Pregnancy: Eating Healthy on a Budget

It’s important to eat a healthy diet during pregnancy. Your body requires lots of extra vitamins and nutrients to nourish your growing baby. Eating a healthy, balanced diet during pregnancy can help to give your baby the best start in life. If you are on a tight budget, you may worry that a healthy diet is out of your grasp. By following these simple tips, you can make sure your developing baby is getting all the goodness he needs without breaking the bank:

1. Plan your meals – if you buy a bucket load of fresh fruit and vegetables, with no clue of what you’re going to cook, it’s likely that at least some of the food will end up in the bin. By putting time into the planning stage, you can save yourself throwing your hard-earned money into the compost each week. Work out what you are going to eat each day, and what you need to buy from the shops. This will help you to avoid food and financial waste, as well as helping you to assess whether you are eating a healthy, balanced diet. Seeing everything written down makes it much easier to analyse your food intake.

2. Shop around – now that you have a shopping list, you can hunt for some bargains. Buying everything from your over-priced corner shop could become expensive, so try to shop around for the best bargains. You may find it useful to split your shopping list, and buy certain items from your local green grocers, and visit supermarkets to snap up a bargain offer.

3. Make the most of offers – use offers, in-store specials, and coupons as a way of grabbing some bargains, but be careful not to impulse buy. Stick to your list, and buy only what you need, but make the most of any offers that fit into that criteria. Supermarkets often have fresh fruit and vegetable offers, and your local green grocers may sell discounted produce close to the best before date.

4. Bulk it up – cooking in bulk can help to save you money. Buy what you need, cook it all, and then freeze what you don’t need. You’ll have some meals ready and waiting for you in the freezer then, and this will help you knock some money off a future food shop.

As well as eating a balanced diet rich in fresh fruit and vegetables, you should take a daily prenatal vitamin. Do you have any tips for eating healthy on a budget?

Written by Fiona (@Fiona_Peacock), mother, writer and lover of all things baby related

This information is not intended to replace the advice of a trained medical doctor. Health & Parenting Ltd disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information, which is provided to you on a general information basis only and not as a substitute for personalized medical advice. All contents copyright © Health & Parenting Ltd 2018. All rights reserved.

Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy

There are certain foods that pregnant women are advised to avoid. It’s important to know which foods to avoid during pregnancy, so you can lessen any risk to you or your baby.

Foods to avoid during pregnancy include:

Soft Cheeses – Certain cheeses are considered unsafe to eat during pregnancy. Mould-ripened soft cheeses, and soft blue-vein cheese should be avoided due to the risk of listeria. Listeria is a harmful bacteria and, while rare, it can lead to miscarriage and stillbirth, and so pregnant women are advised to avoid any food with an increased risk of allowing listeria to grow. These include blue cheese, camembert, brie, and more.

Pâtés – Pâtés can harbour listeria, so pregnant women are advised to avoid all pâtés, including vegetable pâtés, for the duration of the pregnancy.

Undercooked Eggs – Pregnant women are advised to avoid raw or partially uncooked eggs because of the risk of salmonella poisoning during pregnancy. Salmonella poisoning would not harm the baby, but can lead to severe vomiting and diarrhoea. If you’d like to enjoy your eggs, eat them hard-boiled or over-well, rather than over easy or poached.

Undercooked Meat – Rare and undercooked meats could carry the infection toxoplasmosis, a serious condition that can harm developing babies. Be sure meats are eaten well-done.

Liver – Liver products contain high levels of vitamin A and this could harm your unborn baby, and should be avoided completely in pregnancy.

Vitamin and fish oil supplements – You should avoid fish oil and other supplements that contain high levels of vitamin A.

Some Types of Fish – Swordfish, marlin and shark are not advised during pregnancy. These fish may contain high levels of mercury which could harm your developing baby.  You should also be careful to limit your intake of tuna to just two steaks, or four medium sized cans, per week. Pregnant women advised not to eat more than two helpings of oily fish per week.

Shellfish – Pregnant women are advised to avoid raw shellfish which can contain harmful bacteria.

The above foods are to be avoided, but there are plenty of other things you can enjoy. For example, you can’t eat certain soft cheeses, but are fine to snack on cheddar. Raw shellfish should be avoided, but cooked shellfish is fine during pregnancy.

Make sure that you wash all food thoroughly before eating, and be careful to properly wash your hands before and after handling any food items. Though the risk of bacteria or food poisoning is low, these can be extremely serious if they occur during pregnancy.

Are any of your favourite foods on the banned list, and if so, how are you coping without them?

Written by Fiona (@Fiona_Peacock), mother, writer and lover of all things baby related.

This information is not intended to replace the advice of a trained medical doctor. Health & Parenting Ltd disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information, which is provided to you on a general information basis only and not as a substitute for personalized medical advice. All contents copyright © Health & Parenting Ltd 2018. All rights reserved.

5 Foods For Breastfeeding

There are a lot of inevitabilities that go hand in hand with having a baby. One of them is that at some point, you will open some magazine and find a picture of some celebrity who gave birth a week or two before you and somehow, miraculously, has their pre-baby body back. It’s one of the laws of the universe, it would seem; nature’s way of making us feel guilty for not bouncing back so quickly ourselves.

When you come across those pictures, try to keep a few things in mind. Celebrities have a crew of people on board to help them bounce back like that, everything from nutritionists and trainers, to nannies and plastic surgeons. And those magazines have skilled Photoshop experts at their disposal as well. So don’t let the pictures weigh you down too much.

In fact, don’t let them weigh you down at all. These post partum months shouldn’t be about losing weight. Yes, that will happen on it’s own with time (and bonus, breast feeding can help!) but your focus now should still be on healing and being the best, healthiest version of yourself for your baby. Which means paying attention to your hunger cues (no starvation diets!) and skipping the calorie counting drama.

It also means filling up on these foods for breastfeeding that are great for you, your baby, and your breast milk:

  1. Oats: It’s believed that oats serve both as an anti-inflammatory (which is great for a woman post-partum) and a milk supply booster. So start your morning off with a bowl of whole grain oats, or splurge on some oatmeal cookies.
  2. Garlic: Studies have actually found that babies drink more breast milk when mothers have garlic before breastfeeding. This can be a good thing for little ones who are slow to eat otherwise, and it can also help to boost your production in the process. Plus, who doesn’t love garlic?
  3. Nuts: All nuts contain amino acids that are necessary for serotonin production, which is integral to lactation. If you’re standing in the nut aisle and don’t know what to choose, go for the almonds—they’re a great source of protein as well. Breastfeeding mothers whose children have a high risk of developing an allergy, may want to discuss with their healthcare provider about eliminating foods such as dairy, nuts, eggs, and fish from their diet. However, so far there is no clear evidence that a breastfeeding mother’s diet will have any effect on whether her baby develops an allergy.
  4. Healthy Fats: Every healthy diet should include healthy fats, making avocados and salmon great breastfeeding foods.
  5. Water: Okay, so maybe water isn’t exactly a “breastfeeding food” or something you “eat,” but it is a necessary component of breastfeeding and overall health. Becoming dehydrated is one of the quickest ways to dry up your milk supply, so remember to always keep a full bottle of water handy!

What are your favorite foods for breastfeeding?

Written by Leah Campbell, infertility advocate, adoptive mama, writer and editor. Find me @sifinalaska on Twitter.

This information is not intended to replace the advice of a trained medical doctor. Health & Parenting Ltd disclaims any liability for the decisions you make based on this information, which is provided to you on a general information basis only and not as a substitute for personalized medical advice. All contents copyright © Health & Parenting Ltd 2016. All rights reserved.