Improving Gut Health in Pregnancy Before and After Baby

Guest blog by Nena Foster, Natural Chef & PhD

Looking after your gut health is obviously always important, but particularly during pregnancy and after baby has arrived as the demands on your body are huge. The gut or your digestive tract is essentially filled with microbes or bacteria that impact on our health and is responsible for 80% of our immune system. The gut also produces a variety of hormones, including serotonin (it produces more than your brain and is essential for sleep and mood) and controls how our bodies process and use nutrients. Our gut even communicates with our brain helping us to decide what types of foods to eat. Pretty clever, right?  A healthy human gut has over 100 trillion bacteria living inside and over 1000 different varieties, and the more good bacteria the better your health. Some of the immediate benefits for you of a healthy gut include not only a better functioning immune system, but better digestion and elimination (definitely worth it if you suffer from constipation in pregnancy), more energy, feeling more switched on and less brain fog, as well as more balanced diet and balanced blood sugar levels.

Photo credit: Gabriele Bertogg

 

But, the health of your gut is also important for your baby. To put it simply, you pass on your gut bugs to your baby via the birth canal, when breastfeeding and generally through close contact with baby. And fascinatingly, this profile of bacteria will mostly stay with your baby throughout its life. Passing on a microbiome full of healthy, diverse groups of bacteria to your little one means they stand a better chance at developing their own healthy gut and immune system. Meaning, as they grow and develop, it’s also important to think about keeping their guts healthy and develop the robust immunity they need to combat the various illnesses they will encounter.

Photo credit: Gabriele Bertogg

The thought of looking after yourself, baby and a few (trillions) of microbes may seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are 5 tips for looking after your gut health that you can start today, use throughout pregnancy and through from new baby to adult human (!).  Steps 1-4 are very much about making small dietary changes to ensure your gut can produce and sustain healthy bacteria and step 5 is about adding them back in, which is important on a day-to-day, but also when your gut needs a bit of extra help (i.e. when your body is under additional stress and strain–MOTHERHOOD).

Photo credit: Luke J Albert

  1. Eat more veg, and don’t peel them! You have probably heard this before, most likely from your own parents. But yes, eating more veg provides not only a range of nutrients that you can’t get anywhere else, but veg are also a great source of fibre. Gut bacteria love and need fibre to carry on doing their job, so a diet rich in veg is key to a happy, healthy gut. Many veg, like carrots, beetroot and potatoes don’t need to be peeled before you eat or cook them–all they need is a good wash, particularly if they are organic. That goes for fruits too. So, upping your veg intake and eating them with the skins saves time and feeds your gut bacteria! It is also important to include fresh or raw veg in your diet, just make sure you’ve given them a good wash. And, as your baby weans, however you choose to do it, veg (and fruit) will be some of the first foods you will introduce, so it is best to get into the habit now of eating and cooking them. It is also important to think about what you can source organically, as foods that have been sprayed with pesticides and herbicides have been shown to disrupt the growth or health gut bacteria.

Photo credit: Luke J Albert

2. Take out refined sugar and cut down on the starchy processed carbs. A lot of foods now are geared towards convenience, and convenience is often crucial to busy life; however, many of these convenience foods are processed, laden with sugar, sodium, preservatives and are distinctively beige. Many of these beige foods may lure you in at time where you might be feeling nauseous or in need of a bit of comfort, as your baby gets older when you are severely sleep deprived and time poor. But anyone fuelled consistently on starchy, processed carbs will be moody, lacking in energy, unable to concentrate largely due to blood sugar imbalance and may also suffer with constipation. These foods can also damage the gut lining, which impacts your gut’s ability to house and grow healthy bacteria. Taking out refined sugars and carbs can be a challenge as they are the staples in many people’s diets, so start now, adding in whole grains and complex carbohydrates and start reading labels for added sugars—you will see that they lurk everywhere (even in products targeted at babies and children).  Also, start by swapping out refined sugars for natural ones, and ones that contain, you guessed it–fibre. Think of replacing sugar with fruit, honey or maple syrup, raw cane sugar or coconut sugar, and of course using these in moderation.

Photo credit: Lesley Lau

3. Eat more wholegrains. Several nutritional studies suggest that swapping refined grains for wholegrains has an impact on the variety and function of gut microbes. Wholegrains appear to help keep balance between inflammatory and non-inflammatory bacteria, they also help the bacteria to produce short-chain fatty acids, which help to look after the gut lining. But what does that all mean? It largely comes back to fibre. Wholegrains are full of fibre (soluble and insoluble) and your gut microbes use and ferment fibre to replicate, and this process creates a host of beneficial nutrients. Making the wholegrain swap doesn’t have to be expensive or labour-intensive. Start by making changes to your pasta, breads, rice and cereals. Pasta is a staple quick, comfort food. It is easy to make when you’re knackered and filling, but also delicious. It also tends to be a hit with weaning babies and children. Start now by swapping your usual white pasta for a wholegrain variety like whole wheat, spelt, buckwheat or brown rice.

Photo credit: Lesley Lau

4. Eat a varied diet. You hear people talking about eating a rainbow and ‘unicorn food’, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be just an Instagram trend. It is important to eat a variety of different and different colour foods, simply because they all contact a variety of nutrients and this is key to supporting healthy baby growing as well as a diverse gut flora. These different types of bacteria in our gut requiring slightly different types of foods to flourish. Think of your gut like your garden, the flower, bushes, insects, trees and birds require some of the same things, but also different things to grow. So, keep your ‘gut garden’ growing and flourishing by eating a varied diet of fruit, veg, pulses, legumes, nuts & seeds, healthy fats and complex carbs. Translating that to meal-times can require a bit of inventiveness but it doesn’t have to be difficult or Instagram-worthy.

Photo credit: Luke J Albert

5. Add fermented foods into your daily diet. Adding fermented foods to your diet is a guaranteed way to ensure you are getting a good dose of probiotics, aka good gut bacteria. But let’s be honest the smell of a pickle jar may be too much to bear during pregnancy or may be just what you crave. But they are several fermented foods that you can incorporate regularly and even give to baby when they are ready. The first and perhaps most well-known is organic live, probiotic yogurt and this is certainly one to introduce when weaning. You can get both dairy and non-dairy versions of this. Others, include kefir (again you can buy or make dairy, non-dairy or water based kefirs). Raw apple cider vinegar (unpasteurised with ‘the mother’) is a great one for adding into salad dressings or smoothies and can even be diluted in water to make a drink (which incidentally has been reported to help manage reflux in pregnancy). And if you’re after a nice healthy alterative to your standard fizzy drink, a nice cold kombucha or water kefir can hit the spot, just be sure to check the label as some kombuchas are intentionally alcoholic. And in terms of other fermented foods, there is a whole world of things to explore, from sauerkraut, kimchi, jam to salsa and you can buy or make your own. Making your own is far cheaper and might just net you a post-baby hobby! I always advocate for homemade where possible (and teach people how to do this), as you get much more in terms of quantity and diversity of bacteria in homemade ferments compared to those commercially produces.

Photo credit: Luke J Albert

Nena Foster is a trained nutritional chef, fermentation specialist, food stylist, recipe developer and food and nutrition writer, as well as a mum of 2. Prior to training as a chef she worked as a health consultant, researcher and academic. She has successful taught lots of people how to improve their gut health by making their own fermented food and drinks in London and is launching an online school and community to help those further afield. Find more info on her courses and community over on www.nenafosterfood.com/courses/ and follow along on Instagram @nena.foster.food.

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