Diet and Nutrition During Pegnancy

If You Are Pregnant

This is the original brochure created by Dr. Tom Brewer as a handout for his patients in his Contra Costa clinic. The pages concisely present the importance of good nutrition in pregnancy, and point out the factors most necessary in a good pregnancy diet, including how to avoid potential roadblocks to good nutrition. Follow the links at the bottom of each page to view the next page in the brochure.

Pregnant? and want a healthy baby?

by Thomas Brewer, M.D.

 

Introduction

You are one of over 3 million women who have a baby in the United States every year. In recent years pregnant women in our country have been less healthy than pregnant women in many other countries. An increasing number of premature or “low birth weight” babies are being born. This is primarily caused by the failure of our doctors to recognize the role of nutrition in pregnancy.

Instead of emphasizing good diet, many American doctors who care for pregnant women still prescribe low calorie, low salt diets for “weight control”. Many doctors also still depend on drugs such as diuretics (water pills) and amphetamines (diet pills) to try to prevent diseases during pregnancy. High blood pressure is typically treated with a low salt diet and bed rest. Some doctors are even using calcium and aspirin for toxemia prevention, but it’s not proving as helpful as they’d hoped. This kind of treatment is often dangerous to both mother and baby. But you can avoid danger by good nutrition throughout your pregnancy. We now know that most pregnancy diseases and complications are caused by poor diets - by lack of enough good foods during pregnancy. The methods of diet described in the following pages were used with success by over 25,000 women in my practice over a 12 year period in the prenatal clinics of Contra Costa County in Richmond, California, USA. And they are used today by many more informed and educated women, with equally excellent results. When you understand what a good pregnancy diet is and how important good foods really are, you will be able to protect yourself and your baby from many complications.

If you are an expectant mother, you must eat a good, nutritious, balanced diet every day during your pregnancy. A good diet is the best insurance that your baby will be healthy and strong with a normal weight at birth!

  

The Dangers of Bad Diet

 Forty years of medical research has proved that bad diets during pregnancy cause:

1. Stillborn babies.
2. Low birth weight or premature babies.
3. Brain damaged babies with less intelligence.
4. Hyperactive babies with more irritability.
5. Infection-prone babies with more illness.

A good diet will protect your baby from these troubles. Bad diets cause diseases in mothers too:

1. Metabolic Toxemia of Late Pregnancy (MTLP) - a disease caused by not enough good quality proteins and vitamins in the diet. Women with MTLP suffer convulsions or “fits”, coma, heart failure, shock, fat in their livers, bleeding into their livers, and often death for both mother and baby. It is estimated that in the United States 30,000 babies die each year of MTLP and thousands more live with damage to their brains. They suffer cerebral epilepsy and other nervous system disorders. A good diet will protect you and your baby from MTLP.
2. Anemias (”low blood”) - caused by not enough iron, vitamins and/or proteins in the diet. A good diet will protect you from anemias.
3. Abruption of the Placenta - a disease in which the placenta (or “afterbirth”) breaks loose inside the mother’s womb, often before labor begins. The mother bleeds, and the baby dies in 50% of the cases. A good diet will protect you and your baby from Abruption of the Placenta.
4. Severe infections of the lungs, kidneys and liver. A good diet will protect you and your baby from severe infections.
5. Miscarriage - if the mother does not have a good diet, the placenta grows imperfectly and cannot meet the needs of the developing baby, and a miscarriage results. A good diet will protect you and your baby from miscarriages.  

For the full article, including your Daily Pregnancy Nutrition Checklist on p. 4-5, go to... 

http://www.blueribbonbaby.org/ifyouarepregnant/4/