Whenever I hear of postpartum issues, one episode that readily comes into my mind is something that one of my associates shared with me a few years back. His cousin, a lively and extremely smart girl in her early 20s, was working as a nurse in London, along with her husband. Shortly after she gave birth to her first child, she went into unexpected and severe postpartum depression (PPD). Due to his job pressure in the banking sector, her husband couldn’t be with her for many days after delivery, and most unfortunately she took her life soon afterward.
A second episode that happened right here in India, was an acquaintance’s daughter who developed severe headaches soon after she gave birth to her second child. She was shifted from hospital to hospital, but there was no respite to the headache, which progressed to blurry vision and seizures, and soon afterward she passed away due to a stroke.
I mentioned these two episodes to convey that postpartum complications are not to be taken lightly. Once it develops, there is no other way than depending on emergency medical services at hospitals. But my interest as a biohacking evangelist and health-tech provider is in something else – whether PPD and other postpartum complications can be prevented from developing?
Today, there is indeed a way for it, and this is through a prior genetic and metabolic assessment like Eplimo. Postpartum complications whether they are psychological like depression or self-harming thoughts or physiological like headaches, blurred vision, seizures, cardiovascular events like heart attack & stroke, cardiomyopathy, thrombotic pulmonary embolism, inflammation, high BP or preeclampsia, gestational diabetes etc, all have genetic and metabolic roots, that too in a dual kind of way.
Large scale studies done on the subject have shown that postpartum complications have their own genetic markers, especially in the serotonin gene (5-HTTLPR) and oxytocin gene (OXTR). In addition, many of the complications seen during the 6-to-8-week postpartum period, be it depression or diabetes or high BP or cardiovascular complications have their own genetic and metabolic markers too. All these markers can be determined during pregnancy – or even prior to pregnancy – so that epigenetic-grade bio hacks or lifestyle modifications can be selectively chosen depending on a would-be mother’s geno-metabolic makeup.
Geno-metabolic lifestyle modification solutions like Eplimo generates truly personalized interventions that span diet, nutrition, supplements, counselling, exercise, sleep, yoga, guided meditation, relaxation techniques, breath work, Ayurveda herbals, other alternative therapies etc. that are research-validated to prevent or reduce postpartum complications, whether it is PPD or severe physical ailments. The advantage here is that would-be mothers can adopt such lifestyle changes much before their delivery, or even before they get pregnant, thus priming their bodies and minds against whatever postpartum complications they are personally likely to suffer.
Shared by: Sajeev Nair,
Founder and Chairman, Vieroots Wellness Solutions
