Congratulations! You’re having a baby!
And you want to do everything possible to have a healthy pregnancy and childbirth.
Along with eating right, getting some exercise, and taking prenatal vitamins, you’ll want to add “Keep my gut microbiome in healthy balance” to your pregnancy to-do list.
Because a healthy gut microbiome delivers countless health benefits to you and your baby… and an unbalanced, unhealthy gut microbiome can make things tougher for both of you.
Luckily, when you know the right steps, it's easy to maintain a well-balanced, pregnancy-supporting microbiome.
The Importance of Your Gut Microbiome During Pregnancy
Your gut microbiome contains trillions of bacteria, both beneficial probiotic bacteria and harmful pathogenic bacteria. When your gut microbiome is well balanced, probiotics vastly outnumber pathogens.
Your beneficial probiotic bacteria deliver dozens of health benefits, from producing essential B vitamins to helping you maintain a healthy weight… and they play a huge role in your lifelong health.
That includes keeping both you and your baby in great shape while you’re pregnant… and long afterward.
And did you know? Your gut microbiome changes greatly during pregnancy. Your body requires this microbial shift to improve energy storage, support fetal growth, and drive lactation.
Without this change, your body couldn’t properly accept and nourish your baby. And the makeup of your gut microbiome – meaning your mix of gut bacteria – helps determine your baby’s lifelong health.
That’s why supporting the positive balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut microbiome is so important... Because disruptions to that balance can lead to an overgrowth of pathogens, a condition called dysbiosis. And research shows that dysbiosis may increase the chances of problems during your pregnancy.
Supporting Your Gut For A Healthy Baby
Thankfully, you can easily address – and avoid – dysbiosis with the right gut support (more on that below).
And with a strong microbiome in healthy balance, you can feel confident that you’re setting yourself and your baby up for success.
Here are 4 important ways that your healthy gut fosters a healthy pregnancy…
1. Giving Your Baby a Healthy Head Start
One of the most important things you can do for your baby is to jumpstart their immune system. And that all starts with your gut microbiome.
As the mama, you deliver bacteria to your baby’s gut microbiome, supplying the basis for healthy balance… as long as your gut is in healthy balance. (This gets reinforced during delivery and birth, when your baby gets inoculated with the bacteria as it passes through the birth canal.)
During your pregnancy, your gut microbiome helps: