The need for a pregnant woman to be on and maintain healthy diets can not be overemphasized. Women experience a lot of internal and external body changes during pregnancy. In some cases, health challenges like high blood pressure, anxiety, depression etc manifest. This is most often a resulting effects of poor or imbalanced nutrition. There are a lot of other predisposing factors but that is beyond the scope of this article.
Series of studies has revealed that a lot of incidence of premature delivery, still birth and other obstetrical complications are higher in poorly nourished pregnant women than those who maintain a healthy and balanced diet. When an infant is delivered to a poorly nourished woman, such child is usually underweight compared to those mothers with balanced diet. So, it is very necessary that pregnant women should be on a balanced diet from the first trimester to child delivery. Even after delivery, the growth and proper development of the infant is still dependent on the nutritional balance of the mother.
Stillbirth: This is a pregnancy complications whereby a child is delivered dead after 24 weeks of pregnancy. It is also called miscarriage or loss of foetus. This situation is usually caused by series of factors but the chief of them is poor nutrition.
The source of nutrients for foetus development is the mother. Therefore, if the mother is not on a balanced diet, the foetus wouldn’t have enough nutrients to live on. It then implies that nutritional needs of the foetus imposes an additional nutrients requirement on the pregnant woman. For these reasons, a pregnant woman must improve and balance her nutrition in the following ways.
5 ways to maintain a healthy and balanced diet during pregnancy.
1. A pregnant woman needs a lot of proteins: The foetus requires a lot of proteins for growth and development, therefore, she must consume foods that are rich in proteins so that it will always be absorbed by the foetus. If proteins are adequate, the foetus will have enough and the leftover will be for the normal body maintenance of the woman.
Recommended daily intake of protein; it is recommended that a pregnant woman need 58g of proteins per day.
Protein sources: eggs, legumes, meat, and fish.
2. Energy giving foods; It is partinient to note that a pregnant woman needs extra energy so that she can always be able to move the new increased weight and also perform some other activities. When she has sufficient energy through the carbohydrate rich foods, her body system will spare her protein. However, it is also necessary that the pregnant woman watch her energy-giving foods Consumption in order not for her to become overweight. She must have to strive to strike a balance between her energy giving foods intake and expenditure either through mild exercise or other daily duties that is not strianous.
Recommended daily intake; The recommended energy requirements of a pregnant woman per day is 2,350Kcal.
Energy sources; Tubers like potatoes, yam, cassava, cereals, banana, plantain, etc.
3. Increased iron-rich foods intake; During pregnancy, the iron requirements in the body system of the woman is usually very high owing to the fact that the foetus derives it’s own iron from the mother and store it for use after birth, the amount of iron that last for infant atleast the first 22days. This depletes the mother’s storage of iron and reasonable amount are also lost during birth. Hence, the need for improved iron intake for the sake of sufficiency.
Recommended daily intake of iron. It is recommended that a pregnant woman should have 28mg of iron from her diet per day.
Food sources of iron; foods rich in iron includes: offal, liver, vegetables, legumes.
4. Increased Calcium-rich foods intake: During pregnancy, the calcium requirements by the body system is also always high. This helps for the strong bones of the mother, and as the foetus is developing, it is absorbing calcium for strong bones formation. If her daily diets is insufficient of calcium, one of the repercussions is that her bones will be weak. Also, there is high chance that she will give birth to a child that will suffer from hypocalcemia.
Recommended daily intake. The recommended daily intake of calcium from calcium-rich foods for pregnant women is 1000-1200mg per day.
Food sources of calcium; This includes: milk, cheese, Yoghurt, fish, soft bones, green vegetables, wheat flour fortified with calcium carbonate.
5. Increased Vitamins-rich foods intake; vitamins perform enormous roles in the body system of a pregnant woman. Provided she is on a diet that is adequate in Vitamins, especially the B-complexes, Some of the complications that comes with pregnancy such as depression, dizziness, high blood pressure, anxiety etc will be under control. So, she must ensure that her diets is such that is rich in B-complex Vitamins. For instance, Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) deficiency in pregnant women results in the development of sores on the skin and at the corner of the mouth.
Deficiency of Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) results in loss of Appetite, depression, fatigue and nervousness often experienced by pregnant women.
Also, Vitamin K deficiency leads to excessive bleeding during child delivery. This explains why this particular Vitamin administered to a woman during child birth to control excessive bleeding. Therefore, vitamins are very necessary in the diet of pregnant women, they must ensure that they are on a diet that supplies sufficient amount of these vitamins.
Food sources of vitamins: The food sources of vitamins that I mentioned in this article include;
★ Vitamin B1 (Thiamine); whole cereals, legumes, nuts, milk, offal.
★ Vitamin B2 (riboflavin): whole cereals, milk, eggs, legumes, nuts, green leafy vegetables, offal.
★ Vitamin K: cabbage, green leafy vegetables, liver, eggs, milk, soya beans.
Summarily, pregnancy comes with a lot of tasking nutritional needs and system changes. Hence, the need for adequate and balanced daily diet to avert any form of complications as I had pointed out above. Pregnant women must ensure that they improve their diets this period.
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