During pregnancy, eating nutritious foods is even more important than usual. While doughnuts and ice cream are incredibly tempting, your body and the growing baby need the right amounts of varied vitamins and nutrients much more than sugar. The following guidelines should help pregnant women navigate the grocery store to pick up wholesome foods and avoid the junk.
Fruits and Vegetables
The fruit and vegetable aisle should be your first stop once you walk inside the store. A variety of vegetables, including ones of all different colors, provides a wide range of vitamins in their freshest and most usable form. Dark greens such as spinach and broccoli and golden fruits such as mango and cantaloupe pack some of the biggest bang for the buck in terms of nutrition, containing high doses of vitamin E, folic acid and beta-carotene that are needed for baby's growth. Eating your veggies raw or lightly cooked provides more fiber, which helps prevent constipation.
Protein
Protein and the amino acids that compose proteins are vital to baby's growth, particularly during the second and third trimesters. The Mayo Clinic recommends that pregnant women consume 71 g of protein a day, spread out throughout the day. Various sources of protein provide other essential benefits as well, such as fiber from legumes and omega-3 from fish. However, avoid fish with high levels of mercury, such as swordfish, because mercury can impact the baby's brain development.
Organics
Whenever possible, pregnant women should steer themselves toward the organic food sections. Organic foods are created without pesticides, chemical fertilizers, weed-killers, hormones, antibiotics and genetic modification. As such, they are safer for the baby. Organic foods also tend to be fresher and have higher nutrient content. Some nutrients degrade over time, and organics usually only stay on store shelves for a short time due to their lack of preservatives.
Things to Avoid
In addition to avoiding high-mercury fish, pregnant women should also stay away from products with too much sodium, sugar and caffeine. Sodium contributes to high blood pressure, a condition that can endanger the health of mother and baby. Foods high in sugar not only increase the risk for diabetes but also generally lack other nutrients that mother and baby need. While small amounts of caffeine, such as one cup of coffee a day, are generally considered safe, large amounts of caffeine may increase the risk for miscarriage. Other items to avoid include alcohol, raw seafood and soft cheeses.
