Any veggie mum to bes out there?

[Wiwa]

Discovered I was pregnant today :o) and saw the doctor. She said that it would be worth me trying to eat fish, so I tried a salmon sandwich today and it made me feel really rough. Willing to battle on for baby's sake but would welcome any advice.

Ta!

I'm fully vegetarian and when I was pregnant with my 1st DC I was referred to a dietician due to weight loss from morning sickness. She told me that as long as you ate plenty of fruit and veg, dairy products and things like lentils, beans and pulses then you will be getting what you need. She did advise full fat milk instead of semi-skimmed as this apparently has more fat soluble vitamins in it, but said that there was no need for extra supplements (except folic acid until 13 weeks) if this kind of diet was followed.

But seeing as I survived on baked beans and dry pasta for 11 weeks with my first and crackers with marmite and cream cheese for 16 weeks with my second, then I think that these babies are quite good at getting what they need regardless!!

Congratulations!

I told the MW at my booking in appointment that I was vegan, and her reaction was "Good!" As a non-meat-eater, apparently you're at lower risk for gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia (so I've read, don't ask me to provide statistics right now... ), so as long as you make sure that you're eating a balanced diet and taking pregnancy supplements (a good idea for everyone during pregnancy), you should be doing fine!

I bought them from Sainsburys and have also seen them in tescos they do a tuna melt too although am yet to try!

Cool- will get myself along to sainsburys then although I don't feel like anything right now... Bleugh... Have never been a big fan of the lentils and pulses.. Anyone know any easy recipes that don't end up tasting like gravel? Nice one about MW's reaction about vegetarianism :)

Have a look on the bbc's good food website they have a whole section on yummy veggie meals

I haven't eaten meat since I was 14, i'm now 29 and 37 weeks pregnant, I have started eating fish since being pregnant but its mainly to take the guesswork out of getting enough protein. I have also been taking pregnacare(or the asda version which is the same amounts of everything) just to take the guesswork out of it. I still ended up a bit anaemic but taking iron for a month has sorted that out. My iron was fine before i was pregnant. I'm suprised the Dr said that about the fish, its purely up to you.

Try Brown lentils - they go really big and squashy, and make a great substitute in Shepherd's Pie.
(with lots of veg and Bisto gravy)

Also, there's a lvely soup that covent Garden does that has red lentils in - it's really creamy, so you don't even realise that it's lentils.

Pulses are nuts and beans - nothing wrong with baked beans!
A great way of serving them, is mix them with tinned sweetcorn, mushrooms and chopped kale (while you cook them)(any veg you like really, as long as you get hte green stuff in there!)
You can eat them with chunky chips, eggs, fried tomatoes
yummy! (perfectly healthy balanced meal!)

I've been veggie for nearly 20 years. When pregnancy with ds, I did ask my doctor whether it would be better for the baby if I went back to eating meat/fish, but he said that I was obviously healthy, had a good diet, and trying to eat meat after such a long period of time would probably make me ill as my body wouldn't be used to it. I took pregnancy vitamins throughout the pregnancy and afterwards when I was bf, and everything seemed fine. I did try to make sure that I had enough protein in my diet (found that the hardest thing about be pg and veggie - trying to eat out. Most veggie meals seem to have either blue cheese, brie or goats cheese in them somewhere). Have recently found out I'm pg with dc2, am back on the pregnancy vitamins, but am not planning on changing my diet.

I think so long as you are aware of your diet you will be fine.

It seems to me that your body gives the baby priority so you that will feel crap if you are short of something, but in general the baby will be fine (unless you are really really deficient). My baby has measured big all through the pregnancy despite problems with indigestion meaning my eating habits have been wierd. I have just done my best to try and eat a balanced diet and sort out the deficiencies I know are in my diet (iron and calcium in my case!).

I have never been tempted to eat meat or fish. I once in the early stages of pregnancy, lack of sleep and morning sickness, stood looking at meat in a supermarket. It really didn't look nice at all. Took me about three minutes of staring to realise I don't eat meat, I'm vegetarian, therefore the meat was bound to look yukky. But the smell of fish... nothing worse.

Some great suggestions-thank you! Will try to get creative with those lentils. It's gonna be a challenge because I've never given what I eat any though at all. Will try a nice shepherd's pie this weekend and will load myself up with veg. :)

Veggie mum here, raising three happy and healthy veggie children, and I never had to eat fish during my pregnancies.

My second pregnancy was twins, and during that pregnancy I was told by a doctor to eat fish, and I put in a complaint about it. Doctors should NOT, in my humble opinion, be telling vegetarian mums-to-be to eat fish. They should be educated enough to know there are vegetarian alternatives.

I'm now pregnant with twins again (!), and have a different doctor, and no mention of eating fish. This doctor knows me well, knows I have a healthy and well planned nutritionally balanced diet.

OP - there are some vegetarian pregnancy books out there - something you may wish to look into. Also the Vegetarian Society has a helpful leaflet called 'vegetarian pregnancy, vegetarian baby', and I've provided a link to the main health and nutrition page below...

Health and Nutrition

The link to the leaflet is near to the picture of the cute baby!

one looks good - it's made with sweet potato instead of normal potato.

mucked up the link

this one!

and a normal one

looks like I might have meant green lentils, not brown (in my defence, they turn brown when they cook! )

Thanks for the link hatter box - really kind and after looking at the site I have a better idea what to shop for. Thanks for lentil advice nickelbaalamb. I reckon with my culinary skills, they will prob be black lentils! Lol!

Why did the doctor suggest stopping b12 supplements?!
I'm vegan and on them at the mo, please don't say it causes something terrible!

Hi i'm a veggie and no you dont need to eat fish.

Hey marie14

Don't panic, I'm sure it's fine for you to take your supplements. I was recovering from pneumonia and was given a high dose of prescribed b12 tablets which are probably stronger than the ones you're taking. Doc said that if i took folic acid and did try fish ( my choice not her suggestion) then I would probably be ok without the tablets. Hope all is going well with you :)

Some people, and doctors, and even my DH and inlaws STILL can't believe it's possible to be vegetarian and healthy. Inlaws were openly astonished when my blood tests came back with excellent iron levels and no problems at all (I'm 10 weeks pg)

If you'd like any further reassurance for yourself that you don't have to eat meat or fish, then take for an example my mother, who was vegetarian when she had all three of her children, who all grew up to be tall & extremely healthy, and my sister, who has been vegetarian all her life, who had two lovely healthy large babies (is that third generation vegetarian?) and no deficiencies of any kind. If you are worried though a good supplement with B12 and B6 won't do any harm, I use floradix because I read that liquid supplements are absorbed better. I think it has lots of B vits and iron, and all vegan as far as I know.

Of course, if you wanted to eat meat/ fish that's a different thing. I may have been brought up a bit of a hippy but I do think the body knows what it needs.

I'm a vegan and expecting DC2

At no point has any HCP ever said there is a problem with my diet. I do take preg. vitamins as I'm still BF DD and there is less fortified with B12 over here (in the states and unlike the UK, soy milk, vegan marg and normal cereals aren't fortified as a general rule). I am however happy with my diet, it's just a back-up.

I eat loads of marmite so my B vitamins are most likely fine on that along

I do remember MIL asking if I was going to stop being vegan when I was first pg as she was worried about my iron, but that has always been excellent (and better than hers, but she only eats white meat and no green veg, so don't know where she thinks she gets some from). My mum is also always anaemic (well very low iron levels as standard).

I'm veggie too and generally have a bit of a rubbish diet but found I craved fruit and veg during my pregnancy.

I have been anaemic for a long time but my iron levels were better during pregnancy. I was advised to take iron tablets anyway in the last few weeks, which I did.

I didn't really do anything else different and gave birth to one very healthy baby. [bugrin]

My IL's and some family are convinced DD (now 7 months) needs meat now to make up for me not having anyway during pregnancy. [buconfused]

ILs were obsessed with giving DD meat when we there for xmas (she didn't eat any of it ) and don't understand that we don't give her cows milk.

smile and ignore

Thanks ladies- your stories are really reassuring :) am also eating lots of marmite penguin army and am taking pregnacare supplements, so should be ok hopefully

I've been veggie for over 20 years & was recently told by my MW that my iron levels were excellent! I have been taking pregnacare pretty much constantly since 2007 though!

Dried fruit also contains loads of iron, unfortunately that's something I went off during my latest pregnancy!

It's supposed to be easier for your body to absorb iron if you take some vitamin C at the same time, so a glass of OJ with your meal or some carrots with your lentils (here's my favourite soup with lentils in)

My friend told me that caffiene reduces the amount of iron (& other vits) you absorb from food, & has stopped having a coffee after his lunch because of this!