Low-Carb Pregnancies Can Lead To More Stressed Babies

[Viking Dan]

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=40970#

Interesting.

[James L]

PPLP is a much more balanced program than the Atkins diet. I am not persuaded that the PPLP nutritional approach would result in more stressed babies.

[Billie]

The article is one of the worst I have seen. They measure cortisol AFTER public speaking and blame it on protein. Garbage study. And as James L said, this is not at all what PP is all about. We eat more balanced foods than many many people.

[Inez]

I wished I'd known about low-carb diets when I was pregnant and after! All the reading I've done since has indicated how important fats, especially, are to optimum health for both mother and baby. And I know that my stress levels are much lower now with a low-carb diet. I just can't imagine that the health of myself or my babies would have been worse if I'd stopped eating all that sugar and starch!

[Viking Dan]

I understand Protein Power isn't Atkins, but the initial stages (<30 g carbs) can put you in ketosis.

http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/26/Extraordinarily_Irresponsible_--_Atkins_and_Pregnancy.htm



The immediate concern centers on the state of ketosis. Pregnant women are the most at risk. Based on detailed data from 55,000 pregnancies,[162] acetone and other ketones may cause brain damage in the fetus, which may result in the baby being born mentally retarded.[163] The fact that ketones seemed to cause "significant neurological impairment" and an average loss of about 10 IQ points was well known and aroused "considerable concern" years before Atkins published his first book.[164] Atkins nonetheless wrote. "I recommend this diet to all my pregnant patients."[165]

After enough pressure from the AMA, Atkins finally relented. "There's one other point I'm very sorry about," Atkins finally admitted, "I now understand that ketosis during pregnancy could result in fetal damage. My pregnant patients have never had this problem, but I realize I didn't study enough cases to validate my recommendation. If anyone wants a retraction, I'll be glad to give one."[166]

OTOH, this guy is also selling a book of his own (profits supposedly go to charity.)

[Thedabara]

I know I am going to regret posting...but, just can't help myself. Since I am 8 months pregnant and have been following PPLP for 3 years, I can say that I have eaten MUCH better this time around. MY baby is getting a more "varied" diet than my last two children did. This time I get get fats like coconut oil and cod liver oil daily. last time, I probably got most of my fat from french fries! I eat more berries and nuts, and other low carb veggies. last time I ate cheesecake. I wonder, did Eskimo children have high cortisol rates? For the record, my ecc intake is anywhere between 20 a day and 100 a day. When I get up in the higher range though, I experience heartburn, swelling, etc.... Even though all the pregnancy books all say to eat at least 50% carbs, they also (usually in the same sentence) stress that protein is the number one requirement of the fetus, and that the fetus needs fat in the mother's diet to develop, especially in the last months during brain development.
Just my 2 cents.
Jenny

[Viking Dan]

I just tire of the endless conflicting information. Ketosis does feel nasty though. I can't imagine its good for a baby.

[mcsblues]

I understand Protein Power isn't Atkins, but the initial stages (<30 g carbs) can put you in ketosis.

http://www.atkinsexposed.org/atkins/26/Extraordinarily_Irresponsible_--_Atkins_and_Pregnancy.htm


OTOH, this guy is also selling a book of his own (profits supposedly go to charity.)
I take it you do know that Dr. Michael Greger is a radical vegan with ties to PETA and associated terrorist groups who want us to stop eating meat and milk or any other animal products?

One can pretty easily imagine what "charity" he would support - and his agenda for attacking Atkins is also fairly clear.

[Thedabara]

Thanks Malcolm! That makes this article a little clearer!
jenn

[Viking Dan]

One can pretty easily imagine what "charity" he would support - and his agenda for attacking Atkins is also fairly clear.




Yeah. He has a fairly obvious agenda.

I know I saw him in the forums on some other low carb site getting flamed by the other members.

[Cora]

In my opinion, it is hard to imagine how a diet that emphasizes meat, cheese, and vegetables could do any harm in pregnancy. As Thedabara pointed out, her diet is much healthier now than in previous pregnancies, and I'll bet that it's healthier than the majority of pregnant women. The studies linking ketosis to birth defects were mostly done in diabetics. Newer studies indicate that women with nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy (and most likely ketosis) have better pregnancy outcomes, even if they lose weight than those without the nausea.

[Gabriel Guzman]

I just tire of the endless conflicting information. Ketosis does feel nasty though. I can't imagine its good for a baby.

How does ketosis actually 'feels' anyway? As you're reading this, if you haven't had anything to eat for the past 3 horus, you're already in ketosis.

Ketosis is such an overrated issue that most of those who like to talk 'bad' about it don't even know what it is or what it is for. Ketosis is a normal every day occurence and if people think they're in ketosis becasue they can see a color change in some strips, they need to learn more about it.

Ketosis is neither abnormal nor dangerous; ketoacidosis is and carbohydrate reduction does not lead to that. Unconctrolled diabetes does.

The ketosis issue related to low carbohdyrate diets is just another die hard myth with sientific basis that are less than watertight.

[Viking Dan]

How does ketosis actually 'feels' anyway?
Um...if we're talking the heavy ketosis like what I went into the first time I did lowcarb...then its like you're been given heavy sedatives and are exhaling burnt plastic? At least that's how it feels/has felt to me.

I know we don't want to make judgements on something as unscientific as feel, but...*ick*

[Gabriel Guzman]

Um...if we're talking the heavy ketosis like what I went into the first time I did lowcarb...then its like you're been given heavy sedatives and are exhaling burnt plastic? At least that's how it feels/has felt to me.

That may very well be interpreted with low levels of magnesium/potasium, which is also associated with feeling 'lightheaded'.

Heavy ketosis actually produces 'sleeplessness' and some people have trouble sleeping soon after starting a phase that significantly reduces their carbohydrates.


I know we don't want to make judgements on something as unscientific as feel, but...*ick*

Feeling is not a problem as long as it's attributed to the real cause. After all, that's how misinformation starts and spreads.

[Viking Dan]

That may very well be interpreted with low levels of magnesium/potasium, which is also associated with feeling 'lightheaded'.

I use Nu Salt on the potassium front. I don't recall any reccomendations on magnesium(for ketosis) in the low carb books I have. Any guidelines? I think my calcium supplement already supplies magnesium...



Heavy ketosis actually produces 'sleeplessness' and some people have trouble sleeping soon after starting a phase that significantly reduces their carbohydrates.

Any reccomendations? Melatonin? Tryptophan (assuming you can get it?)

[LisaS]

Viking_Dan - do you have the Protein Power Life Plan book? I think the chapter on Magnesium there would answer some of your questions.

[Viking Dan]

I'll re-order it. I didn't recall a magnesium reccomendation, but its probably been 4 years since I read it.

Thanks. Sorry for driving this off topic (a bit.)

[Gabriel Guzman]

The recommendation for magnesium and potasium are not related to ketosis at all, but to the fact that the plan has a powerful diuretic effect and people may experience a trancient deficiency of those minerals. The lightheadedness is related to that, not to ketosis.

The sleeplessness due to heavy ketosis is easily corrected by increasing carbohydrates just a tad. Of course, there are other factors for which people can have trouble sleeping, not only heavy ketosis, but if that is the reason, careful and gradual increase of carbohydrates helps. The increase, however, is not excessive, probably not more than 5-10 ECC. In other words, some people may need to start around 40 g ECC instead of 30 during their intervention phase. The sleeplessness related to ketosis doesn't seem to last long, so if somebody that has been on the plan has this kind of trouble sleeping, the reason is not likely due to heavy ketosis but something different.

[Karen J]

I wished I'd known about low-carb diets when I was pregnant and after! All the reading I've done since has indicated how important fats, especially, are to optimum health for both mother and baby. And I know that my stress levels are much lower now with a low-carb diet. I just can't imagine that the health of myself or my babies would have been worse if I'd stopped eating all that sugar and starch!

Inez, I couldn't agree with you more. My last pregnancy was a disaster. I was eating the "recommended" pregnancy diet of 9-11 servings of bread/grain/pasta per day. I was putting so much sugar into my 5-foot tall body that I ended up with a 9.4 pound baby! The final weeks were awful, the delivery was awful, and the recovery was awful.

If only I could go back, knowing what I know now.

My 'baby' is now 4 years old this week, and loves sugar. Thank goodness he also loves protein, otherwise he'd have nothing to eat at my house. :)

[kitkat]

In the beginning of February, I started PP. Since then, I have lost 13 lbs, three inches from my waist and one inch from my hips. Yesterday, I found out I was pg. Since I have a history of PCOS, I *know* that this way of eating works very well with my body, but I am unsure about how I should proceed through pregnancy. Any ideas? Meal plans? Experience?

[Thedabara]

Kitkat,
Hi and welcome! I started a thread in the women's wellness section on PP pregnancies. I have 4 weeks to go and have managed to stay on plan about 85% of the time. I have not tried to lose weight. I have tried to stay at about 50 ecc a day. That is just where I, personally feel best. If I go much above that I start feeling my fingers swell, and get heartburn and other lovely pregnancy symptoms!:) Anyway, I suggest you come on over to that section and we can talk as much as you want, or as little. I can tell you that this is the healthiest I have eaten during a pregnancy! I do make sure I get enough fat...I take cod liver oil EVERY day! I also ignore any advice to stay away from fats...babies brains develop with adequate fat, so I see no need to deprive them of it. So, by all means scroll on down to Women's wellness, and you'll find the pregnancy thread! I hope to see you there!
Jenny

[dvdmon]

Quick note: I moved this post to the Woman's Wellness area since it has to do with pregnancy.

Now, regarding pregnancy, PP, and ketosis, let me relate our story. Me and my wife got pregnant with our first child in November of 2004. While my wife doesn't do PP per se, generally she does something close - maybe a maintenance level. I don't think her diet changed much during the pregnancy except for a couple of months, while she didn't have morning sickness, she did feel a bit queezy in the afternoons. We figured out that she needed to eat regularly - kind of a hypoglycemic effect.

Anyway, it came time for the glucos tolerance test. For those unfamiliar, this is where they tell you to fast overnight and then feed you a bottle of super-sweet stuff and take glucose levels at intervals afterwards. There's a simple one and a more involved one. She was borderline for the simple one, so they wanted her to come back for the more involved one. We were a bit reluctant as we had heard that the test was not a good way of accessing risk for GD (gestational diabetes) and was just another excuse to label people unecessarily as "high risk." At that time we were also in the process of switching care providers, once we did switch, the other provider (a group of Midwife Nurse Practitioners) wanted to do the second test and for some reason we relented. By this point it was high, but what they don't tell you is that blood sugar levels normally go up during pregnancy, so the later you have these tests, the more likely it is you will be positive.

My wife decided to get a glucos meter and monitor her blood sugar. A meal out where she ate some fried (with breading) food and a chocolate mouse for desert had her number sufficiently high to convince her to eat at a lower carb level - say Stage II. After she started doing this, her numbers were perfect.

We were obligated by the midwives to consult with an MD about whether or not they could deliver the baby (and whether they could do it in our home if we chose that). My wife showed the blood sugar numbers she had been taking down over the past week or two (which were perfect), and he barely looked at them, opting to use only the glucose test and determining that we couldn't do it at home. Not only that, but she wouldn't sanction us going over 41 weeks. While this might seem ok, studies have shown that the gestational period for humans (when not artifically induced), is 41 weeks and 1 day. So we wouldn't have even been able to go the average length. The concern for those who have GD is that the baby will be too big, and there are a lot of other complications that can happen with GD, but it seems docs can't make the distinction between an artificial glucose test that's often rigged for failure, and true numbers (perfectly controled ones at that) collected after real world meals. That and the difficulty for them distinguishing between woman who have Type I or Type II diabetes before they even get pregnant, and those that develop what seems to be GD during pregnancy.

We were also told to go see a nutritionist. The nutritionist looked at her numbers and at her food log and said that of course, she wasn't getting enough carbs! That she couldn't risk going into ketosis and if need be, if adding a bunch of carbs in would kick up the blood sugar readings, then she'd just have to start taking insulin!

At this point we were doing more research into this and came across some articles on the glucose test as well as the seposed danger from ketosis. I'll try to go find those articles, but basically I've mentioned some of the problems with the glucose test already. As far as ketosis, there was one or possibly a few studies which supposedly linked GD to mental retardation, but when you look at those studies, they were poorly designed and many factors for that outcome were not controlled for or taken into account, so it's hardly proof that ketosis caused them. Also, I believe that the affect was not "mental retardation" per se, but rather a 5-10% lower test score on some IQ test taken at a few years of age. But this got magnified (hyped) to meaning "mental retardation."

Anyway, we ended up ditching the Nurse Practitioner Midwives who were too tied to doing whatever thid doc said for fear of losing their relationship with her and her practice, and instead hired an independant midwife with parallel care from probably the most progressive OB's in the area. My wife continued to keep the carbs lower and felt great the remainder of the pregnancy. The baby was actually quite late and we ended up going to the hospital and getting induced at the 43-week mark. Other than somewhat agonizing waiting period and the pitocin at the hospital, the latter part of the pregnancy as well as the birth went great and without a hitch. That "big baby" that the original doc was trying to convince us was inevitable, was 7lbs 3oz, and this after 43 weeks!

Alright, I'm off to find the references that I mentioned above.

[dvdmon]

Here's Henci Goer's niceley referenced article: http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/gdhgoer.html

Here's the article that I read about ketosis in pregnanacy (also well-referenced): http://www.plus-size-pregnancy.org/gd/gd_ketones.htm

[Thedabara]

Dvdmon,
Just reading what you two went through made me want to scream! How agravatting (cannot spell lately), that must have been! I am grateful that my doctors don't ever ask what I eat. They have been happy that I have only put on 25 pounds, and not the 60 of the last pregnancy!
jenny

[choubear]

My doctors were very supportive too - never asked what I was eating, but were very pleased with my bG levels and (lack of) weight gain. How aggravating it is to deal with "unenlightened" medical people!