Let me be Debbie Downer for just a minute. If you haven't heard it from a pregnancy book or from your doctor or from some snarky mom in the park who is convinced you're "not doing the best for your children" by having so many so close together, let me say it:
Closely-spaced pregnancies can be dangerous. There is a higher likelihood of complications during pregnancy and labor. Also, there is a higher risk of premature delivery and of delivering low-birthweight babies.
Those are real medical facts. Whether you hear them said in some snarky way or written in a book... that's just what it is.
But wait! There is something else the pregnancy books say... that these risk factors can be largely overcome by *EXCELLENT NUTRITION*.
Excellent nutrition is tricky for me. If I had spare cash, I would be the paragon of excellent nutrition. I would hire a raw food chef and buy organic produce and sprout my own grains and I would be skinny like Gwyneth Paltrow and my skin would glow. Totally true. But until I can follow Gwyneth's diet, I do the best I can to eat healthy, but I am also honest with myself. I KNOW that I am in nutritional overdraft.
I think excellent nutrition is tricky for any mom, so here is my lifehack.. I take silly amounts of vitamins.
Some people don't believe in vitamins. And some people only think they need prenatals and some folic acid when they're pregnant, but I am convinced that women having several children (close together or not) are seriously jeopardizing their health by not taking some kind of supplements. Under normal circumstances, I think most people can get the majority of their nutritional needs from diet alone... I'm not a pill pusher. But when you're talking about *REPEATEDLY FORMING A HUMAN BEING IN YOUR BODY*, you need some back-up.
Eating nutritious food is great, but it's not enough to replenish the vitamin stores in your body that you depleted during pregnancy.... plus building up stores for the next pregnancy... plus healing from childbirth... and all this while you produce breastmilk. That's a whole lot of kale and techina you'll need to eat! Can you look me straight in the eye and tell me that you've never had pasta with ketchup for dinner because that's what the kids were eating and it looked yummy and you were too tired to go soak quinoa?
So yeah, I take some silly amount of vitamins every day. I do it when I'm pregnant. I do it when I'm not pregnant. This is my soapbox.
I take a multivitamin/multimineral which has a bit of everything except the kitchen sink. It isn't synthetic chemical vitamins but it's mostly concentrated fruit and vegetable compounds. (it's 3 separate pills) You can find stuff like this in healthfood stores... naturally-sources multivitamins or food concentrates. There are even liquid multivitamin syrups, which are more easily absorbed and digested than a pill. Even if all you can afford is a cheap multivitamin, you are still better off than someone who isn't taking anything at all. If you are missing nutrients, the various processes in your body will not work as efficiently as they're meant to.
The other thing I take is iron. I take Spatone (mineral water that's super-rich in iron) and also Floradix (an herbal syrup with iron and vitamins)... you dump both into a glass of juice (which has vitamin c helps iron absorb) and drink. Iron is crucial during pregnancy... you are making liters and liters of new blood.
Although I eat loads of dairy, I take a calcium supplement too. Remember that old wives tale about how a woman loses a tooth with each baby? It's not entirely accurate... if a mother's diet is deficient in calcium, the growing baby takes calcium out of her bones. Yes, seriously. I think I might need my bones for when I'm old, so I try to take care of them.
The other obvious thing is folic acid, which is always in my cocktail of supplements. Also, a b-complex supplement because I am vegetarian. And also vitamin C for the immune system.
Don't get me wrong, I eat piles of fresh produce and make vegetable soups all the time, but since I know that I am pushing my body to its limits, I try to respect my body by taking care of it.
Let's say you are pregnant for the first time... but you don't get all your nutrients because you're nauseaous or uninterested in food or because the baby squishes your tummy. It's OK... the baby uses up the nutrient stores in your body. If you wait 2+ years like everyone recommends, then you have probably been eating normally for 2+ years and have gradually built up those nutrients once again. *BUT* if you become pregnant when your new baby is 6 months old, it's like you're staring a road trip with an empty gas tank. So yeah... that's where those warnings about premature babies and low-birthweight babies come in. Every pregnancy book says it.
Apart from taking care of the baby, good nutrition helps you heal from childbirth. I won't share TMI, but my C-section scar is healing quite nicely because I made an effort to take piles of vitamin C after the birth. Scars heal from the inside... no magic cream can replace your body's natural cell repair mechanisms, which are helped by antioxidants (like vitamin c) and beta carotene and also vitamin e.
I take crazy amounts of vitamins. Unless you are me, you don't have to take crazy amounts. If you can look at yourself and honestly say that you have an impeccable diet, then I will leave you alone. But otherwise, this is my advice to all new moms, old moms, soon-to-be moms and wannabee-moms. The baby factory needs fuel to run on.
Closely-spaced pregnancies can be dangerous. There is a higher likelihood of complications during pregnancy and labor. Also, there is a higher risk of premature delivery and of delivering low-birthweight babies.
Those are real medical facts. Whether you hear them said in some snarky way or written in a book... that's just what it is.
But wait! There is something else the pregnancy books say... that these risk factors can be largely overcome by *EXCELLENT NUTRITION*.
Excellent nutrition is tricky for me. If I had spare cash, I would be the paragon of excellent nutrition. I would hire a raw food chef and buy organic produce and sprout my own grains and I would be skinny like Gwyneth Paltrow and my skin would glow. Totally true. But until I can follow Gwyneth's diet, I do the best I can to eat healthy, but I am also honest with myself. I KNOW that I am in nutritional overdraft.
I think excellent nutrition is tricky for any mom, so here is my lifehack.. I take silly amounts of vitamins.
Some people don't believe in vitamins. And some people only think they need prenatals and some folic acid when they're pregnant, but I am convinced that women having several children (close together or not) are seriously jeopardizing their health by not taking some kind of supplements. Under normal circumstances, I think most people can get the majority of their nutritional needs from diet alone... I'm not a pill pusher. But when you're talking about *REPEATEDLY FORMING A HUMAN BEING IN YOUR BODY*, you need some back-up.
Eating nutritious food is great, but it's not enough to replenish the vitamin stores in your body that you depleted during pregnancy.... plus building up stores for the next pregnancy... plus healing from childbirth... and all this while you produce breastmilk. That's a whole lot of kale and techina you'll need to eat! Can you look me straight in the eye and tell me that you've never had pasta with ketchup for dinner because that's what the kids were eating and it looked yummy and you were too tired to go soak quinoa?
So yeah, I take some silly amount of vitamins every day. I do it when I'm pregnant. I do it when I'm not pregnant. This is my soapbox.
I take a multivitamin/multimineral which has a bit of everything except the kitchen sink. It isn't synthetic chemical vitamins but it's mostly concentrated fruit and vegetable compounds. (it's 3 separate pills) You can find stuff like this in healthfood stores... naturally-sources multivitamins or food concentrates. There are even liquid multivitamin syrups, which are more easily absorbed and digested than a pill. Even if all you can afford is a cheap multivitamin, you are still better off than someone who isn't taking anything at all. If you are missing nutrients, the various processes in your body will not work as efficiently as they're meant to.
The other thing I take is iron. I take Spatone (mineral water that's super-rich in iron) and also Floradix (an herbal syrup with iron and vitamins)... you dump both into a glass of juice (which has vitamin c helps iron absorb) and drink. Iron is crucial during pregnancy... you are making liters and liters of new blood.
Although I eat loads of dairy, I take a calcium supplement too. Remember that old wives tale about how a woman loses a tooth with each baby? It's not entirely accurate... if a mother's diet is deficient in calcium, the growing baby takes calcium out of her bones. Yes, seriously. I think I might need my bones for when I'm old, so I try to take care of them.
The other obvious thing is folic acid, which is always in my cocktail of supplements. Also, a b-complex supplement because I am vegetarian. And also vitamin C for the immune system.
Don't get me wrong, I eat piles of fresh produce and make vegetable soups all the time, but since I know that I am pushing my body to its limits, I try to respect my body by taking care of it.
Let's say you are pregnant for the first time... but you don't get all your nutrients because you're nauseaous or uninterested in food or because the baby squishes your tummy. It's OK... the baby uses up the nutrient stores in your body. If you wait 2+ years like everyone recommends, then you have probably been eating normally for 2+ years and have gradually built up those nutrients once again. *BUT* if you become pregnant when your new baby is 6 months old, it's like you're staring a road trip with an empty gas tank. So yeah... that's where those warnings about premature babies and low-birthweight babies come in. Every pregnancy book says it.
Apart from taking care of the baby, good nutrition helps you heal from childbirth. I won't share TMI, but my C-section scar is healing quite nicely because I made an effort to take piles of vitamin C after the birth. Scars heal from the inside... no magic cream can replace your body's natural cell repair mechanisms, which are helped by antioxidants (like vitamin c) and beta carotene and also vitamin e.
I take crazy amounts of vitamins. Unless you are me, you don't have to take crazy amounts. If you can look at yourself and honestly say that you have an impeccable diet, then I will leave you alone. But otherwise, this is my advice to all new moms, old moms, soon-to-be moms and wannabee-moms. The baby factory needs fuel to run on.
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