The Better Baby Book (18 page)

In a 2008 study led by the aforementioned Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council, seventeen experts agreed that children need 1,000 international units for every twenty-five pounds of body weight, and pregnant and lactating women need 5,000 to 7,000 international units per day. This means that the minuscule amount of vitamin D contained in ordinary prenatal vitamins (as little as 400 to 600 international units) is woefully inadequate.

A 2006 study followed pregnant women taking 400, 2,000, and 4,000 international units per day. It found that even though 4,000 was a safe amount, it wasn't enough, because the newborns' vitamin D blood levels were only 27 nanograms per milliliter; 40 is ideal. The women who were taking 2,000 units per day had more infections than the women who were taking 4,000 units, and the women who were taking only 400 units per day had twice as many pregnancy complications as the women who were taking 4,000 units per day.

A number of companies now manufacture pharmaceutical-grade vitamin D, and it's usually cheap. Be sure to get vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), which is the form of vitamin D that your body makes in sunlight. Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) is a synthetic vitamin D that has different effects inside the body than D3 does. Most vitamin D that's added to milk is D2, not D3, so vitamin D–enriched milk is not an effective supplement.

Maintaining a vitamin D sufficiency in your baby after birth is equally important. One study found that babies who took in more than 2,000 international units of vitamin D every day were 80 percent less likely to contract type 1 diabetes. Children who are deficient in vitamin D are six times more likely to have asthma than children who take vitamin D supplements.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E is a family of oil-soluble antioxidants called
tocopherols
. Vitamin E prevents the oxidation of vitamin A and is required for the proper use of essential fatty acids and selenium. It also prevents scarring after burns, seals abrasions, and possibly helps to reverse congenital heart defects in infants when it is given very early in the baby's life. A vitamin E deficiency can lead to anemia, an enlarged prostate gland, premature aging, liver and kidney damage, and muscular degeneration.

Vitamin E helps to ease labor pains by strengthening the abdominal muscles. It's often used in prolonged labor because weak muscles can lead to problems for the baby, who can become starved of oxygen during that time. Good food sources of vitamin E are healthy cold-pressed oils, egg yolks, green leafy vegetables, and avocados. Vitamin E is most useful to the body when taken at mealtime with vitamins A, B complex, and C and essential fatty acids, manganese, and selenium.

Vitamin K

Vitamin K is a group of oil-soluble vitamin structures that are typically made by probiotic flora in a healthy GI tract. It is essential for blood clotting, so when a woman goes into labor, vitamin K is sometimes injected to control bleeding. We do not recommend this if you can avoid it—one study linked these injections to childhood leukemia.

If a woman is healthy and eats plenty of green leafy vegetables, she most likely has enough stored vitamin K and its building blocks for a healthy pregnancy. Research has found that if a mother is deficient in vitamin K, her baby is at higher risk for birth defects, including cardiac dysfunction, craniofacial abnormalities, a flat nasal bridge, growth and learning disorders, microcephaly (an abnormally small head), and neural tube defects. To make sure Lana had sufficient vitamin K, she took the right probiotics and a very small amount of the vitamin itself.

Essential Minerals

Essential mineral supplements help to ensure that your body is performing correctly and supporting your baby's growth to its greatest potential. The most important minerals are calcium, chromium, cobalt, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, nickel, phosphorous, potassium, selenium, vanadium, and zinc.

Essential minerals work together and with other vitamins and nutrients, so it's best to take them with a meal. Before starting a mineral supplement regimen, we recommend seeing a holistic physician and having your mineral levels checked. Hair mineral analysis is very effective. Go to
www.betterbabybook.com/minerals
for a complete description of each mineral, what it does inside the body, the best way to supplement with it, and a list of foods that contain it.

Here we will discuss iron and iodine, two minerals that are most important for pregnancy, although you should take a broad spectrum multi-mineral supplement with extra magnesium, too.

Iron

The body needs iron to make hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen in the blood. Oxygen is essential for life. Without iron to make hemoglobin, breathing wouldn't do you any good—the oxygen you breathed wouldn't reach any of the places in your body that need it. Iron helps the body to support resistance to infection and is central to respiratory function and detoxification.

Pregnant women need lots of iron, because their red blood cell count increases by 30 percent during pregnancy. Lots of iron maintains a healthy hemoglobin concentration during this blood increase. Iron isn't absorbed well without vitamin C (ascorbic acid). If iron is taken by itself without vitamin C, it can lower the body's supply of other key minerals.

In the early stages of pregnancy, women often become thirsty and drink lots of water. That water is taken to the placenta and used to make the amniotic fluid, but for a short period the blood is diluted, and some women may be diagnosed with iron deficiency. Be sure not to take too much iron under these circumstances (especially without vitamin C)—you may actually
have
plenty of iron! Even a sixty-milligram iron supplement might be too much. At the other extreme, an iron deficiency can be devastating for a fetus. Iron must be kept in proper balance. Work with your ob-gyn or nutritionist to test your levels.

When you're supplementing with iron, it's best to use iron-rich foods (organic iron) rather than tablet or capsule supplement products. Most supplements contain inorganic iron, which is difficult for the body to absorb. If you choose to use a supplement, studies suggest that organic elemental iron is more effective than the inorganic forms. Using iron-rich foods is also better than iron supplements, because the foods contain plenty of other minerals as well. This prevents a situation in which high amounts of isolated iron are depleting your body of other important minerals.

Good iron sources are almonds, egg yolks, kelp, parsley, beef from grass-fed cows, and green leafy vegetables. Eating a poached egg (with runny yolk) and taking vitamin C at the same time is a great way to boost your iron level.

Iodine

Iodine is a trace mineral that's essential for life. It plays a key role in thyroid function, which regulates metabolism. The thyroid itself is regulated by the thyroid hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4), both of which are composed of more than 50 percent iodine. A chronic iodine deficiency leads to slow metabolism and hypothyroidism, which manifests as fatigue, weight gain, depression, dry skin, low body temperature, loss of interest in sex, anorexia, slow pulse, high cholesterol, and sometimes heart disease and cancer. Severe iodine deficiency results in goiter, a swelling of the thyroid gland. Iodine is toxic in high quantities and is deadly in quantities over three grams. An overdose can result in abnormal growth of the thyroid glands, which leads to many of the same symptoms as iodine deficiency.

Hypothyroidism during pregnancy can lead to cretinism in children. Cretinism is a congenital disease that can result in mental and physical retardation. The World Health Organization names iodine deficiency as the leading cause of brain damage in the world today.

Iodine is also important for the function of the mammary glands and is present in the cervix of healthy women. Iodine is especially important for women, because it modulates the estrogen pathway, helping to keep female reproductive function in good order. Iodine sufficiency promotes healthy breast function, and a deficiency heightens the risk of abnormalities in breast tissue.

To supplement with iodine, we take a drop of Lugol's 5 percent iodine in a large glass of water every four or five days. Iodine is best taken with magnesium because the body needs it to use iodine. Food sources for iodine are seafood, including sea vegetables, and dark-green leafy vegetables. This means that iodine isn't a big part of the American diet. The little seaweed that Americans eat is usually nori in sushi, and among the types of seaweed, nori is one of the lowest in iodine. Seaweed salad made of kombu, kelp, wakame, dulse, or hijiki contains much more iodine than nori does. Seafood in general is also high in iodine, so the safe fishes we listed in chapters 4 and 5 help with iodine level.

Working with a holistic physician to test iodine and thyroid hormone levels is the best way to see if you're getting enough iodine. You can also do a quick test to get a feel for your iodine level: put a drop of Lugol's 5 percent iodine on your forearm. The drop should leave a dark-orange stain on the skin that slowly fades as the iodine is absorbed through your skin into your body. If the stain is gone within four hours, there's a good chance you're deficient in iodine, but if it's still there after twenty-four hours, your body probably has plenty of iodine. You've just witnessed your body's amazing ability to absorb substances it needs through the skin and repel substances it doesn't need.

Remember to be careful when you're correcting an iodine deficiency—too much iodine is very dangerous. If you get a runny nose after taking a drop or two of Lugol's iodine in water, you've probably had a bit too much and would do well to back off for a few days. But that doesn't mean your iodine level is sufficient yet. It just means you had a bit too much at once.

Probiotics

Probiotics are one of the best supplements you can take to avoid an intestinal imbalance. They strengthen the intestinal walls and manufacture vital nutrients. They also help the body to use nutrients and fight harmful microbes in the GI tract. Your body actually contains about ten times as many probiotic bacteria cells as it does human cells! You simply couldn't survive without these little creatures. Probiotics protect us from a number of health problems, including food allergies and skin problems.

Probiotics also play a key role in the female reproductive system. Like the GI tract, the vagina contains and relies on a delicate ecosystem for optimal health. The
Lactobacillus
strains that populate the walls of the vagina make the environment too acidic for most intruders, thus protecting the vagina and the womb from infection. Just like the GI tract, however, this ecosystem can easily become disrupted by the exact same causes: antibiotics and stress. Spermicides and birth control pills can also cause an imbalance. Imbalances can usually be remedied with therapeutic doses of
Lactobacillus acidophilus
.

When you buy probiotic supplements, it's important to know which strains of probiotic bacteria are in the supplement. Each strain and substrain offers its own unique benefits. The
Lactobacillus
and
Bifidobacterium
strains are found naturally in the human GI tract and offer countless health benefits. They're the most prevalent strains you'll find in supplements.
Lactobacillus GG
, sold as Culturelle, is the best studied.

Bacillus subtilis
is a wonderfully beneficial probiotic that does not occur naturally in humans but is found in many probiotic supplements. It's excellent at killing pathogens and unwanted microorganisms. If
B. subtilis
is on the ingredients list of your probiotic supplement, you have a gentle friend offering powerful protection.

Probiotic supplements come in capsules and powders. They're alive yet dormant when you get them in this form and become active when exposed to warmth and moisture inside your body. Either form is fine, but it's critical to take them on an empty stomach (when your stomach acid levels are low). Even though they can live in the intestines, most probiotics don't survive stomach acid. Enteric-coated capsules help, too.

During pregnancy, the advantage to taking probiotic supplements instead of fermented probiotic sources like kombucha, kefir, or yogurt is that the exact strains you're getting are tightly controlled. The cultures used in fermented foods aren't always tightly controlled, so you run the risk of ingesting organisms like yeasts, which produce toxins.

Krill or Fish Oil

Fish oil and krill oil (but not cod liver oil) are high in omega-3 fatty acids, an essential component of any healthy diet. Omega-3 lowers harmful cholesterol levels and has displayed a number of other cardiovascular benefits, including improved blood viscosity and fat levels. Studies have shown that people who eat more omega-3 fatty acids have lower rates of heart attack than people who eat less. The omega-3 fatty acids in fish oil also reduce the symptoms of inflammatory and immune disorders like Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, and migraine headaches.

One of the omega-3 fatty acids, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), plays a central role in the function of synaptic connections (communication points) in the brain. Because of this, the brain and the nerves are so dependent on DHA for proper function that a diet chronically deficient in DHA can result in degeneration of the nervous system. For example, a low DHA level has been associated with a higher rate of multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, depression, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Omega-3 sufficiency has been associated with improved brain performance.

Omega-3, especially DHA, plays a key role in fetal brain development. High omega-3 intake during the third trimester boosts sensory, cognitive, and motor development in infants. The brain greatly increases in size during the last trimester, and it needs a lot of omega-3 to do it correctly. New mothers have been found to have half the omega-3 blood level of a man or of a woman who isn't pregnant or lactating. That's how much omega-3 fatty acids a baby needs to develop. So much of a mother's omega-3 is fed to the baby that if she doesn't replace it, she'll barely have any left for herself or for her future babies. This has been suggested as a cause of firstborn children scoring higher on intelligence tests.