NutritiousMeg

For anyone out there who’s had a baby or if you’re currently pregnant; isn’t the never ending advice exhausting?!  Don’t get me wrong, I know it comes from a good place and a lot of the advice is helpful, but sometimes it gets a little much.  I was on the subway the other day reading the book “Your Best Birth” and a lady was reading over my shoulder and asked if I was pregnant.  Fair enough, but then she started telling me which hospital I should deliver at and that medication would be my saving grace during labour, she also filled me in on her own pregnancies.  When I got off the subway I kinda felt like she’d invaded my privacy and was irritated.  As time has passed though, I realized that I shouldn’t be so hard on people because you know what?  I do it too!!  I get so excited about all that I’m learning that I can’t help but share it with the people who I think it might help.

The issue is is that there are so many options for pregnancy, birth, and care-taking: doctor or midwife, ultrasounds or no testing, eat conventionally or all-organic, medicated birth or natural birth, hospital or home, breast feeding or formula, cloth diapers or disposables, etc…there are so many choices and there are many professional opinions supporting both sides.  We’re very lucky that there’s so much access to information for moms-to-be; all the reading that I’ve been doing has made the choices extremely clear for me.

I see clients who are pregnant that want nutritional advice and that want to be put on the right supplements to ensure adequate nutrient intake.  I think that pregnancy is an important time in a woman’s life to seek the advice of a nutritionist or a naturopath.  There is plenty of vital information on foods to include, foods to avoid, nutrients that must be increased through supplementation, lifestyle changes, etc….and the reasons why.  If we don’t understand “the why” we likely won’t make the necessary changes.  This is the information we will not receive from our doctors.  Before I met with my midwife I went to my family doctor to confirm the pregnancy and all I was told was: to not eat anything raw and to take a pre-natal multi-vitamin.  If I wasn’t a nutritionist this simply would not not be enough information!  My family doctor is pretty cool too, imagine how much information a not-so-cool doctor would provide?:

Here’s the part where I give advice (thought I should warn you in advance).  When I told a friend of mine that I was pregnant his uber-smart PhD scientist girlfriend who studied lambs and pregnancy for her thesis (she’s in her element when speaking of pregnancy) sent me an email with some excellent advice.  In her email she said “The second trimester, as you know, is a time when the biggest changes in development of the brain/nervous system occur. That’s the time when anything that may cross the placenta (including stress hormones from the mom, as well as any other substances) could affect nervous system development.” This comment struck a chord in me, I decided to look into it further because if I don’t understand “the why” I likely won’t make the change.  Here’s what I found:

• the fetus is sensitive to the ebb and flow of its mother’s various hormones and mothers who are stressed during pregnancy can “overdose” their fetuses with chronically high amounts of corticosteroids and catecholamines (stress hormones).
• Extreme cases of maternal stress may lead to problems like cleft lip, neurological impairment, eczema, respiratory difficulty, stomach ulcers, and ear infections.
• More moderate cases of stress may lead to miscarriage, low birth weight, or premature birth.
• Babies of stressed or anxious moms tend to be fussier, more irritable, and perhaps delayed in their mental and motor development.
• Catecholamines restrict the mother’s blood flow of oxygen and nutrients to the fetus; inhibiting brain growth

If you’re a naturally anxious person now is the time to tackle that natural response; remember, there’s nothing more pressing than delivering a healthy happy baby, not even that looming deadline at work!  Instead of kicking butt at the gym while you’re pregnant, why not sign-up for a pre-natal yoga class instead?

Info Sources: What’s Going On In There? by Lise Eliot, Ph.D, Birthing From Within by England  & Horowitz