Prenatal Nutrition Tips for Your Future Family
— never happens, right?). But when you become pregnant, everything changes. Suddenly, your choices don’t just affect your own health — they affect the health of your future family. It can seem like a lot of pressure, but there’s a simple solution.
USANA has developed the BabyCare Prenatal Essentials™* specifically for women who are pregnant, looking to become pregnant, or nursing. The combination of BabyCare Prenatal Mega Antioxidant and BabyCare Prenatal Chelated Mineral provides the right levels of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants to fill in many of the gaps in your daily nutrition. When taken along with BiOmega™, Vitamin D, and Active Calcium™ Chewable, you can feel confident you are getting the best possible nutrition to support the health of you and your developing baby.
To further explain the benefits of superior prenatal supplements and the importance of nutrition for pregnant mothers in general, we are proud to introduce obstetrician, gynecologist, and USANA Associate Michelle Harden, MD. She has a great deal to teach us about the right decisions to make when it comes to prenatal nutrition.
Dr. Michelle Harden
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| Dr. Michelle Harden |
Dr. Michelle Harden: It is important to realize that food is medicine. In today’s society, much of what the average woman consumes is not necessarily food, but “food-like.” Fast food and unhealthy convenience foods have contributed to weight and health problems for millions.
Lifestyle changes are the key to lowering your risk of health concerns. Eating whole foods that provide nutrients to fuel our bodies will not only help us stay healthy but will provide an optimal environment for a mother’s fetus.
We now know about the importance of epigenetics. Epigenetics is the study of heritable alterations in gene expressions that act independently of changes in DNA sequences. This means that in addition to inheriting genes from our parents, we can inherit their epigenetic “switches” that turn our genes on and off. Epigenetics dictates how our genes are actually utilized.
The nutrition consumed by mothers will likely play a role in the future health of the fetus. The biological response that can be produced by poor nutrition may actually influence the genes of the fetus. So the maternal diet can modulate gene expression in the offspring.
In the end, we may not be only what we eat, but what our grandmothers ate. So, understanding good nutrition is not only vital to mom’s health, but also to the health of her baby.
WUU: Why is it important to continue taking supplements while breastfeeding?
Dr. Harden: From a health perspective, breast milk is the most nutritious food you can give an infant. Consuming a healthy diet, eliminating as many preservatives and additives as possible, and choosing nutritional supplements rich in omega-3s and vitamin D can all support brain development and a baby’s immune system.
WUU: Why do you
recommend USANA supplements to expecting mothers? Why are you excited
about the new product, BabyCare Prenatal Essentials?
Dr. Harden: USANA products contain bioavailable, high-quality nutrients and are made without unnecessary fillers, dyes, or artificial preservatives. Their products have been developed under the guidance of a scientific team that understands the importance of quality and promotes health.
I highly recommend USANA supplements to my patients and have consistently seen their positive influence within our patient population. I wouldn’t be comfortable recommending any other brand. Now that I have access to the highest quality prenatal supplement available, I will no longer have concerns over my recommendation of a prenatal. How exciting is that?!
BabyCare Prenatal Essentials, Active Calcium Chewable, BiOmega, Vitamin D
BabyCare Prenatal Essentials, Active Calcium Chewable, BiOmega, Vitamin D
WUU: Why is it important for women to receive enough iron, calcium, vitamin D, and omega-3s?
Dr. Harden: Calcium is important not only for bone development but also for smooth muscle function and circulation. During pregnancy a women’s blood volume increases significantly, so iron, as well as calcium, is a very important nutrient for a pregnant woman. Omega-3 essential fatty acids promote fetal brain development and can benefit a woman’s immune system. Vitamin D is important in pregnancy, because insufficiency is common.
So obtaining these nutrients from a healthy diet and a good prenatal supplement can enhance the fetal environment and overall health of the mother.
WUU: What are some common misconceptions about nutrition before, during, or after pregnancy?
Dr. Harden: Currently there is not enough awareness of what we are putting into our bodies. Popular advertisements seem to put the wrong messages into our mind about what is healthy. A common misconception is that a vitamin is just a vitamin — this is absolutely not true. What we need is more education on what we are feeding our bodies. That is why I love USANA. Before recommending USANA vitamins to my patients, I toured the manufacturing facilities, met with the scientists, and talked with Dave Wentz, the CEO of the company. I could not be more confident of the exceptional quality of supplements I am recommending to the mothers of our future generations.
Written by Emily Alaniz in Outside Experts
- See more at: http://whatsupusana.com
The Science of Supplementation
The importance of nutrition for human health has long been recognized. Prior to 1960, interest in this field focused primarily on the etiology and prevention of acute nutrient deficiency diseases, such as scurvy, rickets, and pellagra. Some 50 essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, cofactors, essential amino acids, essential fatty acids) were identified, and recommended daily intakes for those essential nutrients were developed. These recommendations, in turn, proved valuable in eradicating acute nutrient deficiency diseases.During the past 20 years, attention has shifted to the role of diet and nutrition in the pathogenesis of chronic degenerative diseases. Heart disease, some cancers, osteoporosis, type II diabetes, and macular degeneration are well-known examples of diseases with dietary risk factors, and research is currently underway on many more nutrient-disease interactions. Unfortunately, these associations are difficult to study, in part because of the time frames involved. Chronic degenerative diseases develop over decades (or lifetimes), and it is extremely difficult to conduct research programs spanning more than several years in length. Nevertheless, advances in epidemiological and clinical research have uncovered a great deal of information about the impact of diet and nutrient intakes on long-term health.
USANA's "Health Benefits of Nutritional Supplements" document is an enumerative bibliography of peer-reviewed research examining possible health benefits of nutritional supplements and functional foods. Papers have been selected on the basis of scientific merit and relevance to the field, regardless of whether positive or negative results were obtained. Our objective in compiling this list is to provide readers with a good cross-section of recent scientific literature, with hopes of contributing to a better understanding of the current state of nutritional research.
Nutritionals
HealthPak™ Essentials
Optimizers
Vitamin D ProflavanolC100 Ginkgo-PS
Palmetto Plus Biomega Coquinone30
Procosa Visionex Pure Rest
Booster C600 PhytoEstrin
Active Calcium Active Calcium Chewable
Reset Program Rev3 Surge Pack
Scientifically Speaking: What’s the Cold Got to Do with It?
This month’s edition of Scientifically Speaking goes out to all the moms and dads who’ve warned their children throughout the years about exposure to the cold winter weather, which will inevitably lead to “catching a cold,” right?
Seriously though, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to wonder if my mom was just duping me the whole time. Both a cold and the flu are caused by viral infections, so what in the heck does cold weather have to do with anything?
It looks like we’ve stumbled across a great topic for Scientifically Speaking. I did a little digging and — as always — got a few leads from our expert scientists. I’d like to say I’ve got a solid answer for you guys, but there seems to be some difference of opinion within the medical community. Let’s break down my findings, shall we?
Cold vs. Flu
Before we dive into all the cold weather talk, let’s discuss what a cold actually is. With more than 200 viruses causing it, the common cold is a viral infectious disease that usually leads to symptoms such as coughing, sore throat, runny nose, and sneezing.The most common virus strands that cause a cold are rhinoviruses, and all of those nasty symptoms you experience are actually a result of your body’s immune response to the infection rather than the deterioration of tissue that the actual virus causes. In more extreme cases, the virus causing your cold can lead to viral or bacterial pneumonia.
The flu, or influenza, is also a respiratory infection, but it’s caused specifically by influenza viruses and usually leads to more severe symptoms such as fever, body aches, chills and headaches. There are three different types of flu viruses, all of which humans are susceptible to.
What the Experts Say
The National Institutes of Health uncovered some evidence that might back up your parent’s argument to keep warm during the winter season. These findings are specifically associated with the flu virus and its outer covering, or envelope.The study showed that colder temperatures, near or below freezing, cause the flu virus to form a rubbery, gel-like covering that shields the virus, allowing for easier transfer from person to person. Once the virus enters the body, usually through mucus membranes in the mouth, nose or eyes, it reaches warmer temperatures in the respiratory tract and causes the covering to melt. The virus’ outer covering then reaches a liquid phase, allowing it to infect the cells of its new host.
What the Other Experts Say
According to other experts, staying indoors might be the worst thing you can do for yourself throughout the winter. A leading theory is that confinement breeds infection.“In winter, we spend more time indoors, in rooms that may not get a lot of circulation, giving us more opportunities to be exposed to respiratory viruses,” says William Schaffner, M.D., chairman of the department of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, in this Real Simple article.
Additionally, Schaffner adds, the winter air, inside and outside, also tends to be less humid, drying nasal passages and making them more vulnerable to viral invasion.
What You Can Do
These are only two opinions on the subject of winter sickness, but there’s a lot of information out there. Do some investigating yourself to see what the research tells us.In the meantime, the best thing you can do to fight that winter virus is take preventative measures that support a healthy immune system. Evidence suggests that a healthy dose of both vitamin C and zinc may help. Deficiency in either of these may make individuals more susceptible to impaired immune response. Healthy adults generally need at least 75–90 mg of vitamin C and 8–11 mg of zinc per day to avoid severe deficiency.
Another important way to protect yourself from a virus is to avoid any kind of hand-to-face contact. Typically, a virus enters through hand-to-eye, -nose, or -mouth transmission. And of course, don’t forget to take the obvious precautions: healthy diet and exercise, sufficient amounts of sleep, disinfecting germ-susceptible areas, and regularly washing hands.
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