Admittedly, I’ve not given birth (yet), so I feel slightly
awkward writing a series on nutrition and pregnancy, but then again, I feel
slightly awkward in most things I do. Why should this be any different? After
all, it’s a little known fact that I was once a baby myself, so I feel that
qualifies me as an expert. I was born a Fitness Nerd!
Before I start, I’m going to assume that you all know where
babies come from. If you don’t, the internet is rife with sites that show baby-making in graphic detail, so turn off Google SafeSearch, go do what you
need to do and come back when you’re all knowledged-up.
Ready? Great. Let’s begin.
The first thing to remember when having a baby is that you’re going to gain weight. It’s
crucial for your health and the health of your child. If you’re really thin,
you should count on about 28 to 40 pounds. Those numbers drop steadily
depending on how heavy you are pre-pregnancy, so an obese person should gain 11
to 20 pounds. Although some of this is fat stores, keep in mind that a lot of
this weight is breasts, uterus, placenta and, of course, the bundle of joy
him-or-herself.
Given my audience tends to be fitness-minded, I know weight
gain seems daunting to a lot of you. But remember, when you’re pregnant, how
you look in a bikini ceases to matter. Your job is to become a healthy,
nurturing environment for your child to develop in. It’s crucial to continue eating
right and exercising, but put the calorie deficits and extreme fitness aside
for a while. Think of your workouts as a way of improving circulation as to
better introduce nutrients and eliminate waste for you and your passenger. During
this time, exercise is way to maintain a baseline of fitness to help with the
birth—it’s not a pathway to Buns of Steel.
Your body is designed for baby making, but it’s a
challenging task—and challenges mean stress.
With this in mind, make a point of eliminating stress elsewhere in your life.
Relax when you can. If ever there was a time to insist on back and foot rubs
from your partner, it’s now. If they don’t concur, I give you license to demand
that they strap a bowling ball to their stomach for the next eight months.
Also, there’s alcohol,
tobacco, and caffeine to consider. I know that every now and then, a study
comes out suggesting a little coffee or the odd cocktail won’t matter, but
that’s hardly definitive science. In other words, you don’t know for sure
that recreational substances won’t cause problems. And the evidence against
using them while pregnant is pretty compelling. For example, if you want to
give birth to a boozer, a study in Experimental Biology and Medicine shows that babies of mothers who drank even infrequently during pregnancy showed a positive inclination towards alcohol after birth.
Luckily, this applies to healthy foods too. Flavors get into
the embryonic fluid a fetus drinks and breathes, particularly in the third
trimester, influencing tastes after birth. So if you eat a healthy diet filled
with fresh fruits and veggies, it’s all the more likely Junior will too. A much happier study in Pediatrics shows the same basic results as alcohol study above, only with babies who come out of the womb digging carrot juice.
Calories Counting
Baby building takes energy. Over the course of your
pregnancy, various authorities suggest you’ll burn between 60,000 and 75,000 extra
calories, so a couple trips to McDonalds in the first trimester ought to fix
you up just fine.
No, not really. The McDonalds part was a joke. In fact, the
first trimester is the only time you don’t need to eat extra calories. However,
in the second trimester, you’re going to want to increase calories by 350.
During the third, go 450 calories a day.
But that’s not an excuse to succumb to pickled herring and
Sara Lee brownie cravings just to fill in calories. In fact, pregnancy is one
of the most important times in your life to be on your best nutritional
behavior. Take trans fat, for example. Normally, the occasional partial
hydrogenated oil-laced cookie isn’t going to kill you. However, a 1991 study out of Germany shows an inverse correlation between trans fat exposure and birth weight in premature infants. Yikes! Is that Hostess hankering
really worth it?
I really like how Paula Bartholomy, one of the instructors
for my holistic nutrition masters program, explains why you should eat right:
If there are mineral or vitamin imbalances, they might go unnoticed in an adult, or in a growing child, but they can have very significant effects on a developing baby. Because there is such great and rapid rate of growth of the embryonic cells, it causes exaggerated response to toxic or pathogenic factors.
So plan your diet around whole, healthy foods, with plenty
of organic complete proteins, fruits and veggies (especially dark leafy
greens), beans, lentils, seeds, and nuts.
There’s a basic overview. Tomorrow, I’ll start digging
around in proteins, carbs, and fat. See you then.
Beerman, K. &
McGuire, M. (2011). Nutritional Sciences:
From Fundamentals to Food. Belmont, CA. Wadworth Cengage Learning.
D-Faye: These should be some interesting posts. One thing I'd like to see explored is the idea of "in the mood alternatives". What I mean by this is as much as we tried to emphasize healthy eating through our three pregnancies, sometimes the wife simply couldn't get in the zone to eat certain types of food due to variance in hormones, mood, and what I called "general prego-insanity-isms". She is border line anemic, but during her second trimester, would become nauseated when she tried to eat meat: Obviously that wasn't good for her protein and iron. As I wasn't keen on using soy substitues, I had to get creative for what she could keep down. So in summation, while there might be an "ideal" pregnancy diet, I'm sure a lot of folks would be helped by having an Option B&C to some of your food recommendations. Hope that makes some amount of sense! Thanks for your work.
ReplyDeleteGood point, Seth. These articles are intended to be more of a strategy guide for the nuts and bolts. Although my baby mama had her share of hormones, she was pretty determined to keep eating clean, so I don't have much first hand experience with someone whose hormones might cause them to veer off course. Let me give it some thought!
ReplyDeleteFor the record, if it was a choice between anemia and soy, I probably would have gone soy. While GMOs freak me out, I think soy in general gets a bad wrap. What's your take on soy?
High fives, fist bumps and bro-hugs all around on this series, Denis.
ReplyDeleteWhat variances are applied to Baby Mamas hitting graduate style fitness programs through pregnancy and, once doc-cleared, picking up up 4-6 weeks later?
It's a tight-rope and requires listening to your inner bod but are there general rules of recommendation here?