So i just found out im prego...
was wondering if anyone new anything pro's and con's about stay raw while pregnant?

it's a great idea to eat as healthfully as possible while pregnant. i think a nutrition tracker like fitday.com can really help reassure you that you're getting everything you need on a daily basis too. the book Prescription for Nutritional Healing was of great value to me as well as the chapter on pregnancy in gabriel cousins Conscious Eating. i took some whole food supplements and i made sure to have a lot of essential fatty acids every day, they have been shown to increase grey matter in the developing fetus, and i ate enough fat. how much 'enough' is for you is up to you.
i personally found it very difficult to continue raw straight through my pregnancy. i was really, really hungry after the 5th month and i started to incorporate cooked food after that point. it helped to gently let go of preconceived notions about how i 'should' be doing things and just listen to my body at that time. there is no right or wrong way, just the best way for you and only you can determine what that it.

congratulations and take care.

Congratulations!!! I'm thinking there are a lot of pros if you are already raw when you get pregnant. I'm sure you'll get a lot of responses.

Love,

Gypsy

There are no contraindications to healthful living.

it's probably a good idea to continue with what you've been doing, otherwise it could be a shock to the system. ofcourse add what you feel you need to .

Good topic! I am not pregnant but my friend is.
She sent me email yesterday saying that being pregnant makes her hungry and she is now under a very strict weight control and that makes her feel like binge-eating. I said to her that maybe she can make sweets out of fruits and nuts (She is not raw or anything). She told me that she is not allowed to eat more than 1 piece of fruit a day because the sugar in fruit is such good quality that it goes straight to the baby, which makes the baby too big when she/he is ready to come out. This story is common in Japan. (She is Japanese and she lives in Japan). I have heard, now looking back, many of my friends who were pregnant back them say the same thing.

This made me wonder, what should I eat if I get pregnant then? What did you eat/are you eating when you were/are pregnant, raw mothers out there and those who are raw pregnant women?

that's the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. one piece of fruit, DUMB!
i have to have eaten up to a dozen apples a day the first time i was pregnant and i'm SKINNY! i ate tons of avocado and olives too.
what makes women fat during pregnancy is sitting on their rumps inhaling haagen daas!

Hi coco,

I know! But this is how Japanese women are taught when they are pregnant. I wonder what kind of other food they eat to keep their weight off.

My question to you; So, my friend was told that eating fruit makes her baby too big when she/he is ready to come out. How was your baby? Did you have a healthy delivery?

I am so anxious to tell my friend that eating fruit is good for the pregnancy but I need more evidence!

Thanks!

Hello there,
well I don't know what the prob of the japanese ladies is I work for a japanese company and whenever (3 times since I work there) one of them gets pregnant, a rain of all kinds of different advice falls down on them. No fruit, yes fruit, eat almonds, don't eat fish do this do that....
I had one pregnancy in Germany (my home) and one in the USA, and I found that the USA's doctors' stance is that the baby might day at any point during pregancy and especially delivery, that's why they want to take preventive measures and would love to just do the c-section instead of a normal birth anyways. Nutrition here has a lot of guidelines like...no soft ripened cheeses, no deli meats, no bagged salads, no raw fish etc etc. Not that I eat those but I was just stunned.

When I observe the diets of my colleagues, they keep their "traditional" Japanese diet it seems which doesn't include much fruit to begin with. From my observations, fruit is very expensive in Japan and the common diet is a low glycemic (in terms of fresh produce) one.
I have read the calorie/fruit thing in a pregnancy book from the 70s lol. It had also all kinds of other "cool stuff" like don't carry your babe or you spoil it blabla so I do think this advice is so outdated.
And I think it should be clearly explained that also other foods, like the rice for instance, turns into sugar in the body.
But anyways, your friend may just increase her intake of vegetables, if that helps her.

My personal experience was that I felt not so great for the first 9 weeks and ate a lot of "comfort food" like soups etc. But I really bloomed on 100% raw after that and it helped me to stay well. I had a horrible backache around the 4th or 5th month and it went away when I climbed up to be all raw. I was amazed!

I heard that doctors prefer to give c-sections when business is slow because they make more money that way.

Im for a natural home birth. I pray there is no complications. but im sure everything will go fine. I've been sick for the last two weeks, just now starting to get up and move around, but i can stand long or ride in a car yet. soon enouph
thank you for all the info...
i will stay raw as best as im able, i feel it's what would be best for the baby and im excited to see this unfold

i had both of my babies at home unassisted (no doctor or midwife, on purpose), my second totally on my own (no friends or relatives, only my 6 year old son and only because he woke up at the end). my son was 6.12, daughter 7.5, perfect labour and delivery, no pain, pushing or tearing and perfectly healthy babies, no postpardum depression. and back to my regular weight after four weeks with my son, after 12 weeks with my daughter (i am 35 y/o now).

Coco, I'm in awe...that is amazing!

MauiGreg Wrote:
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> Coco, I'm in awe...that is amazing!

dude, so am I. it's amazing what happens when you just let of your preconceived notions. i let the babies lead the way and they sure knew how to give birth to themselves. all i did was the breathing. it was truly amazing.

Yeah Coco,

I've been thinking about your birthing experience and it totally reinforces my belief that everything we need to know about thriving and surviving is available to us as soon as we let go of our fears and preconceived notions. You and your wee ones are living proof. I mean, how much of our journey to raw is spent unlearning the fear-based myths about our foods and getting back to what is a truly natural way of being. Unfortunately, it seems like the success of a modern civilization is measured by how completely its populace is able to ignore or forget their innate wisdom.

you rock! and your children are so blessed to have a mom like you.

Aloha nui loa, Greg

Coco-
i wish i were secure enough to just trust myself to deliver alone. my goal is that. i don't like all the pressure from everyone else. but i'm just not that confident yet... any advice?


as for fruit- that's the majority of my diet. i ate potatoes in the second trimester and some fish, but now i'm too big and want only raw clean foods again. okay- i'm not 'big', but the baby is taking up so much room and prefers clean foods, as do i. first trimester i was raw and living on juice. my first son was the same sort of thing. raw first trimester (salads and fruit), starches second, and raw with fat added for third. he was 7lbs 15oz. no tearing.

stay raw as much as you can. i'm recognizing a pattern for myself, so i'm also just observing. maybe baby three will be all raw, but not if i'm pregnant during a New England winter!!!

peace-

The most important thing you can do is drink two glasses of Green Vegetable Juice every day. One juice should be 1/3 cucumber, 1/3 celery, and 1/3 Leafy greens. The second juice can be any fruits and vegetables you prefer. There is nothing more important to the health of your baby than vegetable juice

Check out Jingee's site and pregnancy blog, stores and e book -- she is amazing

I am 3 months pregnant today and have so little appetite. I have been living off mostly juice, like it sounds like you did Mama Cass! Mostly because I have been so nauseous, although I never throw up. Very frustrating.

My bf wants me to take a dha supplement, but I am only taking b12. Have been raw for a while and have no desire to go off it now that I am pregnant.

Wow, coco, I'd love to give birth unassisted, I think I'd do better and be more relaxed alone. But at the same time it is my first birth and I feel like I wouldn't be sure what to expect and to have someone just there saying everything is happening as it's supposed to is helpful. MIdwives seem so expensive, too.
How did you prepare yourself coco, to birth unassisted?

I gave birth unassisted as well (I have one son who is 12 months old). It was a conscious choice I made early on in the pregnancy. After discovering that the only midwife in our area that was covered by our insurance was 45 minutes away, I looked into other options. I happened upon this website: www.unassistedbirth.com and instantly knew through my intuition that this was what I was meant to do. I prepared by releasing any fears I had in regards to birth...I did a lot of research into common complications and how to prevent them/how to handle them if they were to occur, I noticed that most complications are due to fear and intervention (not due to the nature of birth itself), and I became more and more aware of just how natural birth truly is. I read a lot of positive, empowering birth stories of women who did it alone or with their partner, I did a lot of yoga and deep breathing, and I deepened my trust in my body to do what it needed to do. My intuition has always been strong and when I was pregnant it was greatly amplified, so I knew that I would be aware of any complications and what to do about them in the moment. I didn't focus on what could go wrong, though...I focused on staying relaxed, centered and accepting. While in labor I breathed deeply and allowed myself to moan or yell if it felt right to do so. I naturally moved into different positions (whatever felt right) and it seriously felt like there was no "me" anymore...I was simply a conduit of energy for the purpose at hand. It was an amazing experience...there are no words, really. I can't imagine having done it with strangers around or at a hospital...it would have inhibited the natural flow, no doubt. My son was born after a few hours of active labor, I had no tears and was up moving around in a couple of days. I didn't bleed for very long, either, which I attribute to the non-traumatic nature of the birth.

Wow ladies! There are so many inspiring stories here! Congradulations ChristinaO, Jamielor, on your pregnancies!

And Coco and Blue_butterfly ... wow... I am so in tune with wanting to birth alone.

I have a 9-month old now. It was my intention to birth alone with him (although I had a midwife for prenatal care), but it didn't turn out that way, unfortunately. I ended up having an almost complete placental abruption... and that's one of those rare times a c-section is absolutely necessary if you want the baby to live... not one of those doctors just do for convenience.

I don't have any advice on being raw but...

My advice is even if you are planning to birth alone or with a midwife, MAKE A HOSPITAL BACK-UP PLAN. I never in a MILLION years would have guessed my birth would have turned out under general anesthesia in a hospital, and I REALLY REGRET NOT MAKING A BACK-UP PLAN.

If I had done that, I could have:

-Avoided the hospital giving my son bottles and helped me to pump or nurse sooner. Possibly prevented me giving up on a sabbotoged b-feeding relationship after only 2 months.
-Plan to have someone ALWAYS in the NICU with your child - the NICU nurses are in a hurry and forget to do what they should so the baby can be discharged and you can be with your baby at HOME.
-Planned someone to bring me some decent food, and also for my husband
-Avoided getting antibiotics that I was allergic to. (We got there so fast and the problem was so urgent, there was no time to fill out the paperwork.)
-Avoided getting morphine, which I forgot gave me weird hallucinations.. but I would have remembered if I thought ahead and made a plan.

Not trying to scare you! On the contrary you will most surely be successful in birthing at home!!! Expect the best! But always plan for the worst.

Angie


Me (30), Joseph (24 mo.) Jeremiah (4 mo.)

We are enjoying spring and being outside!!!

wow amazing stories of unassisted birth!
Maui Greg - what a wonderful comment - that we have to unlearn all the fear that has been placed on us over the years.
That is something I have been feeling myself of late - all this fear - if we just listened to ourselves we'd find the answers in a sea of calm.


that is pretty shocking about the japanese diet of one piece of fruit in pregnancy! how awful, those poor babies. They must crave it so !

I'd say just eat plenty of fruit and vegetables - LOADS in fact.
and good luck - and congratulations to all mothers and mothers to be out there ! ( and fathers too : )

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[www.azurastorch.blogspot.com]

now i'm going to go research unassisted birth.

i've dreamed about it,
and am feeling kinda led in that way.

Angie-
i'm sorry about your hard experience. we had a rough first birth- not a c-section (the midwives were amazing) but a sunny-side up delivery followed by two weeks of living in the hospital. i thought i was going to go crazy stalking the nurses to make sure they didn't give formula or bottles to my baby, trying to hold my child while the monitors freaked out. trying to get food. a whole lot of problems. i caught them giving medicine in formula to my child and my midwives had started me pumping right after giving birth, so i had filled (literally) a shelf in the freezer with breastmilk, and here they were giving powdered cow stuff to my kid. i freaked out pretty kindly. (meaning i didn't break out my engorged breasts and shoot down the nurse who SHOULD have read my breastmilk only notes all over the files).

so, after all that,
i'm off to see what i need to stay home this time. midwives are great for a first baby, they give a lot of confidence and awareness, but i don't know that i want it that way again.

peace-

i did not want a midwife anywhere near me! i don't consider them any better than a regular doctor, at this point they are so regulated as to be the same. i didn't want ANYONE there telling what to do in the guise of "reassurance". the idea of that was very invasive and interruptive and distracting to me. how could i listen to my body with a voice in my ear? how could i let the baby birth him or herself if i was mentally deferring to someone else? i had some awesome faith in the course of nature, i really did. the idea of anything else i just balked at completely. i did not have any prenatal care during either pregnancy either, i don't consider it a sickness that requires a doctor. i would have gone if anything had occurred during pregnancy that would have compelled me to see a doctor if i weren't pregnant but aside from that, why bother? the chance of something happening is very slim. it does, of course, as in angie's case but the chance of it is so rare that it wasn't something i concerned myself with. also, i accepted full responsibility for the end result of my experience however it should have turned out. i believe that what shall be shall be and no amount of interferance will change a destiny.

i will say though that the best place and way for a woman to give birth is how she is most comfortable and confident and for some women that's in a hospital, for others it's at a birthing centre or at home with a midwife, for me it was in my own space, on my own without help/interferance. it wasn't about trusting myself to do it so much as it was Not trusting any other way, they all frightened me and made me feel powerless, off balance and disturbed.

the first time i read a LOT, so many books, everything i could get my hands on about unassisted birth. i had the library order in any and everything. ina may gasken's spiritual midwifery, susun weed, the hearts and hands midwifery text book, a book about diagnostic testing during pregnancy, everything i could find referenced on the unassisted homebirth web page or in the back of any other book, prenatal yoga by jeanine parvati baker, primal mothering in a modern world, the continuum concept, a child is born by lennart neilsson, the leboyer method. man, did i ever read. i had all that knowledge but i didn't use it during birth at all, i just let things happen. i think it helped me to know that it was right, all the proof and all the knowledge if i needed it even though i never did. this second time i had no need to read at all, i just had the faith.

getting ID after the fact has proven a bit difficult this time, i had a midwife come after the birth the first time and she filled out all of the paperwork for me. this time they are giving me the serious run around but i just don't care. it was completely worth any trouble to have her at home.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2008 10:18PM by coco.