Vegetarian Mums and Babies!

[Kitten]

Meh, I had stupidly low b12 and had to have tests for perinaceous anaemia. I never got told what (if any) effect it would have on bubs, it just made me tired. I took pregnacare and they lost my 20something week blood tests so I never found out if it made a difference, heh.

 

[PeanutBean]

Kelly, I had hugely bad nausea and could barely eat a thing for 8 months of my pregnancy (right to the end). I mostly lived off crisps as it was all I could stomach and manage to 'prepare'. Byron came almost two weeks early and was 6lb12, on the 25th centile but an appropriate weight of a 38 week old foetus on hid predicted growth chart so if he'd come term he most likely would've been the predicted 7lb something. Based on my experience (and I realise this is anecdotal) I don't believe the weight of the baby will have anything to do with how much you eat except perhaps if you were fatally anorexic or similar.

As for your low iron, I had the same. In fact researching it 50% of pregnant women have anaemia questioning the assumption that it is abnormal and something that required treatment. I can highly recommend Spatone, an iron rich water, which increased my iron tonnes in a week where the iron tablets had done little in three, and it has no side effects. Again I don't think your iron levels have anything to do with the babies size. I had the vit B12 injections but gave birth a couple of days in so had to finish the course postnatally (worth doing because of lochia etc).

My own advice would be to not worry. MWs tell you allsorts and it's rarely better than a guess. I was told my bump was all baby and he was going to be massive, I went from looking utterly stonkingly massive to looking 6 months pregnant after my waters went as it was all water and not baby at all. Even if your baby is born small it doesn't necessarily mean anything bad anyway. Babies are different sizes. All the percentile measurements mean is that i the distribution of birth weights your baby falls within the smallest 10% say. That doesn't make the weight abnormal or dangerous. Try not to worry.

 

[PeanutBean]

Oh and I researched into B12 and it was linked to neurological development in the baby but only a bit and it depends on what stage you are anyway.

 

[kirsten1985]

I agree with PB, try not to worry about it. I took Floravital ( https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/pages/product_detail.asp?pid=512&prodid=519 ) which really helped my anaemia, loads more than the ferrous sulphate I was prescribed. Doesn't make you feel rubbish like that does either.

 

[jen1604]

Girls,I just was finding this link for someone and it was on the THIRD search page when I searched vegetarian!!!There has been three more pages of people on BnB mentioning vegetarianism since we have chatted in here!!

How are we all and our beautiful vegetarian babies?Did we all have a great veggie Xmas?My MIL tried to sneak-feed me duck in spring rolls.Grrrrrr.I have no idea how I kept calm on that occasion,thank God I noticed really really quickly but still,not the point!

Love to you all x

 

[Kitten]

Ewww duck? Nasty! We had a good xmas thanks. Theakston tried asparagus, pear, sweet potato, potato, and carrot. Not all at once! He doesn't like houmous though. I am sooo looking forward to weaning starting on Thursday I think I'm going to have to re-discover lentils at some point. Anyone got any nice baby friendly recipes for them?

 

[jen1604]

Theres a really good Annabel Karmel recipe for lentils,think I might have posted it before on this thread so I'll have a check in a second and if not I'll look it up for you.

Good luck with starting weaning!xxxxxx

Edit--Just had a look Lentil recipe,6th post on the 1st page

 

[toffee87]

We've been veggie for a year now ;-)

 

[Kitten]

Hey broody!

Thanks jen, I'm off for a look

 

[QuintinsMommy]

Hello! I just found this!
I'm Rome, I'm 19. I've been veggie for 7 years now, I plan on raising my son veg as well.
^_^

 

[Kitten]

Welcome Rome, that's an awesome bump!

 

[kirsten1985]

Welcome Rome! Not long for you now!

 

[kelly342000]

hi,
i mentioned a while back that my vit b12 levels were border line low and have since been retested and they are still low!! i have been told i have megoblastic anemia and as i have been taken a very high strength vit b12 supplement, it is likely that i am lacking in the factor needed to absorb vit b12 and therfore pernicious anemia is the cause.
there is a lot of evidence to suggest that baby would be at a high risk of becoming vit b12 deficient if i was to breast feed with such low levels, and could even have problems with the developing central nervous system!!
needless to say this is all very worrying, especially as baby is still measuring small. i certainly dont want to be making matters worse by breast feeding if it is not the necessarily the best option in my situation.
anyway the point of this rambling is to ask if anybody out there has been diagnosed with Pernicious Anemia and how it affected breast feeding? were you still able to? i am looking towards formula feeding now as i feel the risk of baby developing vit b12 is not one i want to take, so are there any vegetarian baby formulas out there???
thanks very much!!

 

[kirsten1985]

Oh no, that doesn't sound very good, poor you.

I use SMA wysoy, which is made from Soya, and is suitable for vegetarians. Freya has been great on it, never had a problem.

 

[Kitten]

I tested negative for PA but always have low B12. I read the report on the breastfeeding & B12 just after I gave birth and asked the dr at my 6week check and he said he didn't "believe all that nonsense" and to carry on as normal with breastfeeding. I'd have a read into some of the studies on google scholar if you're worried and make your own opinion.

 

[PeanutBean]

Hello, not been here for an age. How is everyone doing?

I've not seen this research into BF and low vit B12, what's the synopsis? As for veggie formula only SMA does veggie normal formula and not all of them are. Aside from the soy one, there is another, in the white can I think (?). We just got the normal one when we tried to use formula after weaning had started, it's only not veggie because of the whey and we eat normal cheese so it seemed silly to worry about that. For me my main beef was trying to find one without fish oil in it.

Speaking of which, we've been trying Byron with Hariboland (or something like that!) omega 3. It comes from the algae source so is veggie and also not flax seed con. It's bloody expensive though and only seems to be there because some kiddies don't like fish taste! :S He loves it (he loves all meds, weirdo) but I'm a little dubious as there is no RDA for infants so I'm am just hoping it is doing something and not doing any harm! Still haven't got round to sourcing me and DH any algal based omega 3.

Byron's doing ok with nursery after our early hiccup only they are ploughin quorn into him! He has it every day he is there, sometimes twice a day. He still mostly has veggies and egg at home (in various forms) so I feel a bit weird about how much quorn he is eating. I heard recently that in England there are no regulations about the quality of food and nutrition in nurseries. Does anyone else give there LO much quorn? What's the salt like? He seems to mostly have mince and sausages. We don't really eat quorn so got nothing to compare it with at home.

 

[elm]

:wave: hello Seraphim directed me here after I had a little rant about my dr going on about iron levels and bf'ing.

I've been a vegetarian for about 20 years and I'm giving Elliot a vegetarian diet too. I won't stop him eating meat once he understands what it is but I'm not intending to buy or cook it for him.

It's lovely to see a group here!

x

 

[PeanutBean]

Hey Elm.

 

[Seraphim]

Well... I don't know if/when i'll ever be able to call myself a veggie, but it's been maybe 6 months since I've caved at the non-veggie food on the go. Starting to feel good that I may never have that "Why does mummy eat..." conversation

 

[kelly342000]

I've not seen this research into BF and low vit B12, what's the synopsis?

i came across quite a lot when i googled it and am quite surprised a doctor said he didn't "believe all that nonsense" as some of the side effects on baby can be quite severe.

Vitamin B12 deficiency in an infant can cause:

* Anemia
* Irritability
* Failure to thrive
* Poor appetite
* Apathy
* Developmental delays.

there is some research here
https://www.veganhealth.org/b12/apinfants

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1438012/pdf/jrsocmed00246-0086.pdf


my blood levels are being monitored as i still have enlarged RBC's (megoblastic aneamia) caused by the vit b12 deficiency and they will be defo checking them again 6 weeks post delivery to see if they have improved by then.