Nutrition for All Stages of Pregnancy The Wellness Witch Podcast

How can you ensure being well-nourished before, during, and after pregnancy? Doula and perinatal nutrition coach, Lindsay Taylor talks about what it means to eat well during all the stages of pregnancy, and how to use food to get empowered before pregnancy and thrive postpartum.
You can find all the info and links about this episode at https://holisticwellness.ca/episode152.
 
Topics Discussed in This Episode:
How you should nourish your body before pregnancy How nutrition changes during pregnancy Supplementing with folate or folic acid Getting genetic testing before starting a family The impact of environmental toxins on pregnancy The foods we're told not to eat when pregnant Supplementation before, during, and after pregnancy How to support yourself postpartum through nutrition  
Key Takeaways:
We often look at pregnancy as the time when the egg is fertilized and when we get a positive pregnancy test. But there's an even earlier stage of development that's critical to a woman getting pregnant and setting the stage for that pregnancy, and that's what's happening to the egg before it's fertilized. Before an egg is ovulated, there's a window of opportunity of three or four months where we can impact our likelihood of getting pregnant and how healthy that egg is. New research shows that there's an increased risk of pregnancy loss with increased levels of caffeine. But it's very likely that low levels of caffeine are still okay. The guideline says to keep it under 200 mg a day, so it really depends on what you're comfortable with. Your nutrient and energy needs in postpartum, especially if you're breastfeeding, are actually higher than during pregnancy. What postpartum nutrient depletion basically means is that when you go through a pregnancy, for nine months, your body is going to take all the nutrients you have and preferentially give them to the baby. So oftentimes, our needs aren't met.

Action Steps:
Eat as many meals as you can from home and from scratch, especially vegetables. Reduce, if not eliminate, your exposure to environmental toxins. Start in your kitchen with the materials that you use and your personal care products. Consider lowering your caffeine intake in the first trimester when the pregnancy is most vulnerable. Supplement with prenatal vitamins and choline. Batch-cook meals, and make food that you can grab and eat with one hand. Prep foods that would support your healing after pregnancy.  
Lindsay said:
“The wild thing about the world of eating and nutrition in pregnancy is that it's full of misinformation. Most of the advice comes from a place of fear instead of facts, and we have old-school beliefs that are circulating nonstop."
“We get very caught up in what we need in pregnancy [that] we sort of forget about how important postpartum can be."
 
Thanks for listening!
 
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Links to things I talk about in the show:
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