Hi! Hope everyone's having a good week :) Wanted to check in and share how I changed my eating habits since finding out I was pregnant.
I’ve been meaning to write this out for a long time. I really thought the biggest changes when it comes to your diet and pregnancy was the cheeses, cold cuts and alcohol, but there’s a lot more to it than that. You’re growing a whole entire human (or, as I like to affectionately call ours, a humanoid parasite), so there’s a lot of nutrients you need way more of to help keep you and the baby healthy. Most of this information either comes from my obstetrician’s office or the Ovia Pregnancy app, which has a lot of great info for free (keep in mind that, like all apps, they are totally mining your data if you choose to enter your information into the app.)
I also really liked What to Expect When You’re Expecting’s chapter on diet, although it was admittedly a little overwhelming at first. I try to remember that eating a balanced diet with a few adjustments goes a long way, which really helps. Also important to note that this is not medical advice. I can’t offer advice on the internet and I specialize in treating kids, not pregnant women. I’m just sharing my experience and passing along some information I’ve found super helpful in case it helps someone else (turns out I have a lot of pregnant friends right now :). Anyways, here’s how my diet has changed since finding out I was pregnant this spring:
Cut the caffeine. I was never a big caffeine drinker,
but since I work mostly nights and evening shifts I do need some artificial
energy on a regular basis. In residency that meant 2 cups of coffee (one before
work and one mid-24 hour shift, around 10 pm.) These days my schedule is much
lighter and I only have a second cup of coffee half the time, when I am going
in for a night shift. It’s probably even less than that since with Covid-19 most
of my spring time shifts got canceled and I almost lived a normal 9-5 life for
a while there, maybe half a cup a day. While caffeine isn’t great for the baby I
really do need it to function for my job. I talked to my OB and she said that
for me, half a cup of coffee is a-ok, so definitely talk to your doctor about this since everyone is a little bit different.
Boost the brain food. Early in my pregnancy I found a
study in China linking increased fish consumption during pregnancy to higher
IQs later in the child’s life (I haven’t been able to find it again for this
study, but the study design was similar to this one, which I am trying to get
full access to. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31578044/)
I can’t say too much about the strength of the evidence without reading the full
studies (since there could be other factors that make one group of kids have a
higher IQ than the others completely unrelated to maternal fish consumption)
but since salmon, light-canned tuna and other low-mercury fish are safe to eat
in pregnancy, I’ve been trying to get 1 serving of each in per week (pass the
tuna melt!) These fish have high levels of omega-3 fatty acids which are known
to be beneficial for brain development.
Other great sources we’ve been using are walnuts (taste
great toasted and thrown onto salads, over Greek yogurt, or into our next batch
of cookies or banana bread) and flax seeds (we toss them in smoothies and eat
the Ezekiel golden flax breakfast cereal.) Our doctor gave us a full list of
pregnancy-safe fish and we usually go off of that to choose what we’ll buy for
the week. Other nuts and seeds (my nutritionist mentioned sesame) are also
great options. Sadly, while my beloved taramosalata is a great source of omega-3 fatty
acids, it’s a no go per my OB nutritionist. I was pretty bummed about that.
(side note on nuts: I’ve also made the point of eating
peanut butter pretty regularly, as there’s some weak observational data that nut
consumption in pregnancy correlates with a lower risk of nut allergy in kiddos.
https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2013/12/23/eating-nuts-during-pregnancy-may-protect-baby-from-nut-allergies/.)
Whole wheat. It wasn’t news to us that whole grains
and brown rice are better for you, but they also lower your risk of gestational
diabetes. So Peter’s been making his bread with a 2:1 wheat to white bread
ratio, and we try to stick to brown rice and pastas as much as we can (side note: does
everyone’s brown rice come with the occasional inedible grain husk? How on earth
do you get rid of them?)
Iron, anyone? Especially in your second half of
pregnancy, iron stores get depleted and you tend to need more than the average person. We aren’t big meat eaters, so I was happy to find that you
can easily find iron in a lot of non-meat products. Some great sources of iron
we’ve been trying to consume regularly: lentils (add a side of whole wheat
bread for improved absorption- soy and white beans are also great), shrimp,
dark chocolate, dried fruit (apricots are best but I also love prunes because
pregnancy comes with all kinds of fun new symptoms including constipation, and
prunes are great for keeping you regular), leafy greens (spinach and kale FTW!), thyme and sundried
tomatoes.
Also I recently learned from my pregnancy app that coffee
inhibits iron absorption (so does milk, just FYI) so if you are taking a
supplement, make sure not to take it with these beverages. Orange juice, on the
other hand, will help with absorption of iron.
Those are probably the biggest changes we’ve made in our
diet. Below are links to some of the resources I’ve found helpful when it comes
to my prenatal diet.
https://www.oviahealth.com/apps
- the pregnancy app has been particularly useful
Not food related, but a former med school classmate made
these videos regarding Covid-19 and its effects on perinatal care. I found them
to be well researched, informative and super reassuring 😊
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG57zLUkBtw
I am also a big advocate of talking to your OB office about
this (and anything that you’re curious about regarding your pregnancy.) I
always keep a note open on my phone and write down questions as they cross my
mind throughout the month, then have them ready to ask my OB at the next visit.
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