Moving women in labour
From Growing up WEIRD Podcast by Guen Bradbury and Greg Dickens
January 1, 2026 · 38 min
About this episode
The episode discusses the impact of ultra-processed foods, childhood stress in rats, the effects of transporting women during labor, and the differences between consuming whole fruits and smoothies.
In this episode, Greg Dickens and I discuss a set of recent papers summarising the evidence on ultra-processed food. We talk about the effect of childhood stress in rats, and how their gut microbes influence this. We then explore the problems that arise when women are transported during labour, and how this disrupts the normal hormonal processes of birth. We finish by talking about why drinking a smoothie has very different effects on the body from eating the same fruit whole, and why just focusing on the individual nutrients isn’t enough to understand the complexity of the system. For more information on why moving labouring women disrupts their hormones, see this article: https://guenbradbury.substack.com/p/donkeys-cars-or-boats-why-transporting For more information on how birth should work in humans, try this talk: https://guenbradbury.substack.com/p/veterinary-perspectives-on-childbirth Topics covered * What do we know now about ultra-processed foods, and what should society do? * How do probiotics help stressed rats? * What is physiological birth and why should we care about it? * What can we do to enable physiological birth? * Why is whole fruit better than smoothies? These…
People in this episode
Hosts: Guen Bradbury, Greg Dickens
Topics covered
- ultra-processed foods
- childhood stress
- gut microbes
- physiological birth
- hormonal processes
- nutrition
Keywords
- ultra-processed food
- childhood stress
- gut microbes
- physiological birth
- hormonal disruption
- nutrition
- smoothies
- whole fruit
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Substack
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