Morning sickness
In the first three months of pregnancy, all the organs of the baby’s body are completely formed, so during this period optimum nutrition is extremely important. Yet at this time many women experience continual sickness and do not feel like eating healthily. Misnamed “morning sickness,” this condition has been accepted as normal during the first three months of pregnancy and is probably due to increases in a hormone called HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin). Women with poor diets are particularly at risk.
During pregnancy, the need for vitamins B6 and B12, folic acid, iron, and zinc increases; supplements of these usually stop even the worst cases of pregnancy sickness. Eating small, frequent amounts of fruit or complex carbohydrates like nuts, seeds, or whole grains often helps. However, the best approach is to ensure optimum nutrition well before pregnancy. At the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, we followed up four women on optimum programs before and during pregnancy—the average number of days on which nausea or sickness was reported was two. Yet for some women nausea continues throughout pregnancy!
Preeclamptic toxemia
Another common complication of pregnancy is preeclamptic toxemia, characterized by an increase in blood pressure, edema (swelling), and excessive protein in the urine. Many theories abound as to why this occurs, but once more, optimum nutrition is a vital factor. One of my clients who had preeclamptic toxemia during her first pregnancy improved her diet and added nutritional supplements; her second pregnancy was entirely healthy.
Think zinc
Getting through pregnancy without developing any stretch marks isn’t just down to luck—it’s related to a woman’s nutritional status. So for smooth, elastic skin, boost zinc levels by eating nuts, fish, peas, and egg yolks, supplementing 15 mg a day, and ensuring a good daily source of vitamins C and E.
Food cravings in pregnancy are usually a sign of mineral deficiencies. When a mother-to-be boosts levels of zinc, for example, cravings usually disappear, while replenishing iron can remove cravings for strange, sometimes harmful, substances such as chalk or coal.
Vitamin and mineral supplements
For the mother, optimum nutrition before and during pregnancy ensures a healthier pregnancy with fewer complications, resulting in a healthier and heavier baby. Your daily supplement program should include 400 mcg of folic acid, 20 mcg of vitamin B12, 50 mg of vitamin B6, 15 mg of zinc, 300 mg of calcium, 200 mg of magnesium, and 12 mg of iron. Do not take more than 10,000 IU of vitamin A and have a hair-mineral analysis carried out to check for excesses of copper, lead, or cadmium.
Essential fats
Also crucial during pregnancy are essential fats, especially the omega-3 fat DHA, and choline.
Research shows that getting a good supply of choline during pregnancy helps restructure a baby’s developing brain for improved performance (it also improves memory in adults). To boost levels, eat lots of free-range eggs and sprinkle lecithin granules (available from health food shops) on your cereal every morning. It is also well worth supplementing the essential omega-3 and omega-6 fats GLA, EPA, and DHA as well as eating fish. However, large fish such as swordfish, marlin, and tuna contain higher levels of mercury than salmon and sardines, which have very little by comparison and still provide plenty of omega-3 (see also this page–this page).
Boosters after birth
Optimum nutrition is doubly important after birth, when the mother has to continue nourishing herself and her child. The stress of motherhood and the sleepless nights, coupled with extra nutritional needs, often make the first few months hard work. Breast-feeding (see also below) is not just best for a baby, it’s also beneficial for the mother. It burns up five hundred calories a day (making getting back in shape easier), stimulates the uterus to contract to its prebirth size, reduces the mother’s risk of developing breast cancer in later life, and saves a considerable amount in money in formula and bottles in the first year. Any nutrients you supplement also get delivered straight to your baby, as well as give your energy a boost. So, continue supplementing the recommended levels for pregnancy. Also make sure you have good support and a good supply of easy-to-prepare nutritious foods, especially during the first few weeks.
Postpartum depression
It is not uncommon for mothers to experience depression immediately after the birth. No doubt there is a psychological component to consider: now you have a baby—a big responsibility. However, many researchers believe that postpartum depression is brought on by hormonal and chemical changes that can be stopped with good nutrition.
One possibility is an excess of copper. The levels of copper tend to rise during pregnancy, while zinc levels tend to fall because the baby requires more. In most women, the zinc content in breast milk declines rapidly as the infant uses up the mother’s reserves. With a World Health Organization estimated requirement of 25 mg a day, and an average intake of 7.5 mg a day, yet no medical advice to increase zinc-rich foods or take supplements, zinc deficiency in mothers after giving birth is commonplace. Depression is a classic symptom, which can be corrected by supplementation with zinc and vitamin B6. According to Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, who helped establish the importance of zinc for brain function, “We have never seen postnatal depression or psychosis in any of our patients treated with zinc and B6.”
Another potential cause is lack of omega-3 fats. Eating oily fish, and supplementing fish oils, zinc, and B complex, can ensure that a new mother doesn’t develop postpartum depression.
The importance of breast-feeding
While breast-feeding does not guarantee optimum nutrition for the baby, there is little doubt that breast is best, especially when the mother is optimally nourished. The balance of nutrients in breast milk in an optimally nourished woman is far superior to that in formula milks. One key factor is the high levels of essential fatty acids necessary for intellectual development. In fact, the discovery that breast-fed babies later achieved better intellectual performance than bottle-fed babies led to the realization of the importance of giving infants high levels of essential fatty acids.
One other great disadvantage of bottle-feeding is the milk itself. The consumption of cow’s milk is strongly discouraged in infants before they are at least six months old. This is because their digestive and immune systems are too immature to deal with this complex protein—the result is often allergy. The recent discovery that child-onset diabetes results from the immune system becoming allergic to a protein in cow’s milk and beef, and then cross-reacting with a virtually identical protein in the pancreas, resulting in the destruction of pancreatic tissue, has led many pediatricians not only to caution against giving infants cow’s milk before the age of six months, but also to advise mothers to keep off beef and milk for as long as they are breast-feeding. If this finding proves correct, simply avoiding cow’s milk and beef, for both infants and mothers, could eliminate child-onset diabetes (see chapter 8 for a fuller discussion).
Weaning—when and what?
Once infants can sleep through the night without a feed, or are developing teeth, this is a good sign that it could be time to wean them on to solid foods—usually when they are around six months old. An infant’s chewing on a piece of cucumber or carrot also helps encourage other teeth to come through. Since the longest time between meals should be dinner to breakfast, introducing some solid food for dinner may help the child sleep through the night.
Healthy babies, like healthy adults, need food that is fresh, unprocessed, additive free, sugar free (which includes sucrose, glucose, dextrose, maltose, and fructose), salt-free, and low in fat. In other words, they should be given food that is close to how it is found in nature. The baby will eventually be eating the food that you eat (which is, of course, completely healthy if you are following the recommendations in this book) and so will need to get used to eating this way right from the start. Below are a number of suggestions on how to eat healthily without using lots of packaged baby foods.
To be fair, packaged baby foods are imp
roving all the time; they no longer contain artificial additives, and some are sugar free. However, the idea that a baby needs fiber or should not have sugar on his pureed roast beef dinner has not yet filtered through to all baby food manufacturers. As in the case of adult food, if you are going to use the occasional prepared food, read the label. If it contains cereal, it should be whole wheat and unrefined; it should not contain any of the sugars listed above, modified starch, hydrogenated fat, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or any ingredient that you do not understand.
Fiber for babies
Some mothers will not give their baby a high-fiber diet as it “goes straight through them.” What they often mean is that they are getting three dirty diapers a day and cannot be bothered to change them that often. Frankly, I would rather change three dirty diapers a day for a year or two than nurse an older person through the horrors of bowel cancer when the “baby” is grown up. As in the case of an adult, a healthy infant bowel should be emptying itself two to three times a day. Much of the food will come out as, for example, recognizable lentils or grape skins, owing to the fact that a baby cannot chew foods properly.
Preventing allergies
If there’s a family history of allergies or related conditions such as eczema or asthma, then it’s possible to reduce the chances of passing these from mother to baby by 50 percent simply by taking a “probiotic” supplement during pregnancy. Biotic means “life,” and a probiotic encourages friendly bacteria to thrive in the digestive tract. Modern living means that many people’s digestive bacteria are compromised by stress, a diet high in refined carbohydrates, antibiotics, and steroid drugs such as birth control pills—and these contribute to digestive problems, allergies, eczema, and asthma.
At the start of weaning, give your baby food that is very easily digested and unlikely to cause an allergic reaction. Cooked, pureed vegetables and fruit are a good start. If a fruit or vegetable can be given raw, leave it like that, for example, bananas, avocados, very ripe pears, or papayas. The later you introduce a food, the less likelihood there is of its producing an allergic reaction. So if you suspect that your child may have an allergic reaction (if there is, for instance, a family history of allergy) or you just want to be absolutely certain that your child does not develop any allergies, introduce potential allergens as late as you can. Below is a list of foods and food groups in increasing order of being likely to give an allergic reaction. Start by giving the foods at the top and, as each one is cleared, move down the list.
Vegetables
Fruit (except oranges)
Nuts and seeds
Legumes and beans
Rice
Meat
Oats, barley, and rye
Oranges
Wheat
Milk products
Eggs
Introduce one or two foods each day and make a note of which ones you have given and any possible reaction, which may be anything from mild to severe eczema, excessive sleepiness, a runny nose, or colic, to an ear infection, excessive thirst, overactivity, or asthmatic breathing. If you notice a reaction, withdraw that food and carry on with new foods once the reaction has died down. You can double-check your observations a few months later; the reaction may disappear as the digestive system matures. The last four foods should not be introduced until your baby is nine or ten months old; this also applies to any foods that either parent is known to have a reaction to.
Baby food purees
Your partly weaned baby will still be getting plenty of nourishment from breast milk, and you may well find that you are breast-feeding as much as before. This is quite all right—in fact, mothers should ideally breast-feed a lot right up until the baby is a year old. Assuming your baby is getting most of his protein, fat, and carbohydrate from breast milk, you would do best to feed him plenty of vitamin- and mineral-rich vegetables and fruit. Simply cook a combination of vegetables or fruit (there is no need to add sugar) and puree them. Here are some good combinations:
Carrots alone
Cauliflower and turnip
Carrots, spinach, and cauliflower
Fava beans and cauliflower or carrot, plus a very little celery
Jerusalem artichokes and carrot
Peeled zucchini (the skins can be bitter) and fennel
Leek and potato
Rutabaga, turnip, and potato
Do experiment. To save time and effort, not to mention disappointment when your baby rejects your lovingly prepared purees, you can freeze these mixtures. Start by using ice trays for the tiniest amounts (you can also express breast milk and freeze it in sterilized ice trays to mix with purées and make them taste more like what your baby is used to) and progress to small jars and yogurt containers with lids.
You can slowly add other ingredients to these purees. Try red split lentils, cooked bean sprouts, well-cooked brown rice, black-eyed peas, other legumes, milk, cheese, yogurt, or soy milk. Breakfast can consist of more pureed vegetables—babies do not have to have sweet breakfast cereals or fruit, which only encourage a sweet tooth. As you introduce more cereals into the diet, you can cook brown rice flour as you would semolina and add pureed fruit for a lovely breakfast. An easier alternative is to pour some boiling water onto three teaspoons of fine oatmeal and leave this to stand for a few minutes. Pureed fruit, mashed banana, yogurt, or expressed breast or rice milk may be added. Millet flakes, which can be bought in health food shops, can be prepared in the same way as oatmeal. As the child gets older, quick oats may be used in place of oatmeal and the banana can be sliced instead of mashed.
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Superkids—Nourishing the Next Generation
What you feed your child to a large extent determines her health and dietary habits for life. As a parent, the time you spend nourishing your child properly may be the greatest contribution you can make to her development. In today’s snack culture, in which children and adults are bombarded with advertisements for junk food, you have to be strong to help your child develop good eating habits. But it is worth it.
Developing good habits
The taste for sugar is acquired through eating sweeter and sweeter foods. It can also be lost, usually with some resistance, by gradually reducing the level of sweetness in foods and drinks. This means replacing sweetened drinks with fruit juice, diluted by half with water. Among the fruit juices, apple contains the slowest-releasing sugars, while grape juice contains the fastest-releasing ones. So apple juice is preferable. Few children drink enough water. You can encourage your child to drink water by putting it on the table at mealtimes, and when she is thirsty give her water for the first glass and diluted juice for the second.
Do not give sweets, sweetened foods, cola, and other sweetened drinks as treats. If you do, these drinks become associated with something good, and later in life your offspring may choose to treat themselves all the time. Instead, give fresh orange or pineapple juice diluted with fizzy water. Cola drinks are especially bad because most contain caffeine, an addictive drug. It is quite amazing, given that you have to be an adult to smoke and drink alcohol, that caffeine can be freely added to drinks advertised to children who cannot even read.
Very few breakfast cereals are truly sugar free. Food manufacturers help children develop a sweet tooth at an early age: most processed cereals contain fast-releasing sugars and have added sugar. Instead of giving your children such cereals, provide them with a choice of oats, sugar-free cornflakes, or other such unsweetened whole-grain cereals, and encourage them to sweeten their cereal with fruit such as a sliced banana, apple, or pear, some berries, or perhaps a few raisins.
The best snacks are fruit (especially berries), so make sure you always have a mountain of fresh, appealing fruit for your children to nibble on at their discretion. Send them to school with fruit rather than money to buy sweets. Sure, when they are older and have pocket money, they will buy sweets and get them at parties. But if sweets and sweetened drinks and foods are not part of their day-to-day diet, they are unlikely to c
rave them or develop an addiction.
Another good habit to develop in your children is eating vegetables, including raw ones, with each meal. The trick here is to find ways of preparing vegetables so they taste good. Too many vegetables are cooked to death and taste bland. Raw organic carrots, peas, parsnip chips (made by steam-frying in diluted soy sauce), and mashed and baked potatoes are naturally quite sweet and favorites with children. Serving something raw with each meal, even if it is just a few leaves of watercress, grated red cabbage, tomato, or carrot, develops the taste for salad foods.
While there are many ways of making healthy desserts, if a child always ends a meal this way, she acquires a habit for life. Instead, restrict healthy desserts as a treat and give the child as much of the main course as she wants. If my children are still hungry at the end of a meal, they help themselves to fruit.
The New Optimum Nutrition Bible Page 37