Vegetarian Pregnancy Diet

Posted on May 16, 2008 in Pregnancy Diet

Mother’s womb is the only source of nutrition for the developing fetus. Hence diet plays an important role during the whole pregnancy phase. Are doubtful about your decision of going vegetarian during pregnancy? You don’t have to worry about you decision regarding vegetarian diet during pregnancy. You simply need to plan your vegetarian pregnancy diet so as to ensure complete nutrition to the developing fetus.

Vegetarian pregnancy diet ensures that you receive all essential minerals, Vitamins and other nutrients. Your vegan pregnancy diet should be like “Cornucopia” which contains fresh vegetables, fruits and all natural foods. A vegetarian diet can easily support health pregnancy and even lactation if it supplies sufficient energy. A vegetarian diet can be classified under 4 categories:

• Complete Vegetarian Diet: Pregnancy diet consisting only of fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, legumes and nuts.
• Lactovegetarian Diet: This type of diet includes vegetables, fruits as well as milk and other dairy products.
• Ovo-Lactovegetarian Diet: Besides vegetables and fruits this diet includes eggs also.
• Semi-vegetarian Diet: Excluding red meat this diet includes chicken, fish with plant and dairy products and eggs.

It is observed that many vegetarian pregnant women are well nourished. In fact many a times exceeding RDA for almost all minerals and vitamins except for iron. In case of women who are thin and restrict themselves to strictly vegan diet might face some problems during pregnancy.

Vegetarian pregnancy diet might require multivitamin and mineral supplementation. You might even need to take fortified food for complete nutrition. It is observed that infant born to vegan parents tend to develop severe psychomotor retardation or spinal cord damage. This is mainly due to the deficiency of Vitamin B12 during pregnancy; hence you need to take multivitamin supplements.

According to American Dietetic Association, a pregnant woman should eat fruits and vegetables every day. It also recommends to gradually increasing the number of servings from five to seven. During pregnancy it is recommended to keep the fat content limited and vegetarian diet severs the purpose. The nutrient and health needs of pregnant woman are easily fulfilled by the vegetarian diet.

• You can easily obtain iron by eating sufficient amount of green leafy vegetables, nuts, seeds and bran.
• Calcium can be obtained from dairy and soy products.
• Yeast, nuts and dairy products are good source of folic acid.
• Beans, seeds, soy and nuts fulfills protein requirement.
• Vitamin B can be supplied by wheat germ, whole grains, cheese, eggs, beans and dairy products.

During pregnancy the nutritional requirement of a pregnant woman almost doubles up. Even a vegetarian diet can overcome the nutritional shortfalls. Vegetarian diet has complete solution for all the pregnancy problems. Here are few tips for vegan pregnant women for healthy pregnancy:

• It is advisable to increase your energy levels. You can achieve this by increasing the consumption of whole grains and legumes.
• Ginger tea can relieve you from the symptoms of morning sickness.
• To overcome the problems of constipation increase your consumption of fiber.
• To increase the production of milk during lactation period you can try raspberry tea.

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