How to Prevent Preeclampsia

Have you heard of preeclampsia? Maybe you’ve experienced it yourself, or had a friend or family member be diagnosed with preeclampsia in pregnancy.

I personally haven’t experienced preeclampsia but have had doula clients who have. My clients are typically planning a beautiful, natural childbirth and it’s disappointing, to say the least, when all of the sudden they are faced with complications, inductions and possibly a cesarean.

Let’s learn more about the symptoms and how to prevent preeclampsia so you can have a healthy pregnancy, delivery, baby and mama.

Symptoms of Preeclampsia

According to the March of Dimes, the signs and symptoms of preeclampsia include:

• High blood pressure
• Protein in the urine
• Severe headaches
• Vision problems, like blurriness, flashing lights, or being sensitive to light
• Pain in the upper right belly area
• Nausea or vomiting
• Dizziness
• Sudden weight gain (2 to 5 pounds in a week)
• Swelling in the legs, hands, and face

According to WebMD, “Preeclampsia in pregnancy usually appears during the second half of pregnancy, often in the latter part of the second or in the third trimesters, although it can occur earlier. If undiagnosed, preeclampsia can lead to eclampsia, a serious condition that can put you and your baby at risk, and in rare cases, cause death. Women with preeclampsia who have seizures are considered to have eclampsia.”

WebMD goes on to say that nobody knows the cause of preeclampsia. But, in my opinion, they are incorrect. I think we have a VERY good idea of the cause we know a way to decrease the chances of a women.

How to Prevent Preeclampsia

Here is a study that shows if a woman consumes a milk based probiotic daily or weekly throughout her entire pregnancy her risk for developing preeclampsia decreases SIGNIFICANTLY. In fact, daily intake of these probiotics will decrease the likelihood of preeclampsia by 20%. Consume it weekly and the risk for severe preeclampsia (what you really, really need to avoid) goes down by 25%. Consume it daily and the risk for severe preeclampsia goes down by 39%.

Hello! Those numbers are staggering!

The reason they studied the effect of probiotics is because probiotics has an anti-inflammatory effect on our bodies. They wanted to see if less inflammation on a growing baby and placenta would indeed be beneficial. They were correct!

At minimum, what you can take from this study is to simply eat milk based probiotics every day during your pregnancy. This means lots of yogurt, frozen yogurt and kefir. You can find any of these things in your local grocery. But I’d like to take this information a step further.

An Anti-Inflammatory Diet

If inflammation has such a negative consequence on our bodies, I think we should learn some simple ways to do less of that and more of an anti-inflammatory diet. Sounds good, no? Below is a good place to start and here is a great PDF you can print out and hang on your fridge. It’s on mine!

LESS: Inflammatory Diet

• Trans or Hydrogenated Fats
• Refined Oils
• Processed Foods
• Red Meat
• Artificial Sweeteners & Preservatives

MORE: Anti-Inflammatory Diet

Food based probiotics like these…

• unpasteurized sauerkraut
• unpasteurized kimchi
• unpasteurized kefir
• unpasteurized kombucha
• yogurt

Also…

• A good probiotic in pill form like the one made by Bio-Kult
• Colorful whole fruits and vegetables
• Healthy Fats
• Fiber
• Moderate Amounts of Organic Meat
• Spices such as garlic, ginger and turmeric

Nourishing Traditions

One of the best resources you can buy to help change your diet to anti-inflammatory is the Nourishing Traditions cookbook. In it you will learn how to make sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir and kombucha. If you like experimenting in the kitchen you will have great fun with this book.

Share This Information!

Aright ladies! Today we learned how to reduce our chances of developing preeclampsia in pregnancy through milk based probiotics. Taking that a step further we can implement an anti-inflammatory diet to further promote good health.

If you know me personally, there’s a good chance I have quoted this information to you already. And you know what? Nobody has heard of this!

What this means is that we need to educate our family and friends. So, if you thought this post was helpful, share it with a friend of family member by clicking one of the share buttons to the left!