has anyone done a paleo pregnancy?

if so what were the main staples of your diet and
what supplements would you recommend?

We had someone here who did a mostly meat, sometimes raw meat, paleo diet while pregnant. I think her username was Meg or Meghan, if you want to search for her posts. Her baby is healthy and happy.

Nourishing Traditions, while not 100% paleo, has a lot of advice on nutrition for conception, pregnancy, breastfeeding and babies. I recommend checking it out and skipping the stuff about "whole grains" (which aren't much recommended for mothers or babies anyway).

As I recall, butter, liver and egg yolks are recommended. If you don't do butter, the other two are probably enough, and you could throw in some fish roe or cod liver oil too.

this is for my girlfriend

she would probably do the weston a price foundation stuff... im having a hard time of convincing her todo paleo;; she loves her sweets and carbs, grains, etc. she never really eats and fruit or veggie

im trying to her switch from wheat products to stuff like brown rice, yams, etc.

also having hard time convincing her to switch from milk to raw milk..

supplements id like her to take are
megafoods baby and me
probiotic
magnesium + calcium
and fish and or cod liver oil...

Does she absolutely need the probiotic?

While I have nothing against probiotics per se, probiotics taken when not necessary can cause things like cytolytic vaginosis in women. (Well, heh, I suppose it would be hard to have that in men ) I'm just thinking this may not be something to mess with during pregnancy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1951582

Most women tend to mistake it for a yeast infection, but it's actually the exact opposite problem - an overgrowth of lactobacilli.

Wouldnt want to mess with this during pregnancy either.

Raw milk and raw milk cheeses very good but are high risk foods for pregnant women and fetuses due to potential listeria contamination can cause listeriosis. This is very serious it kills fetuses and it can actually kill both mother and child.

For some reason pregnant women are twenty times likely to get listeriosis as non-pregnant men and women. They are almost 30% of deaths from listeria as well.

As well as fetuses the newborns and young children are highly vulnerable to illness and death from listeria to.

Listeria contaminates foods. like deli foods, cold cuts egg salad potato salad from the deli, hotdogs that kind of thing. Raw milk and soft cheeses also.

Here is some information

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english...listeriae.shtml

By the way
Your girlfriend should take a folic acid supplement 100% RDA daily ESPEICIALLY if she is not eating well this is quite important for pregnant women and any women who trys to conceive, as it is an easy known way to prevent spinal cord defects.

If she wants probiotics what is wrong with eating cultured foods instead of a supplement. Yogurt is common but not so paleo, perhaps coconut milk yogurt will do. (Although Im am not against dairy for those who tolerate it personally)Cultured fermented cabbage or pickled vegetables, ie. kimchi, cultured sauerkraut and so on are good sources of lactobacilli but you say she does not eat vegetables much. A few bites with some pork perhaps.

Eat fatty wild salmon or other fatty wild fish if she can. Some Raw walnuts. Or take the omega-3 caps if she must and will not eat the fish regularly. Very important for fetal brain development. Fish a better source then nuts or flax because inefficiency of intermediate conversion step in some women.

I absolutely second that she should be taking Folic acid suppliments RIGHT NOW.

By the time you discover you are pregnant, the neural groove is FORMED.

Every woman who might get pregnant should take Folic acid. As jamon said, it's a simple insurance policy against some of the nastiest birth defects!

I'd also go with natural stuff rather than so many commercial suppliments. Remember a woman's body will 'edit' what she eats and send to the fetus what it NEEDS - even at the risk of her own health.

For what it's worth, I had 5 healthy babies in 6 years, eating a disgustingly western high-carb diet (YUCK, in retrospect!). I was up to 360lbs by the end of it, though. ::shock::

I agree with Jamon, there's a lot of hype around raw milk but I sure as heck wouldn't want some bacteria that the magic enzymes don't disable to hurt my unborn child.

Good luck getting your GF to change her diet. I'd try to get her on a higher carb, paleo diet with lots of fruits, yams and so on. Not that lower carb is bad, I don't think it is, but she might be more receptive to a higher carb plan.

Oh, and for Mom's who think what they eat doesn't matter, you might want to look into epigenetics. You're actually setting up the gene expression for your young'un that'll affect them the rest of their lives including predisposing them to being overweight and getting diabetes.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3411/02.html
Watch the video on "A Tale of Two Mice". It's about soy and BPA exposure but the same is most likely true with sugars and insulin.

Can genes explain rising obesity?

There have been studies linking high (but not diabetes high) maternal blood sugar to weight problems and diabetes in children and the theory is that this is due to epigenetic programming in the womb. It's just a matter of time until it is all uncovered and someone tries to invent a drug so Mom can eat anything.

There was a lot of discussion about this in the comments of one of Eades' posts. Unfortunately, the comments of his blog are not searchable but I think it might have been this one:

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/...tosis/#more-719

If you use the search feature of your browser (click edit; click search) once you're on that page, you can find them.

i understand the risks of raw milk.... but theres risks with any food you put into your mouth

i have never heard of anyone actually having problems with raw milk, only benefits.

this is from the WPF, it seems like it would be ideal for my GF

Diet for Pregnant and Nursing Mothers

Cod Liver Oil to supply 20,000 IU vitamin A and 2000 IU vitamin D per day

1 quart (or 32 ounces) whole milk daily, preferably raw and from pasture-fed cows (learn more about raw milk on our website, A Campaign for Real Milk, www.realmilk.com)

4 tablespoons butter daily, preferably from pasture-fed cows

2 or more eggs daily, preferably from pastured chickens

Additional egg yolks daily, added to smoothies, salad dressings, scrambled eggs, etc.

3-4 ounces fresh liver, once or twice per week (If you have been told to avoid liver for fear of getting "too much Vitamin A," be sure to read Vitamin A Saga)

Fresh seafood, 2-4 times per week, particularly wild salmon, shellfish and fish eggs

Fresh beef or lamb daily, always consumed with the fat

Oily fish or lard daily, for vitamin D

2 tablespoons coconut oil daily, used in cooking or smoothies, etc.

Lacto-fermented condiments and beverages

Bone broths used in soups, stews and sauces

Soaked whole grains

Fresh vegetables and fruits

I would watch the brown rice. My wife and I actually felt WORSE eating brown rice than white rice - most of the harmful stuff in grains is in the bran. WAPF always says to soak or sprout whole grains to get rid of that stuff - they never recommend eating unprocessed whole grains. If she's eating rice at all, I wouldn't worry if it's white rice. Just cook it in chicken stock - yum!

Raw milk has been intensely scrutinized and it turns out it's actually safer than pasteurized milk. The listeria scare is consistently blown out of proportion. Nasties like listeria can't compete with the beneficial probiotics in raw milk or yogurt. It's when you create a "blank slate" by pasteurizing it and killing everything that harmful organisms have a chance to grow unchecked. But we tried raw milk and we couldn't digest it any better - we just gave up all dairy. I recommend skipping the milk and eating more butter and heavy cream instead. Give her all the ice cream she wants! (just not that nasty Ben & Jerry's stuff with baked goods added)

If she really won't give up her wheat, suggest limiting it to sourdough. Some evidence suggests that making sourdough eliminates a lot of the gluten. Other people recommend sprouted wheat - does she like that Ezekiel bread? Either way, you'll minimize the damage.

Hmmm... speaking of ice cream and pregnancy... does she like pickles? Lacto-fermented pickles are pretty easy to make, and she can get some probiotics that way. You can even make them with full-size cucumbers if you can't find pickling cucumbers.

About 8 whole pickling cucumbers or 2 sliced regular cucumbers (if you have to slice them they won't be as crispy, but they'll fit in the jar better).
A whole mess o' garlic cloves - 1 or 2 heads, peeled
2 Tbsp unrefined sea salt
1 small bunch fresh dill or 2 tsp dried dill
A handful of fresh grape leaves, or some caraway seeds - both help the pickles stay crispy.
Water - filtered, boiled, or allowed to sit, to remove the chlorine

If you want to use less salt, substitute 1 tablespoon with a quarter cup of acid like lemon juice or vinegar.

Dissolve the salt in some water. Place all ingredients in a 1-quart jar and cover with water. Close tightly. Leave at room temperature for 2 days, then refrigerate.

Brine pickles are really different from vinegar pickles because the acid is mostly lactic acid instead of acetic acid. It's much milder and tastier, in my opinion. Sometimes they come out fizzy, which is a little weird at first, but quite pleasing. The flavor usually improves after a couple extra days in the fridge, but if they come out right, they won't last that long!

To capnmikee and mineralman do not misunderstand me, Im not opposed to taking raw milk in healthy, non-pregnant adults and older children with robust immune systems, although there is some risk

But this is very serious, in pregnant women. We are talking about, over TWENTY times the usual risk, in pregnant women, and the result of illness is frequently DEATH of the unborn child and sometimes the mother to.

Right now in pregnancy is not the time to push the raw milk esp. on someone who has not been taking it previously.

Forgive me for my bluntness, but it is irrelevant if you personally as one person, have never heard of anyone having trouble from raw milk. This is not an unquantifiable handwaving type of thing~~ if you are so determined, to have a health pregnancy that you wish her to take supplements of many types, then its should not be so hard to wait on the raw dairy.

It is not something, that happens in third world countries, there have been recent deaths from listeriosis in France from raw milk cheeses. in Canada last summer there was an outbreak from contaminated foods causing two dozen deaths and perhaps more.

For the calcium if you oppose her taking pasteurized dairy (she must have some say in what she is eating), give her the bone broths, and canned sardines, canned salmon, nuts, so on. Dairy is not the only source of many nutrients.

Anyway Ive said my piece, I wish you and your girlfriend a healthy happy baby in some months.