Earth Mother Nurturing Birth Support and Education

Nutrition Plan for Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

 

A pregnancy diet should consist of enough nutrients to grow a baby, a placenta, to keep the uterine muscles thick and strong, produce extra blood volume to supply the extra muscle and the placenta.  While most women realise that their pregnancy diet must be extra nutritious, it’s important to remember that breastfeeding requires the same intake of nutrients and energy as a pregnancy. You should follow these diet suggestions for at least the whole pregnancy as well as the  first 18 months of breastfeeding.

While in the uterus, the baby only receives the nutrients which come from the blood stream and pass through the placenta. This means that you have to supply the baby with nutrients through your diet otherwise the baby will take it out of your body. For example if you don’t eat enough foods supplying calcium, your body will remove some of the calcium from your bones and teeth in order to ensure that your baby develops properly. If you have several babies and do not replenish your body in between this could damage your health, and your successive babies could suffer.

There are four main components for daily consumption, which are essential to good health in pregnancy, they are:

• 2600 calories
• 80-120 grams of protein
• salt to taste
• water to thirst

There are many vitamins and minerals as well as other nutrients which are essential to grow your baby and keep yourself healthy, and in order to provide these you should focus on eating a wide variety of vegetables and fruit along with your protein.

It’s very important to make sure that every bite you eat is nutritious, especially if you are having problems with nausea. Weight gain should not be restricted in pregnancy, unless the mother was already in the obese range when she became pregnant. Low calorie diets can cause health problems for both yourself and your baby as they create a condition called pregnancy malnutrition. You should generally avoid anything labelled low fat in pregnancy as these products usually contain high amounts of hidden sugars.

Sugar is especially important to avoid in pregnancy, except on an occasional basis, as it’s empty caloric value is responsible for most extra weight gain, as well as being the cause of diabetes conditions, suppressing the immune system and causing collagen in your body to become brittle, which causes the breakdown of muscle and skin fibres, as well as creating unhealthy arteries. High sugar consumption may contribute to miscarriage.

If you have a good balanced and nutritious diet, then excess weight gain should not be a problem. Ideally this should be practiced from before you start trying to conceive in order to prepare your body for the extra load of creating a new life. Remember that any type of refined foods are bad for you, but when trying to conceive you should really avoid sugar, white flour and rice products on a daily basis. These products affect your body which can make you extra nauseous in early pregnancy.

Pregnancy malnutrition causes such problems as miscarriage, extreme early pregnancy nausea, toxemia, placental abruption, premature labour, kidney dysfunction, some types of gestational diabetes, growth retardation and low birth weight, as well as neurological impairment of the baby’s brain. Your diet is as important as breathing. It’s not enough to get the amount of calories needed, you must get the right nutrients.

Several labour complications can also result from pregnancy malnutrition. For example, the malnourished uterus has poor muscle tone which can cause complications with contractions and may make it difficult to push out the baby, even if the baby is smaller. The pelvic ligaments are designed to soften and stretch during labour, but an undernourished placenta may stimulate less of the hormones which cause the softening. Thus the pelvic opening will not be able to stretch to capacity causing problems. If blood volume is lower than it should be, the mother is prone to dehydration and in the case of excess bleeding the body does not have the extra reserves to draw on. Postpartum hemorrhage is more likely with a malnourished mother as her liver may be damaged from malnutrition  thus not producing enough of the blood clotting factor.

These complications are common with women who have been on weight restricting diets during pregnancy as well as those who have been taking diuretics, and those who follow a vegan (strict vegetarian) diet. If your health care provider has prescribed diuretics, you may want to seek another medical opinion. Pregnancy is not the time to be worried about getting fat. Your body needs to lay down some fat stores in order to be able to produce rich milk that a newborn baby needs for the first 6 months of its life.  If your diet is nutritious and healthy and you cut out junk food from your diet, you won’t gain a huge amount anyway. If you begin pregnancy and you are already overweight, then it is even more important to cut junk foods out of your regular diet and only eat foods that are nutrient dense.

Much of the weight gained in pregnancy is from the extra blood volume which is 50-60 % more than before pregnancy, as well as extra muscle in the growing uterus, baby, waters, placenta, growing breasts, and a few extra kilos of fat on the hips,thighs and breasts. This can all add up to around 15- 25 kilos of weight gained during a pregnancy of a single baby, depending on your own ethnicity and size. This is a healthy weight gain. If you gain a lot less than this, and you do not belong to a smaller ethnic group, then you may be malnourished.

I must include here that it is inadvisable to follow a vegan diet in pregnancy or during breastfeeding. Plant-only products do not contain the 12 amino acids which are the building blocks of the human body. This will cause health problems for you and growth problems for your baby. Following a Lacto-Ovo vegetarian diet is much more advisable, if you cannot eat meat. Not eating dairy products means you must substitute for the calcium and other minerals found in them. If you are dairy intolerant, there is a list of substitutions below, although if you are dairy intolerant, the best source of calcium comes in the form of bone broth eaten 4-5 times a week.

I usually advise against using soya bean products for the simple reason that in order to produce any soy product the beans are soaked in hexane, which is a petroleum (gasoline)  by product, in order to separate the components of the bean for use. Hexane is a very toxic substance.

Good nutrition is important at all stages of pregnancy.

For more information about the advantages of a healthy diet in pregnancy you can refer to:

“The Brewer Medical Diet for Normal and High Risk Pregnancy”, by Gail Sforza Brewer(Krebs) with Thomas Brewer M.D.

and

“Deep Nutrition” by Catherine Shanahan MD and Luke Shanahan

Also this website:

www.drbrewerpregnancydiet.com/index.html (http://www NULL.drbrewerpregnancydiet NULL.com/index NULL.html)

 

The Basic Diet Plan for Pregnancy (single baby)

 

Every day you need:

1. Dairy(4 choices)whole, unhomogenised or raw.

1 cup milk

1 cup yoghurt

1cup milk kefir

1 cup sour cream

¼ cup cottage cheese

1 large slice of hard cheese

 

2.Calcium Replacements for those who are dairy allergic.

36 almonds

1/3 cup bok choy

12 brazil nuts

1 cup broccoli

1/3 cup collard greens

1/2 cup kale

2 teaspoons molasses

100 grams black olives

25 grams sardines

1 bowl of soup made with bone broth

 

 

3. Eggs-2, cooked any style.
4. Protein combinations, 6-8 choices

 

25 grams lean beef, lamb, chicken, pork,

25 grams fish or shellfish

¼ cup canned salmon or tuna with bones

3 sardines

 

¼ cup nuts or peanut butter

1/8 cup beans plus ¼ cup brown rice or bulgar wheat, measured before cooking

1/8 cup seeds with ½ cup whole grains

1/8 cup seeds with ½ cup nuts

1/8 cup beans, nuts, or seeds with one serving dairy or one whole egg

 

5. Fresh dark green veggies, 2 choices

1 cup broccoli

1 cup Brussels sprouts

2/3 cup spinach

2/3 cup mixed field greens (salad bowl mix)

½ cup romaine lettuce

½ cup endive

½ cup asparagus

½ cup sprouts

 

6. Whole grains, 2 choices

1 pancake or waffle made from whole wheat flour

1 slice sprouted whole grain bread, heavy dark rye bread

½  sprouted whole grain roll, muffin, or bagel

1 blue corn tortilla

½ cup oatmeal

½ cup brown rice

½ cup toasted or raw muesli, unsweetened

¼ cup wheat germ (fresh)

 

7. Vitamin C foods, 2 choices

 

½ grapefruit

1 orange

1 large tomato

½ rock melon

1 lemon or lime

½ cup papaya

½ cup strawberries

1 large green pepper

1 large potato in skin, boiled or baked

 

8. Fats and oils, 5 choices

1 tablespoon butter (not margarine which is a trans-fat and causes cancer and heart disease)

1 tablespoon mono unsaturated oil ( cold pressed olive, avocado, sesame, coconut,  flaxseed(linseed), macadamia or other nut oils) cod liver oil.

¼ avocado

1 tablespoon nut butter

fat from organic grassfed meat

1 tablespoon home made mayonnaise made with monounsaturated oil (store bought mayo can contain a high level of sugar as well as trans fats, polyunsaturated oils(which contain trans fats) and chemical flavor enhancers, read the label)

Polyunsaturated oils(usually labelled “vegetable oil” )and butter spreads mixed with vegetable oil are a leading cause of macular degeneration,cancer, and heart disease, as well as blocking the development of healthy brain cells.

9. Vitamin A foods, 2 choices:

3 apricots, fresh or dried

½ rock melon

½ cup grated or cubed carrots, cooked or uncooked, or 1 large carrot

½ cup pumpkin

½ cup winter squash

1 sweet potato

 

10. Liver or other organ meats, 100 grams once a week.

 

11. Salt, to taste, from sea salt, kelp, soy sauce.

12. Water: never limit the amount of water drunk in pregnancy, especially if there is tissue edema such as swelling of the ankles and feet. Other drinks such as juice and milk can also be included in liquid intake. Limit diuretic drinks such as coffee and green or black teas, also teas and herbal preparations which contain nettle, alfalfa, bilberry, dandelion, or celery which are also diuretic in their concentrated forms. The pure vegetable forms are okay to eat.

13. Optional supplements as needed: natural vitamin tonics, herbs and other supplements may be used in addition to a good properly balanced diet. Iron supplements do have side-effects such as nausea and constipation. Try getting enough iron from the diet choices above such as red and white meats, liver and organ meats, dark green leafy vegetables, coconut meat, blueberries, broccoli etc. If a supplement is still needed, try a naturopathic or homeopathic iron tonic.

Low fat diets should not be attempted in pregnancy, they are dangerous for the development of baby’s brain which needs the Omega series fatty acids, and have a detrimental effect on the mothers absorption of fat soluble vitamins such as Vitamin A, D and E.