Patricia Thompson - NUTRITION TALKAS THE circle of life unfolds, you may be at the stage where building your own family is uppermost in your plans. If you have already started on this road, you may be experiencing the many changes involved with pregnancy. Hopefully, you are one of those who blossom with pregnancy and seem to breeze through cheerfully like just another day in your life.
If, however, you are in the early stages of pregnancy and questioning your decision to become pregnant, then you should stop and take stock of your nutritional practices. Others like to plan ahead to make sure that they do not fall prey to the many negative symptoms they often hear about heartburn and gas, bloating, ugly stretch marks and skin blemishes and stressful labour. Either way, nutritional health should be a primary goal to meet the challenges of pregnancy with confidence and to achieve successful child birth.
Eating for two this is the first fallacy. If you eat for two you will gain too much fat weight. In the first three or so months, the fertilised egg is developing its true form and is a far way from growing rapidly in size, let alone to have comparable energy needs of an adult. Additional calorie needs in the first trimester of pregnancy is only about 150 calories per day, easily achieved with an extra spoon or two of rice and peas.
Weight gain in the first 20 weeks or so should be hardly noticeable and should average about 3.5 kg (8 lbs) for normal pregnancies. If you are already looking like five to six months pregnant when you are only five to six weeks, you have gained too much weight. For an average size baby of about 3.4kg (7.5 lbs), your total weight gain would be around 28-30 lbs at delivery. Most of this weight gain will take place in the later weeks of pregnancy. From weeks 20-40 for a full-term pregnancy, an average gain of about one pound per week until term is normal.
If you are already overweight, this is not the time to go on a restrictive reducing diet. Controlling the rate of gain is more appropriate. This is also the strategy for those who develop diabetes and high blood pressure during pregnancy. A registered nutritionist or dietician should be consulted on managing weight gain during pregnancy.
UNUSUAL CRAVINGS
Another fallacy is that it is normal to have cravings even for non-food items (called pica) such as chalk, ice or sweets and to always be 'letting it out at both ends'. Such abnormalities usually indicate nutritional inadequacies in the diet and/or poor eating habits.
Satisfying increased nutritional needs is challenging enough without a new life to think about. Making food choices that are nourishing but which you also enjoy, in the correct quantities and combinations, is a skill that ought to be learnt.
There are also many fallacies surrounding labour, breastfeeding and regaining your youthful shape after birth. There is no need for your body to fall apart simply because of a natural state such as pregnancy. With the proper nutritional advice and exercise regime, you should be able to sail through this time with ease.
Nutrients especially of significance are protein, calcium, iron, zinc, folic acid, vitamins A, C, E and water. Adequate fibre-rich foods will keep clear bowels and avoid the frequent haemorrhoidal consequences of pregnancy. Don't suffer in ignorance when you can seek the proper advice and support needed at this very critical time.
Patricia Thompson M.Sc., Registered Nutritionist, The Nutrition Centre, Eden Gardens.
