Getting Real with a Tricky Topic

“As a Vegetarian mama-to-be I would have loved more plant-based nutritional information and support, but overall the course was very supportive to my process.

I understand that it’s a tricky topic. But I left the nutrition section feeling pretty unsure of the message to vegetarians and kinda wanting to seek other traditions or leaders in the field who really encourage this and have helpful information.”

We received this feedback on our course recently, and I wanted to address it here because it CAN feel like a tricky topic, but it’s something we feel really passionate about sharing about anyways.

We don’t have a lot of control over so many things, but optimizing out nutrition in pregnancy is something that we DO have direct control over, and can make a huge impact

But we don’t know what optimal nutrition looks like to you. We don’t think we know what works best for everyone. We are at 100% committed to you making the best choices for yourself.

We are also committed to the physiology of our bodies, and what our mammalian selves need to thrive and create the healthiest possible babies.

And we know through ever increasing scientific studies AND the wisdom of our ancestors and the food they prioritized during fertility/pregnancy times, that there are nutrients required for optimal health of mom and baby in this time.

We are also constantly exploring and sharing about this through the lens of the wisdom of our own bodies. I (Maible) was a vegetarian from my own conception to about six months postpartum. I grew up on beans, tofu, lots of eggs and cheese. And I felt good! I was a pretty healthy kiddo and young adult.

In pregnancy, I craved salmon. Which was weird, I had no emotional connection to it, fish kind of freaked me out, I had no fond memories of the taste salmon. But my body was asking for something, and I began to question why, if we speak so much on listening to your body and honoring what it’s asking for, was this a place where I felt like my brain could override my body? If I trusted that my body knew what it needed in labor, knew how to move and how to birth a baby, why did I think that this communication of my body in pregnancy was just a fluke? Some thing to be ignored?

The wheels began to turn, but I remained vegetarian.

At six months or so postpartum I was ravenous. I felt like no matter how much I ate, there was still this deep hole that couldn’t be filled. I felt tired, depleted. I could hear my body communicating with as much volume as she could muster. THIS IS NOT WORKING ANYMORE.

So I decided to explore. I can say that as a simple sentence now, but at the time it was a huge life shift.

I had ever cooked meat before, I had no idea what was what, how to handle things, it was gross and freaky and weird.

Not to mention I was living in an intentional, vegetarian community, so choosing to eat meat was a radical identity shift. We moved out of the home that my son was born in. That I became a mother in. That in many ways I really stepped into being an adult in. Into an apartment above a barn in the middle of the woods at the end of a dead-end road. We went from being surrounded by other kids, mothers, and friends all day every day to me and Olin home together most days.

I truly believe that this was all a necessary part of my path. And this hunger was a catalyst for a necessary, beautiful, and challenging reimagining of my values, my commitments, my orientation in life.

The first meats I tried were oysters and liver. I have a lot of Aries in my chart, and if I’m going to do something, I want to dive right in and do it all the way. So if I was going to start eating meat for the nutrients, I wanted to start off with the most nutrient dense and see if I could do it. I tried not to gag on the oysters. I held my breath and tried not to look while I cooked the liver. I even dropped a big piece down the garbage disposal in the sink because I was holding it so gingerly.

A few months into eating meat, I noticed that I felt grounded for the first time in my life. (Also my mild prolapse feeling disappeared!) I had always pride myself on being unattached. Describing myself as a balloon available to float wherever the wind took me.

This grounding felt so good! This delicious, sensual, in my body for the first time in a real way, connection to earth. To my animal nature. To the natural cycles of life and death.

It was confronting. I couldn’t pretend that my life had no impact. I had to face the concept that things have to die for me to live. (You can hear more of my reflection from when it was fresh in this podcast episode.)

Sara has been vegetarian through all four of her pregnancy and breastfeeding journeys. She was actually basically vegan at the beginning of her first pregnancy, but quickly became a butter monster at the request of her pregnant body. She is one of the most attentive and conscious vegetarians I know when it comes to making sure she’s giving her body what it needs. Plenty of eggs, cheese on everything, and diving deep into learning about how she can give her body all of the micronutrients it needs that are not easily found in a vegetarian diet. This includes trying weird foods (she had a natto stint there) and supplementing when necessary. When she noticed the request for deeper nourishment in her fourth pregnancy, she dove deep into minerals and plant super foods. Our friend Aiste is an amazing resource for this, with her course, Plant Empowered Woman. We also have a podcast episode with her!

So here we are. Both having taken the same information (our studies in nutrition through midwifery school and beyond) and choosing to take two different paths.

So where does this leave us?

• With the grounding in our own choices to support you in making your own.

• With the encouragement to prioritize nourishment, always, but to make a special effort with a vegetarian pregnancy. We totally believe it is possible. and we know firsthand that it takes extra effort for it to be truly be sustainable for your health and setting a foundation for your baby’s health and meeting all of your macro and micro requirements.

And the truth is, I have yet to find an amazing resource that truly encourages vegetarian pregnancies as the best option. I found some blogs and websites that cites statistics with no sources or resources. I found some peoples individual opinions that don’t explore the actual nutritional needs in pregnancy. And I found that all ancestral diets prioritized animal products for fertility.

Does this mean that it’s not possible to grow a healthy baby with a vegetarian diet? Absolutely not! Does this mean that we think you shouldn’t do it? Of course not.

What we do encourage every woman to do, regardless of her dietary choices, is to look into what our bodies truly need, and how to make that possible.

And no matter what kind of diet you are eating, it’s probably going to take some time and energy to make that happen.

Feeding yourself well in pregnancy can feel like a full-time job, and we encourage you to take that as an opportunity to step into a deeper nourishment for yourself, and set the foundation for your family’s health.

Lily Nichols is our favorite resource for prenatal nutrition. She has a whole section in her book, Real Food for Pregnancy dedicated to the nutrients vegetarians need to pay extra attention to in their diet. And a full chapter on it in her new book, Real Food for Fertility, but I haven’t gotten there yet…

We also did a podcast episode where Sara talks about how she makes a vegetarian diet work for her in pregnancy. What that looks like in day-to-day life, and what she make sure to pay attention to.

If you have any fantastic resources on the topic, we are always open to learning more! Email us at catskillsbirthcollective@gmail.com.