The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin has returned to the talk show panel after an illness took her out for three days.
The pregnant TV personality, 36, was missing from the popular ABC show earlier this week due to a stomach virus. She is six months pregnant with her and her husband Justin Griffin’s first child.
“I missed you guys!” Griffin said after her co-hosts welcomed her back on the festively-decorated show during Thursday’s episode, which marked the first of the holiday season to feature the show’s festively-decorated set.
“I’m feeling totally better but getting sick while you’re pregnant is no joke,” she added before encouraging her co-stars to wash their hands. Co-host Joy Behar then poked fun at Griffin, a former aide to President Donald Trump, by referring to Trump’s controversial and unfounded claims that taking Tylenol during pregnancy causes autism in children.
“No Tylenol for you!” Behar jokingly said to Griffin. The soon-to-be mom laughed and responded, “Well, I can’t have anything.”
Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in September that they had found a link between autism and using acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in widely used Tylenol. The president even advised pregnant mothers to “fight like hell not to take it.”
Doctors and medical experts immediately pushed back on the claim due to the fact that there is no scientific evidence to back up the connection.
The View co-hosts, who are famously outspoken critics of Trump, brought their outrage over the unsubstantiated claims to RFK’s wife Cheryl Hines when she appeared on the show in October to promote her new book. Griffin, who had recently announced her pregnancy, asked Hines what she would say “to women who now feel anxious and nervous because their doctor’s telling them one thing but the top public health professional is telling them something very different.”
Hines clearly hesitated and then responded that pregnant women should consult their doctors.
During Thursday’s show, the talk show panelists celebrated the fact that Griffin will be the first host in years to bring a baby on the show. The political commentator is set to give birth to baby boy in February. She announced her pregnancy during an episode of the longtime talk show in October.
“I’m so overjoyed, and I shared with all of you that I went through [in vitro fertilization.] It was hard, it took us about a year, it took us five rounds. But he’s here, he’s coming,” she said.
Griffin married her husband in November 2021, nearly a year after she left her role as White House spokesperson and assistant to Trump. After announcing their pregnancy, the couple told People that they turned to IVF after two years of trying to conceive naturally. She told the outlet that the IVF process was an “emotional roller coaster.”
“My first round wasn't bad but I got over-confident and started my second right away, and let me tell you, it's unlike anything I've experienced. You do feel somewhat out of control with your own body,” she said at the time.
Griffin was also diagnosed with endometriosis while undergoing IVF, which makes it more difficult to get pregnant. Endometriosis affects one in every 10 women and causes tissue similar to the lining of the uterus to grow in other parts of the body, which can lead to painful periods, chronic pain, and infertility.
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