New Healthy Pregnancy Resources to Share

Did you know that all babies' brains are female until ten weeks along? After that, in boys, "a huge surge of testosterone hits the brain, killing cells in the communication center and growing them in the sex and aggression center." (Quoted from the book shown below.)

There is so much to know about pregnancies and growing new life! I've taken on the goal of learning more ways to make this pregnancy, and consequently our whole family, healthier still. I guess because it's a lifelong effort, we can always improve! And it's so important! For instance, prenatal nutrition deficiency is linked to many problems, including higher risk of miscarriage and pregnancy complications, obese children, and studies have even most recently linked it to these children developing schizophrenia as adults. Doctors are now seeing the incredible link between prenatal nutrition and the implications it has on the child's entire life.

Since there are so many millions of resources and recommendations out there for us during pregnancy, I thought I'd sort through some of them and share my favorites with you. (For those not pregnant, these are also excellent bits of advice and resources for you too!)

1. EXERCISE
I exercised and stayed very active with my other pregnancies, especially the last two. In the last two years, however, my exercise has focused more on strength-training and core muscle building than aerobic and fat-burning. Many doctors, including Dr. Oz, are urging women of all ages and sizes to focus more on building muscle. This doesn't mean weight training and bulking up of course. As he points out, our body uses calories more efficiently when there are muscles to utilize those calories. In Dr. Oz's pregnancy book, he describes studies that show a mom who maintains a healthy weight before, during, and after pregnancy also statistically has healthier children.

Before this pregnancy, I used a lot of Denise Austin's videos to build muscle. Since becoming pregnant (and getting my energy back:), I have gone through many different prenatal workout videos trying to find ones that focused on those goals without also jarring and jumping around in aerobics. My two favorites that I wholeheartedly recommend are:

Gabrielle Reece's Complete Fit & Healthy Prenatal Workout
This video has a warm up and cool down for each trimester, as well as a 15-minute, low-impact, strength-building workout for each month of the pregnancy. I LOVE this video. The only downside I see from this video is that it requires many workout tools: exercise ball, light weights, and exercise bands. Fortunately for me, these things are always around at my house. There are ways, however, to do some of these exercises without having all of the tools and some of the workouts use less of one item than another. All in all, I highly recommend this one. You can also check out this link for some free online clips of these exercises and other advice by Gabrielle Reece: http://www.fitpregnancy.com/fitness/prenatal_workouts/40724142.html

Second-Trimester Workout on realage.com
This FREE video can be viewed online at Dr. Oz's and the You-Team's website. It is called a second-trimester workout but I plan on using it into the third trimester also. It's very low impact and can be adjusted to your level just by decreasing or increasing the size of weights you use along with it. For those of you who aren't pregnant, this website has a TON of other good workout videos. The link for this video is http://www.realage.com/videos/?bclid=5030523001#v46886308001

2. SUGAR

Since we started eating healthier 4 years ago, we've always had new goals dealing with cutting out sugar. As we all know, just because sugar is organic doesn't mean it's healthy! I recently found a great deal on organic agave nectar which has made it possible to cut out refined (white & brown) sugar all together. Between honey, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, and molasses, I have everything I need to complete any recipe. I've noticed in the past that no matter how hard I worked out during a pregnancy, my weight gain was still easily influenced by the donuts and pastries at church on Sundays!

Since we eat granola for breakfast just about every day, this was the most important area to cut out refined sugar. Our big batch uses 8 cups of oats, along with other ingredients great for pregnancy like wheat germ and flaxseed, and only 1/2 cup of agave nectar for the sweetener. The other area was basically just finding snacks that didn't have to include sugar. This was actually pretty easy, however, since we could always use more fruits and vegetables. Fresh fruit is naturally sweet and raw vegetables are so good with a good scoop of homemade hummus!

Dr. Oz has a great recipe for making pancakes using only fruit for sugar. I made them for lunch today and they were excellent. Here's the link:

http://www.realage.com/recipefinder/fruited-pancakes-recipe . (If you don't have chia seeds, use ground flaxseed instead.)

3. GREENS & ORANGES

With all of the reading I've done, I see one underlying nutrition recommendation: eat more greens and oranges (not referring to the fruit, although that's good for you too)! The nutritional value of things like spinach, kale, chard, sweet potatoes/yams, butternut squash, and carrots are often overlooked, especially during pregnancy when they are so important. The goal is to have a good portion of a leafy green and a bright orange EACH DAY during pregnancy. Okay, that can be kinda tough if you're not used to having them very often! But no, it can be fairly easy. Two ways I figured out to do it is to keep chopped spinach or kale in your fridge. Making a soup? Throw it in! Making scrambled eggs? Throw it in! Making tacos? Throw it in! Spinach and kale cook down and when they're chopped really small and heated, it basically just looks like you added lots of parsley to your food! The tastes are not very strong at all so kids won't notice either. Here's a page on the You-team's website (realage.com) that has lots of good kale recipes: http://www.realage.com/search/fast_search_recipes/?search_term=kale .

(This hearty soup has leafy greens - kale - and two from the orange group - sweet potatoes and carrots!)

Ever tried sweet potato enchiladas? Butternut squash chili? They may sound funny but they are SO good! There are many recipes available that use these ingredients for some very delicious and healthy dishes that kids enjoy too. And carrots, of course, are easy to keep in the fridge for a quick snack when you need to get that daily "orange." Instead of regular oven-baked potato fries, we have been making sweet potato "discs." After peeling and washing sweet potatoes, slice them into 1/4 inch discs. Mix in a bowl with salt, pepper, and a couple teaspoons of oil. Spread evenly in a single layer on an oiled baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees until crispy on each side. They go great with burgers (veggie or meat), sloppy joes (again, vegetarian or non), grilled cheese, etc.!

For additional ideas and advice, check your library for the You-team's pregnancy book: "You Having a Baby." Just beware: this is one you will have a hard time bringing back to the library unless you can just go out and buy it!