From visual to aesthetic to health, you absorb everlasting benefits when you invest in better light for your growing family
Light codes for pregnancy, birth, and beyond
We all know food is about more than just getting nutrients. Food is also habit, preference, taste, community, comfort, and even aversion and disgust. Food offers a full spectrum of experience.
To think of light as only for vision is to ignore the full spectrum of the light experience, too.
When growing a baby, light offers a powerful investment in their future.
In this post, I’ll share a bit about the different kinds of light, and how they can support pregnancy and also baby’s development.
You’ll learn that just like there are quality and junk foods, there is also quality and junk light! Let’s dive in.
The power of having the best light codes for pregnancy
Light is the primary conductor of our body’s symphony. Bright light is stimulating, while dimness is relaxing. These effects are beyond just psychological, and actually reflect the energy gains and losses happening at the cellular level.
To think of light as only for vision is to ignore the full spectrum of the light experience
Each and every light we are exposed to tells us something unique—from the light in your refrigerator to the headlights from oncoming traffic to the sun shining through the window. Light codes can be powerful assets because once you know how to apply light properly, it becomes as another nutrient to mother and baby.
Here are the types of light and how they affect maternity processes.
Visible light in pregnancy
Visible light represents only a small amount of the entire electromagnetic spectrum (shown below, from Kim, Lee, et al1), and is no different from any of the other frequencies except that our eyes are tuned to see it. Until the discoveries of the past century, the scientific body of knowledge didn’t accept that non-visual effects of light existed.
The visible light spectrum includes everything we can see with our eyes: all colors of the rainbow. All surfaces of our body (skin, eyes, hair, fingernails) have the ability to sense the light in the environment, and the quality of the light impacts the way our body is going to act and feel at any given time.
Brightness (or intensity) of visible light
Brighter lights wake us up and make us more alert and productive, which is great for daytime. Dimmer lights calm us down and make us sleepy, which is great for evening.
Mistiming the brightness is an easy way to upset the circadian rhythm and make the tiredness felt in pregnancy all the worse. When daytime indoor lights are too dim, it leads to feeling sluggish all day. If evening lights are too bright, it makes it difficult to wind down to quality sleep. That’s right, the exact same light can be either too dim OR too bright, depending on the time of day.
To create the strongest circadian entrainment, make days brighter and nights dimmer by using different lights for each time of day.
Take heed of the fact that the brightest of indoor lights are only a small fraction of the brightness of sunlight. Time outside each morning to gives the circadian rhythm the powerful daylight cue it is expecting.
Angle of visible light
Our eyes can tell the angle of the light coming in and whether it is low or overhead. Overhead signals daytime things to our circadian rhythm, while low light signals either waking up or winding down.
To take advantage of this, whenever indoors in the daylight, use overhead bright lights. As the sun goes down outside, switch off the overheads in favor of lamps that are eye level and below.
As dawn approaches, go the opposite direction and start with the low angled lamps, switching to the overheads as the sun goes above eye level against the horizon.
Color of visible light
The color also impacts the circadian rhythm and determines which hormones and neurotransmitters your body is releasing. The main excitatory cues are glutamate, cortisol, and endocannabinoids for daytime, and the main inhibitory nighttime cues are GABA and melatonin.
Greens and blues (full spectrum “white” LEDs have a lot of these frequencies) stimulate the release of the daytime cues, so these are the lights to want to use midday if indoors.
However, you don’t want the body’s daytime cues to start too early in the morning or to stay elevated late into the evening. Therefore, it’s a good practice to put amber or red bulbs in low lamps that for use through the darkness between sunset and sunrise.
After a couple of hours without the white/blue/green lights, the body will stop releasing these daytime cues and make space for the nighttime ones. Melatonin is a powerful free radicle scavenger and anti-inflammatory, with positive effects on the pregnancy—reducing the risk of preeclampsia, IUGR, hypertension, and preterm birth. Problems with GABA are associated with a variety of mood disorders, including postpartum depression. So, getting your night lights in order is truly a wise choice!
Melatonin also can support your body going into labor on time and even having less pain in labor, so if you will be birthing outside your home, some portable red lights to bring to your birth suite would be another wise choice!
You may be wondering about blue-blocking glasses: yes, they can be effective if you can’t control your environment. But, for a family, it is much simpler to give everyone the benefits of a pro-circadian nighttime environment. (plus, babies and toddlers are not great with glasses anyways). Additionally, we also have photoreceptors in our skin that likely help entrain the peripheral circadian clocks, so wearing glasses may lead to mismatch between the different photosensing systems in our bodies.
Flicker of visible light
Flicker is a measure of the pleasantness or unpleasantness of a light source. For example, lights that flicker very fast (think of buzzy fluorescent lights), are quite unpleasant, while the gentle flicker of a candle flame is quite soothing.
Here’s a sensor that can “read” your lightbulbs and give you auditory feedback on the buzziness of your lights: https://www.sensora.com/lightbee.html
History of the development of indoor electric lighting:
When looking at the spectrometer of your light bulbs, look for options that have a smoother curve, rather than a spikey one. The spikey ones give signals unlike anything found in nature, and are thus confusing to biology.
In the evening, the less blue and green the better, because that “circadian blue” spike you see in modern lighting suppresses the release of melatonin from the pineal gland.
Infrared light in pregnancy
Infrared light is a slow wave and the foundation of how light can act as energy. Infrared penetrates all the way through he body (even through bone!). Thus, when the mother is exposed to infrared light, baby gets the same light.
Infrared light hydrates cells by causing them to produce water, energizes cells by stimulating the production of ATP, and strengthens cells by encouraging the production of collagen.
All sunlight contains infrared, but to get isolated infrared frequencies, get outside at sunrise and sunset when there are no UV frequencies. You can use the app Dminder and go out when the UV Index is 0: https://dminder.ontometrics.com, or the MyCircadian app: https://mycircadianapp.com.
Ultraviolet (UV) light in pregnancy
UV light is fast wavelength light that has powerful effects and that we need to regulate our endocrine system. Since the endocrine system is running the hormonal show, in pregnancy we particularly need quality UV signals in just the right amounts so that our hormones can function at the best possible level.
UVA light in pregnancy
UVA light stimulates the melanocytes to produce melanin and programs the circadian rhythm. It may also be helpful in regulating metabolism, liver function, and blood pressure—each of which are common sources of trouble in pregnancy.
UVB light in pregnancy
The most well known of the UVB-stimulated hormones is Vitamin D, which is actually a steroid hormone and not a vitamin at all. Vitamin D rises in pregnancy to a level so high, it could literally kill someone who was not pregnant! We still don’t fully understand this mystery, but we do know that high Vitamin D is important for pregnancy and can reduce the risk of complications, all the way up to avoiding preterm birth.
Darkness in pregnancy
Although this post is about light, it’s also worth mentioning here that darkness is the complement to brightness, and no day is complete without it. The body needs at least one sleep period that is overlapping the natural darkness for optimum circadian health. In darkness, the brain releases lots of melatonin, which is healthy for the baby and placenta, as well as the mother. Lots of research on melatonin shows it protects against adverse outcomes and that nighttime light disrupts melatonin.
What lights should you have in your home?
Nature is the guide. Spend as much time outside as possible. For the time spent indoors, a variety of lights in rhythm with the sun's light offers the best approximation of the light the body’s rhythm is expecting.
Do your best when indoors to mimic what is happening with the natural light outside.
When the weather is conducive, open the doors and windows. Keep the blinds open. Use bright white light bulbs in the overheads during the day.
Use a variety of lamps. Alternate between overheads and low lamps that are in sunlight tones (yellow, amber, red) as the daylight waxes and wanes.
Overnight, use nice red nightlights near the floor so you can get around at night safely while still protecting your nighttime melatonin (motion-sensitive if you prefer pure darkness).
These sleep lights can also be helpful when guests are in the home (parents, friends, midwives, doulas) so they can get around safely even if they aren’t as familiar with the environment.
Summary
Light is an important force in pregnancy, and tuning lights to match nature is a good way to support wellbeing and health through this time. Studies show that sunlight exposure in the first trimester reduces the risk of preterm birth, while good sleep in the first trimester reduces the risk of postpartum mood disorders. Since light is such a powerful force in determining the quality of sleep, this is a great way to set everyone up for success.
Recommended Circadian Lighting for the Home:
Get full spectrum for overhead to use when the sun is high.
Amber for eye-height to waist height for when the sun is low.
Red for knee-height and below for when the sun has set.
A brand I recommend with options for all 3 is Block Blue Light. You can use code NIKKO for 10% off at checkout.
Get a guided setup of your home and nursery
Have questions about optimizing the lights in your home for a happy and healthy pregnancy, birth, and postpartum? You can work 1-1 with me to make your living space more friendly to circadian and quantum health (and/or to implement this wisdom into your wellness practice oriented toward the childbearing year).
Want more research!? I have detailed citations for the claims in this article available for all Founding/Quantum level subscribers (click to upgrade), or you can buy a la carte access here.
Kim, J. H., Lee, J. K., Kim, H. G., Kim, K. B., & Kim, H. R. (2019). Possible Effects of Radiofrequency Electromagnetic Field Exposure on Central Nerve System. Biomolecules & therapeutics, 27(3), 265–275. https://doi.org/10.4062/biomolther.2018.152
This makes a lot of sense, thank you!
So after sun goes down, we should ideally have red light only, and below eye-level, correct?
I’m also very curious what this all looks like in real-life for you, especially in the winter… maybe ideally and REAL life, if that makes sense lol I’ve seen you say somewhere that you should have light no brighter than a single candle (after sundown?) and I just don’t know how to navigate that when the sun is setting at like 5:30 in the winter. What do you do from sunset til bedtime?
I enjoyed this ☺️💡Could I please have the citation for the light spectrum schematic?