Getting the right balance of nutrients is constantly important when you have ulcerative colitis. But when you’re pregnant and have UC, getting a healthy diet is absolutely necessary to make sure that your baby has enough nutrition to grow and prosper.
Intestinal issues can be a daily occurrence in individuals with ulcerative colitis. This painful kind of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which causes inflammation and sores on the intestinal tract lining, can truly take a toll on diet.
When individuals are in pain, they don’t wish to eat, so their nutrition suffers, explains Susan L. Mikolaitis, RD, LDN, scientific research dietitian in the department of gastroenterology and nutrition at Rush University in Chicago.
Here are some methods to enhance your nutrition during pregnancy, and even before you get pregnant.
Ulcerative Colitis and Pregnancy Diet
What diet will be good for pregnant woman with ulcerative colitis? When in doubt about what to eat, follow the government’s MyPyramid for Pregnancy. This well balanced diet includes the nutrients you require during pregnancy:
- Fortified breads and cereals
- Vegetables (such as carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, prepared greens, squash, tomatoes, and sweet red peppers).
- Fruits (such as cantaloupe, honeydew melon, mangoes, prunes, bananas, apricots, oranges, grapefruit, and avocado).
- Milk (low-fat or fat-free milk and yogurt), if not lactose intolerant.
- Meat and beans (prepared beans and peas, nuts and seeds, lean meat and chicken).
- Fish.
Obviously, that may be much easier said than done. Early morning illness alone could make you swear off many of the foods on the list. And for lots of women with ulcerative colitis, a few of the healthiest foods also might be symptom triggers.
Adjust your diet according to how you feel, however beware not to prevent the healthy foods you really require. Rather, get innovative to obtain them in:.
Grains. Some individuals with ulcerative colitis have trouble eating cereals, rice, and breads. Yet these whole grains are necessary since they are strengthened with folic acid, a nutrient that helps prevent spina bifida and other neural tube birth defects.
If whole grains appear to activate your ulcerative colitis symptoms, you might try quinoa and amaranth. They may be less most likely to trigger your UC symptoms.
Vegetables and fruits. If they trouble you, try fruit or veggie juice rather. Just make sure it’s 100% juice, with no added sugar.
“Sugar is not a good thing for patients with IBD,” Mikolaitis tells WebMD. Bacteria appear to be partial to disaccharides, a sort of sugar that consists of table sugar. “And we believe bacteria play a huge role in the flare-ups of the disease,” she states.
Drink pasteurized juice so you don’t get E. coli or another food-borne disease, which may threaten for your baby.
Fish. Your doctor may have suggested that you eat more fish due to the fact that it is high in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s are believed to reduce inflammation, which can be helpful for an inflammatory disease like ulcerative colitis.
However you have to make certain you do not eat fish that are high in mercury during pregnancy. Stay with low-mercury fish such as salmon, canned light tuna, pollock, catfish, and shrimp. Prevent high-mercury ranges such as king mackerel, tilefish, shark, swordfish, and albacore (” white”) tuna.
Finally, make certain you are drinking enough water. Having active ulcerative colitis during pregnancy might imply more diarrhea. This can lead to dehydration if you don’t replace the fluid you lose.
Supplementing Your Ulcerative Colitis Pregnancy Diet
Whether you are trying to conceive or are currently pregnant, your diet is going to require a little boost from a vitamin supplement.
“All women thinking about conception should be begun on a prenatal vitamin, and our patients are no different,” says Uma Mahadevan, MD, director of scientific research at the Center for Colitis and Crohn’s Disease and associate teacher of medication at the University of California, San Francisco.
An everyday prenatal vitamin can likewise help change nutrients you lose through diarrhea.
Ask your doctor whether you need extra supplements if you’re not getting enough of specific nutrients. Vitamin D, calcium, potassium, and magnesium shortages are all common in people with IBD, according to iytmed.com.
You might likewise need extra folic acid, due to the fact that UC and some medications you might take for it make it harder for your body to absorb folic acid.
People with ulcerative colitis are more susceptible to developing anemia, a lack of red blood cells that can be caused by an iron deficiency. So getting additional iron is vital. But often the iron in prenatal vitamins can trouble women with IBD.
“For patients who have active ulcerative colitis– patients who are flaring– taking iron can be extremely demanding on the digestive system,” Mahadevan states. Keep trying different vitamin formulations till you discover one you can endure.
Pregnancy and UC: Gaining Weight
Some women with ulcerative colitis struggle to stay at the advised weight for their height. Being underweight may increase the risk of giving birth to an underweight baby.
What’s healthy? If you were at a regular weight when you got pregnant, you must intend to get 25 to 35 pounds during your pregnancy. Increase that to 28 to 40 pounds if you began your pregnancy underweight.
Instead of aiming to eat 3 huge meals a day, eat five smaller sized meals to make it much easier on your digestive system. If you have to prevent certain foods due to the fact that they seem to cause ulcerative colitis symptoms, ask a dietitian to help you make the healthiest choices from the foods you have the ability to eat.
It will be a lot easier for you to achieve a healthy weight if you start your pregnancy off right. “If women who have ulcerative colitis are considering getting pregnant, it’s always best to aim to get their disease into remission before they seriously attempt,” Mikolaitis states.
When your symptoms are under control, it’s simpler for you to eat well. And the better you eat, the much better it will be for your ulcerative colitis and your chances of having a healthy pregnancy.
