Season 6, Episode 6: Empowering Women Throughout Pregnancy with Stella Lizotte Talkie

Evelyne: I’m doing well. How are you?

Stella Talkie: Good. I’m so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Evelyne: Me too. In this episode, we’ll cover topics like preventing pregnancy complications with tools like metabolomics or organic acid testing, addressing gaps in traditional OB care and how functional medicine practitioners can step in to provide better support.

We’ll also talk about prenatals and other supplements to support women each step of the way and hear more about Stella’s journey, including what it was like growing up with parents who started Designs for Health. Before we fully dive in, Stella, what is lighting you up this week?

Stella Talkie: Lighting me up this week. Just as we’re coming right off the holidays, and I had a lot of time with my family. We were together for almost a whole two weeks, which is probably the first time that’s happened since maybe I was in high school. So yeah, definitely just feeling full of love and excited for the new year and everything that’s ahead and grateful for the wonderful family that I have and all the blessings in my life.

Evelyne: I love that. That’s beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. Stella Talkie is a certified pregnancy health coach offering health and holistic nutrition coaching and works with women and families who are pregnant trying to conceive and postpartum clients. She has a bachelor’s degree in nutrition from Florida State University and she helps women to optimize their nutrition, find solutions to health problems, prepare for birth, build their dream birth team, and achieve overall wellness of the body, mind, and spirit.

So, Stella, I’d actually love to hear more about your journey, especially growing up with parents who were running a nutrition coaching business that then became the supplement company Designs for Health. That must’ve been an incredible experience, and I just would love to know what that was like and how that shaped your personal and professional path.

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I mean, I definitely consider myself very fortunate to have been grown up in an environment where nutrition was such a big part of our lives, and my mom, Linda Lizotte, was definitely ahead of her time with all of the concepts she believed in and her knowledge and understanding of nutrition, of supplementation and just really full understanding of the body. I know she essentially memorized her biochemistry book from front to end. She could cite pathways, all the cofactors, everything off the top of her head. So, she was a wealth of knowledge. I learned so much from her and again, just grateful that I had parents who have parents who are so knowledgeable in the field because I learned so much from them, and without health we have nothing.

So it is so important and I’m grateful that I kind of was set up at a point where I already had a really good foundational understanding of nutrition and building upon that was pretty easy versus having to really kind of start from scratch and unlearning all of the typical traditional concepts of what our culture beliefs to be, how to get ourselves healthy, it pretty much just a pill for an ill.

And definitely growing up in the nineties, there were a lot of health fads that were not great. Things like the fake butters and all kinds of stuff, margarine, things like that. So yeah, definitely grateful that my mom never fell for those fads. She always was pretty grounded in nutritional philosophy that still today holds very true and is for the most part what I follow.

Evelyne: And did you know even from when you were very young that you wanted to study nutrition and work at Designs for Health?

Stella Talkie: Not necessarily Growing up, I always loved animals. So actually, if you asked me when I was 6, 7, 8 years old, what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was always a veterinarian. But actually when it came to picking my major for college and deciding where I wanted to go, what I wanted to study, that’s kind of when it dawned on me just how lucky I am that I had parents who were so knowledgeable nutrition and when we were sick and my mom would come out with all different natural remedies for that instead of just rushing us to the doctor for antibiotics right away, I realized that’s something that I want to be able to do for myself and not just rely on my parents to be the ones to help guide me through and give me this knowledge of how to keep a healthy body and stay optimally healthy. I’d like to have that knowledge for myself as well. So, I did end up setting nutrition and obviously led me on the path of where I am today.

Evelyne: So, then you became a certified pregnancy health coach last year, and what inspired you to take that path, and how has that journey been so far for you?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, so that could be a long story, but I’m going to kind of simplify it. I was on a podcast where I did a thorough talk about my birth stories and explained those and explained what my prep process looked like. But yeah, if you were to ask me 10 years ago or tell me years ago that today I would be a pregnancy health coach, I would’ve thought you were crazy because I was terrified of birth, I was terrified of pregnancy. I loved the idea of having kids because again, I’m lucky to have a family that was so close and I kind of envisioned that for myself for the future, even when I was younger. But the thought of having kids was so scary that I’m like, I don’t think I want kids at all because I’m just terrified of the aspect of being pregnant and giving birth.

So I actually did a lot of educating and research on myself even before getting pregnant right around the time of my now husband when we got engaged and I knew that kids was something he wanted in his future, and I kind of realized within myself, I need to face these fears. I need to get a better understanding of pregnancy and how to optimize that and optimize birth so that it’s not something I’m terrified of. And then fast forward, after doing all that education, I ended up having two beautiful home births. I’m so grateful for the experiences and all I learned. I met amazing midwives along the way, had an incredible doula who I learned so much from, and yeah, again, did a lot of research to the point where after I had my babies, I was still just fully in that space of wanting to keep learning more and more.

And yeah, I kind of found the concept of being a pregnancy health coach. I found that that was a career, and I thought, oh my gosh, that’s kind of perfect, because I had been working in functional medicine for so long, I was with Designs for Health for almost 10 years, worked with a lot of healthcare providers in the functional medicine side, and also when I was working on the national account side, a lot of national accounts as far as people who are really focused obviously in the health and wellness space. So between everything I learned on that side with my nutrition degree and all the providers and people I worked with, and then everything I learned from my pregnancy, my experiences, and all the people on the natural birth side, I felt like being a pregnancy health coach was that perfect marriage of my two worlds.

So yeah, now I’m very grateful. It’s been almost eight months of me doing this. So still very new in this career I would say, but I’ve learned a lot, and I definitely have some insights that I think may be helpful for obviously any woman who’s trying to conceive or pregnant or plans to become pregnant. And also, for providers who just want to know what it’s like for women who are pregnant in today’s day and age and what that typically looks like as far as the care they’re receiving and the type of care that they’re not receiving and how they could optimize that.

Evelyne: That’s really cool. So, what are some of the things that you provide as a pregnancy health coach?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, so I definitely do guidance, overall guidance, just really being a support system for women who are in that stage of life. And I do work with the whole family as well, so I can also work with their partner or any kids they may already have anything like that. But primarily my focus is women’s health. And yeah, I really like to help them with, first and foremost, making sure they’re on a good path if I’m working with them before conception of cleaning up their diets, making sure that they’re free of toxins, making sure their homes are free of toxins, things like that. And also doing testing. I love the metabolomics test from Designs for Health. Also, the GI Spotlight test is a great one, just to make sure that there’s no big markers that are out of whack because it’s always easier to address that ahead of time, but definitely things even if they’re already pregnant and it came as a surprise, there’s still a lot that we can do to optimize that during pregnancy.

But again, just kind of back to the whole focus on just pregnancy as a whole, kind of separate from the health part, but just building a birth team. I remember when I found out I was pregnant, and again, I did a lot of research ahead of that time just on the topic of birth, but I still almost felt paralyzed in that, okay, what’s next? Where do I start? Who do I work with? What kind of questions do I ask providers when I’m interviewing them to really make sure I find someone who’s aligned with me and my values and what I want from this pregnancy and for my birth outcome. So really helping women to pick their birth team with purpose and make sure they find someone who’s truly aligned with them, their wishes, and depending on any current health ailments they may be dealing with or past health ailments, make sure that they’re finding someone who is a great fit for them.

Evelyne: That’s great. And what a wonderful resource for women to have during that time. Since you brought up the Metabolomics Spotlight test, you use it in your practice for things like preventing pregnancy complications. I’d love to hear more about that and hear what are some of the patterns that you’ve noticed. I assume you’re running this when somebody is in the trying to conceive phase, right?

Stella Talkie: That’s ideal. I definitely prefer to, if I have the opportunity to run it ahead of time, but sometimes women will come to me when they’re already pregnant and I still think it’s useful and still a good tool to use at that time as well. But yeah, when we talk about certain complications that may lead women to having a less than optimal birth outcome, things like gestational diabetes and preeclampsia are just two big ones when it comes to preeclampsia, there’s some markers we can look at such as at high homocysteine levels, see if any of that’s present.

Also, if there’s any signs of oxidative stress or oxidative damage, we definitely want to make sure that those are resolved ahead of time to make sure that they can be issues and risk factors that lead to preeclampsia later on down the line. So definitely things we can impact, and course correct with proper diet and supplementation. So, I like looking at those when it comes to gestational diabetes, obviously making sure that all of the energy metabolism markers are optimal is really important. So like the lactic acid, pyruvate, Krebs cycle intermediates, all of that, most of those play a role in making sure that we’re utilizing glucose effectively.

So, we want to make sure that glucose utilization is ideal so that it does not, again, lead to something such as gestational diabetes later on into the pregnancy.

Evelyne: That’s really cool. And what about some of the B vitamin markers? Have you noticed any correlations or patterns there?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I mean the B vitamins, again, very, very important. And again, I know I mentioned with the homocysteine, obviously if our B vitamins are low, that typically tends to cause those markers to be out of whack. But yeah, I think women especially are so prone, or I say women, but I want to say women in the reproductive age. I think most of us were on years of birth control, which we know depletes our B vitamin levels.

Most of us also have pretty high stress levels, which depletes our B vitamins. So yeah, definitely making sure those are in check is very important for optimal reproductive health in general. And also preventing things like pregnancy complications because yeah, we all know the B vitamins are very important for optimal reproductive health and fetal development and growth.

Evelyne: Yeah. I’m curious too about using the GI spotlight. I know that it’s hard during pregnancy to treat anything obviously because there are so many things that haven’t been studied. So, I’m curious, what are some of your thoughts on that?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I mean I think the GI spotlight is obviously very important, but I would say more so before or even after the pregnancy, but there’s still a lot that we can do and things like, to talk product specific, but like IgGI Shield and things that really strengthen the gut barrier and also diet wise, collagen, continuing foods, things like that, they’re really supportive of the gut barrier.

It is good to know if there’s any dysfunction going on in the gut so that we can kind of prioritize that and make sure that, again, diet is optimized and nutrition supplements that are safe during pregnancy are utilized to best support that because obviously our gut microbiome is basically where our babies are getting their gut microbiome from. So very important for that all to be considered.

Evelyne: Yes, excellent point. And let’s talk a little bit more about supplements since we’ve already started this conversation. So, we’ll start with prenatal vitamins. Obviously, you grew up using Designs for Health products, and normally we try to just talk about ingredients, but I think in this case we can just talk about the designs for health formulas.

So you’ve personally used and you recommend the Prenatal Pro, which is the Designs for Health prenatal vitamin. Why do you prefer using this one and what makes it stand out?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I mean, when we go to why, I mean obviously we know Designs for Health has really, there’s not much competition in terms of a product that the quality is as high as these products. So, with all the testing that goes into our products and the really meticulous raw material selection just from that standpoint, our products really stand out above the rest.

But also, when it comes down to the actual components themselves, I’ve seen a lot of prenatal products on the market that you’ll see advertised through social media and things like that. And it’s just concerning to me how few nutrients there are. Typically I see the ones, a lot of the popular products that they just are not comprehensive enough in terms of the different breakdown of nutrients that are available there. A lot of them are lacking in all the different minerals.

They just will have a few of the B vitamins, maybe some magnesium choline, like the ones that are very important nutrients, but they’re missing out on so much is what I’m seeing. So when it comes to Designs for Health are Prenatal Pro and also the prenatal essential kit, really it’s ideal to take that kit together because again, there’s only so much that you can combine into one product and have the dose be something that is only if you capsules. I think the serving of the Prenatal Pro is four capsules. So if we were to try to put everything in there that you need, the omegas as well, which really you want that in a soft gel. So, it’s best to kind of take that separately and to get a solid dose, it’s going to be a whole pill in itself, so it doesn’t really make a difference if you’re taking it separately or not.

And then also like the OsteoForce, that’s in the Prenatal Pro kit, you really want a lot of those different nutrients. So, things like folate are most important. We all know folate and a lot of providers will recommend even just folic acid, but we know how important it’s to really get that active MTHF form of folate. I know when my dad was on the podcast, he kind of harped and discussed that kind of background and the history there, so I’ll spare us from having that whole conversation again. But it is very important for women to get that active methylated folate.

Also, vitamin E, again, something that at Designs for Health we talk about a lot because we are very, I would say at the forefront of that new research when it comes to tocotrienols being that more effective and that stronger antioxidant that actually has a lot more health benefits than something like the typical vitamin E that you see in supplements as alpha-tocopherol.

So not only did the tocotrienols have many more health benefits, but also less risk, which again, with the alpha-tocopherol, there’s actually, if you dose too high, there’s actually risk of it having detrimental health effects, actually something that can cause high blood pressure and cause some of these issues that may be concerning.

So that’s another thing I see sometimes in other prenatals that maybe they’re one that they’re not the type of brand that only has seven nutrients in their prenatal. Maybe they do have a comprehensive amount, however, the amounts of some of those nutrients aren’t truly science backed and research backed like the Designs for Health prenatal is, whereas they might have an amount of alpha-tocopherol vitamin E that is in my opinion, and from what we’ve seen in the research actually too much to a level that it actually can be detrimental and not beneficial.

When it comes to some of those other nutrients, Vitamin A is a huge one. I love the book, The Nourishing Traditions of Child and Baby Care from Sally Fallon Morell. She talks a lot about the importance of vitamin A and actual active retinal pate. Some prenatals you’ll see they just do the precursor beta carotene or different carotenoids in their prenatal, but it’s very important to also get the active retinyl palmitate. So DFH Prenatal Pro has a combination of the two, which is great.

And also, we have a very comprehensive mineral blend, so not just magnesium, obviously magnesium is important, but we also have calcium, which we’re growing baby’s bones, so calcium is super important. Selenium, zinc, copper, manganese, chromium, they’re all important. So great to have a very comprehensive mineral blend.

And then last but not least of the top nutrients I want to mention is choline. So yeah, choline is definitely very important to get during pregnancy, optimal for brain development. And yeah, I swear I always took extra either GPC liquid or the phosphocholine I’d combine or switch between them in my pregnancies. And when you get that kind of, any woman who’s been pregnant before can attest to the baby brain feeling is very real, just feeling very brain fogged and kind of out of it. And when I would take my choline, it’s almost instant I would feel on it. Normal functioning brain, again, it’s almost like you can feel your body taking the choline from your own brain to give to baby. And when you replenish that you can function much better again. So definitely one of those products or supplements that you can tell the difference, and you can notice the difference when taking it or not.

Evelyne: Thank you for sharing all those. And I was definitely going to ask about choline, so thank you for talking about that. What about probiotics, timing, strains? Any thoughts on that?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, probiotics. I’m glad you mentioned that too. I didn’t really mention this specifically when we talked about the GI spotlight. But I do, again, I think the GI spotlight could be really beneficial at telling us whether or not we need probiotics, because they may not necessarily always be needed or at least always be needed during the pregnancy. But something that’s a safe probiotic with specific strains that are beneficial for pregnancy such as the DFH has the ProbioMed Women, which is amazing because it has strains specifically that have research showing beneficial for actual vaginal flora that the baby is going to pick up on when going through the birth canal.

However, on the other side of that, just saying probiotics are always needed in pregnancy. There are some probiotics that are very high dose that is only for specific uses if someone’s microbiota is very low and lacking, and if someone has maybe too much, if they have any issues with SIBO or anything like that, they may not need something that’s a very high dose probiotic. So it’s not something that I always, or I would say high dose probiotics aren’t something that I always put someone on, but something like the ProbioMed Women is pretty much, don’t want to say always safe, but definitely in the third trimester really kind of making sure we’re colonizing that gut bacteria is how I like to personally use it.

Evelyne: Yeah. And then what about when you do see issues like gestational diabetes or preeclampsia, do you feel like, I mean obviously an OB is going to do certain things for that, but do you feel like as a pregnancy coach there are things that you can provide as well?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, and I would definitely want to preface this by saying that it’s always working alongside their physician, their midwife, whoever it is they’re working with. But there’s a lot we can do. Even diet, I mean, I was going to say even lifestyle and activity wise for things like gestational diabetes, making sure that we’re getting that movement in. We are exercising, strength training and having higher lean body mass is shown to be preventative towards things like gestational diabetes, and there’s also a lot of nutrients that have shown to be beneficial. So, things like inositol, I love inositol, it has amazing research on preventing gestational diabetes. And also, inositol has been known to help with optimal serotonin levels. So also, for good sleep during pregnancy and preventing depression, which actually could be good for those baby blues if anyone’s having them either during or after pregnancy. Those are kind of some other times I like to lean towards inositol.

Another nutrient would be L-carnitine for something like gestational diabetes, making sure that their carnitine levels are optimized. And again, that’s something that would be a marker on the metabolomics test. So, it would, again, testing ahead of time may tell us if carnitine levels are low and if carnitine supplementation may be beneficial.

I was going to say, and then on the preeclampsia side, when it comes to preeclampsia, definitely again, lifestyle and making sure we’re maintaining our stress levels is very important. So, I always like to make sure that women are doing some sort of a meditation practice, something to relax, wind down at the end of the night, making sure that we’re not living in that constant state of fight or flight. I love recommending things like Epsom salt baths that we’re really absorbing that magnesium, getting those necessary minerals from the skin as well as supplementation.

And then supplement wise for preeclampsia, things like, again, vitamin E tocotrienols have been really effective at managing blood pressure and also blood sugar and making sure women are getting enough electrolytes, definitely good potassium, magnesium blend, something like the DFH ElectroPure I love. So yeah, definitely a lot of nutrients that we can add in as well that are beneficial for preventing things or also correcting things like preeclampsia.

Evelyne: So, I want to go a little deeper into that. So, several of these that you mentioned, you said taking them beforehand, but then what about during pregnancy? Are you still recommending those? I’m sure it depends on the person too.

Stella Talkie: Yeah, it definitely depends on the person and again, making sure that their provider is on board with any of those recommendations. But there is enough significant research on all the ones I mentioned that they have been taking in pregnancy. Personally, I did actually take pretty much all of those during pregnancy. I had, with my second pregnancy, really bad sleep issues and pregnancy insomnia. So, you’re really not supposed to take melatonin during pregnancy. There’s minimal herbs that you’re supposed to take as far as the sleep inducing herbs. So, I leaned on inositol really heavily. And yeah, carnitine is something I also took, I remember my mom saying she took carnitine with her third baby, so my little sister, she was the only one that she took carnitine with, and that girl is literally straight muscle. She can look at a weight and her muscles will grow significantly. So yeah, she always jokes that she only took carnitine with Megan, and she came out straight muscle, and she has been able to maintain her muscle mass pretty easily. She does work out a lot, but she looks great. I always think back to the carnitine concept. I’m like, I wonder if that made a difference there.

Evelyne: That’s really funny. Thank you for sharing that. You mentioned sleep. I feel like that is one of the biggest things that I get questions about from my practitioners during pregnancy because I mean, some herbs are safe to take, but then even within the herbal medicine community, there are differences in opinion of what can and can’t be used. So, it’s good that we have things like inositol, which are safe and helpful for those.

I’m curious, since you have worked with some clients now, if you have any, aside from obviously your own story, but any examples of where when you used the testing paired with the supplementation, where you really improved the outcomes? Any really cool success stories?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I mean, as far as improving the outcomes, not necessarily any significant stories. I would say for preeclampsia; I did have a client I was working with who had some blood pressure readings that were abnormal. She was kind of trending towards that risk range of developing preeclampsia, and luckily, all of the lifestyle and the supplement implementations that we added in were really helpful for her. After we started doing that, she was doing Epsom salt baths regularly. She was doing her electrolytes very regularly, taking her supplements, and her readings were pretty much completely normal ever since, and she’s about to have her baby. So, fingers crossed, her birth goes as planned.

And when it comes to just the testing in general and really how we can impact the outcomes, I think a significant story that’s good to share is a client who had an on her results. So, she was working with me before she was kind of in that preconception phase planning to get pregnant in the near future. And her metabolics test had some high toxic impacts, actually. So, her xylene exposure was pretty high. If anyone who’s listening isn’t familiar with what that means, xylenes are found in things like paints, and they can be in cosmetic products like nail polishes, nail polish remover.

Her styrene exposure was also a little bit high. Styrenes are found in things like plastics and food packaging also can be found in cosmetic products. So, when I was working with her, I was really glad that we caught those ahead of time because those toxic impacts can definitely be concerns and risk factors for developing serious issues like birth defects or issues with fetal development. So, we actually did a very thorough detox ahead of time. She did the full two-week detox cleanse.

So I definitely think that detoxifying preconception is important for everybody, but if you really want that proof in the pudding to know whether or not it’s significantly important for you to do a thorough two weeks, then again, the metabolomics test is a good place to start and do that testing to see what your toxic impact levels look like and if there’s any significant exposure, and again, signs that we need to also clean up things like beauty products and personal care products and household cleaning products, all those types of things.

And again, we can do those slowly and make little changes so that it’s not too overwhelming, but all great things to look at ahead of time before getting pregnant. If we do look at it during, still, there’s options and things we can do, and it’s never too late, but it’s also really never too soon.

Evelyne: And I think one of the encouraging things that I see with people now getting some of their information from social media is people are more aware than ever of all of the environmental toxins that we’re surrounded by, because we obviously know that when it comes to fertility, we should start thinking about it earlier, right, and preparing.

And so I’m curious, in your ideal world when you are working with somebody who does want to get pregnant, I know for a man they say 90 days is optimal though probably also should start sooner in general to make those lifestyle changes because a lot of them can be kind of overwhelming and it takes time to change out all your products and buy new things and buy air purifiers and things like that.

And in your ideal world, when you’re working with somebody who is going to try and conceive, how long would you want to be working with them and what does that look like?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I believe that the 90 days for men, it comes from, I think the life cycle of the sperm is, I believe 72 days. So that’s why you look at 90 days to make sure that the sperm produced from the optimally clean body after detoxification is the one that is going to fertilize the egg.

And again, I’m glad you mentioned the men thing. I don’t think we talked about that much yet, but 50% of the DNA comes from this sperm as well. So, I feel like a lot of women kind of feel like they carry that burden of making all the dietary changes and cleaning up everything, making sure they’re as healthy as possible. But a big portion, 50% of the health of that fetus is going to come from the father’s sperm as well, and the father’s DNA. So, it is equally as important for the men to do that work right alongside obviously in the preconception stage because during pregnancy, what they’re doing, what they’re putting in their body isn’t necessarily going to infect that current baby, but still going to impact all the future ones. So still very important for men to look at their health as well.

But yeah, sorry, back to your question and what you’re asking. As far as an optimal timeline, it really depends because some women may have never touched a birth control pill and live a pretty holistic lifestyle naturally just eating natural whole foods. And some women may be in a very toxic environment exposed to more types of chemicals, things like that.

So it definitely varies, but I would say at least looking at, I would say six months, ideally at least three to six months would be good to make sure they’re taking a prenatal, looking at cleaning up the different types of chemical exposures that they have in their home or their skincare products, and also starting to run tests to look at things like the metabolomics tests or the GI tests that show any different imbalances that may be present and making sure we can correct those ahead of time to ensure that they’re an optimal health before conception.

Evelyne: Absolutely. And when it comes to assembling that birth dream team, I’m curious, what are some of the additional gaps in traditional OB care that you see?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, when we talk about traditional OB care, and again, I just want to note that I was fortunate enough to, for both of my pregnancy, I did work with more holistic-minded midwives, so I was grateful to have gotten a type of care that was a lot more thorough than what typical women experience when they’re working in the hospital system.

But even then, I mean, they only have so much time to provide. I mean, I think the first visits are maybe as frequent as once a month for the first couple of months, and then as you get closer to delivering every two weeks. So still for someone who’s working in that type of system, having a health coach to work alongside them in those early months to really hold their hands and be, again, just a greater support system for making sure that diet, nutrition, supplementation, everything is really optimized to their personal unique needs.

And then when it comes to OB care, really, they’re just, our system is sadly so deeply broken when it comes to women’s health, pregnancy, and the care they provide. It’s just they have so many, I don’t want to blame it on OBs as if they’re bad people because they’re great people. They’re people who went into this career because they care and they’re trying to do work that’s so important, and it’s a very stressful, high demanding career to be in.

But again, they are just so strained by how many patients they have to see how little time they have to see them, and also the rules and regulations that they’re required to follow. So, it’s not necessarily their fault that their patients get left feeling like they’re unsupported, but that is regardless, that’s the outcome. And I know all of my clients for the most part, and a lot of my friends, again, what led me to wanting to be in this career is that so many of my friends were coming to me stressed about the fact that their iron levels were severely low, and all their OBs said was, okay, well, if it gets any lower, then we’re going to do transfusions. Vitamin D levels were low. And they’re like, okay, well, if you want to grab a vitamin D supplement from Walgreens, you could do that. And we all know that’s not going to be well absorbed.

So, there’s different issues that may arise, and unless it gets to a point of it being so severe that it needs some sort of medical intervention, they’re usually just told, hey, we’ll watch it, and if it gets serious enough, then we’ll intervene. Versus being on the proactive side of, let’s optimize this. Let’s see what’s causing those imbalances, and let’s see how we can really support you to make sure that this doesn’t get to the point of it being a serious need for intervention.

Evelyne: Absolutely, and I think it’s so great. I haven’t heard of other people. I hear of a lot of people specializing in fertility, and of course we have the doulas and the midwives, but I haven’t heard, other than you, of somebody specifically specializing as a pregnancy health coach, and I just think that’s so awesome and so needed and such a valuable part of that whole team. Right? So that’s incredible.

Stella Talkie: Thank you.

Evelyne: Yeah, and I know that because I’ve seen some of your posts where you’ve shared about your birth and you shared here that that’s something that you were always scared about, and so one of the things that really helped you was just changing your mindset around that.

And I’m curious about some of the tools that you used around that, and it’s something that you also work on with your clients, right? I mean, that’s a big part of being a health coach is the actual, not just here are the recommendations, but how do you actually implement this into your life?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, I think that’s really the difference between a health coach and a provider is that the health coach is really there to walk you through and kind of do it with you versus just saying, here’s what I recommend for X, Y, and Z.

So yeah, definitely feel like through my experience of working through those fears I had around birth, really knowledge is empowering, knowledge is empowerment, and majority of that was just from the educational side and really looking at, okay, what is this thing that I’m scared of and what’s the worst case scenario and how do I prevent that?

When you really understand how rare the chances of whatever that little thing is that you’re scared of is, and if the ways that you can prevent that seem very easily attainable. Then kind of focusing on that and really, again, just controlling that mindset, meditation and breathwork, things like that were tools I utilized a lot throughout my pregnancy, and not only do I think it made a big difference in the outcome of my actual birth, but also myself as a whole, I noticed myself, I was much more calm.

I was able to not be as reactive to situations that typically would stress me out a little bit more. So, I definitely feel like it made a significant difference on how I live my day-to-day life and how I also carried that into my parenting, and your patience is definitely tested a lot more when you have a toddler than it is when you’re pregnant. So working on those different skills to again, kind of control your mind a little bit more. It’s great to learn those at a time where it’s so vital and you’re going to kind of lean back on that throughout the next couple years and the rest of your life.

Evelyne: Yeah. Let’s talk about the postpartum period a little bit more. You’re also supporting women in that, right?

Stella Talkie: Absolutely. Yeah.

Evelyne: I think this is another time when, I mean, not even talking about the super serious postpartum depression, but even just in general, like the drop in hormones and all the things that come along with that, and the lack of sleep and stress levels are just really high. And again, if you’re breastfeeding, there are certain things that haven’t been studied that we don’t recommend using. So, I’m curious, what are some of the ways that you as a health coach support your clients through that period.

Stella Talkie: And again, it’s all very personalized in that postpartum phase because a lot that goes into that, and that may be impacting the way moms are and what they’re experiencing during their postpartum can be from what happened during the birth, if their birth experience was something that was traumatic in any way, those emotions, those fears, those things are that trauma is something that they’re kind of now dealing with on top of being thrown into being a mother, on top of being dealt with the craziest hormone fluctuations they’ll ever have in their life and their nutrient levels, everything kind of tanking.

So, it’s definitely a very sensitive time and a time where I think women need more support than ever. And sadly, in our generation and our society, it’s like we don’t really have that cultural support that I think used to be normal when we lived in villages, and there was a lot more support for mothers and a lot more people who kind of came together in the area to support them during that sensitive time.

Now it’s kind of like they’re just kind of left to figure it out. So yeah, I think when it comes to the postpartum stage, there is just a lot of knowledge. And again, I like to work with the family as a whole and make sure that the partner is supportive and understanding of really what mom is going to need at that time, how to support them, how to really loop in the family, whether it’s putting together something like a meal train or having people come over to help with laundry and little chores, household chores, things like that.

I love the book The First 40 Days. That’s a big one where it talks about culturally how different cultures support women and what they recommend, and really making sure that all of their, that moms really don’t have any necessary obligations and those first 40 days, and they’re able to just focus on healing, on baby, on recovery.

And again, definitely the nutrition has to be really dialed in. That’s why I really like to work with women during these stage, make sure they’re getting healing nutrients, definitely bone broth, rich foods, collagen containing foods, making sure they’re getting their Omega-3’s still because Omega-3’s and DHA deficiency could be something that leads to postpartum depression and anxiety, things like that. So yeah, really making sure that their nutrition is optimized.

And again, I would say not necessarily right after they give birth, but within the three, six, even nine, 10 month period, maybe even after they sought breastfeeding, would be a good time to kind of redo the metabolomics testing or do it if they haven’t done it yet to see what their body looks like at that time. And if certain areas are depleted, because likely it’s a very stressful time, likely, again, the B vitamins may be low or different markers may be low from everything that the body has been through and all the nutrients it’s had to dig up to give to baby, to producing breast milk, to all these different things to healing. So, making sure that we can correct that and help them to heal optimally so that they can really feel their best and be as present as possible and as healthy as possible to be the best mother as possible for their little babies.

Evelyne: Yeah, it’s not something I’ve been through myself. I have a lot of friends with kids, and I always ask lots of questions, and we’re writing the birth, I’m like, give me the whole story. I want to hear everything.

I see this even when people have all of the resources and all of the knowledge, it’s still so hard because of the lack of sleep where breastfeeding is hard, and it’s like you could seek out the help of lactation consultant, but then that probably feels overwhelming, but then that also could improve so much both for the mom and for the baby and for their future development of everything basically.

And yes, it’s just extraordinary to me when you go through that and you build the baby, but then you also have all the pressure of returning to work or just having to manage everything. And it’s amazing to be able to have the support of somebody like you to also just take some of that mental load off of maybe you need some pelvic floor physical therapy or to see a lactation consultant or whatever it is.

Stella Talkie: Yeah, definitely. And also, just having someone who understands what they’re going through and who you can go to and connect with. If you want to make sure that whatever is happening is normal and there’s no concerns, or if it’s something that’s abnormal, that is a concern, that’s something you should seek help for. So yeah, definitely good to have someone who’s a good resource during that time.

Evelyne: Yes, it is so important, and thank you for sharing all this and sharing your expertise. And we’re going to wrap up with some rapid-fire questions. What are your three favorite supplements for yourself?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, so for myself, I love ADK Evail. I love getting all of the fat-soluble nutrients in one place with great absorption, and again, nutrients in the right form. So, I’m getting the tocotrienol vitamin E, getting my vitamin D, my vitamin A in the active retinyl palmitate form and vitamin K, all nutrients that are so important, definitely for fetal development and pregnancy. And also, for lactation, I’m still breastfeeding my 1-year-old. So yeah, I love ADK Evail.

I would say number two on my list is a complete mineral complex, because I love, again, getting that full blend of all the different essential minerals, making sure those levels are optimized. And then when you’re taking that alongside something like the ADK Evail that has the fat-soluble nutrients, it does help to enhance the absorption. But we both know that with Designs for Health products, the minerals are in their chelated form that are best absorbed. So yeah, it’s great to get a good quality form of all of those nutrients.

For my third one, there’s so many that I want to say, but I think I have to say PurePaleo protein, the chocolate one is how I meet my protein goals half the time. Just being a busy mom, it’s so easy to add that to some raw milk and get almost 30 grams of protein just by sipping it. So, I think I have to say the PurePaleo protein, even though for my clients, if I had to just pick three products, it would be another nutrient like Omega-3’s or something that’s super vital. But for me, it’s my protein because I truly don’t think I could live without it.

Evelyne: That’s awesome. And what are your favorite health practices that keep you healthy and balanced?

Stella Talkie: Favorite health practices? I would say a big one for me is a sauna. I love infrared saunas. We’re lucky enough to have one in our home. That’s something that we prioritize. And on my healing journey, I’ve been diagnosed with Lyme disease. I had issues with mold toxicity, different hormonal issues, and I feel like I could definitely credit the infrared sauna and doing that regularly to a big part of my healing and helping with detoxification and everything.

So not necessarily something I recommend daily for pregnant women, but maybe if their healthcare provider checks off on lower temperature levels for shorter periods of time, that’s something they could work on if it’s needed. But just general health practice wise, I love infrared sauna.

Some others love strength training. I love yoga. Being out in nature walks, I feel like I need to walk in the morning to set my day up for success. So, I’m usually grabbing my kids, putting them in the stroller, giving them some kind of snack or something to drink and going for a walk so that we all get out in nature our first thing, first part of the day.

Evelyne: That’s awesome. What is something that you’ve changed your mind about through all your years in this field?

Stella Talkie: I changed my mind about, I definitely think the biggest one would be, I used to, years ago, back when the ketogenic high fat, low carb diets were super popular, I definitely fell into that. I would say a little bit too much than what was good for me and my body at the time. I think the good that came from that is a lot of focus on, again, the healthy fats.

And it’s so funny because my mom, at the time when I was doing the ketogenic diet, she’s like, why are you doing the ketogenic diet? You’re 24, 25 years old, you don’t need help with weight loss. You don’t need help with any of the different, definitely could be beneficial for certain treating certain diseases or certain conditions, but I didn’t have any of those at the time.

And I definitely think for women who were in their childbearing years, fainting from carbohydrates too much could actually be detrimental. So right now, my diet is definitely more balanced. I do still have the healthy fats and prioritize my protein, but I do also make sure I’m getting in enough fiber and healthy carbs. And yeah, definitely think that that’s something that before years ago I was a little too gung-ho on, and now I realize that it’s only more for certain people or certain conditions, but not necessarily for everyone. And also, definitely not necessarily for women in their childbearing years or during that pregnancy or postpartum stage of life.

Evelyne: Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. I think we can all fall into that, right? Whatever the extremes are. And then it’s always coming back to just real whole food.

Stella Talkie: Exactly. Yeah.

Evelyne: Stella, where can practitioners learn more about you?

Stella Talkie: Yeah, so my Instagram is Stella Rose Wellness. I also have a website. It’s just stellarosewellness.com. And yeah, definitely for the practitioners. I think, I hope that they were able to take some insight from this as far as if pregnancy isn’t something that they specialize in, but if they have pregnancy clients, I think practitioners probably tend to assume that their OB and their healthcare provider is now kind of like they’re passing the baton to them. But I would encourage it to be more of a hand in hand working together with their birth provider, because again, I think for the most part, if they’re in that traditional system, the health side of things is going to be lacking. And I think that they definitely could use that holistic support.

So whether it’s people working with someone like myself and a pregnancy health coach specifically, or just working with their functional medicine provider to make sure, again, that all the bases are covered and they’re getting that full rounded holistic support during pregnancy, and again, even for preconception and postpartum, it’s so important.

Evelyne: Thank you. And thank you so much for sharing all of your expertise and your insights today, and I am just excited for you on this new, still new journey and just to see everything that’s to come. So, thank you.

Stella Talkie: Thank you. Thank you so much. I’m grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. And yeah, also grateful for Designs for Health and how much support and all the tools and everything that they offer. Yeah, it’s very great to be able to lean on that and the different protocols and everything that’s available on our network. So yeah, grateful for that.

Evelyne: Absolutely. And thank you for tuning into Conversations for Health today. Check out the show notes for resources from today’s episode. Please share this podcast with your colleagues, follow, rate or leave a review wherever you listen. And thank you for designing a well world with us.

Voiceover: This is Conversations for Health with Evelyne Lambrecht, dedicated to engaging discussions with industry experts, exploring evidence-based, cutting-edge research and practical tips.