Things you do or are exposed to early in life, including during fetal development, can actually affect your health later in adulthood. Normally, we're unaware of it, and it's difficult to make the connection. Today, Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld dives into some of the research regarding placentas and their key implications in every life.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld discuss how prenatal exposures can alter placental function, fetal brain development, and later-life health, with varying effects based on fetal sex. They expose the dangers of BPA and substitutes such as BPS, the importance of the neurotransmitters created by the placenta to the developing fetal brain, and the surprising results Dr. Rosenfeld has found in her research into maternal probiotic supplementation.

Key Takeaways:

• The placenta is an endocrine organ. There are sex differences in the placenta between male and female fetuses.

• The placenta provides neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, to the brain. If there's not enough serotonin, that could compromise early brain development and make a child unfortunately vulnerable to diseases later in life.

• While many people try to avoid BPA, we are all impacted by it or by one of its substitutes. In a side-by-side study shot with BPA and BPS (a common substitute), it was found that both of them have equally harmful effects on the placenta.

"Essentially, all the fetal organs depend on that placenta. So if you affect the function of the placenta, it will affect the vital processing of all the other fetal organs." — Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld

Connect with Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld:

Professional Bio: https://cvm.missouri.edu/pathobiology-and-integrative-biomedical-sciences/faculty/cheryl-s-rosenfeld-dvm-phd/

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cheryl-Rosenfeld

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qluXCCYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Rosenfeld+Cheryl+S&sort=date

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Bluesky: @CriticallySpeaking.bsky.social

Instagram: @criticallyspeakingpodcast

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

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