Pregnancy, the most vital phase in a women’s life, makes her go through several psychological, emotional and physical changes. With the evolving baby in your body, your body begins to demand more from its average intake of diet. This is where a balanced pregnancy diet bridges the gap for extra nutrients that your body requires for a healthy pregnancy.
Plan Your Diet Wisely
Although the demand for nutrients increases during pregnancy, but it is always wise to plan and choose food from various food groups. Ensure that your nutrition during pregnancy has food like vegetables, fruits, grains, pulses and milk products which are rich in calcium, protein, Vitamin A,B and C. Apart from these food combinations you have to ensure that you have certain nutrients which are vital for you and your child’s growth during your pregnancy stage. For the sake of ease let us list down the nutrients which play a significant role in our pregnancy diet:-
Folic Acid In Pregnancy Diet
Folic acid, better known as Folate, is rich in vitamin B and is found mostly in green leafy vegetables such as spinach, orange juice and kale(type of Cabbage). Folate prevents your child from serious abnormalities of the brain and spine. Lack of Folic acid leads to inadequate growth of the fetus, underdeveloped brain, incomplete closure of spinal cord, preterm delivery and low birth weight.
Calcium in pregnancy diet
Calcium is another important nutrient, which should be a part of your pregnancy Diet. Calcium is used by the body. When a women’s body begins to lack in calcium, the body itself begins to take calcium from the bones needed for the baby, thus making the bones weak and in the end fragile enough to break (osteoporosis). Having dairy products like fat free milk, hard cheese, green leafy vegetables like kale, fortified food like Orange juice and cereals will help you overcome your deficiency for calcium.
Iron In Pregnancy Diet
During your pregnancy period, the need for iron intake also increases. Iron in our blood helps carry oxygen to the blood cells. During pregnancy women have blood in excess volume, so this excess blood requires an excess amount of iron. During pregnancy not just your blood cells but your growing child’s cells require oxygen, this is where again the demand for the amount of oxygen is fulfilled by iron.
Lack of iron leads to Anemia, which can result in preterm delivery or low weight baby, excessive low iron could make your child anemic in infancy. Iron deficiency can be made up by having red meat, shellfish, beans, potatoes and iron fortified cereals.
Concerns On Pregnancy Weight Planning
Pregnancy weight has always been a matter of concern for women during pregnancy. Weight varies from women to women and from pregnancy to pregnancy, so you need not worry too much.
If you are underweight try to gain a little weight as underweight women mostly have underweight babies. Doctors normally try to ensure that you gain weight through your pregnancy diet. If you don’t your body fat is used to support pregnancy.
If overweight you obviously do not want to gain more, but losing weight during pregnancy is not a good idea as it could affect your child. Thus, overweight women should try not to gain anything more than 15 pounds throughout their pregnancy.
On a closing note, have a balanced and disciplined pregnancy diet for a happy and healthy motherhood.
Posts Tagged ‘Green Leafy Vegetables’
Anemia is a word recognised by many people but maybe not fully understood. If you are anaemic you either don’t have enough red blood cells or you have enough red blood cells but they can’t carry enough oxygen. You will often feel faint, short of breath and unusually tired and lethargic.
The main causes of anemia are loss of blood, not enough red cell production or faster destruction than manufacture of red blood cells.
Your red blood cells have a protein called hemoglobin inside which carries oxygen round the body. So they are vital to your everyday health.
There are different types of anemia depending on the cause. Probably the most common is iron deficiency Anemia caused by blood loss and which commonly affects women with heavy periods.
A second common type is pernicious anemia. This happens when your body can’t make enough red blood cells due to poor absorption of vitamin B12. It can be due to a lack of a vital protein called intrinsic factor without which the body cannot absorb B12. It also occurs in a poor diet, especially when combined with alcohol problems.
Anemia of any causes will give you symptoms such as excessive shortness of breath, lethargy, fatigue, very pale complexion, cold hands and feet and possibly chest pain. They are all fairly vague but a doctor should soon pick up and diagnose your problems.
It is diagnosed with a simple blood test, which will also help your doctor decide which type of anemia you have and the appropriate treatment.
For iron deficiency the treatment is to reduce the loss of blood, if possible and to increase your iron intake. This could be by taking iron tablets or by changing your diet. Iron rich foods include green leafy vegetables, red meat, eggs, nuts and beans.
Pernicious anemia is treated with monthly vitamin B12 injections. If poor diet or alcohol is also a problem then reducing the alcohol and eating healthier foods such as fortified breakfast cereals, meat, liver, eggs and cheese will help increase your B12 intake and improve the anemia.
Raisins
Good blood flow in your scalp will stimulate hair growth. Iron is the main key to manufacturing hemoglobin and hemoglobin is the one that carries oxygen trough your body – and hair! Raisins, eggs, dark green leafy vegetables, dates and whole-grain cereals are great – they are high in iron. You could also add lemons and oranges to your diet as they contain Vitamin C, and Vitamin C improves the absorption of iron.
Seafood
One of the things why zinc is useful – it manages the glands that attach to hair follicles. If your body has lack of zinc, hair follicles became weak and strands may break off or fall out. Eat shrimp, mussels, oysters, fish… but you can also treat yourself with red meat and poultry.
Eggs, beans and fish
Since hair is mostly made of protein, it sounds reasonable to eat eggs, beans and fish. Why not eat a steak? Simply because red meat is high-fat food. High-fat food increases testosterone level in your body which might result in hair loss. Therefore eat fish instead – it’s good for more than just your hair.
Potatoes
Hey this doesn’t mean I just gave you a green light to enjoy greasy french fries! Rather cook it, use it in salads or as a side dish to seafood – it’s a great combination!
Bean sprouts
Bean sprouts, potatoes and green peppers – rich in silica! No matter how strange it may sound, silica should be a part of your hair loss prevention diet because our body uses it to help absorb vitamins and minerals.