By Carly Wertheim, MS, CNS:
Prenatal nutrition is preventative medicine – not only for the birthing person, but also for the baby and the generations ahead.
Research shows that nutrition can impact parental health by lowering the risk for anemia, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, postpartum depression, and other postpartum complications. During pregnancy, an emphasis on prioritizing nutrient dense foods, eating enough total food, maintaining balanced blood sugars, and consuming the right amounts of micronutrients can promote better energy, less anxiety, and a reduction in so many of the pregnancy symptoms like constipation, nausea, heartburn, and fatigue.
After baby’s arrival, a nourished parent will have the resources available to promote postpartum healing, and support lactation, mental health, the immune system, thyroid health, and so many other systems of the body. At a life point when nutrients are in great demand – for making milk and caring for a young infant – a birthing person can come out of pregnancy nourished and vital, or, on the other hand, depleted.
Then there’s the baby. Not only does in utero nourishment impact the infant’s health, informing development of healthy tissues, bones, and organs, and effecting gestational outcomes like term length and birth weight. But it also can define that baby’s lifelong health. We see that nutritional deficiencies and fetal programming affect learning and behavior outcomes in childhood and the likelihood of developing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity later in life. Nutrients to a fetus’s genes, helping activate disease-preventing genes and turn off disease-promoting ones. Food drives epigenetic changes in utero which sets the stage for future health.
Finally - and please zoom out a bit here - nutrition for a birthing person reaches their grandchild! A female baby growing in her mother’s womb will form all the eggs she will ever have in her lifetime. That means three generations cared for in the span of nine months! Food and lifestyle choices during pregnancy have a profound scope of impact, something that I, as a prenatal nutritionist, find incredibly inspiring. However, most pregnancy nutrition conversations begin and end with, “Are you taking a prenatal vitamin?”
When I allow myself to dream my most beautiful dream, I see a world that prioritizes nourishment of mothers and life-givers. I see a society that values self-care and rest for pregnant people. I see a world where all mothers and babies have access to nourishing food. With this as a core priority, I believe we could see wide-scale, revolutionary change to the state of our collective health.
It’s no secret that our current healthcare and social systems do not support this. But every parent deserves to be nourished through their pregnancy.
Wishing you – and your generations to come! – deep nourishment.
