My sister is pregnant, and she doesn’t eat red meat. So i was wondering, if you don’t eat red meat during pregnancy, can that affect the child?
In my opinion is yes… I’ve got some Indian (India) buddys my age who seem to be healthy. But most of their fathers, I’ve noticed, look sickly. I mean they really look like something is missing from their diet, obviously. They generally look weak. Maybe it’s just me.
Whoops! My opinion was for meat in general. If it’s just red meat that is taken away from the diet, I see no problems.
As long as she gets adequate vitamins, protein, and iron, she should do fine. Frankly the iron is probably the biggest deal in a red meat-free diet.
QtM, MD
This is not a scientific survey, but about half my friends who were veg before pregancy went back to read meat at some point, because of cravings.
The midwives at the hospital I’m going to (I’m having a baby in 2 months time) like to see a nice high iron count in their patients. However, it’s not (they tell me) for the sake of the baby so much as the mother - if your iron level is low, your blood can’t clot so effectively, you bleed more, this is A Bad Thing.
Just because she doesn’t eat red meat, though, doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll have a problem in that area - it depends on the person.
Personally, I can guzzle steaks like they’re going out of style (yum!) and hardly see any difference. The single thing that helped my iron levels most was giving up coffee. Which wonem should cut down on in pregnancy anyway.
[hijack]Aaaauuuugh! Give up coffee! No!!! I have been seriously anemic in the past and no one said give up coffee. I’ll try to remember this in case my gums go white again… but how can I remember things without coffee? [/hijack]
Sorry, Aspidistra, but low iron means low hemoglobin and anemia, not clotting problems. Anemia means there may not be enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen to the tissues that need it.
And baby needs tons of iron to develop too! Baby gets first dibs on most of mom’s iron, so the anemia hits mom first. But baby may be iron-deficient too if the lack of iron is severe enough.
From everything I’ve read online, and in my old copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting, iron prevents anemia. But the little pregnancy vitamins most doctor’s prescribe should remedy that. I was never a fan of red meat until my second pregnancy. I craved the stuff–and it was really weird craving something I usually didn’t like at all. Mmmm, sirloin tips with mushrooms and onions!
Sorry, lauramarlane, but vitamins won’t correct iron-deficiency anemia unless its a vitamin with iron. And most docs (in this part of the US anyway) recommend a separate iron tablet a day, along with a pre-natal vitamin with folic acid to prevent neural tube defects.
Sorry for the misinformation Qadgop. I thought that my prenatal vitamins had iron in them and just figured that was standard for those things.
There are a couple schools on this, and it goes something like this…and this ain’t me talking (I ain’t endorsing this, but it’ll give you an idea of what professionals say and shows they get caught up in anecdotal evidence), just nurses and docs that I know from most of my family working in hospitals for 30 years:
Essential Aminos: There are ‘certain nutrients’ that you can only get from red meat that are important to fetal development. These nutrients are certain amino acids which your body needs to build proteins. Far as I know, these essential aminos can be had somewhere else, but red meat is a source.
Iron: Iron is considered the single most improtant nutrient, especially for immune system development, and like many nutrients, it is best absorbed as part of the food you are eating, as opposed to the supplements which might not be absorbed.
Most of it is conclusion based on anecdotal evidence and just good advice passed on from person to person. The ‘science’ behind it is likely absent. Where are the studies? If they exist, where they conducted properly? Placebos, controls, double blind…etc.
Let the hijack continue!
Philster In the past, I worked on a project that rounded up a slew of studies about eating protein. I grew up believing the benefit to eating protein was all those yummy amino acids, and that you could get all those yummy amino acids directly without eating meat. This turns out to be a widespread myth. A person can get everything they need on a plant-based diet, but it’s trickier than it looks, especially if you are preggers or having certain health issues. Protein itself has some special qualities. I forget the details and may have gotten this twisted. I if memory serves most of the papers were not generally available so I can’t quote ‘em. If you have relatives who work in hospitals, I’m sure they can pull them up easily. And perhaps with a more advanced technique than UNIX FTP, which is what we were stuck with at the time…
KontagiousKaren - I’m sure your sister and the baby will be fine.
HUH? I’ll have to demand a cite for that one. The essential amino acids are all found in virtually all animal flesh, including poultry and fish. And vegetarians can get all the essential amino acids they need by eating a combination of foods. There is nothing “necessary” for the embryo or fetus in red meat. It is just a very efficient, complete food, rich in iron.
Iron: Iron is considered the single most improtant nutrient, especially for immune system development, and like many nutrients, it is best absorbed as part of the food you are eating, as opposed to the supplements which might not be absorbed.
Double HUH? Most iron is used for red blood cells, period. The first component to feel the lack of iron is the red blood cell. Anemia will become profound before other systems suffer from the lack of iron. And many commercial iron supplements are far more bioavailable than the iron in foods. The body absorbs less than 10% of the iron in spinach, but will get up to 50% of the iron from a Ferrous gluconate tablet.
**Most of it is conclusion based on anecdotal evidence and just good advice passed on from person to person. The ‘science’ behind it is likely absent. Where are the studies? If they exist, where they conducted properly? Placebos, controls, double blind…etc. **
Then your speculation belongs in IMHO, not GQ.
QtM, MD
PS: lauramarlen, you may be right. There are a fair number of prenatal vits with iron. They just don’t all automatically have them.