Getting pregnant is the easy – and fun – bit. Making sure your body is ready for this wonderful adventure is something else. To make sure you’re fully prepared to keep two lives going for nine months, you need to have the best possible nutrition, with specific vitamins and minerals to support you both.
That means eating a good, healthily-balanced diet, with lots of complex carbohydrates like pasta, brown rice and wholemeal bread, at least 500 g of fresh fruit, vegetables and salads a day, plenty of fluid (but not too much coffee, tea or other caffeine-loaded drinks and certainly no alcohol).
What you do during your pregnancy also has dramatic effects on the lifetime health of your baby and there is now growing evidence that the seeds of many diseases are sown in the womb. What many would-be mothers don’t realise is that what both parents do for the three months before conception can also be of vital importance.
Three months before you plan to conceive is an important time to avoid the booze – rather more so for men than women as some 40 per cent of low fertility problems in men can be attributed to even modest consumption of alcohol. Three months of alcoholic abstinence can raise sperm counts enough for fertilisation to take place in almost half of all men with fertility problems. There’s a bonus too in that avoiding alcohol improves the all important motility of sperm. Men should stop smoking too as this is another common cause of damage to sperm. They need enormous amounts of Vitamin C to be healthy, and smoking destroys a large proportion of Vitamin C in the body.
Folic acid is a vital nutrient for the health of your baby as deficiencies of this member of the vitamin B group have been shown to increase the risk of serious birth defects. This is particularly important during the first three months of pregnancy and because many women may not discover that they’re pregnant until they’re one or two months on the way, it makes sense for all women of childbearing age to take the recommended 400 microgram’s of Folic acid on a regular daily basis. There’s an added bonus in terms of maintaining a healthy heart too, as low levels of Folic acid in the blood are associated with high levels of a chemical called homocysteine. And homocysteine is known to be a factor in heart disease.
Folic acid is now considered to be so important in terms of pregnancy and heart health that it is already added to flour used in bread making in many countries. Women who don’t get enough Folic acid in their diet will probably have low levels of other essential nutrients as well, so a simple inexpensive multivitamin and mineral pill is a good idea.
Once you are pregnant there are foods, which it is important to avoid, the most important of which is liver. This contains so much Vitamin A that it can be toxic to the growing baby and may also cause birth defects. There are some bacterial infections like E.coli, salmonella and listeria which can trigger spontaneous miscarriage, so be extra careful with all food preparation, practice sensible hygiene at home, avoid buying food from grubby street vendors and until you’ve had the baby, don’t eat unpasteurised or very soft cheeses like Camembert or Brie.
If you’re overweight, now’s the time for a sensible eating regime and extra exercise. But it’s absolutely not the moment to start crash dieting. Half of all women attending fertility clinics have been following some form of rigid weight loss regime for the previous twelve months – that can’t be just a coincidence.
Men should throw away their Y-fronts and tight jeans and switch to boxer shorts and loose trousers and avoid hot baths, as they can all reduce sperm production. And you should both be taking an extra 500 milligrams a day of Vitamin C to boost immunity and prevent sperm from sticking together in bunches. Boost Vitamin E consumption by eating plenty of avocados and take 400 milligrams of Vitamin E daily. It helps fertility and is a powerful protective antioxidant. Men should eat plenty of shellfish or pumpkin seeds for extra zinc, which is vital for healthy sperm – every time you make love your partner loses 5 milligrams of this essential mineral, half his daily nutritional requirement.
You should also both eat a handful of Brazil nuts daily to increase levels of the highly protective mineral selenium.
This is the time to think about going organic, especially if you eat meat and poultry, to avoid all possible risk of growth hormones or antibiotics. It’s also essential not to come into contact with chemical solvents, garden or agricultural pesticides, insecticides, weed killers or fungicides. Even tiny amounts absorbed into your body could affect the developing baby.
Once you’re pregnant, things really start to hot up and the first thing you have to learn is to ignore all friends, mothers-in-law, grannies and other busybodies who keep reminding you that you’re eating for two. You’re not. You’re eating for one and nourishing one and a bit, and this is not the time to pig out and gain four stone, or diet and try and keep your figure.
You need to up your daily calorie intake to a minimum 2,200 and more if you’re very active. If you’re undernourished you’re more likely to have an underweight baby. If you eat too much the baby may be overweight. Both conditions may increase the risk of heart disease when your child becomes an adult and may also slow down your child’s mental development.
You need to increase your food intake by about a fifth, but your need for folic acid, vitamins B and C, calcium, Zinc and magnesium, go up by far more. You need approximately 60 grams of protein a day – a chicken leg is 30 grams, an ounce of cheese 7 grams, 6 ounces of cod 35 grams, a two egg omelette 15 grams, 4 ounces cooked lentils 19 grams.
A third of your diet should be good starchy food like rice, potatoes, wholemeal bread, pasta, and beans. Another third should be a wide selection of fruit, vegetable and salads. The final third is half low fat dairy products and half protein (fish, poultry, meat, eggs or vegetarian sources). Butter, cream, sticky buns and sweet treats should be no more than very thin icing on the cake.
To ensure proper brain development, essential fatty acids are vital so you need to eat plenty of oily fish - salmon, herrings, sardines, pilchards, anchovies etc. - both during pregnancy and while breast-feeding. Though most of the baby’s brain is developed at birth, some growth continues in the first few months and brain tissue is nearly all essential fatty acids.
Avoiding large quantities of cow’s milk during pregnancy and especially while breastfeeding can reduce the incidence of colic, sinus problems and catarrh in the baby. You don’t need cow’s milk to produce mother’s milk, but you do need plenty of fluids.
Water is even more essential during pregnancy, aim for one and a half litres a day. The speed at which food passes through the intestines slows down during this nine months to make sure your body absorbs the maximum nutrients which can then be passed on to the foetus. This is why constipation is such a common problem. Plenty of water and good wholegrain cereals prevent the constipation, but don’t use wheat bran or manufactured products high in wheat bran as this can interfere with your body’s absorption of calcium and iron, which in turn could reduce levels available to the baby.
With growing concern about the ever-increasing incidence of asthma and other allergies in children, some immunologists believe that early over-exposure to certain foods can increase the risk. For this reason, it’s sensible for pregnant mothers to avoid eating excessive quantities of any particular foods during pregnancy. This is particularly true of peanuts, other nuts and seeds, dairy products and excessively high levels of bread and other wheat based foods. Ring the changes and try rye bread, rice cakes, biscuits made with oats and breakfast cereals like porridge and muesli, instead of relying exclusively on wheat.
It’s useful to consume small but regular amounts of Soya products in pregnancy as this can help to boost the baby’s potential protection against some of the hormone linked cancers as well as heart disease. Soya milk, Soya yoghurt and tofu are simple ways of doing this.
Finally, this is one period when it makes sense to drink bottled mineral waters. There’s growing concern about the female hormone residues in recycled tap water. This is a problem which water authorities have not yet overcome and increasing your levels of free hormones can put the baby at risk of higher birth-weight and increased chances of hormone linked cancers in later life.
Don’t become a food freak and worry about every mouthful, but use common sense, eat a widely varied diet which you’ll find easier as more frequent smaller meals. This avoids the digestive problems in later pregnancy and ensures constant blood levels of nutrients being supplied to your hungry baby. If in doubt about your weight or nutrition, get professional help and don’t try going it alone.
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