Pregnancy Vaginal Health Test Walkthrough - Tiny Health

Hi, my name is Emily Cerda. I'm a microbiome specialist here with Tiny Health. Um, today we're going to go through an adult, um, pregnant female's vaginal health test. So here you can see I'm on the main results page, um, and we can see that this individual has a lower microbiome summary score, um, here in the needs support range of 36. So I'm going to go right to the main CL metrics so that we can walk through metric by metric and talk about what's going on. Now, it is important for anybody who's trying to conceive or who is recently pregnant to get a vaginal health test because we know that it's really important to have that vaginal health kind of supported as much as possible because that is the first seeding that baby will get of a microbiome if there is a vaginal birth. Um, and so as you can imagine, um, Lactobacillus here for this individual, we can see it's in the red and it needs support at just under 7%. And if I click into that, we can see that Lactobacillus in the vaginal microbiome should be 90% or more. So this really should be a very low diversity, uh, microbiome. We want to have very dominant Lactobacillus, nice diverse, um, grouping of this bacteria and nothing down low like this because Lactobacillus actually creates, um, an acidic environment in that vaginal microbiome, and that acid environment really helps to guard against disruption that may pop in there. So here we can see, um, 6.7% Lactobacillus, and where we would like her to be is above 90%. If I scroll down within the metric, we can see that the species in her sample is this Lactobacillus iners. And this iners, um, it, it has a yellow dot because it's not, um, the most stable of the Lactobacillus family. We really like to see a crispatus or a gasseri. There's a number of other, um, strains that are more protective than Inners. Now you can read, you can click the little dropdown button, is all I did, um, to read about Inners specifically. Um, really, when it's with a cohort of other, um, very beneficial Lactobacillus, it may be absolutely fine. Um, but when it's on its own like this, or when it is by far the most dominant species in the vaginal microbiome, it is, um, like I said, a little bit more unstable. It's not good at holding that acidity. and it does tend to make friends with some of the bacteria that will cause, um, bacterial vaginosis or BV. So you can read here it, there it may offer less protection against complications in pregnancy like premature water breaking and preterm birth. So really reading through this and trying to figure out how are we gonna support Lactobacillus, um, by using an oral and a vaginal. Lactobacillus supplement so that we can get more diversity in there and grow this Lactobacillus population with some different species. So the inners is not running the show. So in the action items, you will see that we do like to pair both oral and vaginal supplementation. Vaginal microbiome can be a little bit stubborn to shift. And so it's really important to kind of tackle it from both directions. We will, as you, as you look down here, list the strains that we are recommending in a vaginal suppository, as well as those in an oral probiotic, in case you have your own supplements that you really like and you want to check them against these strains to make sure that they contain some of the things that we're looking for. We also list some products down below, and you'll note that some of them, like this one, has vitamin C. In it as well. That vitamin C, remember, we're trying to push more Lactobacillus in the vaginal microbiome because we want a more acidic environment. And that vitamin C as a suppository, whether it's with the probiotic or as a separate product, also helps to push that pH in the right direction while we're making this shift. So you will also see oral recommendations. There are the vaginal, the vaginal vitamin C suppositories. And, um, lactoferrin, which is taken orally and can act as a prebiotic to Lactobacillus. So, um, it can be very helpful if we're trying to get Lactobacillus in there, um, ASAP. Okay, so that is the biggest thing here is like, if you can imagine, this isn't taking up 90 to 100% of the vaginal microbiome. Something else is gonna move into that space, and that space is more alkaline. Than it really should be in a protective state. And so the things that will move in will probably be disruptive. Okay, so in the beneficials, we do see that Lactobacillus here. We list a number of the common Lactobacillus species, um, found in the vaginal microbiome, and we can see there's only one here. So there's not great diversity. There's only that one, um, which I did mention was a little unstable. Okay, so the other side, so we, so kind of we know what the environment looks like. Now, who's moved in? Gardnerella has moved in. So you can see these are all bacteria that are associated with bacterial vaginosis, or BV. And so Gardnerella, by far, at 70%, has moved into that space that we would love Lactobacillus to take up. Uh, and here you could see again, it's all gonna be all about crowding this out with the Lactobacillus, um, D3 for immune support. Sometimes we'll do a little, um, oral garlic, raw garlic or allicin supplement in the, um, plan if the individual can tolerate it just as an antimicrobial, um, insert there. But, um, it's important. This person is pregnant. We are not using boric acid, tea tree oil, anything like that because that, um, None of those have been studied as safe during pregnancy. So, um, very important that we stay, uh, with the crowding out as much as we possibly can. And here you can read again about Gardnerella. Um, and this one is actually linked to, um, preterm birth and, um, pregnancy complications, increased risk of STIs. So, um, you will see all of those associations kind of pop up here at a glance. Um, but the important thing is we know how to crowd this out. The same with the Sphenihyssa, the 28L, or the Megasphaera, and the UBA. Um, for any of these, if you are like, what on earth is this? That's fair. This is a funky name. It looks like a gene name. Um, if you go in and scroll down, you can learn about it. It's also called this. Um, and it is associated with BV. So, um, the bottom line is we don't need to have individual antimicrobials to go after every single one of these things. The whole idea is that we need to shift the acidity of this microbiome and get the lactobacillus in there so that they will crowd this stuff out. Okay, so other than looking at, um, BV-associated bacteria, here we are also looking at aerobic bacteria, which is well within range. For this individual. Um, again, you can read about this, a lot of associations with menopause with some of these bacteria. Um, we'll check in on Candida, um, sexually transmitted microbes, and Ureaplasma. And Ureaplasmas are interesting. Um, they actually have both been found in the male, um, urethrogenital, um, microbiome. And so we do, like, if this is recurrent, uh, we do recommend partnership testing through another company if, if that needs to happen. But again, you can click into here. This is often found alongside BV, and it's not in this particular individual, but this does talk about like, it's not really clear, but there have been some studies wondering if this is linked to preterm birth or infertility. So keeping an eye on this stuff. Really important. Okay. And then one of the biggest things for women who are trying to conceive or who are pregnant is that we are looking for GBS. This is Group B strep. And this is, of course, always swabbed, looked for right before birth. And if it is present, then we get antibiotics with birth. And that's kind of baby's first, first medication, if you will. So a lot of women really like to get ahead of this and they like to kind of stay on their vaginal microbiome testing to see if GBS is present. And we can knock this down sometimes by optimizing that lactobacillus, the environment, and then also by bringing in some very gentle antimicrobials like the raw garlic. And that can be really helpful to get this GBS out of there so that hopefully we're not dealing with that at birth. So really important, um, for the vaginal microbiome is that you, you encourage people to test early because that vaginal microbiome, like I said, if it's very disrupted, it can take a while for it to shift. I would say it's probably gonna take at least 2 to 3 months, but if it's, if it's like a history of long disruption, recurrent infection, it could take as long as 6 months, maybe even longer to get it to shift. And so Sometimes with a recurrent infection history like that, we're really trying to test as early as possible in pregnancy or even trying to conceive, and then we are retesting and we're trying to shift as much as we possibly can. And it may not be perfect by the time of birth, but it's sure a lot better than we were when we started. So yeah, that is basically the vaginal microbiome test for pregnancy. As always, if you have any questions questions, you guys can reach out, you can book a call. I'm happy to talk through different interventions just to be sure that they are safe during pregnancy because we don't want any risks. Okay, take care.