E11: How to Choose Your Vegan Prenatal
Whether you're trying to conceive or currently pregnant, you need a vegan prenatal vitamin! Maya shares her evidence-based guide to picking the best prenatal for your personal health needs and making sure it's actually vegan.
In this solo episode, Maya shares:
What is a prenatal vitamin?
How do you pick the best prenatal?
Which two key nutrients do you need during pregnancy?
What supplements should pregnant vegans take?
What are the two most common deficiencies during vegan pregnancies?
What top five vitamins & minerals should a vegan prenatal include?
How do you know if a supplement is vegan?
Connect with Maya:
Website: The Vegan Pregnancy Collective
Instagram:
@vegan.prenatal.nutrition
Transcript
Hi friends. Welcome to the Vegan Pregnancy Podcast. I'm your host, Maya buck, prenatal dietician, fellow vegan, and founder of the Vegan Pregnancy Collective. From food to fitness, you'll hear from vegan moms to be just like you and other healthcare professionals. The goal is to empower, support and inspire you as you navigate your vegan pregnancy.
Now let's see. Hey, vegan mama. Let's break down. Some things that I see as a registered dietician, working in the prenatal space. Most of my clients when they first reach out to me and I say, am I feel good about what I need to eat as a vegan? I also am worried about not getting enough protein and iron.
And am I taking the right prenatal, all of these questions that might be swirling around in your head, you might be thinking about right now. So I want to share with you the number one thing that will help you feel confident, feel amazing about getting your nutrients to support healthy vegan, pregnant.
This might not come as a surprise to some of you it's meal tracking. I know what you're thinking. And some of you, like some of my clients, have some hesitation around doing this. Let's break this down meal tracking as a method through popular apps that I won't name here. These are designed to help you reach specific goals, give you insight into progress and offer different units of measure.
Primarily around calories and sometimes you can have a negative association with it, right. So I want to help you understand why I recommend meal tracking. Why is meal tracking so important? Whether that's through an app, whether that's through pen and paper, it gives you insight into what nutrients that you need as a vegan mom to be during your pregnancy.
Something to help you go from feeling concerned and worried and not sure where you are nutrient wise to feeling confident about your nutrient levels during your vegan pregnancy. Once you become pre. You might feel worried about going down that path and starting to track again. Totally hear you. I know some of my clients feel the same way, and this is something that we talk about together.
Now, what is now tracking exactly for a vegan pregnancy and how is that different compared to pre-pregnancy number one, without going any further, your nutrient needs specifically protein and iron do change during pregnancy. Calcium fun fact stays the same. Your body pulls calcium from your bones to deliver to your baby to help their skeleton grow kind of crazy.
Your protein needs increase and your iron needs increase throughout your trimesters. These numbers are different compared to pre-pregnancy. So meal tracking really gives you insight into where you are in terms of what you're eating, what foods, what nutrients are offering you right now, and what areas can be improved upon what quote-unquote areas of opportunity do you have?
This is going to be different for everyone. It's also going to depend on your prenatal and it's going to depend on where their supplements you're taking your blood work, your health history, a bunch of different things we won't get into right now. If you are feeling concerned about meal tracking and feeling a little overwhelmed.
Know that you're not alone inside of the program. What we work on together is also a mindset shift. So shifting from using a meal tracking app to achieve certain health goals, typically associated with weight management, shifting from those goals to growing a healthy baby. So that's what meal tracking is. I know a lot of you listening are probably familiar with that in some way, shape, or form.
I know I have gone on and off doing it during college and after graduation. It's so funny. I do work with women one-on-one privately primarily for weight management and I share how to track their meals. And I. Don't do it. Do what I say, not what I do! It can be really useful and insightful.
I don't do it day-to-day. Now saying that, my needs are different as I’m currently training for an Ironman this fall, wish me luck. The goal of meal tracking during pregnancy is to make sure that all of your nutrient caps are covered. So number one, we've covered what it is. Number two, a shift in mindset can be helpful.
Keeping your why in mind your goal of growing a healthy baby, making sure he or she is getting all of the good stuff that you're eating. All those nutrients deliver to their body. Now let's say you are not eating one of my clients. I remember her saying, “Maya all I've had is a loaf of sourdough bread for a few days in a row.”
I know I'm not getting nutrients. I'm not going to track it. Totally fine. So I'll share with you what I shared with her, the goal of tracking isn't to be perfect every single day and log on days when all you're eating is bread. Let's face it that's going to happen sometimes, especially if you're in your first trimester experiencing any kind of nausea, don't feel like the tracking has to be so involved, or that you have to be perfect.
The goal is to spot check and to see, okay. On days that I feel good. And I am able to eat something beyond a slice of sourdough or a whole loaf of sourdough bread. How am I tracking toward my protein goals? What about iron? Am I getting enough zinc iodine? Some of these things can be found in your prenatal.
It's also important to check against what you're eating. So that's a little insight into how to do it again, using a pen and paper, you can use an app. There are a couple of different popular ones out there that I talk about with my clients and they can be really helpful tools to help you get rid of any confusion.
Get rid of any. I think I'm getting enough or am I getting enough protein? Am I getting enough iodine, which we'll go into a nutrient series later on because I dine is a big area of opportunity for many of us. So you can get rid of that confusion and feel good and confident moving forward, addressing the areas that you need to during your pregnancy and across your trimester as your needs for specific nutrients do change the big one being calories.
If you are working or struggling to eat enough calories, something I do with my clients as we take a look on a couple of days and make some shifts to what they're eating so they can really see the progress. Okay. Like I'm adding in extra calories because now I'm entering into my third trimester. Here, the proof is in the pudding.
The inputting, I understand that meal tracking can feel overwhelming. It can click on how this negative connotation. I talked about this actually on the podcast with Kristen who is a past client and also a new mom. She also shared that reservation with me when we first connected. So you're definitely not alone.
I would encourage you to consider trying meal tracking if you are concerned if you are worried because that can really help you gain that competence and that clarity. Download an app, grab a fun fancy journal and start tracking your nutrients and see where you are. With that said, if you are ready to take the next step to feel competent as a vegan mom to be, and to make sure that yes, you are getting enough nutrients, whether you are planning for pregnancy or in your first trimester, a second trimester, even third trimester, the Vegan Pregnancy Collective is there for you.
You are not alone in your decision to have a healthy baby without eating animal products. It's designed to give you the tools, the support, nutrient calculators, guides, recipes, and most of all, there's a community of like-minded women here for you. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're ready to go from feeling concerned to confident as a vegan mom-to-be, send me a DM I'm on Instagram @vegan.prenatal.nutrition
I'd love to hear from you and we can chat more and see if the Vegan Pregnancy Collective is for you. Remember, you're not in this alone. If you enjoy today's episode, share it with a friend and subscribe to the Vegan Pregnancy Podcast to get notified when new episodes are released.
