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HEAITHY BABlES
(Continued from page 33)
Up Healthy- A Parent's Guide to
Good Nutrition
by Myron Winick,
M.D., director of the U.S. lnstitute
of Human Nutrition).
Pregnancy is not the time to
worry aoout gaining weight. You
and your husband must be more
concerned about the health and
well-being of that new addition to
your family than about temporary
weight gain.
Listen to the facts.
"Low birth weight is well estab–
lished as an antecedent of excessive
mortality in infants. Data from the
United States and England indicate
that infant death rates rise dramati–
cally among newborns weighing
2,500 grams [about 5Y2 pounds] or
less"
(Nutritional lmpacts on
Women Throughout Lije with
Emphasis on Reproduction,
page
143) .
Low birth weight is tbe major
cause of infant mortality in the
world. Even the well-fed United
States is ranked 13th in infant mor–
tality rates, according to 1981 sta–
tistics from the U.S. Census
Bureau.
Living in sorne of the so-called
developed countries does not auto–
matically ensure that you are well–
nourished. Yet maternal nutrition
is the single most important factor
influencing the baby's birth
weight.
Tragically, it has also been dem–
onstrated that mental deficiency in
newborns is related to low birth
weight and prematurity rates.
"Cell division is most rapid and,
therefore, most vulnerable from
one montb before birth until five
months after. Never again will the
baby's brain experience such an
incredible proliferation of new
cells. All of the eleven billion neu–
rons, the cells which process and
analyze information, are formed
before birth. lnadequate nutrition
during gestation results in perma–
nent, irreversible deficits in the
number of cells which make up the
baby's brain" (from page 95,
What
Every Pregnant Woman Should
KnowfThe Truth About Diets and
Drugs in Pregnancy
by Gail Sforza
Brewer, director of !nstructor train-
38
ing and certification for tbe Metro–
politan New York Childbi rth Edu–
cation Association, and Tom Brew–
er, M .D. , president of the Society
for the Protec tion of the Unborn
through Nutrition [SPUN]).
You are responsible for the good
nutrition that will enable your child
to reach his or her maximum genetic
potential. You can give your baby a
head start that no one else can. Your
baby is what you eat.
Smoking and Drinking
Your baby is also what you drink,
smoke and otherwise ingest into
your system.
"The [U.S. ] Surgeon General
reports that smoking during preg–
nancy also results in a significantly
greater number of spontaneous
abortions, sti llbirths, and neonatal
deaths.
"As
to long-term effects on the
chi ldren of women who smoke dur–
ing pregnancy, N.R. Butler, in his
study of prenatal hazards con–
cluded, ... a follow-up at age seven
of the babies studied in the British
Perinatal Study of 1958 ... found
that the cbi ldren of mothers who
were 'beavy' smokers during preg–
nancy s howed significantly de–
creased height, retardation of read–
ing ability, and lower ratings on 'so–
cial adjustment' than the children
of non-smoking mothers"
(Posi–
tively Pregnant
by Madeleine
Kenefick, pages 128, 129).
As well as
smo~ing,
the decision
by a pregnant mother to drink alco–
holic beverages should be arrived at
by taking into consideration meta–
bolic and other factors such as
weight , diet and drugs used, illicit
or otherwise.
Alcohol flows easily from a
mother's bloodstream througb the
placenta into her unborn child. The
odds of damaging the fetus are even
higher when drugs are combined
with alcohol by the pregnant mbth–
er. Remember, it's your responsi–
bility to protect the health of your
unborn child.
What if your doctor recom–
mends a low-salt , low-calorie diet
sometime during your pregnancy?
Weight or salt restriction in preg–
nancy is no longer routinely advised
at the forefront of the obstetrics
community, neither is routine use
of diuretics (water pills). If your
doctor is out of s tep with the latest
published medica! findings, and
will not cooperate with your desire
to adequately nourish your unborn
child, he may suggest you see
another doctor. Take his advice.
Read what Ronald A. C hez,
M.D., of the Cb ief Pregnancy
Research Branch, National Insti–
tute of Child Health and Human
Development in Bethesda, Mary–
land, had to say about the level of
the average physician's education
in nutrition.
"For all intents and purposes,
the physician's medica! education is
lacking. There is scant attention in
our curricula to the aspects of
nutrition . C linical nutrition is not
usually regarded to be a glamorous
medica! discipline.
It
is taught
inadequately in most medical
scbools and poorly applied by most
clinicians"
(Nutritional lmpacts
on Women,
pages 221, xv).
Sorne physicians are now refer–
ring their patients to registered d i–
etitians whose training has pre–
pared them to advise patients as to
their nutritional needs.
A Normal, Natural Process
More and more we need to come to
understand that pregnancy and
childbirth are normal , natural pro–
cesses and begin to treat them so,
instead of like illnesses. God is the
Master Designer of our bodies and
bodily functions, including the
reproductive processes. And he
wrote an " lnstruction Book"- the
Bible-· - that tells us how to live and
how to bave health and vitality.
If you want to learn sorne of
those basic commonsense precepts
that are essential to achieving
vibrant, radiant health, write for
our free booklet
Principies of
Healthful Living:
Those of you who are pregnant
or plan to be should also make note
of the accompanying chart and read
sorne of the books referred to in
this article as well as other good
books on the subject.
Those with special health prob–
lems, of course, if planning to
become or already pregnant, should
get the necessary dietary advice.
Be responsible, be informed, be
prepared to give birth to a beauti–
ful, alert, vigorously healthy baby.
There's no second chance.
o
The
PLAIN TRUTH