Speaker 1: Welcome to the Kick Your Expert led podcast, helping you
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Speaker 1: a parent.
Speaker 2: On the podcast and our online pregnancy program grow My Baby,
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Speaker 1: Born and our experience of running a women's health clinic
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Speaker 2: We're here to help everyone to feel empowered in pregnancy
Speaker 2: and birth with real life, practical information.
Speaker 1: Welcome everyone, I'm Bridgid Maloney and today I thought we'd
Speaker 1: do a little quick kick to remind everybody about vitamin D.
Speaker 1: As we move into winter here in Australia, particularly in
Speaker 1: the Southern States, vitamin D really does start to matter
Speaker 1: and we see this a lot in our hometown of Ballorad.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where you're listening from, but people start
Speaker 1: rugging up. It's getting colder. You know. You leave in
Speaker 1: the morning when it's dark, you come home when it's dark,
Speaker 1: and it's nearly impossible for some people, particularly those with
Speaker 1: darker skin, to get enough vitamin D. Fair people can
Speaker 1: get enough vitamin D from having their arms, hands and
Speaker 1: face exposed to the sun for a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: and This is where we need to balance sun exposure
Speaker 1: and the skin cancer risk. So you still need to
Speaker 1: avoid sun exposure between eleven am and three pm, but
Speaker 1: it's probably a good idea to have a look on
Speaker 1: your phone app. There you can see what the UV
Speaker 1: rating is and if it's anything, say above three, then
Speaker 1: go out into the sun. Just expose your arms, your hands,
Speaker 1: your face for a couple of minutes. That'll give you
Speaker 1: some sun exposure for vitamin D. If you have darker skin,
Speaker 1: you need a lot more sunlight. Those with very black
Speaker 1: skin need three to six times as much sunlight as
Speaker 1: fair skinned people. So a little while ago, we had
Speaker 1: dietitians Steph F. Larkas talk to us about vitamin D
Speaker 1: in the diet, and she really helps us understand the
Speaker 1: importance of vitamin D and what you need to do
Speaker 1: to get that vitamin D if you need to supplement.
Speaker 1: So let's hear what she has to say.
Speaker 2: So what about vitamin D that this I seem to
Speaker 2: think that I'd sort of heard just about nothing in
Speaker 2: my career bride or about ten years ago about vitamin
Speaker 2: D and then it was everything for a while, and
Speaker 2: now it's sort of dropped away a little bit. Where's
Speaker 2: vitamin D? Citty?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Vitamin D is a fat solible nutrient, so you
Speaker 3: actually need a little bit of fat in your diet
Speaker 3: or if you're using your supplement to take vitamin D.
Speaker 3: Dietary sources of vitamin D are not wide and not
Speaker 3: very well absorbed, so things like sardines or salmon or
Speaker 3: eggs that have added vibalin D or the vitamin D mushrooms,
Speaker 3: or you can do it yourself. You can leave your
Speaker 3: mushrooms in the sun and the gills up and then
Speaker 3: they'll actually synth the size of vitamin D for you
Speaker 3: can buy the meat coals already pre done as well.
Speaker 3: Our bodies are very good or really at like taking
Speaker 3: out of the food and much better at getting it
Speaker 3: from direct sunlight. But then we've got the skin cancer situation, right,
Speaker 3: so then we've got all the sun safety public health messaging,
Speaker 3: and I think this and also just our lifestyles. Honestly,
Speaker 3: you're in a southern state Sydney, Melbourne in winter, what
Speaker 3: do you do. You wake up, it's dark, you go
Speaker 3: to work, you're sitting at work all day inside, you
Speaker 3: go home it's dark. What sudden are we really getting
Speaker 3: on now even if we sunscreened up faces or hands
Speaker 3: or can we're cold, we're all runned up. You know,
Speaker 3: That's kind of how it goes. A lot of people
Speaker 3: also have medical conditions in which there's a link to
Speaker 3: vitamin D deficiency risk being much higher. So condif it
Speaker 3: was like PCOS is a great example of that. So yeah,
Speaker 3: certainly vitamin D is relevant and important for a variety
Speaker 3: of things. From a fertility angle, we know that people
Speaker 3: that have better vitamin D levels to have better outcomes.
Speaker 3: We know that vitamin D in the pregnancy is really
Speaker 3: important for calcium absorption for mum and bub and also
Speaker 3: that vitamin D levels maternally are really important to reduce
Speaker 3: risks of some certain conditions in baby. So it's been
Speaker 3: some links to things like US smart and ordering conditions
Speaker 3: as well, So that's certainly interesting. And I think as well,
Speaker 3: like recently I've seen a big emergence of like mandatory
Speaker 3: vitamin D supplementation direct infants, And I mean that's a
Speaker 3: whole different topic of conversation, but it is an immunomodulatory vitamin,
Speaker 3: so it is very important and I don't think most
Speaker 3: people probably aren't quite getting enough, but it is very seasonal.
Speaker 3: So if you come back from a sunny European holiday
Speaker 3: or you've been in the sun over the summer, you're
Speaker 3: probably going to be fine. It's usually over the winter months,
Speaker 3: particularly in the southern parts of the Australia in particular,
Speaker 3: I see a lot of vitamin D deficiency. Vegetarian forms
Speaker 3: of vitamin D are really commonplace now, so that used
Speaker 3: to be the issue because vitamin D is typically see
Speaker 3: the size from sheep landoline. It's pretty mainstain now to
Speaker 3: have vegetarian forms and vegan forms of vitamin D. Almost
Speaker 3: all companies make their products to be vegan, the Joe
Speaker 3: friendly and in my opinion, yes, everyone should have their
Speaker 3: vitamin D levels checked at some stage, and at least
Speaker 3: once throughout the context of pregnancy, because you will capture
Speaker 3: at least some seasonal variation and you don't want to
Speaker 3: enter breastfeeding in particular being extremely vitamin D deficient, and
Speaker 3: then you know they're not going to affects to bub
Speaker 3: as well because of the vitamin D kind of transfer.
Speaker 3: Isn't that incredible from breast milk? So yeah, vitamin D
Speaker 3: is something that is really important. But I do find
Speaker 3: people either think that their prenatal is giving them much
Speaker 3: more than what it really is, or I see people
Speaker 3: overdo it quite a lot. And keep in mind it
Speaker 3: is fat soluble, which means we are going to store
Speaker 3: it for a lot longer period time. You're not just
Speaker 3: going to weed it out if you take too much.
Speaker 3: So the right amount to be important.
Speaker 2: Do you think it needs to be checked in people
Speaker 2: who are on a.
Speaker 3: Supplement, Absolutely, I think from a monitoring perspective, so we
Speaker 3: definitely we definitely if we're adding additional vitamin D on
Speaker 3: top of a prenaate vitamin so pre needle vitamin on average,
Speaker 3: and this is definitely average, we'll give you between four
Speaker 3: hundred international units, which is forty percent of your daily
Speaker 3: maintenance amount, to about one thousand international units, which is
Speaker 3: your daily maintenance amount. So if you take a thousand
Speaker 3: international units every day, irrespective of your sun exposure, you
Speaker 3: should kind of maintain and or slightly increase if you're
Speaker 3: getting some sign exposure. If you are deficient, that a
Speaker 3: thousand international units is not really going to do much
Speaker 3: for you. It's just going to maintain you prevent the
Speaker 3: deficiency worsening. So once we get into deficient territory with
Speaker 3: to then go a bit higher than that, up to
Speaker 3: a maximum of about four thousand international units. And usually
Speaker 3: we then do a scaled dosing down over a period
Speaker 3: of usually every six weeks. You're dropping doses down and
Speaker 3: things like that. So that is important to monitor at
Speaker 3: the end of that, is that have we successfully corrected
Speaker 3: the vitamin D deficiency and have we not overshot it?
Speaker 3: For example?
Speaker 1: Wow, So I mean just for me you will understand this.
Speaker 1: But so is it a bit like iron? So you
Speaker 1: have the iron stores ferretan and then the iron available.
Speaker 1: Is that a bit like the vitamin D Like you've
Speaker 1: got vitamin D stores. When you say that, you know,
Speaker 1: even if you're taking the one hundred percent regmended daily intake,
Speaker 1: if you're deficient. So is that the deficiency is that
Speaker 1: somewhere it's not stored properly in your body.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like if you just take just
Speaker 3: enough ion and you're already deficient, you're not going to
Speaker 3: get out of the deficient state. Yeah, right, so or
Speaker 3: not quickly anyway, have to wait till the seasonal variation
Speaker 3: kicks in, and the season kicks in, then you'll get
Speaker 3: an improvement. So in my line of work, I don't
Speaker 3: have time. So people need to have their vitamin D
Speaker 3: levels good by X state or they're already pregnant. So
Speaker 3: we don't want to buck around with it for the
Speaker 3: next six months and hope becomes good. So we do
Speaker 3: need to increase it quickly and then scale it back
Speaker 3: down quickly and then reassess that it's worked. So it's
Speaker 3: a bit like iron. It's kind of like you want
Speaker 3: to make sure that the iron supplement is an adequate amount.
Speaker 3: It's going to correct the deficiency, and then it has
Speaker 3: done its jobb and you want to confirm that with
Speaker 3: a blood test. Otherwise we're just like kind of closing
Speaker 3: our eyes and hoping for the best kind of situation,
Speaker 3: which Eddy wants.
Speaker 1: No And I think vitamin D would be a real
Speaker 1: problem here in Bellarette, Like our UV doesn't really get
Speaker 1: no much over one.
Speaker 2: I've been watching this and of all the new pregnant
Speaker 2: patients I get sent through general practice, I would say
Speaker 2: somewhere around a half have had their vitamin D checked
Speaker 2: as part of their first round of pregnancy blood tests
Speaker 2: where the hemoglob and blood group B HIV siphless rebellery
Speaker 2: checked and and most bodies would not recommend that that
Speaker 2: was necessarily on that first blood test, but probably about
Speaker 2: half do it. And I think that it's much more
Speaker 2: than half in the middle of winter and much less
Speaker 2: than half in the middle of summer, because it's on
Speaker 2: the on the mind of the GP that's ordering the test.
Speaker 2: But if it's if it's reasonably common to b vitamin
Speaker 2: D deficient in the pregnancy state, even if you've been
Speaker 2: taking a prenatal with vitem D in it, then then
Speaker 2: we probably should be looking at that in everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's one of those scenarios that it's
Speaker 3: a preventable issue if their intervention is.
Speaker 2: Something to do about it.
Speaker 3: That there is a lot more resistance I'm finding with
Speaker 3: vitamin D testing at the moment from GPS. I think
Speaker 3: it's only meant to be annually unless there's an issue.
Speaker 3: But people are often very surprised how quickly their vitamin
Speaker 3: D levels will change when they other stop supplementing or
Speaker 3: into a different season. You can it can take much
Speaker 3: quicker than well a lot of people anticipate. So yeah,
Speaker 3: you will store some, but if you're not getting enough,
Speaker 3: it will change very quickly a few months and you
Speaker 3: went from replete to deficient very easily.
Speaker 1: Well, everyone, thanks for listening. I wonder what this means
Speaker 1: for you, whether you'll go and have your vitamin D
Speaker 1: checked now and particularly through pregnancy. I think it sounds
Speaker 1: like a really good thing for you to keep abreast of,
Speaker 1: particularly if your pregnancy goes through the winter months. That's
Speaker 1: it for us. I hope you have a really great week.
Speaker 1: We look forward to being back next week. We'll see
Speaker 1: you then life and out.
Speaker 3: Hey.
Speaker 1: Even though doctor Pat is well a doctor and we
Speaker 1: get lots of other doctors and other experts on our podcast,
Speaker 1: I just need to remind you that this podcast is
Speaker 1: for informational purposes only. We share lots of medical insights
Speaker 1: and experience, but everything we talk about is general in
Speaker 1: nature and may not apply to your specific situation. Please
Speaker 1: always consult with your own healthcare provider for your individual
Speaker 1: medical advice.
Speaker 3: When you grow your baby,