Ep. 10: Does artificial sweetener use in pregnancy affect babies?

Do you use artificial sweeteners? Did you use them while you were pregnant? In our quest to curb sugar, we've moved towards a high use of these sweeteners without necessarily thinking about the effects. This week I had the chance to chat with Dr. Meghan Azad, a lead researcher in the field of understanding the effects of artificial sweeteners (or non-nutritive sweeteners as I learned they should be called) to talk about the effects of their use in pregnancy on our babies - yes, our babies! Our discussion was based on a series of papers she's published which you can check out below. For more information on Dr. Azad's work and lab (and I hope to get her on again to talk about her breastfeeding work!), please check out her site here: https://www.azadlab.ca/ Relevant articles: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19490976.2020.1857513 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-020-0575-x https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/10/2/194 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2521471