in Australia, statistically, numbers of birth are declining, quality of sperm is declining. Average age of mother is getting older. Average exposure of couple is getting greater and the complexity of the challenge of conceiving is greater. But then also IVF is statistically increasing and not to bad mouth IVF and I want to support everyone to have their family but we have a lot of data that shows that IVF increases the risk of diseases in children. We have a lot of data that shows that if a couple can’t conceive naturally and need assistance whilst the assistance can give them a baby, maybe nature was suggesting. you can’t conceive because we can’t create something as healthy as possible. And then all of a sudden, they’re creating children, but they’ve got high returns of asthma and neurological disorders and, you know, all the atopy and all of that sort of stuff, because perhaps IVF intercepted to create that baby. But actually, it made it more of an issue.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:10:14] Yes, we could be open. No, no, we could be opening a can of worms here. But of course, this is part of a much bigger story about business model within health care. And I mean, if I wonder whether, I’ve never been obviously to an IVF clinic, but I wonder whether the preparation of the IVF, because the business model is, this is gonna cost you X amount of dollars per IVF thing. So there’s a conflict of interest there with getting a high success rate, one could argue. and setting the foundation for that success would say, well, just go away for three months, six months, 12 months. Let’s lay down the foundation consciously of what we’re trying to achieve, then come back and see us for IVF. And lo and behold, I wouldn’t be surprised if people got pregnant.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:11:01] They don’t always need it. I mean, the clinicians that I work with mainly, particularly in Australia, they’re very much of that model because for them it’s about healthy babies. It’s not about necessarily IVF numbers, but the business end of IVF definitely wants the IVF numbers. So it’s, I get it. And it’s complex. And again, both of us are here to support people to have families. There’s no judgement, but it’s – No.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:11:22] No, no.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:11:23] It’s a complicated area.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:11:25] It is a complex and a very emotive area, too. But I’ve heard because we’ve done quite a few podcasts on fertility. And one, I recall the statistics was something like one in six couples are finding it challenging. Is that is that still the current?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:11:41] Yeah, and miscarriage is one in four. So one in four conceptions end in miscarriage and one in six couples, well the fecundity they say is only a one in six chance for every couple generally and then you add complexities and then it becomes trickier but one in six is the baseline from a fertility rate.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:11:58] And I know with miscarriage, having had between our two daughters who, you know, they’re 38, 35. So it was a long time ago, but it’s still memorable. We had a stillborn between our two. Yes, it was very tragic. But interestingly, when that occurred, the stories that came out were incredible. Like, oh, yes, I had a miscarriage. Oh, we had a stillborn because when you’re pregnant, people don’t walk up to you and go, congratulations. You know what? I had a stillbirth. You know, no one tells you that until you experience it and you realise, I didn’t realise it was one in four with miscarriages.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:12:32] one in four. Some countries it’s one in three though.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:12:33] Some countries, it’s one in three though. Wow.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:12:36] compared to the world, it’s actually even worse.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:12:38] But coming back to something that I know the MINDD foundation focuses on the neurodegenerative diseases that the mind foundation focuses on autism, ADHD, and general health in general, some of the statistics are really quite shocking. Can you share with us? I mean, a couple of those two? What is the you know, what is autism? I mean, I think I I’ve heard one in 30.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:13:03] 1F30 I think was the latest one and ADHD is 1 in 10. Is it? I could be wrong on that one.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:10] Yeah.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:13:10] Statistics are alarming but it’s so complex because you don’t know if the diagnosis is increasing or all of the societal expectations around it but we do know that if you look at the trajectory in mind have that beautiful infographic on their website looking at statistics all the world and everything and I’m going to let them have that reference because I haven’t got that for at the forefront of my mind but um Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s alarming and the longer I’ve associated with MINDD, the numbers are getting worse. So we do need to be really cognizant and mindful that these things are progressively worsening and we need to be taking a bit of responsibility around.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:44] Because there are kind of assumptions that are made out there about, listen, if it’s on the shelf in the supermarket, all the studies have been done. I mean, that’s just it’s a given. They wouldn’t be there in the chemist, in the supermarket.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:57] Anyway
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:13:58] anywhere they wouldn’t have it just wouldn’t happen but but that’s a story that’s not necessarily the case it’s not
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:04] I mean, simple things like, I don’t know, and I will say this to patients and they don’t necessarily know about it. But just the use of paracetamol in pregnancy increases the incidence of ADHD and autism in the growing embryo. There are so many things that we consider to be normal practise, but they haven’t necessarily have the evidence base about it. You know, I’m a big advocate that all couples trying to conceive, all people that are pregnant should really connect to Mother Safe, which is a free service set up by the Royal Hospital in Sydney. and it’s all managed by nurses. And they’re the ones that are at the forefront around the research of risk. But risk is categorised, you know, like you can still buy things in the supermarket that are technically toxic for children, technically toxic for women when they’re pregnant. And people don’t know it because there is a lot of trust, and there should be trust, but it’s about being informed. And they need to definitely inform themselves around what is and isn’t appropriate.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:14:59] Yes, and I think one of the challenges is that when stuff is tested, and I believe having spoken to Mark Cohen, Professor Mark Cohen about this, less than 5 % of products are actually tested rigorously. They test one product at a time for six to eight weeks, usually on a healthy university student, and then it’s deemed healthy, but that’s not how we encounter them in our real world.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:15:26] No, and especially not if someone’s pregnant, especially not if they’re growing a baby and they’re more at risk.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:31] You’ve mentioned maternal RNA and there’s another term that I was hoping you could give us some very simple explanations on, and that is microchimerism, microchimerism. Can you give us that 101, you know, maternal RNA and microchimerism 101?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:15:49] 101, okay. So the microchimerism aspect, chimerite is like of cell in Latin. And the idea is that originally it was me trying to find out how I was so connected to my children. How did I know how they were feeling? How did I know when they were gonna get sick? How did I know this? And I knew it spiritually, I just didn’t know it from a scientific perspective. So the science has been around microchimerism, which is that when a woman conceives a child, there are foetal microchimeric cells that remain in her body. and there are maternal microchromeric cells that remain in the foetus’s body. And this cellular exchange happens basically at the point of conception. And part of it is to enable her to implant because we know that sperm and egg meet and they create embryo and there’s foreign tissue there, there’s foreign DNA. So the mum’s immune system has to not reject it. So this microchromeric exchange occurs so that her immune system doesn’t reject it and enables implantation. And the biggest thing to remember is that any time a woman conceives, so be it miscarriage, stillbirth, full term pregnancy, termination, anything, that cellular exchange has already occurred. And what it means is that there will always be maternal microchromic cells in our children, alive or not alive, and there will always be foetal microchromic cells in the mother, whether or not that baby’s come to term. And the beauty of it, and science, what it did was is it tried to understand what those microchromic cells actually did. So there was the acceptance that initially it was around implantation and the ability for the mom to actually keep the baby. Then it realised that from the maternal side, it actually caused a lot of disruption to her immune system. And for a long time in the science, it was it increased her risk of cancers, increased her risk of thyroid disorders, disrupted her immune system. but the foetal aspect of it was it received maternal microchromic cells to enable it to mature so that when it came into the world, the world wasn’t so shocking immunologically. So it was a proprietary type of cellular exchange. What they now found and in Israel, they released a paper late last year and it was a really beautiful one. because they’re starting to understand that microchromerism now is not just a negative thing for the mother’s body, but actually those foetal microchromeric cells go to places of injury, inflammation or illness and assist the mother’s body during pregnancy to heal. So the examples that they were giving in this one particular paper was if a mother has an injury and she sprains her ankle, those foetal microchromeric cells are detected at the site of injury to help her body to heal. So it becomes more now when we look at the research, more around the exchange of support for both of them. And there is a suggestion that those microchromic cells continue to support both as both grow. So it’s pretty beautiful stuff.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:18:30] Hi, Dr. Ron here, and I want to invite you to join our Unstress Health community. Now, like this podcast, it’s independent of industry and focuses on taking a holistic approach to human health and to the health of the planet. The two are inseparable. There are so many resources available with membership, including regular live Q and A’s on specific topics with special guests, including many with our amazing Unstress Health advisory panel. Now we’ve done hundreds of podcasts all worth listening to, with some amazing experts on a wide range of topics. Many are world leaders, but with membership, we have our Unstress Lab podcast series, where we take the best of several guests and carefully curate specific topics for episodes, which are jam -packed full of valuable insights. So join the Unstress Health community. If you’re watching this on our YouTube channel click on the link below or just visit unstresshealth.com to see what’s on offer and join now. I look forward to connecting with you. I mean, I was just thinking, I’ve been struck. I always am struck, particularly, I’ve recently had my daughter with twins and the birth of a child is so amazing. And the more times you see it, the more amazing it becomes. To hear that puts a whole other perspective on it and kind of makes sense a little bit now. Now, oh, and now I get it. It’s not just my mother in my head. is the voice. It’s not just her voice telling me something. There’s something there is there. Another area that I know that you focus, in fact, people are focusing on, is the microbiome. I mean, it’s become a huge focus, crucial for everybody, but crucial in child development. How does the mother’s microbiome influence her child’s emotional and brain development?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:20:31] So let’s shorten that to a short thing because there’s so much on it. And that’s one of those things that literally I can look at the data every week and there’s more information that can. Yeah, okay. So it’s one of those things that, all right, we’re all made of bugs, yeah? So I’m made of bugs, you’re made of bugs. And when we create life, if we’re in a relationship, we share bugs between partners. And then that determines the pregnancy state of bugs. We have data now that tracks the microbiome changes in the mother throughout the whole pregnancy. We have data that tracks the changes in the microbiome to initiate labour and during labour. We have data that shows the exchange of microbial species to mature the baby, to inform the baby’s immunology. You know, and this is where you get things like for so long it was the placenta sterile. Nothing passes the baby. The baby’s in this beautiful cocoon. We now know that that’s all been debunked. Everything crosses the amniotic fluid. Everything crosses the placenta. And everything that the mom is exposed to, everything that comprises of her microbial state. is shared with the child. We now know that microbial species from seminal microbiome increases the risk of neurological development, well, neurological disorders, influences neurological development, increases risk of psychiatric disorders, changes the emotional wellbeing of the baby just based on the bugs that the seminal microbiome had at the point of conception, not even if they’re intimate during pregnancy. And those bugs influenced… the selection of the DNA and what genes would on or off at the point of conception to then influence the development of the baby. And we know that each of the microbial species within the mum and some of that amazing information now is the species that she has determines if there are, you know, high chances of miscarriage from pathogens and things like that. But the more interesting part is that we’re seeing that the species that she has in her uterus determines the genes that are switched on in her uterus, which determine the genes that are switched on in the baby as it’s growing in her uterus. So we have this direct correlation now around species presence or species absence and disease risk but also gene transference. So understanding how the microbiome is actually what’s directing the strategy or the flow -on effect of when we actually initiate a disorder or not. So it used to be just this idea of, well, I’ve got genetics if I’ve got this disease. So my child will have the genetics. So let’s just, you know, the trigger gun idea of the environment, switching it on. Actually, it’s the microbiome during pregnancy that then determines how they’ll tolerate the environment later, but whether or not that disease risk is increased during the pregnancy. It’s pretty wild.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:09] But it’s also the things that influence that microbiome. Huge. Oh boy, you know, that, I mean, and interestingly, testing for that. I mean, that’s a challenge too. Is that done with DNA or, because doing it in a petri dish or in a lab, anaerobic, this must be…
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:23:29] We’ll be on that now. We’ll be on that. It’s DNA. All DNA and we’ve got all the shotgun analyses and we’ve got amazing groups like Tiny Health in the States that have done mountains and mountains of studies with all the big Ivy League colleges looking at infant microbiome and mapping it. Beyond that, it’s DNA too. you know, caesarean delivery versus vaginal delivery versus for maturity versus NICU, like we’ve got all of the data and it all keeps coming back to microbial species and both quality of them types of species and what patterns should look like in a normal environment.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:02] Now, you mentioned you mentioned a caesarean and we’re talking about people often having children later and the incidents of caesarean. What what’s the proportion now in births that end up in caesarean and not and what difference does that make?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:24:17] depends on the hospital. So there’s a hospital in Sydney where statistically there’s between 40 and 60%, depending on the year that you look at it, that is caesarean delivery versus vaginal, which is massive, yeah? I’m all, again, for women having choice around how they want to labour and it’s their process and their journey, but from a health perspective and no shaming intended, we’re meant to deliver vaginally, yeah? And there are so many reasons for that. Like, even if you just look at the microbiome aspects again, yeah? so the microbial species change. literally as the cervix dilates, the species change so that the baby gets exposure at different stages through the vaginal canal. And there’s a design to that and the design and the orchestration of that determines the species that they’re exposed to that they ingest as they’re going through the canal, which then sets them up for their blueprint for the rest of their life microbially and their original species that will nurture them and help them grow. And we know that babies that are born via caesarean versus babies that are born vaginally have different microbial species. There is that older paper that’s still beautiful, that talks about not only caesarean versus vaginal, but who was in the room at the point of birth, what was in the room at the point of birth? Was there a plant, was there a dog? Like all these things determine the species within that first bowel movement of the baby and how they detect what’s in their body. So it’s, you can, like there’s all sorts of data now that show that even if a baby is born by a caesarean, you can recover their microbiome to match a vaginal delivery. On average, let’s say six to eight weeks later, you can usually match it. But then if they’re breastfed, they have a greater chance of returning to the optimal microbiome. But a caesarean -delivered baby that’s not breastfed has a more vulnerable microbiome and a very different microbiome.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:01] Ok, so so just for those 40 to 60 percent of women who have had a caesarean, the fact that you can recapture that within six to eight weeks if your breastfeed is there are there other things you can be doing like in terms of, you know, probiotics and things like that?
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:26:21] Yeah, definitely probiotics are applicable. It’s just about that we have, we’re getting quite a bit of information now. I still feel like we don’t 100 % know what the infant microbiome ideally is and we don’t have supplements that match it entirely, but there are some species that you can give. But what I always say to people is, your family microbiome is what’s gonna nourish your children, go have baths with your kids, have lots of skin -to -skin contact. And we know there’s like that infamous bath study of the four kids in the bath and the one kid had the alpha microbiome and influenced all the other kids. We know that babies that are born and if a mom has a caesarean, maybe the partner can bath with the baby to give the species through the bath water. Like things like that I actually always recommend and think they’re safer than the vaginal seating idea. So the idea that someone will put a gauze in their vaginal area and then wipe it over the baby’s face. There are some papers that show that they have transferred things that shouldn’t be there. So I think bath exposure and skin -to -skin contact, sleeping in the same bed, baby wearing, all that sort of stuff gives the species. And, you know, the biggest thing I always remind families about is a baby is born with very thin skin for a reason. You know, a vaginally delivered baby has a vernix, which I think sets up the pH for their skin and sets up the skin microbiome, which they then absorb in. So, you know, don’t wash them too early. But The permeability of their skin means that when they hug us, they take microbes from us to start to enrich them for their life.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:27:46] And it must be also why babies are so cute and kissable. Absolutely. Because, you know, you just kind of say, come and give me your microbiome. Come on.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:27:55] Come on, bring it in.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:27:56] Bring it in, bring it in. Get in. You know, another area that we’ve focused on recently, we did a whole podcast on trauma informed burnout in nursing. And I know your your work touches on the connection between trauma, brain development and chronic illness. How can an understanding of that relationship help us break some of the cycles that go from one generation to another?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:28:25] What do you think? Look, I mean, there’s so much, again, that we could say on this. We know that.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:28:31] This is a teaser, Leah. This is a teaser. I know, I know, this is a teaser! People should go to the MINDD forum and hear more about this, but this is just a little sample.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:28:36] I need to hear more about this, but this is just a little sample. I need to the shorter version. So we know that a woman’s brain changes dramatically during pregnancy. We know that sections of the brain expand and sections of the brain are pruned. And the woman’s brain literally goes through a transformative process to make her more fearful, actually. and to be able to better scan people when she sees them to assess for risk so that she’s more protective of a child. But she becomes more service -oriented, more caring, more attentive, but definitely more attuned to her child. As the pruning and the restructuring and the reshaping of her brain occurs, it means that things that have been hidden, things that she’s had prior exposures to come to the surface during pregnancy often, but also I think that it’s an opportunity for her to make decisions around what she will carry through postpartum. and what she will pass on to her child. But there’s a couple of beautiful papers I’ve read recently that look at specifically the progesterone status of the mum during pregnancy, and that when she’s pregnant, progesterone goes through this triphasic pattern and increases with each trimester, and then towards the end of the pregnancy starts to come down so that prolectin can take off to initiate labour. And the main function of progesterone in pregnancy, apart from keeping the baby in there, is around neurological patterning, neurological wiring, and neurogenesis. So the richer the progesterone level that the mum has in pregnancy determines the exposure of progesterone to the baby, which determines their neurological development as it goes. And there’s a couple papers that show the direct mapping of timing of specific key neurological developmental stages with searches in progesterone. The better the search she has, the better the neurological development, the less trauma transference.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:30:19] Pretty cool. Wow, it’s all mind -blowing really. You know another area that we’ve done a lot of and that is an integrative approach to healthcare. And you know just recently we did another, I’m giving a plug for a lot of podcasts here, but we did one about the difference between a transactional experience in a healthcare setting and a transformational one. And I’d actually never really thought of it, I’d always talked about patient -centred approach, but I love this idea of transactional, which I think we’ve all experienced, you walk into a doctor and walk out with a prescription, and transformational, which I would argue is a very integrative approach. What role do those integrated natural therapies play in addressing maternal influences on child health? I mean, you’ve mentioned so many already, but but you know, let’s just focus on the impact of an integrative natural therapy approach to pregnancy.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:31:20] It’s the transformative nature of motherhood for a woman, you know, and it’s supporting her to recognise that there are picks and troughs in that process and some of it is actually really quite hard, but sharing the journey with her, giving her meaning for what each of the stages are about, giving her strategies with which to support herself and support her child, and help both of them come through the process with the most amount of support, knowledge and empowerment that they can have. Because ultimately, the healthier the mum is, the healthier the baby will be. you know, then there’s less transference and the more empowered she feels, rather than just take this, you know, that’ll fix it. Oh, this is what’s going on for you. This is what so you can understand it so that you can educate yourself. And, you know, I remember speaking many years ago to a colleague and she was always like, you fix the mom and you fix the family, you know, and you fix the mom and you educate the mom and you give her tools and you give her skills. That family is better, which means we’re changing multiple people. Then she speaks to her friend and then her friend is better and her friend’s family is better. And then we’re changing the world. Yeah, so let’s, there are ways that we can do it.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:23] I would add to that the the the father I’ve been having having been the father I know that Happy having you. I consider myself to have grown up once my children were born. I say I grew up in a household full of women.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:32:37] Right.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:32:37] which were my daughter’s, because that’s a whole process. It’s so actually interesting from a father perspective, because watching women, my daughter’s being and my wife being pregnant, you know, and women, girls are prepared for this through their whole life. And then they have 10 months of a pregnancy where it’s inescapable. They are pregnant building a human being. And it’s so easy for the father to come in and out of that. Oh, isn’t this how my wife’s pregnant? How exciting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. touching on it. And there’s so much growing up to do for the man, the husband, the father in this whole experience. It’s a real, it’s a challenge. It’s actually, one could argue, one of the biggest challenges in the household.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:21] Educate
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:21] educating the farmer.
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:33:22] Yeah, I’m really big on absolutely everybody’s choice, but I’m really big on everyone going to the morphology scan at 20 weeks so that the father can see the baby. I always find that men, if they know the sex of the baby, they connect to the whole experience a lot more so. They prepare themselves a lot more so. And it’s about recognising the importance for them. And I think men unfortunately get dismissed a lot in the whole process.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:33:47] Yeah. Well, watching how boys are brought up and the difference between boys and girls, they’re dismissed from a very early stage. You know, but anyway, things are changing and things are developing. Now, listen, for practitioners who are attending this mind forum, what do you think some of the key takeaways you’re hoping they’ll gain from your presentation in their clinical practise? What are what are some of the takeaways? Do you think they’ll be able to incorporate?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:34:12] Look, ultimately for me, it’s always about creating a story of where we’re at with our understanding and then translating that into treatment objectives and treatment strategies to really empower our patients. But I think the more we understand what’s going on, the more we can make really educated decisions. Always it’s going to be updates on literature and where we’re at and all that sort of stuff. But I think there is so much that we can do to help women and to help mothers and to help the health of our children and just giving them a lot more information, I think just makes so much transformation.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:34:42] I mean, that is really what the MINDD Foundation’s whole, you know, reason for being is. Listen, one very quick question. I like to ask my guest this and it’s taking a step back from your role in health care because we are all individuals on a health journey through this modern world. What do you think the biggest challenge is for us as individuals on that journey?
Dr Leah Hechtman [00:35:06] Um, on health, on our journey, collectively, I think it’s very much around access and it’s access to having the right clinicians and the right teams to be able to navigate people’s health. I think information is so much more accessible now, but having the right clinicians that assist in the transformative process, I think really helps people profoundly. You know, you can, you can find answers for anything. You can speak to CHAP GPT and it can be a doctor, But chat .jpt can’t transform the process for you and can’t help you see what’s hidden. So I think the right clinicians make the world of difference, for myself as well.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:40] Well, Leah, thank you so much for joining us today. We’ll, of course, have links not only to your website, but the MIND Foundation and the MIND Forum that is on in May, in early May, May 1st, 2nd and 3rd, I think, in Sydney. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:54] Thank you, Ron.
Dr Ron Ehrlich [00:35:55] Well, as I mentioned, whether you have a child or not, children are the canaries in the coal mine and they really are a reflexion of general health in the community. So there are so many wonderful speakers at the upcoming MINDD Forum in May, on May 2nd and 3rd. And in the show notes, I will have links so that you can register for that. I hope this finds you well. Until next time, this is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Feeling stressed, overwhelmed? It’s time to unstress your life. Join the Unstress Health community and transform stress into strength. Build mental fitness. From self -sabotage to self -mastery. And together, let’s not just survive, but thrive. Expert -led courses, curated podcasts, like -minded community and support and much more. Visit unstresshealth.com This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.
