Our body makes everything possible to guarantee our baby’s health. If something is missing from our diet our body reserves will be used, until a certain extent, of course, to compensate for a possible lack of nutrients, like taking calcium from your bones for instance, which is something pretty amazing. We are mothers even before our babies are born, we sacrifice our health for that of our children. This can give you some relief, but it’s very important to take care of your health too, in order to take better care of your baby, to help your body grow, to avoid the appearance of certain pregnancy complications, to make sure your reserves don’t need to be mobilised, after all, you will need to have a lot of energy and be healthy yourself once the baby comes.
The benefits of a healthy diet during pregnancy are:
• gaining weight in a healthy way and without freaking out about it, please :)
• providing iron: you need tons of iron during pregnancy, which is not an easy task. Iron is needed for oxygen transportation from our lungs to the rest of our body, it affects our energy metabolism. Specially if you are vegetarian or vegan you need to choose your food carefully and eat good vitamin C sources, since it helps the absorption of iron.
• providing calcium: this mineral is not only for your bone health essential, but also for muscle contraction, for nerve impulse transmission, amongst other functions.
• providing omega 3: this fat is very important for your baby’s neural development and you need to ensure you are getting enough of it, specially on the 3rd trimester.
• Vitamin D is very important too, specially if you have a history of high blood pressure or diabetes in the family. Vitamin D plays a very important role on bone health and on the immune system. Your vitamin D status depends mostly on your sun exposure and on your oily fish intake. A lot of people have vitamin D deficiency worldwide and it's important to check out your Vitamin D levels.
• providing you fiber: moms that have a high fiber consumption have a lower risk of developing pre-eclampsia during pregnancy. Fiber and water work as a team, so don't forget to hydrate yourself.
• providing you antioxidants: the extra blood volume and the changes we go through during pregnancy elevate the oxidative stress, so we need to guarantee the presence of these protectors in our diet to support these changes. Translation: eat more fruits and vegetables, preferably season ones.
• and much more :)
Eating healthy is easy for some people, but for others it’s a constant struggle for many reasons. Partly because of lack of time, partly because of the amount of different choices on food products and places to eat, partly because of conflicting information concerning certain foods, partly because we are humans and don’t always resist the many temptations out there.
Nutrition is very important for your health, but let’s not forget it’s one of many aspects of your health and one of the many important aspects of this beautiful time. It’s important to feel loved, in peace, to enjoy this time, to feel safe, to have all kinds of support that you consider important, to feel good about your choices.
If you are having troubles or doubts concerning eating “extra healthy” during your pregnancy, it’s advisable to seek a nutrition counsel with a professional. If you are just interested in themes concerning nutrition, this blog is here for you :)
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