Personal Story

My first baby was a wonderful surprise. I did not know how important it was to prepare as parents before conceiving a child. I ate healthy, went on long walks, and didn’t smoke, drink, or drink coffee. If I had known I was about to become pregnant, I would have started providing supportive supplements and other interventions to further boost my baby’s nutritional foundation.

A Child’s Life Begins Before Birth

Life begins before birth so both parents need to work together to have excellent health before conceiving a child. Eating natural foods, getting into good shape, removing harmful substances like cigarettes or drugs, and avoiding environmental contaminants as much as possible all contribute to bodies that are ready to conceive. The emotional and mental states of the parents also affect the developing child. Having health education and preventative care are the foundation of a wonderful childbearing experience.

Ways Child Development Can Be Affected

Smoking during pregnancy may result in miscarriage, prematurity, or intrauterine growth retardation that leads to low birth weight babies.  Men, too, should stop smoking because of the problems second-hand smoke cause.

Alcohol consumption, even moderate amounts while carrying a child, can cause fetal alcohol syndrome. This syndrome is characterized by mid-facial hypoplasia or growth retardation. There may also be mental disorder, microcephaly, and/or abnormal palmar creases. Here, again, the dad should stop drinking in the pre-conception phase because alcohol may affect sperm health.

Caffeine may reduce or prevent absorption of the amount of nutrients in our food. Zinc and iron are extremely important for fertility and childbearing. It may be best to wean off coffee, black tea, green tea, cocoa, cola, and soft drinks to reduce the side effects of fatigue, headache, and nausea that sometimes come with withdrawal.

Prenatal nutrition- Now we’re going to focus on how prenatal nutrition affects child development.

Prenatal Nutrition

Shonda Parker, in her book The Naturally Healthy Pregnancy: Whole Health for Your Whole Pregnancy, gives many insights on eating whole foods, real food that is in the “closest state to which God created that food.” These include planning and purchasing quality food; eating seasonally; preparing protein, fruit, veggies, whole grains, healthy fats; pure water; and limiting, or eliminating, refined sugar.

The biggest goal is to consume healthy calories from real food rather than empty calories from processed junk food. You’re aiming to eat enough calories. For average-sized women, that could be between 2300 – 2500 calories a day.

Protein- It is important to get enough protein, but too much protein intake has been associated with more premature birth babies, fetal growth retardation, and neonatal deaths. It is important to get enough protein, and 80 to 100 grams is a good target amount. To find out how much you need, take your pregnancy weight, and multiply it by 0.62 and you will be in the correct range.

It is important to take a prenatal vitamin before you are pregnant. The first 28 days of pregnancy are critically important for the baby’s neurological development. Omega 3’s DHA for baby’s brain development, choline methyl folate for neural tube development, and other vitamins are critical. It would be helpful to have labs done so you are aware of any deficiencies or overage you may have that need to be corrected.

Action

Help spread the news! Let women of childbearing age know how prenatal nutrition affects child development and what they can do to get their future baby off to a good start.

May God bless you on your wellness journey!

Joni

P.S. What do you do to have a healthy body that would be ready to conceive a child?