It can be difficult to know what you should and shouldn't be eating in pregnancy and you could be easily forgiven for thinking that as long as your diet is based on wholesome nutritious foods, packed with vitamins, you'll be making all the right choices for yours and your baby's health.
However, pregnancy is no time to assume anything as not all vitamins (and so not all foods) are good for an expectant mother. Trials on Vitamin E supplementation found that Vitamin E supplements during pregnancy doubled the rate of stillbirths, led to low birth weight and increased health complications in newborn babies.
More recent research has found that as little as 3/4 of the daily recommended amount of Vitamin E in the diet of a pregnant woman can lead to heart defects in the baby.
This is particularly significant when you consider that many women take Vitamin E supplements to prevent stretch marks; and for its antioxidant properties that have previously been heralded as helping protect against miscarriage and pre-eclampsia.
Vitamin E is found vegetable oils, nuts seeds and eggs, so although these foods are still good for you, caution should be exercised over how much of these foods you should eat on a daily basis.
12.6mg a day was found to be the maximum amount of Vitamin E that pregnant women should consume in their diet every day.
One egg contains roughly 1.6mg of Vitamin E
Tinned tuna in vegetable oil contains roughly 6.9mg Vitamin E
10 Almonds contain roughly 7mg Vitamin E
1 comment:
Wow! I hadn't seen this research. That's quite a finding. Thanks for letting us know! Look forward to your next blog post as they are alwauys full of fantastic info.
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