The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka - 216. Dr. Labib Ghulmiyyah: On How To Prepare Your Body for Pregnancy, Fertility Decline, and Preconception Health
Episode Date: November 6, 2025Here’s what nobody tells you about pregnancy: you’re ignoring half the genetic equation. Dr. Labib Ghulmiyyah drops a truth bomb that should fundamentally change how we approach conception, men ne...ed pregnancy preparation as much as women, period. Your sperm isn’t just a delivery vehicle, it’s carrying epigenetic instructions that will influence your child’s chronic disease risk, neurodevelopment, and lifelong health trajectory. Time to step up, gentlemen, your biology matters more than you think. Join the Ultimate Human VIP community for Gary Brecka's proven wellness protocols!: https://bit.ly/4ai0Xwg Get Dr. Labib Ghulmiyyah’s book, “Gen Tox Live Clean“ here: https://bit.ly/4opv8rC Connect with Dr. Labib Ghulmiyyah Website: https://bit.ly/3XiOFOt YouTube: https://bit.ly/4hJ9oEP Instagram: https://bit.ly/48ZtLLD TikTok: https://bit.ly/43fivXJ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4or3R8o Thank you to our partners H2TABS: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4hMNdgg BODYHEALTH: “ULTIMATE20” FOR 20% OFF: http://bit.ly/4e5IjsV BAJA GOLD: "ULTIMATE10" FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3WSBqUa COLD LIFE: THE ULTIMATE HUMAN PLUNGE: https://bit.ly/4eULUKp WHOOP: JOIN AND GET 1 FREE MONTH!: https://bit.ly/3VQ0nzW AION: “ULTIMATE10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4h6KHAD A-GAME: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: http://bit.ly/4kek1ij PEPTUAL: “TUH10” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/4mKxgcn CARAWAY: “ULTIMATE” FOR 10% OFF: https://bit.ly/3Q1VmkC HEALF: 10% OFF YOUR ORDER: https://bit.ly/41HJg6S BIOPTIMIZERS: “ULTIMATE” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/4inFfd7 RHO NUTRITION: “ULTIMATE15” FOR 15% OFF: https://bit.ly/44fFza0 GOPUFF: GET YOUR FAVORITE SNACK!: https://bit.ly/4obIFDC GENETIC METHYLATION TEST (UK ONLY): https://bit.ly/48QJJrk GENETIC TEST (USA ONLY): https://bit.ly/3Yg1Uk9 Watch the “Ultimate Human Podcast” every Tuesday & Thursday at 9AM EST: YouTube: https://bit.ly/3RPQYX8 Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3RQftU0 Connect with Gary Brecka Instagram: https://bit.ly/3RPpnFs TikTok: https://bit.ly/4coJ8fo X: https://bit.ly/3Opc8tf Facebook: https://bit.ly/464VA1H LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4hH7Ri2 Website: https://bit.ly/4eLDbdU Merch: https://bit.ly/4aBpOM1 Newsletter: https://bit.ly/47ejrws Ask Gary: https://bit.ly/3PEAJuG Timestamps 00:00 Intro of Show 01:19 Healthy Pregnancy Lifestyle (for both Women and Men) 05:34 Medical Guidelines during Pregnancy 09:24 US Ranking Highest in Maternal and Infant Mortality 11:54 Decline in Fertility and Sperm Rates 14:03 What is an Ideal Healthy Pregnancy? 17:36 Maternal Instinct and Postpartum Recovery 21:41 C-Section vs. Vaginal Birth 25:52 Exercising during Pregnancy 28:44 Connect with Dr. Ghulmiyyah The Ultimate Human with Gary Brecka Podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of medical advice, and no doctor/patient relationship is formed. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast is at the user’s own risk. The Content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
One thing I tell patients before they get pregnant to prepare for the pregnancy as much as they prepare for their wedding.
And I think also one area that we forget to talk about is the preparation of the men for the pregnancy.
I love what you say about preparing the husband along with the wife because I think that spousal support is so critical.
It's a two-player game. It can be one person and I think we throw pregnancy on women and men should play a role and being supportive and when you have this support, you will make a difference.
Pregnancy is also a time when women are supposed to be elated and joyfully.
The pregnancy glow, it's really supposed to be a time that they enjoy.
So that's how I imagine a perfect pregnancy, preparing the men, preparing the women on all those important pillars
from their nutrition, their movement, their sleep, their stress, their family support, which is extremely important.
There's so much advice for women that are pregnant, but there's so little medical advice for them.
That's why, you know, I got into more defunctional medicine and started asking why and why.
So pregnancy is a miracle, it says.
Another human comes out of a human and then instinctively they can raise them.
Once a woman is pregnancy, what does an ideal healthy pregnancy look like?
To answer you as far as the pregnancy is concerned, I think...
Hey, guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast.
I'm your host, human biologist, Gary Brecker, where we go down the road of everything,
anti-aging, biohacking, longevity, and everything in between.
And today's guest is going to have special appeal to my staff because I've got a lot
of pregnant women on my staff.
And, you know, he is a board certified in obstetrics and gynecology.
He's also additional certifications in functional medicine and nutritional medicine.
I cannot wait to unpack this podcast because it's so germane to the conversation we've been
having here in Saudi Arabia so far.
There's a lot around diet, lifestyle, spiritual well-being in the aspects of health that are
non-pharmaceutical, non-chemical, and non-synthetic.
And so this is going to be an amazing, amazing discussion.
I'm really excited about this.
Welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Gary.
Thank you for having me.
Labib Gumaya.
Correct.
Excellent.
I got it right.
From the first trial.
For the first try, not many can do it.
Dr. Labib, I'm so excited to get into this topic because just jumping right into pregnancy, you know, with women.
There are, there's so much advice for women that are pregnant, but there's so little medical advice for them.
I mean, we don't do randomized clinical trials on pregnant women because nobody wants to mess with a woman while she has a fetus in the womb.
I constantly am asked the question,
can I take this during pregnancy?
Can I take that during pregnancy?
And there's very little evidence for us to fall back on.
We have clinical trials on just about everything,
but we rarely do them on women while they're in the process of varying children.
So what does a healthy pregnancy lifestyle look like?
Most women are so stressed about getting pregnant.
And then when they conceive,
now the stress shifts to, and we're doing everything right to care for this, you know,
fetus while it's in the womb.
Well, you know, one thing I tell pregnant patients, or ideally before they get pregnant,
to prepare for the pregnancy as much as they prepare for their wedding.
Wow.
You know, sometimes weddings take six months to prepare.
You have to do the same thing for pregnancy, but a lot of times, unfortunately, they come in
already pregnant.
Well, what does that look like?
Let's back that up a little bit.
What does it look like ideally moving into healthy pregnancy?
Yeah, ideally, of course, you know, we touch on all the pillars of health, you know, from, you know, their nutrition, their movement, their sleep, their stress, their family support, which is extremely important, their connection.
So we try to get into all of those pillars.
And to be honest, you know, even me being an OBJAN, and I did the fellowship in maternal fetal medicine, which, you know, involves only high-risk pregnant patients, we were never trained in, you know, addressing all these pillars.
But of course, you know, with time, you know, I learned that these are so important, so basic.
And there's no doubt that they make a difference in the outcome of the pregnancy.
Prevention, preparation.
Because, you know, I, you know, maybe I'm biased, but because most of my pregnant patients are high risk.
So we see a lot of preeclampsia, preterm labor, gestation, diabetes.
And I can tell you from the patients who prepare for the pregnancy, they have less of those.
Of course, this is not a randomized trial because.
You know, it's difficult to do it.
And my strides in pregnancy, but no doubt preparing, like you're preparing for a marathon,
like you're preparing for an exam.
You have to be ready.
And I think also one area that we forget to talk about is the preparation of the men for the pregnancy.
Wow.
Because, you know, we assume.
Yeah.
We got to go through this too.
We assume that, you know, she's carrying the pregnancy.
Yes, of course.
But again, he's giving half of the genetic material.
And this genetic material can epigenetically change in the womb.
I know you talk a lot about epigenetics
and during my fellowship I did a lot of animal studies
on epigenetics on mouse models
that were hypertensive and not hypertensive
and you would see the offsprings and their outcomes
and we see this going from one generation to another of mice.
Of course we assume the same thing happens in pregnancy
and humans but men are important
because they're giving the genetic material
they're supporting their partners throughout the pregnancy
and then after delivery, you know, it's stressful
too. I mean, they have to, you know, be there, you know, help during, you know, breastfeeding,
supporting their partner. So it's a two-game, you know, it's a two-player game. It can be one person.
And I think we throw a pregnancy on women and I think men should play a role. And then being supportive,
and when you have this support, you will make a difference. And I'm sure physiologically,
their physiology will improve when they see support, when they see someone caring for them. And
So that's how I imagine a perfect pregnancy, preparing the men, preparing the woman on all those important pillars.
And then, you know, throughout the pregnancy, you will do your, you know, prenatal care.
And, of course, try to fix or optimize any of your, you know, nutritional deficiencies and get to those.
One area, and I know you like this and I love, and that's why I follow you is, you know, the biology of, you know, our genes and
who needs to be tested for genetic mutations and all of that,
neutrogenomics and all of that.
These are important, but unfortunately, it's not easy to do on everyone.
And a lot of times they come in already pregnant.
And because of traditional medicine, you know,
we're taught not to do those tests.
Right.
And why?
I don't know.
And I feel like sometimes we just follow what we were told.
Right.
And you have no time.
Standard of care, we call it.
Standard of care, exactly.
Evidence-based medicine or, you know, legal medicine.
We're worried that, you know, this is going to go into a medical legal thing.
So we follow what ACOG or what SMFM tells us, and that's it.
Yeah.
And I think sometimes, I mean, it's good to have guardrails.
Yeah, of course.
But also the practice of medicine, especially under the, you know, the FDA,
is really meant to be in the hands of the practitioner.
You know, you don't have to follow FDA guidelines.
You have to follow the regulations, but you don't have to follow the guidelines that there is
guidelines.
I mean, that's why we have off-label medications and off-label use.
People wouldn't use propitia for male pattern baldness if you weren't allowed to practice
outside the guidelines.
And but I think there's a prevailing wisdom that there's, in medicine anyway, there's only one
way to do everything, right?
I mean, in California, your license can be at risk even if you go against the, you know,
sort of state outlined dogma and at what point the state was able to decide the practice of
medicine when the practitioner is interfacing with the patient to me seems pretty
and this is assuming everybody is the same and we are not the same everybody is genetically
different everybody you know detox their you know the endocrine disrupt is in a different way
you know i have a friend actually now they just moved to a house in miami and his wife within
few weeks is having allergic reactions.
You know, she's worried about, you know, mold toxicity.
And they found mold.
They found mold.
But he's not feeling anything.
And she's having, you know, headaches and, you know, sinus.
So people, even living in the same household will feel differently.
There's no question.
That's why, like you said, a lot of things we do off-label.
And by the way, do you know that when we induce women, we use a product called mesoprostol,
which is a prostate glandin to induce, you know, to dilate the cervix?
and this is not FDA approved for induction of labor.
It's off-label use.
And I will say maybe, you know,
most of the inductions in the U.S. are done through mesoprostol
or another prostate gland.
And then if you look at the label, it's used off-label.
And many, many drugs are used off-label.
But, yeah, sometimes we have to follow some of the guidelines.
And then, again, if you drift a little bit from the guidelines,
you have to be really, you know, make sure you are doing something,
not to harm the patient.
But a lot of times we don't have the answer to a question
because it's difficult to lose trials in pregnancy.
But as long as you are being reasonable,
you're looking at the whole patient as a whole,
not just one value from her lab work,
then I think it's a good way of practicing thing.
And that's how we're going to learn and change our practice
and maybe improve pregnancy outcomes.
Because preterm labor, for example, has not the prevalent
or the incidence of preterm has not changed
over the last 20 years.
Actually, it has increased a little bit.
Yeah.
And, you know, so many places are trying to do, you know,
research and trials to detect who's at risk
for preterm labor, but we have no solution to it.
Right.
We're seeing more and more babies being born preterm.
Yeah.
You know, it's fascinating to me that we're so advanced
medically in the United States.
We definitely don't have a spending problem.
We spend $5 trillion a year on health.
care in general. But in the civilized world, we rank among the highest in maternal mortality
and infant mortality. Absolutely. Both. What do you attribute that to? Yeah, I think a major,
major risk factor that we see is, you know, the demographics and the metabolic diseases that we
have and the pandemic of, you know, obesity, which is probably a final sign of inflammatory disease
and insulin resistance plays a major role, and that will increase your risk of preterm
labor, preterm delivery of because of preeclampsia and other complication, C-section rates
are higher because of obesity. So I think, you know, there are multiple factors, but I think
it all leads to the unhealthy lifestyle that, you know, the U.S. has been, you know, getting, and the diet
plays a huge role in this.
Huge role. I mean, and you as a practitioner, I mean,
you have to play with the hand that you're dealt.
I mean, when the patient shows up, you don't have a choice over what lifestyle choices
they've made to that point.
So you're inheriting whatever risk pattern they've developed for themselves.
And I love the idea of preparing six months out for pregnancy.
You know, like you prepare for, I'm preparing for 10K and I've been on a program.
Yeah, of course.
Otherwise, you'll stop in the middle and you can't finish it.
Yeah.
So I think, yeah, that preparation is so important.
and that's all knowledge.
I mean, you don't have to get pregnant in six months.
You can maybe prepare even a year or two years before,
but at least have the knowledge of what's important to be done.
Those lectures and workshops should be given to high school students,
to college students, like sexual health.
You're not going to cause people to be more sexually active if you teach them about it.
I think that's what a lot of people fear,
especially actually in this part of the world,
because I lived in Lebanon also practiced for 12 years.
In Lebanon.
In Lebanon, which is part of the Arab world.
And a lot of people fear that if you talk about sex or sexual health,
people are going to become more sexually active.
And actually, it's the other way around.
So same thing.
Talk about pregnancy, preparation for pregnancy,
and definitely the outcomes will be better.
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
You know, I think, too, that we have a very serious challenge going on
in the U.S., I mean, statistically, population-wise,
you see fertility rates beginning to decline.
And you also see sperm rates beginning decline,
about 1% per year.
1% per year doesn't sound like a big decline.
That's 10% every decade.
And you combine that with infertility rates
and women conceiving,
and you have a repopulation disaster
potentially on your hands,
or at least we're heading for one.
What do you account for the declining rates of sperm count in men and declining rates of fertility in women?
Yeah, I think, you know, they go kind of hand in hand.
You know, when the sperm count is dropping, also the fertility rates will drop.
But I think because the sperm and the eggs come from endocrine organs, and those endocrine organs are so vital for our, you know, health span and even longevity, we know now the ovaries are so important for that.
same thing for testes but we are bombarded with toxins yeah and when I say toxins I don't mean
just chemical toxins that's you know financial toxins social toxins social media toxins
always bad news I mean wars all over the world hurricanes I mean we're always bomb I'm sure
you know our ancestors had also issues but so many things happening at the same time I think
all this is stressing our body cortisol levels are high continuously and then you have
those endocrine disruptors that are constantly invading our bodies, and we can get rid of them
easily. I'm so happy to hear you say that. I mean, not happy to hear you talk about these problems,
but I mean, I'm happy to hear you say that, that alopathic medicine, traditional medicine,
is recognizing that, you know, the body has frequency and emotion, mood. These have a major impact
and stress on our ability to conceive, our sperm counts, you know, terms of healthy pregnancies.
So now once a woman is pregnancy, what does an ideal healthy pregnancy look like for you?
What are some of the recommendations, the guidelines that you tell your patients to give them
the best possible outcome?
Because I feel like that is the time when a woman is the most selfless.
You know, I've seen it in my, the mother, my children.
I've seen it in my wife now, who's a phenomenal mother, you know, during that time, their sole concern, almost like it's a genetic programming, everything is about that fetus.
You know, they give up some of the things they love the most, wine, coffee, you know.
But you know, sorry to interrupt you, they give up those, not because they're obliged to do it.
They know it's harmful, but their physiology changes.
they're got microbiome changes
and so they stopped having those cravings
so I think it's
a lot of the hormones that the placenta
secretes makes them
not liking certain smells
just to protect their baby
so there is something
there's something you know like
too holistic that happens
without us interfering
but of course sometimes
you know we have patients that still smoke
or use drugs during pregnancy
and that has a lot of you know
reasons why but in general I think the human body knows so well what to fear and what to avoid
in preparation for you know that that pregnancy but to answer you as far as the pregnancy is concerned
I think you know continuing with those pillars sleeping well you know eating you know the correct
foods and amounts to keep your microbiome healthy avoid toxins and of course you know lowering your
stress, all of these are things that we advise women to do. And I usually, it's so difficult to
work on all of them. I try to see where is the weakness where this patient is having issues with
and we try to work on that part. The first part of the pregnancy, the first 12 weeks is when the fetus
is developing. So it's a very critical time. But even afterwards, the baby's growing. Your brain
keeps growing until, you know, later in the pregnancy, even after birth, the brain keeps growing,
the lungs. So I think you just have to give advice on, you know, where they are lacking as far as
issues with their sleep or with other issues. And then, of course, the regular prenatal care
coming to their visits, having, you know, the ultrasounds, make sure the pregnancy is normal.
We have multiple testing that we can do to predict if this woman is going to develop
preeclampsia. We screen for diabetes. So there are, you know, standard guidelines that so far work well
and they do decrease the risk of morbidity and mortality.
But I think as physicians, we need to, you know, let the patient, you know, tell you what's bothering her, you know, make every preemptal visit count.
Yeah.
So instead of having 10 visits, you can do four visits and a low-risk patient, I'm talking, that are really meaningful.
So I think those will make a huge difference.
Then also having the women have access to knowledge, whether through an app, whether through,
You know, social media, just for them to be educated and not just listen to their friends.
Because everybody's different.
I keep telling them that because, oh, my friend took this vitamin.
Is this vitamin better?
Yeah.
You know, you should not compare yourself in anything.
Now they're in the pregnancy, neither on social media.
Everybody's different.
You know what I found fascinating?
We first had children, you know, with my former spouse, the mother of my children.
And we were able to successfully separate the husband and wife from the mother and the child.
And we still maintain a very great friendship and an amazing modern family.
But one of the things I was fascinated about was I was paralyzed by fear.
I was in my 20s.
She got pregnant, which we were not trying to conceive, but we weren't trying to not conceive.
And I was very excited about the prospect of having a child.
But I also was absolutely paralyzed because I was like,
I have like no idea what is there like a book, chapter one, take it out of the crib, wrap it up like this.
What if the baby falls down?
Yeah, it's like, you know, there's no guideline.
But what happened and, you know, obviously my, I knew my wife at the time very, very well.
We had dated a long time, been engaged for a period of time, then got married.
And so I knew her very well.
But I noticed right after our first child was born, this entire new human being came
out of her. I don't know where she adopted this knowledge from on what to do, how to know
what to do. And I've heard a lot of men talk about this with her wives too. She knew like the different
cries the baby would have. Like, oh no, she's constipated. No, she needs to be fed. No, she's,
she's lonely. I'm like, how the hell? Do you know? I think this is called maternal instinct.
It all sounded the same to me. Yeah, I think, you know, during breastfeeding, you know, like the baby being
on skin to skin with the mom or with the dad,
the connection happens immediately.
And yes, you're absolutely right.
Like, you know, I was in Obie Joanne for almost 12 years,
and then that's when I met my wife and we had the,
I had no idea also about, you know,
I delivered the baby, give it to the parents,
and my job was done.
Right, right.
And now this time, it's mine.
So same thing, I had no idea what to do.
And I felt the same thing.
She knew how to do the right things.
Here you are the professional, all this training,
like all this experience.
And she would ask me questions, like, I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah.
So, and then the other part, which was shocking is, like, the postpartum recovery of my wife.
Also, it was something I discovered.
It's like, wow, women go through so much, you know, stress from the recovery because
pregnancy is so tough on the heart and on all your organs.
So it takes time for them to recover.
And my wife is a very healthy person.
And it took her almost a year to go back.
So I started imagining what would happen to somebody who had preeclampsia at 26 weeks.
And she had an emergency C-section and how her.
recovery will be. I never thought about it before. Yeah. So that's why, you know, I got into more
the functional medicine and started asking why and why. So pregnancy is, I think, a miracle. It's an
amazing, like you said. It's so amazing. Another human comes out of a human and then instinctically
they can, you know, raise them. It's, you know, not to frame it the wrong way, but it's a parasitic
relationship, you know, between the fetus and the mother. And so the fetus is there to take everything
that it needs for itself. And so that withdraws a lot from the mother. And so that withdraws a lot from the
I mean, it will take minerals from the bone,
amino acid from the muscle.
I mean, it will-
Today you spoke about the immune system.
And like you said, because the baby's DNA,
half of it is foreign to the mom,
so there is this kind of a barrier
where you don't want the mom to reject the baby.
So your immune system is active in a way.
So this is also maybe adding to more stress on her organs.
And we know there are a few studies show that moms would age,
you know, faster after a pregnancy,
but then they can, you know, catch up later on.
But that immune response also, I think, plays a huge role.
If you do a regular blood count, you'll see the white count is higher when you're pregnant.
So interpretation of labs should be also different in pregnancy.
But this immune system that you spoke about is huge in pregnancy.
Yeah.
You're constantly fired, you know, immune-wise throughout nine months.
So imagine what that can cost to your body.
And the body of women is so resilient.
unbelievable. I've seen a lot of data on the difference between C-section rates of different
neurodevelopmental conditions and vaginal births. And, you know, supposedly linked to the
inoculation through the vaginal canal, certain bacteria that help inoculate the gut. We know now
how important the gut microbiome is. This was, you know, there was a book written by Dr. Perlmutter
years ago called the gut brain connection. And
And then he wrote another book called Grain Brain.
It was the first time as a human biologist that I'd read something that really drew my attention
to the importance of the gut and the microbiome and the microbiome in general.
And it really, starting at birth, this first inoculation in birth.
So for women that have had C-sections, and they want to avoid this, are there infantile probiotics,
Or there's some natural ways that she can mitigate having had to have a C-section versus a vaginal birth?
There's few trials that were done.
I think small studies where they do smearing of the baby.
Like after the baby's delivered through a C-section, they would take vaginal swabs and smear the baby with the, you know, the flora of the mom
and to see if this makes a difference.
But they were very short-term studies, so there's no proof that they would change the outcome.
but definitely the gut and the brain are connected.
The baby, when they're in the womb, their GI tract is basically sterile.
So once they pass through, you know, the birth canal,
they're going to correct all these good microcone.
And the microbiome changes during that time to be really beneficial to the baby.
Right.
It's unbelievable.
Even the milk, you know, let's say a mom delivered that 26 weeks.
Her milk composition will be different than if she delivers a term.
So that way, that milk will be very beneficial to the baby.
the baby. It's, I mean, it's unbelievable what a machine. Yeah, it is. There are some trials
are smearing the babies to kind of re-uniculate them with that, you know, microbiome. But it's not a
routine thing that's done. But the initial colostrum that's secreted from a mother's milk,
which is unbelievable. If you look at the composition of it, it's largely ketogenic,
like lots of fat going into the baby. There are microbes in there as well, which is also fascinating to me,
that only exist during that time
in her entire lifetime.
They don't come out in breast milk.
They only exist during the first 48 hours of pregnancy.
I mean, it's such a miracle thing.
And the more you study it,
the more you understand and know about it,
the more you don't understand.
For me, yeah, the more makes me believe in God
because I don't think that any of this happened by accident.
Absolutely.
But, you know, that's set aside.
So, you know, healthy pregnancy is not much different
from just being a healthy,
young woman, right? I mean, clean food, rest, stress mitigation. I love what you say about preparing
the husband along with the wife, because I think that spousal support is so critical. But you know,
pregnancy is also a time when women are supposed to be elated and joyfully. The pregnancy glow,
it's really supposed to be a time that they enjoy. Maybe not the delivery itself, but the
term. Even the delivery has to be a nice experience, you know. And I think we medicalized it so much
that a lot of times it becomes
non-enjoyable
because, you know, they're hooked up to monitors
and to the IV and with an epidural.
So a lot of times they feel the experience
is not nice.
But I know so many patients, they love being pregnant
because of the glow, the hair.
So, yeah, we try to make that time
as nice as possible.
But again, there are physiological changes that happen.
You know, the center of gravity changes.
It sure does.
The pelvic pain.
You know, yeah, working out is not easy.
That's a very kind way of saying you're going to put on weight.
Yeah, I mean, working out is not easy.
But I think that's why the preparation will make that experience nicer.
And, yeah.
So let's talk about a couple of those things real quick.
Are there, where do you fall in the advice of exercise during pregnancy?
I tell patients they need to exercise and keep moving.
I mean, you don't want to.
It's not just rest, just rest.
relax just lay down not even you know not even women that are high risk for preterm labor we tell
them to stop exercising of course we might limit the type of exercising if they've had preterm
contractions or a very early delivery the previous pregnancy we might limit a little bit the
movement but not better actually when patients come in is like oh my previous doctor told me to be
on bed rest I tell them this is bad rest because yeah yeah it's going to make things worse
they're going to get blood clots they're going to be depressed they're going to gain weight so no
Everybody should be moving.
Yes.
Of course, it depends on your risk factors.
We might modify some of those, but they can continue, you know, weightlifting.
They can, you know, do some cardio.
So they do whatever they were doing before.
And maybe sometimes they were not exercising and now it's a good opportunity to get them into exercise.
Yes.
So, yeah, absolutely they need to work out.
And this is what the guidelines say, you have to work out at least five days a week, you know, for.
Really?
Yeah, treatments.
Yes.
That's fantastic.
So they should all.
And, of course, depending on the trimester, the time.
of exercises changes because of the center of gravity changes you don't want to injure those
women and their joints are a bit more flexible so you want to avoid things that could injure their
joints so you have to be very knowledgeable in the types of exercise and there are many professionals
that you know can not the time to sign up for a marathon but yeah no exactly or or go skiing or
horseback riding no but right you know um so i think this is a great time to initiate movement if they were
not because movement is the huge.
Oh, my gosh.
Movement is such a key, the longevity.
Dr. Goma, you know, I, there's so much to unpack here.
I hope that you will come back on the Ultimate Human Podcast because I really, there's
so much in your background here that's so germane to my audience.
We're in Saudi Arabia now and I have a hard stop for commitment and the conference is
running so so so late.
So unfortunately, we're not going to get to unpack it now.
in Miami. You're in Miami. I'm close to you. Okay, so if you'll promise me, you'll come down
to the studio. I will promise you. Okay, great. Yeah, come to the Miami studio. Thank you so much.
Because there's, there's, you know, so many women in my life now that are key parts of my team
that are, you know, going through pregnancy or just delivered. It's such a, it's such a
near and dear thing, you know, to my heart. My audience is craving, you know, quality
information. So make sure if I come to Miami, they'll be at the studio. I will.
So we can all have a discussion. But Dr. Goumaia, I really appreciate you sitting down with
this for a few minutes on the Ultimate Human podcast. I'm really excited to continue to run this
when we get back to Miami because my audience is desperate for this type of information.
But until then, where can they find out more about you? Well, they can find me on social media.
Okay.
With my name, Dr. Labib, will Mia. I have a website, Dr. Labib.com. So I try to use my
Yeah, first name, so it'll be easier.
And yeah, I, you know, I do practice OBJWN, MFM and Miami,
and I do some telehealth consultations.
Oh, do you really? Okay, great.
As needed.
But, yeah, I mean, my social media, LinkedIn,
it's easy today to find people.
Yeah, I'm going to put all of this.
Well, if you can put this last name together,
but I'm going to put all of this in the show notes for you guys.
I wish we had more time to unpack this.
We will run this one again because
there's just so much in his background of this so germane and so aligned with our mission.
And there's so many of you that have submitted questions.
I want to make sure that we get to all of those.
But until next time, that's just science.
