A healthy diet before pregnancy is crucial, and preconception nutrition is especially important for expectant mothers. Here, the editor of Qinqin Baobei reminds all women to pay attention to the following preconception dietary considerations:
• Maintain a balanced and varied diet, consuming a large amount of nutrients necessary for good health.
• Daily intake of at least 1000 milligrams (mg) of calcium (equivalent to about 3 glasses of 240ml milk).
• Ensure adequate iron in your diet, especially if you have heavy menstrual flow.
• Ensure you have three meals a day.
• At least 5 servings of vegetables or fruits daily, with a wide variety of food types.
• Limit the intake of foods and beverages high in fat, salt, and sugar.
• Keep your Body Mass Index (BMI) within a healthy range (check if your BMI is suitable with our BMI calculator).
Regarding vitamin supplements, you should pay attention to taking folic acid supplements. A key nutrient you must consider for a healthy pregnancy is folic acid. Your body needs folic acid to make new cells and genetic material. During pregnancy, folic acid helps the baby's neural tube to develop. The neural tube forms very early in pregnancy and develops into the baby's spine. Sometimes, when the neural tube does not close properly, it can lead to neural tube defects (NTDs), such as spina bifida.
Adequate intake of folic acid before and during pregnancy can reduce the risk of the baby having a neural tube defect by 72%. Women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant should take a folic acid supplement of 0.4 milligrams or 400 micrograms daily, continuing until at least the 12th week of pregnancy. Doctors often prescribe a higher dose of 5 mg of folic acid daily for women who have previously had a baby with a neural tube defect or are being treated for epilepsy, so you must consult your doctor for the correct dose suitable for you. Additionally, ensure your diet includes foods rich in folic acid, such as citrus fruits and juices, dark green leafy vegetables, beans, whole grains, fortified bread, and breakfast cereals.
In preconception dietary considerations, you should also avoid the following foods:
• Foods that may contain high levels of listeria, such as pâté and soft cheeses.
• Vitamin supplements and foods containing high levels of vitamin A in the form of retinol (such as liver), as this may harm the fetus. However, vitamin A in the form of beta-carotene is safe to take during pregnancy.
• Oily fish, which may have high levels of mercury and pollutants. Although you can eat this type of fish, be careful not to eat too much—no more than twice a week.
• Peanuts, if there is a family history of asthma, hay fever, or eczema.
If you are particularly concerned about things you ate in the past that might be harmful to a pregnancy, you can give yourself some time before trying to conceive to reduce the levels of mercury or vitamin A in your body. Or, once you suspect you are pregnant, avoid these foods. Because pregnancy can weaken your immune system, listeria and salmonella can be more problematic during pregnancy, making you more susceptible to illness when fighting these germs.
Finally, you should also quit other habits that may be harmful to fetal development, such as smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, excessive caffeine intake, and drug use.
Expert Advice: Eat Less Meat Before Pregnancy for a Smooth Journey to Motherhood
High Protein Reduces the Success Rate of Conception
Many women, in order to have a healthy baby, start increasing their intake of nutrients like protein before pregnancy. However, according to a report by the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), scientists in the United States have found that a diet too high in protein can reduce a woman's chances of getting pregnant.
The research team, led by Dr. David Gardner, director of the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine, found that if the protein content in the diet exceeds 25%, it interferes with the normal gene imprinting in the early stages of embryo development in mice, affecting embryo implantation and fetal development.
Dr. Gardner divided female mice into two groups. The first group was fed food containing 25% protein, and the second group was fed food containing 14% protein. After 4 weeks, he allowed these female mice to mate and transferred the resulting 174 blastocysts into surrogate female mice to examine the effect of the mother's diet before implantation on fetal development. The results showed that only 36% of the blastocysts from the first group showed normal genetic imprinting, compared to 70% in the second group. Only 65% of the blastocysts from the first group developed into fetuses after being transferred into the surrogate mothers' uteruses, compared to 81% in the second group. Only 84% of the fetuses in the first group continued to develop, compared to 99% in the second group. Furthermore, Dr. Gardner analyzed embryo development on the fifth day of pregnancy in the surrogate mothers and found that the fetuses of the first group developed one-third of a day slower than those of the second group.
Meat and other foods are also high in protein
Actually, previous scientific research had already found that an increase in ammonium, a protein metabolite in the female cow's reproductive organs, alters the imprinting of the H19 gene, which plays an important role in embryo development. Although the current research is still being conducted on mice, Dr. Gardner believes that the findings are also relevant to humans. "If the protein content in the diet is too high, the level of ammonium in the reproductive system will also increase accordingly, affecting the normal imprinting of the H19 gene and fetal development, and increasing the risk of miscarriage. For women who want to have children, protein intake should not exceed 20% of total energy." High-protein foods mainly include daily foods such as meat, eggs, milk, and beans.