Next question from Michaela, “I know this is from an earlier unit, but wondering about botanical protocols for SIBO on parasites and safety during pregnancy and lactation.”
Chris: No worries you can always ask questions about previous material. That’s easier in some ways for me to answer than questions about future material that you haven’t seen yet. But yes, the botanical protocols unfortunately are not, I shouldn’t say they’re unsafe, I should to be more accurate, we don’t know if they’re safe because those like many substances, these botanicals have not been tested for safety during pregnancy. They probably never will be. No one’s going to volunteer for those tests and it’s a challenge because we do see a lot of pregnant or breastfeeding women who have SIBO and who want some relief. But in those cases, you can use some foods like coconut oil has lauric acid. I tend to think that Lauricidin, which is an extract of lyric acid monolaurin is probably fairly safe during pregnancy especially because it’s a natural substance that’s produced by the body and it’s in breast milk. It’s probably also fairly safe during lactation but you won’t find any safety data on it. I don’t like extreme diets for SIBO during pregnancy and lactation for obvious reasons. The priority there is to nourish the baby during gestation and during lactation, but a low FODMAP diet may provide some symptom relief and would still enable the mom to get adequate nutrition if she’s careful about it.
I have perhaps a little more tolerance for using certain botanicals because I was trained as an herbalist. But if you don’t have that background and that training, I wouldn’t recommend doing that.