I’m really excited to bring this interview to you today. Our guest, Cheryl Sew Hoy, is CEO & Founder of Tiny Health, a gut microbiome startup that focuses on expecting parents and their babies. I met Cheryl because she reached out to me about being a medical advisor for Tiny Health and I was happy to do so. I do want to be transparent: my role as medical advisor does involve financial compensation but that's not why I agreed to the role or why I wanted to have her on the podcast. My fascination with the microbiome actually goes back a long way. When I was a faculty member in academic medicine at the beginning of my career, that’s what I had planned to research. If you don’t know, the microbiome is the collection of microbes (bacteria, fungi, viruses) that live in and on us - we actually have at least as many microbes as human cells! Now, the microbiome and how it affects health is an emerging area of study so keep that in mind if you decide to pursue testing. However I really believe that as time goes on we’re only going to learn more and more about its importance. In this Episode, You’ll Learn About: -Why are gut and vaginal health testing important during pregnancy or even when trying to conceive -How Cheryl’s own experience lead her to start Tiny Health -How microbes are passed along to baby -What factors impact the vaginal and gut microbiome -What vaginal seeding is and how exactly it’s done -What the most common microbes are and which ones you want -How the Tiny Health tests work, the results and reports you get, and some surprising results they’ve found --- Full website notes: drnicolerankins.com/episode184 Check out The Birth Preparation Course Register for the class How to Create a Birth Plan the Right Way Take a quick, fun labor pain quiz