Nutritional advice and lifestyle

During your pregnancy it is extra important to eat a healthy and varied diet. Your baby will rely on the nutrition you consume throughout your pregnancy. It is not necessary to eat extra, but it is essential to consciously eat healthy. Use our tips to prevent the risk of infections during your pregnancy. Would you still like to know more? Then use a reliable source such as www.deverloskundige.nl.

Toxoplasmosis

If you become infected with the parasite toxoplasma during pregnancy, you can contract the infectious disease toxoplasmosis. The infection toxoplasmosis during pregnancy can be harmful to your unborn child, especially if you experience an infection with this parasite for the first time. You can reduce the risk of this infection by washing vegetables and lettuce thoroughly. It is also important that you heat meat and fish thoroughly to at least 100 degrees so that it is properly cooked. You can also contract toxoplasmosis if you come into contact with cat feces, for example by changing a litter box or while working in the garden. Therefore, try not to change the litter box or garden, or at least wear gloves and wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.

Listeria

An infection with the listeria bacteria can have serious consequences for the unborn child. This bacterium can cause birth defects in the baby. Do you want to limit the risk of this infection as much as possible? Then check the packaging of the cheese carefully to see if it is made from raw milk. If the packaging says 'au lait cru' you are not allowed to eat the cheese. Is the cheese made from pasteurized or sterilized milk? Then you can just eat the cheese. In addition, you should not eat raw fish or shellfish during pregnancy. Would you like to eat smoked salmon or herring? Then get it fresh from the fishmonger, but eat it not from a (vacuum) package from the supermarket. Ready-made salads such as meal salads can in some cases contain the bacteria listeria or toxoplasma. The advice is therefore to buy a head of lettuce and wash it well, just like buying fresh vegetables.

Vitamin A

If you consume too much vitamin A, this can cause birth defects in your unborn child. Therefore, it is best not to eat liver products or organ meat. Do you take multivitamins? Please note that these are especially for pregnant women, because only then the vitamin A dosage has been adjusted.

How much vitamin A during pregnancy?

During pregnancy it is safe to use vitamin A at the recommended dose of 800 micrograms per day (2640 IU). According to Lareb no harmful effects have been observed to date at doses up to 3000 micrograms or 10,000 IU per day.

Caffeine and energy drink

Too much caffeine may also be harmful to the unborn child. Therefore, it is advisable to drink no more than two cups of coffee per day and not to drink any energy drinks.

Alcohol

In adults, alcohol is broken down by the liver over time. In an unborn child, the liver is not yet developed enough to break down alcohol. So when you drink alcohol as a pregnant woman, the same amount of alcohol reaches your baby directly. However, the baby cannot filter the harmful substances because the liver is not yet fully functioning.

Effects of alcohol in pregnancy

Alcohol has a negative impact on your baby's brain development. The brain damage that a baby sustains in the womb can never be reversed. The consequence of drinking alcohol during pregnancy is that a child will have a lower IQ later in life and therefore have problems with learning, but also often have behavioral problems.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

If a child has been damaged by the mother's alcohol consumption during pregnancy, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome can develop in the worst case. A child with FAS can be recognized by the fact that they are smaller than other children, there are certain different facial features and there is brain damage.

Advice: no alcohol if you wish to become pregnant

The advice is not to drink alcohol while stopping contraception. This advice is given because the baby's organs are being formed in the first few weeks and you usually do not know yet that you are pregnant. More information about the risks of alcohol during pregnancy can be found on the website STEP.

Smoking

Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of complications. This means that your baby is at risk for health. This means there is a greater chance of a premature birth, but also a greater chance that your placenta will suddenly detach. If the placenta detaches during pregnancy, internal bleeding occurs and the risk of your baby dying is high. In addition, smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of congenital defects in your baby, such as a cleft palate, spina bifida and club feet. Furthermore, there is a risk that the baby will be too light after birth, which will cause your baby to have problems keeping itself warm and therefore have too little energy (hypoglycemia). Smoking also increases the risk of lung problems in the baby and problems with learning/studying later in life. Finally, the risk of death from SIDS is twice as high in babies born after a smoking pregnancy.

There is help

You may have been shocked to read about the serious consequences for your baby if you smoke or drink alcohol. As midwives, we understand very well that it is difficult to stop and that it is not your willpower. Precisely because smoking and drinking alcohol pose such great risks to your baby's health, we would like to help you. Do you have difficulty quitting smoking or drinking alcohol? But do you really want this? Then make an appointment with us or your GP and we will help you on your way. You don't have to do it all alone.