Sunlight exposure during pregnancy produces not just vitamin D but also fumaric acid, a substance that supports liver and gallbladder health to reduce morning sickness. Pregnant and lactating women should actively shun sunscreen which contain phthalates...and keep those sunscreens away from babies and children! The story of vitamin and our fear of the sun is a convoluted labyrinth of lies that ends with sick kids, women with super-high rates of autoimmune disease, and high rates of infertility in both men and women.Vitamin D Deficiency in Pregnancy
Vitamin D deficiency is relatively common in both pregnancy and in early childhood. Vitamin D is produced naturally in human skin as a result of sunlight exposure. Inactivated vitamin D is made in the skin and then the vitamin D moves to the liver for first-level activation. After being partially activated in the liver, the vitamin D then moves to the kidneys to be fully activated. From the kidneys, activated vitamin D then moves into the intestines where it works to transport calcium from the digested food into the blood supply.Vitamin D and Calcium Supplementation During Pregnancy: Are These Supplements Really Necessary?
As a transporter of calcium from the intestines to the blood supply, vitamin D is quite important. Indeed, calcium is also important as a fundamental part of our nutrition, but except in rare situations, calcium should never be taken as a supplement because the diet is super-rich in calcium. Taking a calcium supplement changes the pH dynamic of the body and it can actually lead to calcium buildup in the soft tissues of the body, which is a very undesirable thing for any human being at any stage in their lifecycle. As a general rule, calcium supplementation is unnecessary even during pregnancy. But now, let’s talk a bit more about vitamin D…One of the criteria that dictates whether a nutritional substance should be classified as a vitamin or not is whether or not it is produced naturally by the human body. Though vitamin D is indeed produced naturally in the human body, this nutrient has not only been classified as a vitamin, it is also one of the most heavily marketed nutrients that people are told to take every day. It is so heavily marketed, in fact, that one might tend to become suspicious about why the media is so willing to devote air time to this non-vitamin.
Among male adults and teenagers in most of the middle latitudes of the world, vitamin D is easily obtained through natural exposure to sunlight. Nonetheless, at least one news story per day is pushed into the public eye talking about the supposed virtues of vitamin D supplementation. It’s true that women in various areas of the world cover themselves needlessly to avoid provoking men in one way or another and this cover-up can lead to vitamin D deficiency through lack of sunlight exposure. Cases like these might benefit from vitamin D supplementation. But the issues around vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy and lactation are much more complex than just the problem of covering women from head to toe such that they receive no sunlight. In order to understand how vitamin D can harm you and your baby, you have to know something about vitamin K2.
In terms of pregnancy, lactation, fetal development, and infant development, vitamin D is a half-told story in terms of the media and what women are expected to believe about this nutrient. The story of vitamin D is a partial-truth that leaves out crucial details while telling white lies that cause women to harm themselves and their babies accidentally without ever realizing the harm that they’ve done to themselves. This article endeavors to tell women the truth about pregnancy, vitamin D, vitamin K2, and the other nutrients produced in the Basic Shikimate Pathway. After you finish reading the facts, you can make an informed decision about how to approach this nutrient substance during pregnancy, early infancy, and lactation.
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Let’s start with vitamin D and how vitamin D works in non-pregnant adults…As we’ve already noted, vitamin D is produced naturally by human skin that’s exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D is not the only nutrient-substance produced by human skin when the body is exposed to sunlight. Fumaric acid is another crucial substance that the body needs and craves in order to produce plenty of energy inside human cells. So sunlight exposure (without sunscreen or heavy clothing inhibiting the sun’s healing rays) is essential for pregnant and lactating women not just because of vitamin D but also because the body needs fumaric acid.
Read more about fumaric acid here.
Sunlight Exposure During Pregnancy
So we have to start this discussion by explaining the context of sunlight exposure in the production of health in pregnant women and their babies. Without a moderated amount of natural sunlight exposure, pregnant women can become deficient in both vitamin D and fumaric acid. Women who are pregnant are particularly in need of fumaric acid to promote gallbladder health because the gallbladder is the organ that causes women to experience morning sickness and serious problems like hyperemesis gravidarum. So a woman that supplements with vitamin D instead of receiving sunlight exposure may become deficient in fumaric acid, a substance that plays a role in the later development of diseases like multiple sclerosis and psoriasis.In the far northern latitudes, pregnant women who don’t have access to sunlight, vitamin D might be consumed in the form of fish oils in the diet or through other vitamin D-rich dietary staples. But pregnant women in lower latitudes who don’t expose the skin to sunlight are likely to suffer for it in terms of a lack of fumaric acid. Women who put on sunscreen further complicate their health situation and endanger their children’s health accidentally in an effort to do the right thing.
Sunlight exposure helps the body detoxify and heal itself naturally. Some men have already discovered this fact, perhaps because they’re allowed to take off their shirts and expose themselves to sunlight without inhibition. The use of “testicular tanning” to balance reproductive hormone levels is relatively well-known in the natural men’s health community. But women still remain in the dark (literally) though they desperately need to understand these crucial facts about sunlight and health during pregnancy and lactation. So the main takeaway here is that pregnant and lactating women need to expose their bodies to sunlight.
Read more about the testicular tanning and sunlight exposure to cure infertility here.
Vitamin D During Pregnancy
Let’s talk about calcium and how vitamin D transports calcium into the blood supply from the intestines. As a calcium-transport nutrient, vitamin D plays a crucial role in bone health, dental health, and nervous system health, but if it isn’t properly combined with two other nutrients during pregnancy and lactation, namely iodine and vitamin K2, vitamin D can quickly kill you and harm your babies.That being said, without adequate levels of vitamin D to transport calcium into the bloodstream, calcium levels can get low in the body. In pregnant and lactating women, low levels of vitamin D could mean that the body begins to remove calcium from the woman’s bones to compensate for the calcium needs. In infants, low vitamin D levels can lead to rickets, a vitamin D deficiency disease that causes the bones to become misshapen. So vitamin D is important and, as a pregnant woman, you may opt to take a supplement of this vitamin especially if you live in a northern latitude where sunlight is in short supply for large portions of the year. But if you supplement with vitamin D, you also need to supplement with vitamin K2 and Lugol’s iodine to balance out the effects of this nutrient during gestation and lactation.
Vitamin K2 and the Shikimate Pathway
Most pregnant and lactating women don’t realize that vitamin K2 is a vital nutrient that has recently been removed from the food supply. Genetically modified plants (GMOs) like corn, soy, and wheat, (which are all staple food products) that naturally went through a nutrient-production pathway known as the Basic Shikimate Pathway prior to being genetically modified have been altered to no longer go through this pathway. The Basic Shikimate Pathway was an important nutrient-production pathway that lead to the production of vital nutrients like:-
- Vitamin K1
- Vitamin K2
- L-Tyrosine
- L-Tryptophan
- Folate
I’ve bold-printed the final list item above, “folate”, because this nutrient should be of special interest to all pregnant women. Folate, also known as vitamin B9, is the nutrient substance that prevents neural tube defects like spina bifida in babies. A deficiency of folate / vitamin B9 during pregnancy can lead to serious health problems in children because the neural tube is basically the initial structure from which all other structures are grown in a human fetus. Most women have been taught that they need to take “folic acid” supplements, but folic acid is a synthetic form of folate. And folate used to be present in much higher quantities in the natural food supply of developed nations that are now feeding their populations nutrient-poor GMOs.
Read more here about the nutrients that have been omitted by governments of the world from food supplies to the serious detriment of pregnant women, lactating women, and children. Genetic modification of staple food products is a serious health issue for pregnant and lactating mothers. GMO corn, soy, and wheat products have replaced the natural versions of these plants which means that women in developed nations that consume these foods are in danger of folate deficiency. Folate deficiency is famous for its ability to cause neural tube defects in babies, but the lack of vitamin K1 (a nutrient that alters the blood and blood coagulation) is also a serious issue. The amino acid, L-tyrosine is a nutrient substance that plays a foundational role in both thyroid hormone production as well as nervous system function. L-tryptophan, another amino acid, is the basic building block of mental-health-related substances like serotonin and melatonin which, if disrupted, can lead to symptoms of autism, ADHD, or other mental, emotional, and intellectual disabilities in children. Post-partum depression can occur in women who are deficient in L-tyrosine or L-tryptophan. In children, deficiencies of these two amino acids is even more serious.
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The Origami of Autism: Transforming 2-Dimensional Thinking about ASD into 3-Dimensional Solutions - BUY HERE!But in terms of our discussion regarding vitamin D, vitamin K2 is like a dirty little secret as far as Big Food and Big Ag is concerned. You see, vitamin D may be able to push calcium into the blood supply, but if vitamin K2 is not present in sufficient quantities in the blood supply to grab onto calcium and take it where it needs to go, the calcium builds up in soft tissues of the body to cause any number of health problems in women and children including the following:
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- Arteriosclerosis / atherosclerosis - calcification and hardening of the blood vessels which can cause heart attack or stroke.
- Calcification of the pineal gland - calcification of the pineal gland has been associated with autism-spectrum symptoms as well as autoimmune disease symptoms. About 40% of the population of the United States under the age of 17 years has a calcified pineal gland according to recent studies.
- Breast calcifications - breast calcifications and a hardening of breast tissues that show up on mammograms cause women extreme levels of anxiety and they also cost women a lot of time and energy.
- Pancreatic calcifications - a pancreas that becomes calcified can cause diabetes.
- Organ calcifications - any organ in the body can become calcified as a result of vitamin K2 deficiency, causing an array of disease symptoms.
- Gland calcifications - any gland in the body can become calcified as a result of vitamin K2 deficiency causing an array of disease symptoms.
- Poor dental health - when calcium is being deposited in the soft tissues of the body due to a lack of vitamin K2, it is not being deposited in the bones and teeth which leads to poor dental health.
- Poor bone health - when calcium is deposited in soft tissues instead of in the bones and teeth, the bones become weak. Kids that are only 18 years old may develop osteoporosis if they are exposed to organophosphate insecticides while being deficient in vitamin K2.
- Reproductive organ cancer - vitamin K2 promotes the absorption of iodine into the thyroid gland and reproductive organs. Without vitamin K2, calcium levels in the blood get too high and iodine can’t be absorbed properly which can lead to breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and all other reproductive organ cancers.
- Thyroid cancer - the movement of calcium out of the blood by vitamin K2 promotes iodine absorption by the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland can’t be healthy without iodine, so vitamin K2 and iodine always work together to promote proper weight, metabolism, immunity, mental health, and the structural health of the thyroid gland.
- Bone cancer - due to the important role of vitamin K2 in building bone tissues and protecting bones from organophosphate exposure, a lack of vitamin K2 often leads to bone cancer. Vitamin K2 can also cure myeloma and other bone cancers naturally according to scientific studies.
- Blood cancer - because blood cells are produced in the bones of the body, leukemia and lymphoma are two types of cancer that are caused by vitamin K2 deficiency and poor bone health. Again, scientific studies have shown that vitamin K2 supplementation can naturally cure leukemia and lymphoma.
- More…
If you read the list above, you can probably see how important vitamin K2 is in terms of the vitamin D equation. Currently, leukemia is the most common form of cancer in children and teenagers. In kids, 1 out of every 3 cancer diagnoses is either acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) or acute myeloid leukemia (AML), both of which can be cured naturally with vitamin K2 supplementation (along with a natural cancer treatment protocol). Pregnant women and women who are lactating who take vitamin K2 are less likely to suffer from negative health effects in terms of their bone tissues, but their children are also going to be less likely to develop bone or blood cancers like lymphoma, myeloma, or leukemia. Vitamin K2 has been studied by several scientists who have all had success using this nutrient as a cure for acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphocytic leukemia and other bone and blood cancers in children.
Read more here about the use of vitamin K2 as a natural cure for acute lymphocytic leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia here.
Without vitamin K2, vitamin D is toxic. You see, in the past, humans had bacteria that lived in the intestines that produced vitamin K2. But many antibiotics today are Shikimate-Pathway killers that have obliterated our natural vitamin K-producing gut flora. Vitamin K2 is actually produced from vitamin K1. And without vitamin K1 in adequate quantities the blood cells and the way the blood functions in the body changes in unhealthy ways leading to serious downstream health effects that may not be reversible in infants and children who lack vitamin K1 and vitamin K2 during crucial developmental periods. Children who are born to mothers who lack vitamin K2 have jaw bone abnormalities that lead to a need for orthodontic work later on. Most parents would prefer to avoid the pain and expense of orthodontics like braces and dental retainers for their kids, but it’s a well-kept secret that vitamin K2 can ensure that kids have a strong, healthy jaw, and a corresponding set of healthy teeth that are cavity-free (as long as the child doesn’t brush with a fluoride toothpaste).
Read more here about how to use vitamin K2 to remineralize teeth.
Vitamin D and Iodine Deficiency
Yet another serious health issue caused by over-supplementation with vitamin D is iodine deficiency that’s caused by high calcium levels in the blood supply. Calcium in the blood inhibits iodine absorption by the thyroid gland and reproductive organs. In fact, iodine deficiency is a major cause of infertility, autoimmune disease, reproductive organ cancers, thyroid cancers, and various other serious diseases that seem incurable to doctors of western medicine.In the 1980s, iodine was a fortifying agent in bread products. Fortification of the food supply with iodine is something that most governments of the world that offer some form of subsidized healthcare do to keep the cost of healthcare down. But in the U.S., where healthcare is entirely unsubsidized and capitalistic, the goal of the government is to support Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Ag, and all big corporations in their pursuit of profits. So, in the 1980s, iodine was removed as a fortifying agent in bread products and iodine was instead placed in salt. Unfortunately, iodine evaporates out of salt within days after the salt box is opened. The lack of iodine in bread products as a fortification against iodine-deficiency diseases was bad enough, but then, Big Food put bromide in iodine’s place. Fluoride was added to the water supply. And in the presence of an iodine-deficiency, bromide and fluoride both buildup in the body to cause serious health problems.
Combine these government-sponsored changes with the media promotion of vitamin D and the creation of GMOs that lack vitamin K2 and you have the perfect storm for the production of serious health problems, particularly in pregnant / lactating women and children.
Pregnant and lactating women and children need more iodine than other members of the population. Without adequate levels of iodine, babies and their mothers struggle to get through pregnancy. Children who are iodine deficient suffer from intellectual delays and mental/emotional issues. Mothers who are iodine deficient may develop breast cancer, reproductive organ cancers, or autoimmune thyroid diseases after pregnancy. Meanwhile, doctors have been taught in medical school that iodine is a toxic substance that kills the thyroid gland. As a result, patients are fearful of taking non-toxic, natural Lugol’s iodine to prevent their children from developing serious health issues like asthma. And despite the fact that iodine is one of the most important nutrients known to man and historically one of the most famous in terms of population-based dietary fortifications on the planet, western-educated doctors, who receive only 1 undergraduate class in nutrition or no nutrition classes at all in their medical education, continue to believe and tell their patients that radioactive iodine is the only type of iodine that exists in the world.
As a pregnant / lactating woman, one of the most important gifts that you can give your child today is the gift of Lugol’s iodine and vitamin K2 supplementation.
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Dosing
Vitamin K2
In order to reap the benefits of vitamin D, pregnant and lactating women need to take vitamin K2 at 300 mcg per day.
Infants who are nursing will receive vitamin K2 through their mother’s milk.
Children should be given 25-100 mcg of vitamin K2 daily from age 1 through age 10. At age 10 and up, give children 100-200 mcg of vitamin K2 daily.
Lugol’s Iodine 2%
Pregnant and lactating women should administer 20 drops of Lugol’s iodine 2% daily (50 mg). Administer the iodine in drinking water or put it directly on the skin. If you have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, Grave’s Disease or any form of hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism, read more here about how to use supportive nutrients properly to cure thyroid disease.Give children 1 drop of Lugol’s iodine 2% for each year of their age. In other words, give a 1 year old 1 drop of Lugol’s iodine 2%. Give a 2 year old 2 drops of Lugol’s iodine 2%.
Vitamin D
If you receive 30-60 minutes of direct sunlight exposure daily (without sunscreen or clothing interfering with exposure) you may not need vitamin D supplementation but you can still take 400-600 IU of vitamin D daily to ensure that you get enough of this nutrient.In infants, the vitamin D supplement recommendation is 400 IU per day if the baby is drinking formula.
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Resources:
• Zhang, H. et al. (2022). Relationship between maternal vitamin D levels and adverse outcomes. Retrieved February 3, 2023 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36296914/
• Brunvand, L. et al. (1998). Vitamnin D deficiency in pregnancy is not associated with obstructed labor. A study among Pakistani women in Karachi. Retrieved February 3, 2023 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9539276/
• Bischoff-Ferrari, H. A. (2011). Vitamin D: role in pregnancy and early childhood. Retrieved February 3, 2023 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22123632/
• Brannon, P. M. & Picciano, M. F. (2011). Vitamin D in pregnancy and lactation in humans. Retrieved February 3, 2023 from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21756132/
