Optimising your nutrition both before and during pregnancy will not only give your baby the best start in life but research suggests a healthy pregnancy diet also has long lasting effects that go well into childhood. Here are just a few key steps to supporting your reproductive health throughout all stages of pregnancy and beyond. Preconception If you are thinking about trying for a baby, it is vital to maintain good levels of a wide range of nutrients including vitamin D and folate. Vitamin...
It can be difficult to get the time to feed ourselves the extra 400-500 calories we need when we’re breastfeeding. We begin to skip breakfast and lunch, grab a coffee or a sugary snack to give us a much needed ‘energy boost’ which often backfires leaving us ratty and wired. And then all too often when we do sit down to a hot meal in the evening it often seems as if our babies are designed to begin demanding to be fed just as we’re about to take our first...
Pregnancy, morning sickness and nutritionThe news that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are expecting their third child has generated headlines around the world but, as with Kate’s last two pregnancies, the Duchess has suffered from terrible morning sick – also known as hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). In fact, Kate was unable to attend George’s first day at school because of the condition. What is hyperemesis gravidarum? HG is a debilitating condition that saw Kate...
How would you feel if you had been fed a big fat lie, that a high 'good' fat diet is good for you, and especially good for your hormone health? Well I'm here to burst this big fat bubble, good fat, bad fat, it's all fat! Our 10 to 15% of low fat intake should be coming from wholefoods, not refined oils, and the best place for these oils are our hair and skin, not our mouth. Saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, it's all fat and it's clogging your arteries, slowing your blood flow...
As a new mother, you may be tempted to pay more attention to your baby’s well-being than your own, but the two are inextricably linked. After all, your baby needs a strong and healthy mother, and if you are breastfeeding, what you eat passes onto your baby through your milk. This gives you all the more reason to eat well! During your fourth trimester, your hormones are hard at work helping every cell and organ in your body to return to their pre-pregnancy state, and the fluctuating...
Are you trying to get pregnant? If so, did you know that the foods you eat today impact the health of your eggs and sperm 90 days from now? Include these five foods daily to boost your egg and sperm quality: 1. Green leafy vegetables Such as broccoli, kale, cabbage, watercress, rocket, spinach and chard are packed with essential nutrients including the vitamins A, C, E and K and antioxidants. Importantly for conception, they are a rich source of the vital B vitamin Folate, which is crucial...
There’s no doubt that good nutrition and fertility are inextricably intertwined so, when you’re trying to get pregnant, eating well really matters. Eating the right things in the right amounts and the right time will boost your fertility. Here’s how: 1) Protein. It’s needed by every cell in the body for growth and repair (and that also stretches to growing a new person, too!). Trouble is, most people I see in clinic don’t eat nearly enough. Eating protein is also...
Stress is bad news for fertility. Mother nature in all her wisdom makes it so that babies come into the world have a safe place to be nurtured. When women are under stress from trying to meet work deadlines, running late or being angry at the photocopier for jamming yet again; the hormones produced are no different to those our prehistoric ancestors produced when running away from a sabre toothed tiger! In both cases blood flow is restricted from the reproductive system as it is rushed into the...
The quality of a mothers diet before she conceives and during pregnancy produce lifelong effects that improve her babies resilience to degenerative diseases and infection throughout their lives. In fact recent research shows that by prioritising good nutrition during pregnancy, you are supporting your babies future health and that of their children. In short, eating a nutritious diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding can produce positive changes to your baby's physiology and gene expression...
Experts are urging for strategies to be introduced to prevent girls and young women becoming obese due to the damaging effects it can have on their health and the livelihood of their babies should they fall pregnant.
Scientists involved in a long-running major European study have found that children of obese mothers are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, have a stroke or develop heart disease.
The research - collected from 13,000 people born in the 1930s and 40s - also shows that...
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