Support protocol 1: Preconception & pregnancy

Learn how to start avoiding the risk factors for newborn jaundice before your baby is even born

Reduce the risk factors for newborn jaundice, before your baby is even born!

The risk for newborn jaundice begins long before your baby is born!

1. Avoid folic acid. Instead, eat real-food folates and folate cofactors (DHA, the full B-vitamin spectrum, choline, magnesium, serine, and zinc). Foods: cultured dairy, eggs, liver and other organ meats, oysters and other shellfish, red meat, poultry, pork, seaweeds, salmon, sardines, mackerel, herring/kippers and other small, low-mercury seafood. Read:

   Folate Part I: Folate and Methylation

2. Dim (or cut out) artificial light at night. Use candles, firelight, the moon, starlight… or very dim incandescents or blue-excluded LEDs if necessary. Avoiding artificial light at night is vital for supporting circadian melatonin rhythms. Melatonin is an endogenous antioxidant that works with bilirubin to balance oxidative stress. Once baby is born, nighttime breastmilk is a baby’s only source of melatonin because they don’t synthesize it on their own for at least the first month of life. Read:

   Your mother gave you your circadian rhythm.

3. Ob…