Vegan pregnancy

Thank you everyone for your well wishes and feedback. Particularly the vegan mums who've already gone through this before. I agree, constant blood levels and attention to detail is key. I started with perfect blood results...proof to all those meat eaters than vegans can be perfectly healthy ha!...fingers crossed all goes well from here.

To those with children...how did you combat the harsh views from carnivores who think raising a child vegan or veggie is bad/detrimental etc?

I've been lucky.... people are actually surprised when I say my daughter will be a vegetarian (as my partner is, she can choose to be vegan later in life if she wants, but she'll basically be vegan anyway). But most people have no problem. My friends who know me just accept it. Strangers can get bent (putting it nicely). She is my child and therefore I make the decisions for her while she can't. I get a lot of "oh you'll need to make sure she's getting enough iron" well my child, unlike yours, will grow up eating vegetables... you know those green things that grow on the ground?? >_>

Funny thing is you'll probably pay more attention to her nutrition than 99% of omni parents anyway. (Who will be feeding their kids McD's burgers as soon as they can chew)

Congratulations!
And yes you will indeed get loads of comments, but eat healthy make sure you keep on top of important vitamins and you can easily have a very healthy vegan pregnancy.

here are a few resources for you to check out:

http://www.veganparents.org/ (also on Facebook)

there are two vegan pregnancy books that came out last year.
http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/search?searchTerm=vegan+pregnancy+&search=search
nice and cheap t the moment with sales

there are a few vegan parenting blogs as well which google can help i can't find them all at this point but this is mine
http://sarah-moo.blogspot.com.au/


good luck with everything!

Wonderful news for you!  

I've had two amazingly healthy problem-free 99%* vegan pregnancies and my extremely healthy,  energetic and smart boys are now 10 and 9.

A few tips and experiences from my pregnancies:

- Try and include an organic juice every day ... my favourite was apple, carrot and ginger (great for nausea too which I only experienced a little in the first few months).

- One of my regular lunch favourites was a tempeh salad wrap with hummus ... delish!

- Include lots of chickpeas and lentils in your meals for great digestion and nutrients.

- Home made vegie burgers are a great way to include lots of variety like chickpeas, brown rice, quinoa, broccoli, peanut butter, tahini other for flavour and binding, sweet potato, carrot, spinach, beetroot, garlic etc.  Curries including tofu, and a whole range of other yummy veg stuff were also a favourite.

- Include products like organic flaxseed oil, walnuts and avocado for essential fatty acids.

- Have a full health check including B12 levels, and if your B12 is low I would strongly advise having injections.

- I had no problem with iron deficiency, but was advised to have a supplement in the last trimester as a precaution, so I took Floradix. It includes honey* so not vegan, but was the best option available at the time and doesn't cause constipation!

- Check out the PCRM website info at : http://www.pcrm.org/search/?cid=262

My first pregnancy was particularly wonderful and I just loved every minute (almost) of it. My health was so good and obvious that my family and friends had absolutely no reason to raise any concerns. They also knew that I had researched extremely well and knew far more than they did about nutrition. I was pregnant again when our first son was 10 months, so the second time around I didn't have as much energy, but it was still an amazingly healthy pregnancy. Best wishes to you for a wonderful journey!