Vitamins During Pregnancy



Vitamins During Pregnancy

[pic]When I got pregnant 2 months after I got married, my first thoughts were of how much I wanted to pump my body full of good nutrients in order to give my baby the best start on life!  My motto quickly became, “It’s easier to get them to eat healthy when they are inside because they don’t have an opinion!”  I viewed my 10 months of pregnancy as potentially the greatest time in my child’s life to build a healthy baby and, as a result, one day, a healthy adult. I had already been taking some great supplements called Shaklee for 2 years that had really helped me with some severe physical issues due to an eating disorder I had in high school. So I did a little investigating on what’s out there, if Shaklee was the best, and then what a pregnant woman should be taking. I hope these findings are as helpful to you as they were to me for all 4 of my pregnancies!

Compare Your Prenatals vs. Shaklee

When I became pregnant, and I was given prenatal vitamins, I decided to do a couple of tests on them to see how they compared with the Shaklee supplements that I was already taking.  My findings shocked me!

Here is the bottom line: Whatever you put in your body, make sure it is REAL food. Something only has to be 10% natural by the Government’s standards in order for a manufacturer to be allowed to put “All-Natural” on the label. Yikes!

Three Types of Vitamins:

1. Synthetic

2. Natural/Altered

3. Natural/Unaltered

1. Synthetic Vitamins are chemically produced in a lab to mirror the real thing. You body does not even recognize it as real because it is a chemical and therefore these are actually MORE harmful to take than nothing at all!

2. Natural/Altered Vitamins start our real, but after all the processing, the live enzymes are killed and you end up with a vitamin that has little nutritional value and, a lot of times, added binders and fillers.  This is worth repeating: By FDA standards a company is allowed to slap ALL-NATURAL on its label if it has only 10% natural ingredients! In other words, don’t be fooled by the label! Make sure you can find the research to PROVE it will do what it claims on the bottle.

3. Natural/Unaltered Vitamins are grown from whole food sources and is cold processed to keep the enzymes alive.

Test Your Vitamins

Here are 3 tests I did to check out my prenatals up against Shaklee.

1. I first did the water test.

If a vitamin does not dissolve in water in less than 30 minutes, than it just passes through your body unused.  The prescribed prenatal multivitamin did not dissolve in 30 minutes.  Plus, the water turned bright blue from large amounts of food coloring in the coating.  Blue 1, used to color candy, beverages and baked goods, may cause cancer.  Blue 2, found in pet food, candy and beverages, has caused brain tumors in mice. And that is what is in the prenatals that I would be giving my growing baby!  Shaklee’s dissolved completely in less than 10 min with no food coloring. There are no colors or harmful additives in Shaklee vitamins.  My prenatals included a calcium pill.  Calcium is the hardest to break down in water so not many pass this test. Not a single speck dissolved off of it in 24 HOURS!!!!  And, my doctor-recommended multi ate through a plastic cup overnight!

2. Another test I did was the cooking test.

You can literally “bake” your vitamins at 325 degrees.  If there are harsh binders and fillers in the vitamins they will cook out.  Nasty black stuff came out my prenatals!!  It was really gross.  Nothing came out of Shaklee’s because it is a whole-food supplement so it was just like cooking food!

3.Finally, I compared the vitamin and mineral level.

VitaLea had almost twice as much stuff compared to the doctor recommended prenatal!

For every pregnant woman, I would highly recommend switching to a brand that is safe and works. I took the essential foundational vitamins and protein every day and felt great!

2 Foundational Nutrition Keys

1. Shaklee Vitalizer, which is a 30 day supply of 80 different vitamins and minerals. It contains 2 Vita Lea, 2 Caroto-E-Omega Complex, 1 B + C complex, and 1 Optiflora Probiotic. Here is the breakdown of what the vitamins do:

• Vita-Lea – gives you 100% RDA of all the necessary vitamins and minerals.

• Vitamin B + C Complex — C boosts your immune system, which is down because of your body working so hard to form the baby.  Plus Vitamin C does tons of other things involving connective tissue and basic body building functions, preventing stretch marks, and aids in post-labor recovery time.  Shaklee’s C is Sustained Release, meaning it releases over a period of time.  Taking one C is like eating 1 ½ oranges every hour for 6 hours. This Complex is also coated in the critical B vitamin, folic acid, which is necessary for the baby’s development.  Many B-Complexes contain this important B vitamin but your body can’t access it in time and it leaves your system unused.  B also helped when I was in labor with cramping!  It is called the “happy vitamin”–helps regulate hormones, blood sugar, reduce cravings, etc.

• Caroto-E-Omega Complex — helps with skin elasticity, provides critical antioxidants, and aids in proper circulation.  It also delivers 7 Omega 3′s to help reduce the risk of heart disease and promote brain and joint health. CarotoMax part of the Complex is basically carotenoids found in fruits and vegetables which provide tons of antioxidants protection.

• Optiflora — can help maintain a healthy balance of intestinal microflora. This helps prevent yeast infections and promote digestive health.

2. Energizing Soy Protein or Shaklee 180 Smoothee Mix–THIS WAS HUGE FOR ME!!!  This is probably the biggest part, in my opinion, of a foundational nutrition program for a pregnant mother. Everything involved in making a baby requires protein. Every cell in the baby has to come from somewhere.  It will either come from what you put in your body, or from your organs, muscles, etc.  The baby must get protein to build cells.

It also helped me with morning sickness in those early months because it regulates blood sugar — which causes nausea. Your immune system is 96% protein so the Energizing Protein keeps your immune system running by providing it with all 9 essential amino acids.  Almost every function in our body has amino acids as its base, so this is crucial in the formation of the baby.

I would make myself a shake first thing in the morning, but I also would make a glass of boiling water and mix a serving of the cocoa protein in at night so that I went to bed with a full stomach (but not from food that would keep me awake or make me feel sick!). This really helped to curb the nausea!

Other Supplements I added:

• OsteoMatrix (Calcium/Magnesium) — calcium manufacturers have a hard time getting the needed amount into a form your body can digest in that 30 minutes period of time–Shaklee’s dissolves in 10 minutes in water to ensure that you get 100% of the calcium you take.

• Herb-Lax — when you are pregnant you are very prone to constipation at times so this helped to keep me regular, while continually cleansing my colon from harmful toxins from the food I ate.  I tried to do my best to eat healthy, but toxins can enter in through so many different ways!

• Lecithin — Is found to improve brain development and function. I took this more heavily during month 6-7 when the baby’s brain is developing.

It was so worth it to go all-out for those 10 months (and even when I breast fed afterward) so that my child had the best possible foundation as soon as she  or he entered the world.  I did this with all of my pregnancies.   This foundational nutrition has really given my children a great immune system, and they are very healthy, bright, and strong!  None of them have ever even been to the doctor!  Thank you Shaklee!!

Jenni Oates

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