6 Ways That I Supported a Healthy Pregnancy As a Registered Dietitian

Hi, I'm Brigid. I'm a functional medicine dietitian and I am also 29 weeks pregnant. So let's get into the six ways that I am supporting a healthy pregnancy in. Now. What is my third trimester? It's ebbed and flowed a bit throughout the pregnancy. I want to just give a shout out to anyone that's in the first trimester of pregnancy. If you're experiencing a lot of nausea and aversions to things like vegetables, I was in the exact same boat. You're pretty much in survival mode, so just try to do your best. That's what I did. Once you turn the corner and you're in the second trimester, hopefully some of these tips can work a little bit better for you. So the first thing that I've been doing is focusing on supporting hydration and electrolytes. So, of course, a lot of obgyns and doctors will talk about the importance of hydration. So, so key for keeping your fluid status great for the baby. Your baby's drinking the amniotic fluid, which it's important for you to be super hydrated for. But a lot of doctors and other practitioners don't put as much attention on the electrolyte component. So for me, that has been so huge. I was getting lightheaded during my second trimester, especially at certain points, because I was focusing on drinking more than 100 fluid ounces of water per day. But I wasn't getting enough of those electrolytes like the sodium and potassium and magnesium to help to support my water, my fluid, from actually going from the extracellular into the intracellular, where your cells are actually absorbing the FL you're drinking. So I have been doing a packet of element. Element tea is how it's spelled, every single day, at minimum, to help to support my hydration and to help to decrease dizziness. And also actually having optimal hydration status is so important for trying to decrease constipation. I know that constipation is so common in second and third trimester of pregnancy, so this can be extremely helpful. Make sure that you're getting enough electrolytes. Now, the amount of electrolytes that you need may be different from how many I need, but when I told my obgyn that I was drinking a gram of sodium per day, he thought that I had made a mistake because he was like, that's so much sodium. I think that you're maybe misspoken. And I said, no, no, I am having a gram of additional sodium per day. That's how much is in one element packet and it's really helping to support my overall hydration. The amount that you need may be a little bit different, but for me, I underestimated how many of the electrolytes that I actually needed in order to support my hydration. The second thing that I've been doing is monitoring some certain biometrics a little bit more closely in order to just better understand what's happening with my body. This can be super helpful for just ensuring that everything is on track. Pregnancy is an amazing time to one, support your own health because of how much that impacts the health of the baby. But also the way that I'm thinking about it is how critical it is for supporting postpartum health as well. So making sure that you have optimal levels of vitamin d of omega 3 fats are going to be super, super helpful for supporting the immune system and the brain development and the bone health of the baby, but also are going to be critical for you for supporting hormonal balance and recovery after pregnancy. I've been monitoring some of those labs that doctors don't always check. This is something that we look at with clients that we work. Also am testing my blood sugar at home. So you can do this in two ways. You could do this with a continuous glucose monitor that you wear on the back of your arm. I love the company levels. We work with levels and support a lot of the levels, clients and users. So you can do it that way. You can also do it through a glucometer. So a glucometer is a finger prick that. I have another video for that. You can actually just prick your finger and then check your own blood sugar levels in a fasted state right when you wake up in the morning and then typically hour after meals. Now if you're checking your blood sugar one hour after a meal, then you'll want to aim for 70 to 120. The recommendations that most OB GYNs recommend is 70 to 135. But I'm trying to just keep a bit of a tighter window to ensure that I have optimal, stable blood sugar levels. I personally opted out of the gestational diabetes test because I don't drink a lot of fluids or eat a lot of foods that have that much added sugar in one sitting. I felt like it was a false representation of what I would be expecting my body to do to actually handle that much glucose in one sitting. My doctor was perfectly comfortable with me testing my own blood sugar levels at home and then submitting them to him in order for us to go through them together to make sure that my blood sugar levels, weeks 26 to 28 were looking okay and weren't indicating risk of gestational diabetes. Number three, this is a big one, is of course taking a daily prenatal. This is the most important thing that you can do throughout pregnancy. And also if you are not pregnant yet, I would highly recommend starting a prenatal at least three months before you're trying to conceive. Not just for you, but also for your partner. So research shows that 50% of infertility is driven by males. That's a significant amount. And the burden is so often placed on females. So what you want to do is have not only you take a prenatal, but also have your partner take a male prenatal that's specifically designed to help to optimize sperm health. And then the prenatal would be helping to improve egg quality. We know that egg quality is impacted up to 90 days before you actually conceive. So ensuring the healthiest pregnancy possible is going to start in that three month window before you're even planning on conceiving. But if you are currently pregnant, then taking that daily prenatal is such an important way to ensure that you're getting those extremely important nutrients to the baby. And then also for you. We run nutrient deficiency testing on the majority of clients that go through our nutrition programs. And you would be amazed at how depleted the nutrient status is of moms who are postpartum. When you think about the nutrient toll that it takes to not only support your own nutrient needs, but another human that's developing inside of you, and then when you're feeding that human, when you're breastfeeding, how many additional nutrients that requires, it's an extremely demanding process on the body. And we know that nutrient deficiencies are extremely common in the general population, that a ton of people have a difficult time actually getting the right amounts of nutrients in their diet when they're just supporting one, but when you're supporting two, it's even that much harder. So the daily prenatal is so key. And that's where you want to make sure that you're choosing a company that has high quality ingredients and those optimal therapeutic doses of nutrients, because all prenatals are not created equal. So as a full disclosure, I'm on the medical advisory board for a prenatal company called Wenatal. They have a Wenatal for her and a Wenatal for him that I helped to formulate by looking at the latest research studies that have come out and seeing the most important, important nutrient doses and the actual forms of nutrients that are the most bioavailable to include in the supplement formulation. So Wenadle for her is what I've been taking every day. It's just three capsules, which is why I like it so much. A lot of other competitors on the market that have those optimal doses of nutrients, they're in eight capsules. And so we've been able to formulate something that has extremely amazing doses of those nutrients in just three capsules, which is huge, especially in that first trimester when you're experiencing more nausea. So the daily prenatal, making sure that it has vitamin D, like the Wenadle we formulated, has 4000ius of vitamin D, so you don't have to take a separate vitamin D capsule. We have choline, which is so important for the brain development of the baby and is so often missed in prenatal companies that are on the market. We have optimal doses of B vitamins, methylated B9 and B12, specifically for anyone that has a genetic variant that doesn't allow for them to absorb those B vitamins. We have optimal doses of those antioxidants. We have selenium and many other nutrients that are in those optimal bioavailable forms that make that product just so superior. So the daily prenatal is absolutely key and something that I will continue to do postpartum as well to help to support nutrient status and hormonal balance and lower levels of inflammation. If you're interested in testing nutrient deficiencies, we can always do that for you. Like I said, you can check out the information below where I'll include information about our nutrition programs. The fourth thing that I've been trying to do is really limit added sugar. So I have a few squares of dark chocolate every day, and that's the extent of my added sugar consumption, with the exception of something that I'll occasionally have. Like once every few weeks, if we're out at a restaurant and I have a bite or two of something that has more added sugar in it. This is so key for helping to regulate your own blood sugar levels. Or my own blood sugar levels is the way that I'm thinking about it. Because we know that your blood sugar levels are so impactful for the health of the baby, Decreasing risk of additional weight gain, of preeclampsia, of insulin resistance, of gestational diabetes, and also having a larger baby at birth. All of these things setting up the metabolic health for the baby starts when it's in Utero. So being able to make sure that you are decreasing added sugar consumption, at least that's something that I am really focused on to try to support the metabolic health. We also know that added sugar consumption, too much added sugar can impair immune health for an an adult. And so supporting the immune health of the baby would also correspond with that as well. Keeping inflammation levels low and then using the calories that you have each day to allot to more of those nutrient dense foods. So if you have the choice of having something like a cookie or two eggs, the two eggs are going to give you the protein that's going to help to support the building blocks, the amino acid building blocks of the health of the baby and has the choline and has healthy fats and so many other nutrients compared to the added sugar or the cookie that doesn't have many of those nutrients that are gonna not only have the added sugar that puts you at a greater risk of poor metabolic health, but then also is lacking a lot of those nutrients that contributes to the health of the baby. The next thing that I'm trying to do is eating 80 to 90% organic. I honestly thought going into pregnancy that I would eat 100% organic, but that's just not the reality at times that I'm eating out or in certain circumst where the organic option just isn't available. So having a little bit of grace is key, especially in that first trimester. Because I will say I probably wasn't reaching 80% organic in my first trimester. But this is so helpful for trying to decrease pesticide exposure, environmental toxin exposure to the developing baby. So making sure that you are prioritizing organic as much as possible whenever possible is important. I do have an article that I wrote about the importance of eating organic food. Even though the research is fairly conflicting. I think that everyone could for the most part could substantiate the importance of trying to minimize some of those larger toxic exposures to a developing baby especially. Okay. And the sixth thing that I'm doing is trying to move my body. So I'm prioritizing getting 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day and also trying to do about three sculpt classes per week. Honestly, I feel like in my next pregnancy I'm going to prioritize movement even more by incorporating strength training, like more intense strength training throughout the pregnancy. But this is my first pregnancy and I've been just prioritizing 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day. And then also the sculpt classes that are more smaller Weights and body resistance. So this is key for metabolic health, but it's also important for supporting your lean body mass and your muscles. When you think about having a baby and going into labor, I'm thinking about it like I'm training for an Olympic sport. I like to think about how I can support the health of the baby and my own health and my mental health as well, to the best of my ability, with using the resources and the tools that I have that are within my control. So that's something that I've been doing. We also know that exercise and muscular contraction helps to improve mood, balance, and that would be the case not only for you, but also for the baby. So being able to support mood, decrease anxiety, those sorts of things during pregnancy, which can be a particularly vulnerable time when your hormones are all over the place and you might feel more emotional and more anxious. That's been really helpful for me. It's also actually helped with sleep. Since starting the third trimester, I've struggled more with sleep because she's just kicking throughout most of the night. So on days that I am getting the most steps, are the days that I actually am able to sleep the best. That's definitely something that can be a helpful thing that I've included in my routine. The thing that I've been trying to remind myself of when making any meal selections is just the importance of those meals, nutrient dense foods. And all of the research that has been done to support the importance of incorporating a nutrient dense Mediterranean diet that gives you and the baby more nutrients, decreases the inflammatory foods that you could otherwise be consuming, decreases added sugar consumption, all of those very, very important things and how much you're helping to support and lay the foundation for your own health postpartum, but then also laying the foundation for the health of the baby, giving the baby those nutrients, decreasing inflammation, supporting metabolic health, mood and other aspects of the health of the baby. So the research very, very clearly substantiates the importance of a Mediterranean diet and to incorporating things like your non starchy vegetables, starchy vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, lean proteins, omega 3 rich fish, all these things are so important and that's really what is included in the Mediterranean diet. So the research is fascinating. When you look at improved outcomes for things like preeclampsia, for gestational diabetes, for the overall health of the baby, and supporting the metabolic health at birth, which has a huge impact on the metabolic health of the child as the child's developing. So I hope that things are going well for you. I hope that you have a few tips that you've been able to take away from this video, and I'm wishing you the best of luck.