Pre-Conception Cleanse: Detoxify Your Life - Inside and Out - For The Optimal Health of Your Baby

By Mary F Shackelton

A paradigm-shifting book from an experienced doctor, a witness to the impact of environmental exposures on health.

The answer lies in detoxifying before conception

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Academy Elite
• Release date: Feb 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798885831468

Mary F Shackelton

BIO: Dr. Mary Shackelton, MPH, ND founder of Holistica Integrative Care has been practicing naturopathic medicine with an emphasis on women's health for 25 years in Boulder Colorado. She also has a Master's in Public Health (MPH) which focuses much of her work in the area of prevention. Her current focus is on Environmental Medicine and the conditions associated with toxic exposures including auto-immunity, chronic fatigue, cognitive decline, hormone imbalances, mitochondrial dysfunction and neurologic conditions. This book was written for women who are pre-conception to help them reduce the life long impact of chemical exposures, creating the foundation of a healthier neurologic terrain beginning in utero. It is my hope that those who find this book will learn the fundamental principles of living a life of detoxification. The results will be a stronger more resilient healthy life for you and your baby. Dr Shackelton has co-founded numerous companies and projects including: Insulite Laboratories, a company dedicated to reversing disorders related to insulin, PridePads Africa (PridePads.org) whose mission it is to provide sanitary pads to girls in Cameroon Africa to keep them in school. She has been an avid life long gardener, runner, skier, hiker and has raised 3 children with her husband in Colorado. She can be contacted at maryshackelton.com

Book preview

Review of Pre-Conception Cleanse

Wow! Dr. Shackelton’s book, Pre-Conception Cleanse, is not only incredibly timely, but essential reading for anyone considering a pregnancy in the near future. Who wouldn’t want to have a healthier baby? With rates of autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma and chronic childhood diseases on the rise, it’s fair to say we no longer have the luxury of thinking of this information as optional. We must each take responsibility now to inform ourselves about how to preserve our health and that of our children, from conception forward. Dr Shackelton’s book is chock full of inexpensive, easy-to-follow, practical tips that will guide you toward cleaning up, physically and emotionally, your baby’s future home – your body! A must read.

Lisa Samet, ND

Emotional Repatterning:

Healing Emotional Pain by Rewiring the Brain

Pre-Conception Cleanse

Detoxify Your Life - Inside and Out - For The Optimal Health of Your Baby

Dr. Mary Shackelton, MPH, ND

Preconception Cleanse © 2022 by Dr. Mary Shackelton, MPH, ND.

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Published by Author Academy Elite™

PO Box 43, Powell, OH 43065

www.authoracademyelite.com

All rights reserved. This book contains material protected under international and federal copyright laws and treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without express written permission from the author.

LCCN: 2022918579

Paperback ISBN: 979-8-88583-144-4

Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-88583-145-1

e-book ISBN: 979-8-88583-146-8

Available in paperback, hardcover, e-book, and audiobook

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This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice of your physician. The reader should regularly consult a physician in matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention.

Acknowledgements

A special thank you to my husband Gareth who has patiently watched me sit for years at the computer when life was happening all around me, knowing I had to write this and encouraging me every step of the way. Thank you for knowing this mission was sometimes more important than anything and thank you for celebrating it’s importance- despite knowing you would get less of me. Thank you to my kids Ruby, Evan, and Joy who are my cheerleaders and who give constant unconditional sweet love and support. I am so honored to be your mom and am so proud of each of you, your chosen direction in life and who you are at your very core. I am grateful you want to protect our outdoor environment and live in alignment with respecting this valuable resource. I wrote this book for your generation so that you can overcome the now typical route that many young people find themselves in. Continue to be the brightest of lights!

Thank you to my mentors, and patients who taught me more than I could have ever learned on my own, who have inspired me to learn as much as I possibly can every single day to make sense of your diagnoses, to understand where your body has broken down, to allow me to create your plan for healing—and who have allowed me to walk a journey to healing with you. I am overwhelmed with gratitude to have you sit before me and let me in to guide you. I never forget a patient, your story, the look on your faces or in your eyes, or the details of your lives. It has always fed me to be allowed on your team of healers who aim to get you back to better than you ever have been.

Thank you Jessica Hall Muniz, NP for being my partner for the last 12 years for showing me how much better life is to live with an open heart, for being willing to entertain a number of crazy business ideas together, and to being committed to the same level of specialized and deep care for patients. I am so grateful for this life we are living side by side and can’t wait to see what is next.

Thank you to my Holistica Integrative Care Team who make it all possible every single day, I am so fortunate to be able to call us a team; Kim Rosenbarger, Bri Davis RN, Grace Hermes, Veronica Sutton, Dylan Smith and Derek Gerliet, for without you all work would be work and there would be no sparkle!.

Thank you to the number of people who helped usher me through this process: Andrea Vinely Converse for your amazing and concise editing work and keeping me on a tight deadline. We did it! Thank you to Niccie Kliegel without whom I would still be stuck somewhere in unpublished-land. You are a true angel on this earth and you have shown up at the exact right time when I wanted to walk away. And thank you Michelle Borroemeo my virtual assistant who has learned and grown with me so much, I am so grateful for your tenacity and sweet spirit.

Contents

Introduction: Living Within the Laws of Nature

PART 1:

UNDERSTANDING TOXICITY AND ITS EFFECT ON YOU AND YOUR BABY’S HEALTH

Chapter 1: How Did We Get Here?

Chapter 2: Are You Toxic?

Chapter 3: The Mystery of Toxicity

Chapter 4: Brain Matters

Chapter 5: Where All the Toxins Come From

Chapter 6: Clearing up the Confusion about Detox

Chapter 7: On-Boarding Your Partner

PART 2:

PRECONCEPTION CLEANSE & DETOX

Chapter 8: Support the Five Routes of Elimination

Chapter 9: Changing Your Environment

Chapter 10: What You Ingest

Chapter 11: How You Eat—A Little Mindfulness Goes a Long Way

Chapter 12: Cleaning Up Mental and Emotional Toxicity

Final Word

Appendix A: Testing

Appendix B: Quick Guide to Preconception Cleanse & Detox Steps

Appendix C: Recipes for a Preconception Cleanse

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Introduction

Living Within the Laws of Nature

I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if we accommodated ourselves to this planet and viewed it appreciatively instead of skeptically and dictatorially.

—E.B. White

I was fortunate to have three healthy, neurologically intact, happy, and capable kids. What I once took for granted—that I would get pregnant when I wanted to and have an easy, healthy pregnancy with healthy and strong babies—is not what many women experience today.

One of my patients came to me after her fifth child turned three years old. She was desperately sad; she felt she had broken kids. The older four children had ADHD and very limited diets because of texture sensitivities. They also struggled with impulsivity, severe anxiety, and other behavioral challenges at school and were reading below grade level. The youngest one had a neurological tic. With some investigating, we found that Mom’s genetics had predisposed her children to some of these challenges. Testing revealed low nutritional reserves for all five kids and high heavy metals for three of them. Then we surveyed her house. There was a mold problem in the nursery of her youngest. Before treating anything, we began to gently detoxify all of them and their home. From there, I was able to address leftover symptoms and provide neurological support for everyone. Within a few years, her kids were performing academically at or above grade level, no longer struggling with ADHD or anxiety, and the tics were gone. These kids came to me with a high level of toxic exposure and overburdened systems. They had few reserves to detoxify on their own. What parent would have thought that their children’s issues could be stemming from their environment?

How many other families are being told that their child faces a lifetime of medication to control symptoms? How many people are searching for answers that are hard to find? How many families can avoid such a disastrous start to their child’s life? Many books address what to do after a problem arises, but there is a bigger opportunity to prevent problems before they arise. With the information in this book, you can give your future children a strong foundation, reduce their risk of being born with conditions related to toxicity, build their reserves for a healthy life, and learn how to keep your entire family healthy.

My mission is to help you understand what you can do in your early fertile years to enhance fertility and to reduce the risk of having a baby with developmental or neurological problems. The answer lies in a preconception cleanse and detoxification, which can enhance fertility, help you identify and remove obstacles to becoming a mother, and lower your—and your baby’s—toxic burden. More importantly, I want to empower a new generation of moms and families to avoid unnecessary health challenges.

So this book is for you if . . .

you want to conceive in the future;

you are having difficulty conceiving;

you are concerned about having a baby with a neuro-developmental disorder or already have one child on the autism spectrum; or

you want to increase your chances of having a healthy baby.

WHAT’S SO BAD?

As a naturopathic physician, I have had a fantastically satisfying career for over twenty years, helping people get and stay well by living as closely as possible to what is natural. And what I know for sure is that when we disregard the laws of nature, there is always some kind of backlash. In today’s world, we are living farther away from nature and often in direct conflict with it. We have less connection to whole foods, more exposure to screens than to being outdoors, and more exposure to chemicals, food additives, and toxins than ever before. When the scale tips, we lose vitality, start experiencing physical symptoms, and contract illnesses—and so do babies.

What I can tell you from two decades of patient care is that I am seeing more complex cases and more patients who are sicker with less resilience walking through my door. It is due in part to toxic exposures that ride piggyback on already overwhelmed bodies. More importantly, our ability to rebound is lower than it ever has been. Adults and children are fatigued. They have brain fog, constant stressors that affect their immune function, and poor digestion, and they don’t spend enough time outside. The result is the perfect storm—toxic exposure that ordinarily someone would have easily tolerated in the past suddenly pushes them past the point of recovery. Daily bombardment has led to people being more sensitive. They react to detergents, foods, plants, and even the natural environment, and they suffer from cognitive decline, insomnia, anxiety, brain fog, or depression. Highly sensitive people have autoimmune disorders, allergies, digestive or endocrine disorders, dermatologic issues, or, worse yet, a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s, or neuropathies. Infertility, defined as the inability to conceive after one year of unprotected intercourse, is increasing. Fertility rates in the United States have been declining since the 1970s, reaching the lowest rate in 2015.¹ Nothing on the shelves at your local drug store will remedy these issues. They are multi-layered and often old problems, and they are affecting quality of life for too many of us.

Thirty years ago, most of these conditions were rare, yet medicine has not caught up to the changing face of the typical patient. Genetic changes cannot explain the trends, especially considering this short time frame. Global toxicity in our environment has caused these rapid changes to our health and our children’s.

Consider that we now have wireless everything from televisions and phones to air filters and home security systems. There is no counterpart to wireless in a natural setting. We don’t even know what the fallout is from having an entirely wireless home. It might be a disruption of sleep cycles, infertility, behavioral problems, immune challenges, or memory issues. How about the ubiquity of plastics? Everything in our refrigerators and grocery stores is wrapped in or held by plastic. By now, you probably know that plastic contains BPA (bisphenol A), a chemical that messes with hormones.

On top of those widespread products, women may absorb the biggest exposures. We have more products designed to facilitate convenience: cosmetics, hair products, and aggressive cleaners for every area of our house. We are exposed to a cocktail of chemicals that we did not have several decades ago. The effect has been insidious and quiet and has caught us off guard because the environment is changing faster than our biochemistry can keep up.

We all have a tipping point—a line in the sand where once we cross it, we become symptomatic or ill. Ever wonder where yours is or if you have reached it? Some people reach it sooner than others, depending on diet, genetics, and frequency of exposure. Some babies are born at their tipping point, and their underdeveloped systems are overburdened, to begin with—then the smallest exposure, such as a vaccine or owning a cat, can push them over the edge toward illness. The symptoms differ for each mother and child, and it’s usually not one exposure that makes us symptomatic but an accumulation of several over a long time.

HELP NOW

Women contemplating pregnancy are highly motivated to have a healthy baby. Some know what they are up against with the rising rates of neuro-developmental issues (when normal brain development is disturbed), yet the majority is unaware. Yes, we need research to help us understand what is harming us, but that takes time. We also need long-term legislation to force companies to prove chemicals are safe before they are widely marketed and sold. The answer is also to clean up our environment, but that is not going to help you today.

Today, you need to recognize how to avoid exposures and fortify yourself against them so you and your future children can thrive despite them. With prevention and education, I’ll help you look upstream at the causes and give you a plan of action to minimize their impact. If you’ve already become aware of the toxic burdens we face every day, you may tend to focus on the exposures a child sustains after he or she arrives, considering everything from organic baby clothes to organic formula. Yet what happens before birth may have greater life-long significance for your child. I’ll bring to light how delicate the in utero environment is and how you can proactively create a safe terrain so that once your child is here, that child is resilient, strong, and neurologically intact. I can teach you to be proactive in your health and take major leaps forward in how to have a healthy baby.

Preconception is your window of intervention. That’s where you have the ability to reduce neurological and health issues now and decades later for a new population of children.

I have seen women’s eyes open up when we discuss how the environment could impact their babies. In fact, I have patients who had experienced multiple miscarriages but discovered they had a genetic problem that we easily fixed with a specific nutrient. They went on to maintain their next pregnancy to full term. One patient who was experiencing infertility found out she was loaded with heavy metals. Is it by some great design that she was not able to conceive when she wanted to? The fetus would have been unnecessarily exposed to toxins that would have impacted its brain development. Another patient discovered she had a double gene mutation that could have predisposed her baby to be born on the autism spectrum. Adding specific nutrient supplementation before she got pregnant lowered the risk. Learning how to minimize toxic exposures in the preconception phase will help you guide family decisions that will have a life-long impact.

MY APPROACH

We are all living downstream of toxic exposure. What can be done to prevent these challenges? Fortunately, a lot of factors are squarely in our own control. Starting with detoxification of your life and home will give you a new path forward.

You don’t need to be sick to consider detoxification. If you breathe air, eat food, and drink water, you are exposed to toxins and accumulate the effects.

What you may have heard or read about detox in the past was probably in the context of a short duration: seven-day, ten-day, or maybe a month-long cleanse. Although a short cleanse might be beneficial for a digestive reset, you did not accumulate toxins in a short period of time; thus, you need a longer program for safely eliminating them. I’ll help you think about detoxification as a standard practice, a way of life in which you’ll adopt some behaviors to protect you and your family going forward.

The topic of environmental toxicity can be quite heavy. What you are about to read might be slightly disturbing, but don’t let it scare you off. Once you understand the scope of the problem, you’ll be more equipped to address it. At the same time, if the material gets too heavy for you, move on to the next chapter.

My desire is to make a difference in your life and that of your family. I have watched many patients heal once we removed obstacles to their health. Patients who had once been in wheelchairs bound up the stairs to my office. Patients once incapacitated by an exposure now find they no longer react to it. Patients who build their resilience through nutrition and lifestyle changes and who say they feel whole and vibrant again after a sustained illness. Uncovering the vital force that runs through each of us is why my work feels so satisfying. I never tire of watching how the human body works. I can guarantee very few things in life, but I am confident your body wants to be strong. Without you even knowing it, it is constantly seeking health. Your body wants to heal and be vital. And I’m sure you want the same for your children.

PART 1

Understanding Toxicity and Its Effect on You and Your Baby’s Health

Chapter 1

How Did We Get Here?

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

—Isaac Asimov

Isat among some colleagues at a lunch meeting during an international conference. Many of those in attendance were from Germany, Italy, Canada, Slovenia, Denmark, and the U.S. One of the attendees was a thirty-nine-year-old Slovenian woman who wanted to conceive. She said that most of the women she knows are not able to get pregnant. Knowing that thirty-nine is considered advanced maternal age (making conception more difficult), she confirmed that she even knew young women in their thirties who could not conceive. What was the obstacle? Scientists are still speculating on what has impacted the decline in fertility, and it could take decades for them to agree on the exact cause. What I do know is that what has been happening in our environment has had greater impacts on our physiology in the last few decades than any other factor—and a woman’s fertility is not exempt.

WHAT PRENATAL CARE NEEDS TO BE

Most women try to prevent pregnancy for many of their fertile years while they go to college, start a career, and get their feet on the ground. Then, when it comes time to contemplate starting a family, they begin to make conscious decisions about the timing of conception, fertility, and healthy lifestyle choices, such as prenatal care and the care that a pregnant woman receives from an obstetrician or a midwife. Services usually include dietary and lifestyle advice, weight management to ensure proper weight gain, and examination for problems such as edema and pre-eclampsia. We are naturally focused on the health of the baby, but rarely do we truly and fully assess our health status before conceiving. Current prenatal care and conventional medical care fall short of educating women about toxins that could hinder their ability to get pregnant and endanger a fetus. Thorough preconception care and awareness of these exposures can reduce the likelihood of major illnesses and neurological conditions for a newborn (in particular, ADHD and autism).

UNDERSTANDING WHAT A TOXIN IS

TOXINS COME IN