Eating for two? Eating with two
Pregnancy, parenting offers perspectives in nutrition
When you’re pregnant or a new mother, you hear a lot about your diet. Often, those doling it out aren't your doctor.
“You're eating for two now!” I found that while it was true, I didn't need to double my portions. Usually an extra smoothie or small meal sufficed, even in the third trimester.
“Eat spicy foods to get the baby moving!” It’s also a tip you hear if you want to induce labor. I like spicy food, but the extra pressure on my insides from the babe caused me such bad heartburn at times that I needed to lie down. So no, thank you.
And cravings. This seeming constant has partners driving to an open mini-mart (pray there is a 24-hour spot nearby) for any variety of random cravings. This one did hit home:; I had a bigger penchant for sweets — ice cream (nothing crazy, just run-of-the-mill vanilla, most times), brownies, Sour Patch Kids, you name it — later on in my pregnancy. But my husband had to do only one or two laterthan-usual grocery runs.
As an editor who focuses on food coverage, I think often about what I'm eating and what I want to eat. I was pregnant from late summer 2020 until our daughter was born April 26. When that double line appeared on that pregnancy test, my relationship with what I consume altered.
Because I knew I had become, for the first time, a preand postnatal source of nutrition for another human, I focused so much more on my diet than ever before.
The many, many doctor check-ups while pregnant always start the same way: Let’s check your weight, blood pressure and urine. All had direct or indirect connection to what I ate, but the only one that I had trouble with was my weight.
During the course of a pregnancy in someone with a normal BMI, the recommended weight gain is 25 to 35 pounds, according to my doctors and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So that’s what I aimed for. But that’s not what my body wanted to do.
I gained less than 10 pounds in the first half of my pregnancy. Month after month, the doctor's scale would go up just a pound or two. In the winter,
during one of my check-ups, I snuck a peek at my chart. I spotted the handwritten words “high risk?” and “peanut butter.” I knew the first meant more doctor visits, more fear for my baby's safety; the second could be a way out of the first.
Apparently, the meals I'd eaten for a lot of my adult life — big salads, roast chicken, hearty soup — weren’t working while I grew this new life. I had to change.
We bought cases of Ensure shakes, and I downed at least one every day. We swapped all
our dairy products for full-fat versions. I added scoops of protein powder to daily peanut butter-banana smoothies. I treated myself to fast-food chicken sandwiches whenever I needed to get blood drawn. (Two birds, one stone, since I hate needles.) Slowly but surely, the scale tipped the way we all wanted it to go.
I gave birth to my healthy baby girl with few complications. After the nurses cleaned her and put her on my chest, she did what I had been anticipating for months: She went to breast-feed. I'd been fearful she might not, knowing some babies don't latch on. But she did, immediately.
Parents are pressured enormously on what to feed their babies. “Breast is best” is a known dictum, but for a lot of families, there are plenty of reasons why breast-feeding can’t or doesn’t work. My sister had issues with breast-feeding my niece. And that’s OK! As long as the baby is gaining weight, fed is best, in my opinion.
Thankfully, our daughter, Julia, ate, and she ate well. It took only a couple of weeks to regain the weight she lost post
I’m finding new ways of connecting to her through food, every single day. Thanksgiving is coming around, and her pediatrician said she might be ready for a little bit of turkey by the holiday. I hope so. I want to start that tradition with her on our first Thanksgiving together.”