As a pregnant vegan, you may feel quite unsupported in your decision to continue with or start an entirely plant-based diet. People may scrutinize and question your eating choices so much that you begin to wonder yourself if you are endangering your baby. However, the American Dietetic Association has officially declared that "well-planned" vegetarian and vegan diets are healthy throughout the entire life cycle, including pregnancy and breastfeeding. Many online and print reading materials, groups, programs and resources can offer you practical guidance and emotional validation throughout and beyond your vegan pregnancy.
Resources Specifically Dedicated to Vegan Pregnancy
The Vegetarian Resource Group presents vegan pregnancy advice, including a sample menu, from nutritionist Reed Mangels, a vegan mother herself and author of the print "Everything Vegan Pregnancy Book," scheduled for publication in September 2011. In brash language that some might find jarring and others highly entertaining, the 2008 book "Skinny Bitch Bun in the Oven" does not simply claim that veganism is OK during pregnancy, authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin assert it as the healthiest, safest, most eco-friendly pregnancy diet.
General Resources
Even if they address pregnancy and veganism only in part, if at all, you can often benefit from general resources on pregnancy nutrition, veganism and vegetarianism. For example, you can adapt both the US government's meal planning tool MyPlate and the vegan alternative Power Plate to the purposes of vegan pregnancy. You may be able to find like-minded people through vrgparents, VRG's discussion list on raising a vegetarian family, even though not all the members are vegan or currently pregnant. The magazine "Vegetarian Times" publishes a vegan-oriented "Vegetarian Starter Kit" with a section on pregnancy and tips on "veganizing" common dinners like spaghetti.
Homegrown Vegan Food
Especially if they are organic and locally grown, as eco-conscious vegans often wish them to be, nutritious plant foods can be quite expensive-and, in places like low-income urban neighborhoods, scarce or unavailable. Resources on growing your own food can thus be invaluable support for your vegan pregnancy and parenting. A complete vegan diet can be organically, sustainably grown in about 4,000 square feet, according to Ecology Action's website. While you may not find this a feasible goal, especially within the time frame of your pregnancy, this website can show you how to cultivate high yields of greens and other plants in small spaces. Even urban apartment dwellers can try community or container gardening.
Food Benefit Programs
You may qualify for U.S. Department of Agriculture food benefit programs serving low-income Americans, such as Women Infants Children or WIC and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program or SNAP, informally called "food stamps." While dairy and eggs are the main protein sources in typical WIC food packages, you can eat peanut butter, tofu, soy milk, whole grains and beans instead. SNAP generally allows more choice over the foods you receive and even covers seeds and plants for growing your own food. Your state Medicaid and/or Children's Health Insurance Program or CHIP may cover prenatal supplements along with other pregnancy care.
References
- ChooseMyPlate.gov: Daily Food Plans for Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
- Ecology Action: Grow Biointensive
- Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine: The Power Plate
- United States Department of Agriculture: Nutrition Assisatnce Programs
- Vegetarian Resource Group: Vegan Nutrition in Pregnancy and Childhood; Reed Mangels and Katie Kavanagh-Prochaska
- Vegetarian Times: Vegetarian Starter Kit
