 |
|
Confessions of a Vegan Pregnancy
by Julia*
|
My first confession is that I'm not absolutely
100% vegan. I'm unfortunately prone to the occasional
chockie bickie and during pregnancy those occasions
have, if anything, been more frequent. In
an ideal world, market demand for animal-free
products would be such that deliciously rich,
smooth vegan chockie alternatives would be on
hand at all times. But at the current time and
the current marketplace, this is not the case.
(Yes, there are vegan products but not always
to hand, not always affordable, and - let's
be frank - not always as nice as the 'real'
ones!)
|
|
I consciously choose to adopt this approach, (which I like
to describe as 'chocko-vegan'), because I know it's sustainable
for me in the long term. If I tried to be too purist as
a vegan, I would quickly fail. Allowing myself the occasional
bickie, and at times choosing not to read labels too closely
when the situation warrants it, I am able to maintain a
lifestyle in which all of my main meals and most of my snacks
are completely vegan.
For me, being (almost) vegan meant complete confidence
in pregnancy. I knew from the start that I was making the
best possible choice for myself and my baby (chocolate biscuits
aside); and that we would both be well - how could we not?
We were both fuelled by the best possible nutrition for
our growing needs, the wonderful clean energy of plants.
Constipation, indigestion, high blood pressure - these
are some of the common "symptoms" of pregnancy which I have
not suffered. Granted, food isn't everything - the amount
of exercise I did prior and during pregnancy, my general
health, my age, and even my genes will all have played their
part. But my diet certainly didn't present any obstacle,
and I believe it has provided the nutritional building blocks
for a healthy, energetic, trouble-free pregnancy.
I had no trouble with excess weight gain during pregnancy.
Neither did I have any difficulty gaining an adequate amount
of weight for a healthy baby. Throughout my pregnancy I
felt great and at all stages people, both known and unknown
to me, remarked on how well I looked.
Where do you get your... ?
Folate is an essential nutrient for brain development during
pregnancy, especially in the first trimester. I didn't take
a folate supplement, although every health professional
I saw instructed me to do so, as a general protocol applied
(rightly) to all pregnancies, since it is known that we
as a society, en masse, (as animal eaters!) are deficient
in folate.
Can it really be that human babies can't develop normally
on a healthy diet, without this and that supplement and
medical intervention? My reasoning was that a vegetarian
diet is the correct one for human beings, and so would provide
the proper nutrients for my baby. Folate is found mainly
in fruit and vegetables; this includes legumes, (which are
technically vegetables). The staple foods of a vegan diet
are legumes and cereals; that's where we get our substance,
the carbohydrates for energy that keep us going. So at my
house we eat legumes at least once a day, often twice: split
peas, beans, dried peas, red or brown lentils, tofu or tempeh
(from soy beans). I eat two pieces of fresh fruit every
day for morning tea, and we have a raw salad as a "first
course" before dinner most evenings of the week.
When I got the pregnancy "nibbles", I supplemented my usual
diet with soy yogurt, dried fruit (especially dried apricots),
nuts, toast or ryvitas with avocado or Marmite or homous,
and extra bananas. All of these foods are rich in folate,
as well as other essential ingredients. I tested my diet
on an online "folate calculator"(1) and found that it ought
to provide a more than adequate supply of the nutrient,
even for the increased requirements of pregnancy. Sure enough,
blood tests taken at all stages of my pregnancy show that
my folate levels were good.
When the hospital midwife discovered I was vegetarian (lucky
she didn't know about the vegan part) she said "But where
will you get your IRON?" - as if it was an impossibility
that I could fulfil my and my baby's needs without recourse
to slabs of steak.
How to put it simply? Where don't I get it?
I suffered from anaemia from my teens until the day I became
vegetarian; since then, it has never troubled me and whenever
tested, (including throughout pregnancy), my iron levels
are good. Iron is found in many plant foods - good sources
include green vegetables like spinach; dried fruits, especially
apricots; and chickpeas.
Moreover, iron comes in different forms and some are more
"friendly" to the human body than others. My vegetarian
diet has always supplied me with plenty, and pregnancy was
no exception. By contrast, many non-vegetarian women eat
meat quite infrequently and their iron intake is likely
to be less reliable - hence their greater incidence of anaemia
(this is anecdotal, based on my observation. But statistics
do show that vegetarians do not suffer higher rates of iron
deficiency than the wider population.) (2)
Vitamin B12 was not an issue for me, since for reasons
completely unrelated to my diet, I receive it by injection.
Vitamin B12 is the only nutrient which vegan mums on a healthy,
varied diet do need to watch and to supplement, either by
taking tablets or by ensuring they consume adequate quantities
of vitamin-B12 fortified foods.(3)
When I became pregnant, being vegetarian gave me deep confidence
that all would be well. I didn't need to read and research
a lot about diets for pregnancy, or to change my way of
eating. Everything I read confirmed that my (almost) vegan
diet was ideal for the purpose. Sadly, it's not so for everyone.
A friend of ours, a long-time vegetarian and strongly committed
within the vegetarian movement, when I asked about her experiences
as a vegetarian Mum, confessed a lack of confidence which
started with the birth of her child and has not left her
since. Has she made the right choice? Is she feeding herself
and her family adequately, responsibly?
Her story is not uncommon. When women become mothers, pressure
from society increases. Family and friends suddenly feel
at liberty to have their say; a pregnant woman's body in
a certain sense is no longer hers, but becomes common property;
and the misinformation about food becomes more insistent.
Scare mongering
Bill and Tanya sat before me in my office in a somber
mood: they had just lost their first baby in the second
month of pregnancy. Tanya was particularly upset. "Why
did this happen to me? Why did I miscarry my baby?"
Upon questioning Tanya about her diet, I quickly saw
the cause of her infections, as well as her miscarriage:
she had virtually no fat in her diet and was also mostly
a vegetarian. Because of the plentiful media rhetoric
about the supposed dangers of animal product consumption,
as opposed to the alleged health benefits of the vegetarian
lifestyle, Tanya had deliberately removed such things
as cream, butter, meats and fish from her diet. Although
she liked liver, she avoided it due to worries over "toxins."
Tanya and Bill left with a bottle of vitamin A, other
supplements and a dietary prescription that included plentiful
amounts of animal fats and meat. Just before leaving my
office, Tanya looked at me and said ruefully: "I just
don't know what to believe sometimes. Everywhere I look
there is all this low-fat, vegetarian stuff recommended.
I followed it, and look what happened." I assured her
that if she and her husband changed their diets and allowed
sufficient time for her weakened uterus to heal, they
would be happy parents in due time.
[Extract from the website of the Weston A.
Price Foundation, 'The Myths of Vegetarianism', by S Byrnes,
PhD, RNCP] (4)
What angers me about this kind of scare-mongering is firstly
its dishonesty, in terms of the choice to focus on statistically
and scientifically unsubstantiated "evidence".
This article makes no mention of the number of non-vegetarian
mothers who suffer miscarriage, nor any attempt to show
a statistically greater incidence of miscarriage among vegetarian
mothers. When non-vegetarian mothers lose babies, nobody
points the finger at their meat-eating diet - they find
something else to blame. (Even if many relevant factors
such as lack of folate or high blood pressure may well be
linked to a meat-based diet.)
Is this woman's diet to blame for her miscarriage, or is
it simply the easiest thing to point the bone at? There's
no evidence presented here of any link with her diet. She
is simply being held up as a scarecrow to alarm others.
Similarly, how many meat eaters have you met who hold up
the example of the single vegetarian they know who got sick
or ended up in hospital - ignoring the contradictory evidence
in the form of the healthy, energetic, fully functioning
one right in front of them!
Secondly, I'm annoyed at the blurring of unrelated issues.
Low-fat diets and vegetarian diets are two completely different
things. Human beings need fat in their diet as it's essential
for bodily functioning....of course. I don't
see any vegetarian proponents (certainly not VA) denying
this! Unless people confuse two very different types of
'diet', vegetarian diets can and do
contain fats.
The point is that the fats contained in nuts and seeds,
in grains and legumes, and in beautiful vegetables like
avocados and olives, (and hence in vegetable oils) are the
'right' type of fats - those 'good' fats so lauded by bodies
like the Heart Foundation as good for our health. The 'bad'
fats (saturated fats) are by and large (with very few exceptions)
contained exclusively in animal products.(5) Hence people
who avoid animal products don't need to stress about pursuing
low fat diets. A healthy plant-based diet, by supplying
adequate fats but of the right type, solves the 'fats' problem
-effortlessly. (By choosing an animal-free diet, so many
of modern Western society's entrenched health issues disappear
as if by magic.)
Let's be clear: vegetarian diets are not automatically
or inevitably healthy, any more than other diets. Variety
is the key to good nutrition and vegetarians who try to
live on pasta or lettuce leaves or hot chips alone are unlikely
to succeed. Variety in a vegan diet means selecting a range
of different foods from each of the plant food groups: legumes,
grains/cereals, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds,
and including healthy oils like olive, sunflower, and canola.
Looking ahead
Naturally, parenthood doesn't end with pregnancy - it only
starts there. Being vegetarian gives me full confidence
for the future.
When my child is ready to eat solid foods (prior to that,
of course, it's "human milk for human babies" - and no,
breastfeeding is not a contravention of veganism! Breast
milk is produced by and for our own species, just as cows'
milk is produced by cows, for calves!), there will be no
need to prepare or purchase lots of specialised foods. He
or she will share the same foods we eat - lentil dahls,
soups, bakes, bean casseroles, risottos, and God's great
gifts to vegans and babies - avocados and bananas - will
all be ideal for both the toothless tastes and nutritional
needs of our growing little one.
Best of all, I will know that when my child discovers where
meat comes from, they won't turn horrified eyes upon me
to ask "Mum, how could you do this?" They will make their
own choices in life, but I feel completely at ease knowing
I have not been responsible for involving my child in something
they may later regret.
Vegetarian children grow up walking lightly on the planet
and touching lightly the other beings - animals and people
- with whom we share it. Whether it's animals, water, land,
famine, or the greenhouse effect, meat eating is part of
the problem, whereas vegetarianism is part of the solution.
Vegetarian Action's newest little supporter is due to join
us in just a couple of weeks, with an already-formed taste
for lentils and artichokes, curries and chickpeas. I await
my baby's arrival in the confidence that an animal-free
diet is one of the best gifts I can give him or her, and
that a vegan baby is one of the best gifts I can give to
the world. 
© Vegetarian Action October 2006
* Julia is a volunteer with Vegetarian Action
and an (almost) vegan Mum.
October 2007 UPDATE: Julia's son was born on
28/10/2006 with a healthy birthweight (on the heavy side
of average) of 3.63 kg (8lb). He regained his birthweight
before leaving hospital and doubled his birthweight - over
7kg - in an amazing 12 weeks. He was exclusively breastfed
to around 7 months of age with an abundant milk supply.
At 1 year of age he wears size 2 clothing, is bursting with
health and has hardly had a snuffle in his life. He eats
lentils, split peas, beans, tofu, soups, fruit, vegetables,
rice, polenta, burgar wheat, millet, and much more. Julia
had no trouble recovering from the birth or returning to
her pre-pregnancy weight and one year later, wears her pre-pregnancy
clothes.
- Folate calculators online: try www.choice.com.au
> Food > Nutrition & Diet > Folate or www.nestle.com.au/Nutrition/Planning/FolicAcid/folateCalculator.htm
- "Incidence of iron deficiency anaemia
among vegetarians and vegans are similar to non-vegetarians
therefore vegans and vegetarians are not at greater risk
from this condition. Vegetarians and vegans have lower
iron stores compared to non-vegetarians however their
serum ferritin levels are usually within the normal healthy
range." American Dietetic Association, 2003. ADA
Report: 'Position of the American Dietetic Association
and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets', 103, 6, p
748-765.
- For more information on B12 and correct
doses, see B12: what every
vego needs to know
- www.westonaprice.org/mythstruths/mtvegetarianism.html
(accessed 1/10/06)
- National Heart Foundation Australia,
'Enjoy Healthy Eating - Every Day: Frequently Asked Questions
on Food & Nutrition', http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/document/NHF/faq_healthy_eating_0705.pdf
(accessed 1/10/06)
|
|
