Eat (a wide variety of) veggies

Research shows that exposing your baby to variety of nutritious foods when pregnant and breastfeeding increases the likelihood that the baby will accept those tastes down the road. Make those upcoming toddler years hopefully a little easier by increasing the variety of your own vegetable intake now!

If you want more details...

This is a link to a USDA website intended for health professionals where you can enter your height, weight, activity level, and stage of pregnancy (or lactation), and the website will calculate your recommended daily intake and your tolerable upper limit intake for vitamins and minerals, in additional to suggested caloric intake. If you are concerned about whether you are getting enough or too much of any specific nutrient, this site will give you specific guidelines.

The screen shot on the right is a part of the data output from what I entered for myself. The "check/uncheck all" button doesn't seem to be functioning, so you have to manually click on each macronutrient, vitamin, and mineral you are interested in seeing.

Though the nutrition in pregnancy section of the new www.chosemyplate.gov nutrition website is not yet functional, here is a somewhat blurry screenshot of a pdf with details on the current nutrition in pregnancy recommendations. Click here for the actual pdf.

Iron Women

Most pregnant women are encouraged to routinely take an iron supplement, especially in the second and third trimesters. Anemic mothers have an increased risk of preterm delivery, and there are also some concerns about the impact of maternal anemia on a developing baby’s neurological development. However, too much iron can also be problematic, both in terms of discomfort in the short term, and in possible increased risk for coronary heart disease in the mother. Some studies also show poorer fetal health outcomes when mothers consumed excessive iron (most of us are on the other end of the spectrum). Iron is more easily absorbed if taken in more than one dose throughout the day, and if consumed with a food high in vitamin C. If your diet contains high levels of iron, discuss with your doctor or midwife whether/how much you should be supplementing iron. Current recommendations are 27 mg/day, though vegetarian sources of iron are not as easily absorbed as meat and poultry options. Vegetarians may need to increase iron intake to 33 mg/day.

How does this add up?

Molasses Cookie (made with blackstrap molasses)= 2.7 mg iron

1/2 cup cooked spinach= 2 mg iron

½ cup lentils- 3.3 mg iron

3 oz dark turkey meat or 3 oz Sirloin= 2 mg iron

½ cup Total cereal= 18 mg iron

Total= 28 mg iron

Motivation to Get Your Calcium

Most of us have heard that our babies will get the calcium they need from us, though it may hurt our long term bone and dental health. This may make mothers less motivated to get extra calcium in during pregnancy—most of us don’t think very much about the health of our bones at this point of our lives. However, if babies need to get calcium from our bones and teeth, it may not just be calcium that they get—our bones are where we store up the lead we have been exposed to over time. Lead can cross the placental barrier, and there is no safe level of exposure.

Consuming enough calcium is the best way to protect your baby from any potential exposure to bioaccumulated lead from years past. The Food and Nutrition Board recommends consuming at least 1000 mg of calcium during pregnancy and lactation. Here’s one of my favorite combinations to meet this requirement:

16 oz decaf latte: 600 mg

Spinach and Monterrey Jack Quesadilla: 320 mg

1 cup strawberries: 23 mg

½ cup carrots: 22 mg

1 cup broccoli: 45 mg

If you don’t eat dairy products or consume calcium-rich fish, getting adequate calcium can be especially challenging. Be sure to look for calcium-fortified drinks like some orange juices and some soy milk. If you can tolerate milk, but just aren't crazy about it, go for chocolate milk or hot cocoa. The chocolate only prevents a small amount of the calcium from being absorbed.

Don't lick the spoon.

When a wooden spoon covered in chocolate chip cookie dough is in my hand, I have trouble remembering this one. While always a serious concern, salmonella is even more important to avoid when pregnant. Salmonella (frequently caused by consuming foods containing raw eggs) can cause miscarriage or premature labor. If you are having a powerful cookie dough craving, try making an egg-free cookie dough. Here’s one example:

Mix together (you can vary the proportions):
Peanut butter
Chocolate chips
Oats
Tiny pinch salt (if using salt-free peanut butter)
Brown sugar
Roll into balls and keep in the fridge. You can also add wheat germ, ground flax seed, sunflower seeds, or dried fruit.

Don’t feel bad about not eating liver.

Liver is an excellent source of iron, but with current practices in the animal industry, it should be avoided by pregnant women in the first half of pregnancy due to high levels of retinol (Vitamin A) typically added to increase animal productivity and reproduction. You might be thinking “aren’t I supposed to be increasing vitamin A?” You would generally be right, but excessive vitamin A in the form of retinol can be toxic to your developing baby. (A serving of liver has 18 times the amount of vitamin A recommended for pregnant women). You should also pass on the cod liver oil, unless specifically recommended by your doctor or midwife. The risk of teratogenic effects from retinol passes after the first half of pregnancy, and at any point in pregnancy, you don’t need to worry about getting too much Vitamin A through vegetable sources, eggs, or dairy products.