Foods We Should Eat & Avoid During Pregnancy

A healthy diet is essential for every female during pregnancy. It is vital to meet the body's demands and boost the immune system. Consuming loads of whole grains, veggies, fruits, iron-rich products, and proteins to supply important nutrients to the body is beneficial. Some food habits like alcohol, caffeine, fat-based products, processed foods, and unhealthy food are completely avoidable during pregnancy.

It becomes important to consume a diet enriched with proteins, carbos, dietary fibers, and healthy fats. You need to focus on a whole grains-related diet such as millet, brown rice, oatmeal, and foods based on whole wheat flour. In this blog, we have tried to sketch down a curated food plan, which helps your growth, immune system, and body functionality to take good care of your pregnancy period.

This is a blog generated to guide you step-by-step through the necessity of the food habits you need to develop during pregnancy, which helps your body and physical growth in order to eliminate any deficiencies if they occur.

Healthy Fruits & Veggies

You must be shocked to know the fact that 90% of all US citizens are unable to consume healthy fruits and veggies in their lifetime. However, we cannot suggest you follow this while you can work on improvement by consuming more healthy fruits and veggies that are equally important for your health during this crucial time.

Consuming more fresh fruits and veggies is compulsory, if you're pregnant. It helps store extra nutrients, which are supplied to the body and helps in the growth of your developing baby during the first trimester of pregnancy. If you target to consume 2 to 2 and 1/2 cups of fruits and veggies every day, this could give you surprising results.

There's no restriction on the choices unless or until the fruits and veggies you're going to consume are fresh and beneficial. However, canned, packaged foods are not suggested as they lack their nutrients. Thus, you can target to consume fresh self-made juices or eat fruits and veggies raw.

Consuming Proteins

Pregnancy is the development phase for both the mother and the baby inside her tummy. The period of rapid growth seeks a lot of protein consumption in order to produce more energy for the body and the developing child. Remember, you need to obtain the minimal requirements of nutrition and you need to focus on the importance of eating protein-based foods. You need to ensure that you don't consume harmful proteins that contain substances unhealthy for your body.

The following foods can be considered:

• Plant-based proteins, powdered protein
• Soy and tofu-based products
• Legumes, nuts, seeds, lentils, and beans.

You can also look for animal-based protein such as poultry products, chicken breast, egg whites, beef, and fish.

Fats To Consume During Pregnancy

Fats are important to our body; they give us a lot of energy to perform tasks but if bad fat is consumed in a higher quantity, then it also becomes painful. It completely depends upon the types of fats you're consuming.

Good fats are always said to have polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats, these are supposed to be healthy fats for our human body. If consumed properly, it reduces the effects of other fats on our bodies. Saturated fats if consumed, increase the higher risks of pregnancy and a lot can happen with such bad fat consumption.

A few examples of healthy fats to consume during pregnancy are as below:

• Walnuts
• Flax seeds, sunflower seeds
• Fatty fishes like salmon, herring, and trout

Fiber Intake

Oats, brown rice, veggies, fruits, and beans are a few names that have high fiber properties and help contribute to overall gut health during your pregnancy. If consumed regularly, it makes you feel full after a little intake. Consuming foods high in fiber properties helps reduce the risk of several deficiencies and issues like acidity, hemorrhoids, etc.,

Why aim for Iron?

Iron is an important part of our hemoglobin, which is basically a pigment and a major protein substance in the blood vessels. Consuming more irons improves the level of hemoglobin and the number of red blood cells in the body helping shielding from any external exposure.

During a lady's pregnancy, the iron needs to increase by 50% in the body as the rapid development of the baby goes inside the mommy. If a person is diagnosed with iron deficiencies in the body, he can develop anemia, depression, early delivery, white discharge from organs, and tiredness without doing anything.

You need to consume more iron-based foods to help the body during pregnancy. These foods are:

• Lean meat
• Fishes with omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids
• Poultry products such as chicken, egg whites, and fat-free milk.
• Dark veggies & green veggies
• Legumes

Certainly yes, you need to consume more good foods and develop good food habits during your pregnancy for a safer and sound delivery. However, some foods can harm your body and develop a lot of issues, which should need to be avoided. We're going to look into those food habits.

Avoid Food Habits

In order to help your body prevent several complications and issues. You need to be strict about avoiding certain food habits.

• Consuming more plates of seafood increases the level of mercury in the body.
• Avoid sharks and swordfish.
• Semi-cooked or raw meats. Always choose cooked meats.
• Uncooked shellfish to avoid risks of infections and bacteria in the body.
• Consuming raw egg whites.
• Unhealthy cheese and supplements.

Weight Gain

It is normal, though but too much weight gain could be serious when you're pregnant. Obtaining the right amount of weight on your body is good for you and for the baby's health but gaining plenty of weight can be an alarm bell and you need to rush to your gyno. A mass weight chart can help you overcome these difficulties and a weight check machine can help you track your overall gain at each time.

The best resolution to the issue can be solved by your gyno only. Consult with your doctor and he can tell you methods for controlling or improving your health. Remember! Weight gain is a common process for all pregnant ladies but it shouldn't be overwhelmed.

In Summarize,

A pregnant lady doesn't take care of her own health but she has to care for the baby who's developing inside slowly and steadily. Babies need a lot of important nutrition for substantial growth of the body, which seeks a lot of important food habits to develop. Pregnancy care is an important aspect of the female's life and the tendency reaches cloud number 9 when it comes to her own baby developing inside.

The aforesaid food habits can deliver all the important nutrients to our body and help in the growth of your baby, which definitely cannot be hidden. The important food structure mentioned above delivers you the right amount of essential nutrients to help complete your pregnancy cycle with ease.