Yoghurt during pregnancy: yes or no? Nutritionist's advice
- INTRODUCTION
- CAN I EAT YOGHURT DURING PREGNANCY?
- WHICH YOGHURTS ARE PASTEURISED?
- WHAT KIND OF YOGHURT TO CONSUME DURING PREGNANCY?
- CAN YOU EAT FRUIT YOGHURT DURING PREGNANCY?
- WHOLE OR LOW-FAT YOGHURT IN PREGNANCY?
- GREEK YOGHURT IN PREGNANCY: CAN YOU EAT IT OR NOT?
- DOES YOGHURT INCREASE THE RISK OF TOXOPLASMOSIS IN PREGNANCY?
- BENEFITS OF YOGHURT IN THE PREGNANCY DIET
- HOW TO EAT YOGHURT DURING PREGNANCY?
Introduction
If you have recently discovered and are wondering whether you can eat yoghurt during pregnancy, this guide is for you!
Let me start by giving you a basic short answer: yes, you can eat it.
To discover tips on types and aspects of health security, read on in the next few lines.
If you are interested in a more comprehensive view on nutrition during pregnancy, you will find my dedicated video course at the end of this paragraph.
For free content dedicated to the mother-baby world, check out the Instagram profile @drsilva.com_official.
Can I eat yoghurt during pregnancy?
Yes, you can eat yoghurt during pregnancy.
Always make sure, before consuming it, that it is produced from pasteurised milk.
The risk otherwise is of contracting serious infections, especially listeriosis.
It is caused by the bacterium Listeria monocytogenespresent in water, soil and plants and potentially able to contaminate various foods.
Infection in pregnancy is associated with tragic consequences, ranging from miscarriage to MEF (fetal intrauterine death).
Which yoghurts are pasteurised?
To find pasteurised yoghurtsuitable for consumption during pregnancy, just refer to the products purchasable at the supermarketthe result of supply chains that guarantee the highest levels of safety.
What kind of yoghurt should be consumed during pregnancy?
When it comes to yoghurt during pregnancy, it is good to remember the importance of focusing on products pasteurised and free of added sugar.
Reducing sugar intake is important in pregnancy even if one is not directly dealing with gestational diabetes.
The reason?
Basically, sweet expectation is an event that disrupts the physiological metabolism of carbohydrates.
Can you eat fruit yoghurt during pregnancy?
Consumption of fruit yoghurt during pregnancy should be avoided as a precaution.
Yoghurts made from pasteurised milk, while safe on the one hand, have the disadvantage of being rich in added sugars when they are at their lowest.
Also worth mentioning is the presence - certainly not the best when aiming to eat healthily during pregnancy - of preservatives and chemical additives.
Yes, one can read labels and try to choose the best, but the top alternative remains yoghurt with pieces of fresh fruit.
This advice applies even if you do not suffer from gestational diabetes.
To prevent toxoplasmosis, wash it by following these steps:
- Pass each individual fruit under running water,
- Rub it vigorously, so as to remove any soil residue and detach the oocysts of the Toxoplasma gondiithe protozoan responsible for toxoplasmosis.
- Do not soak fruit in bicarbonate of soda or amuchina: this is not sufficient to eradicate the protozoa.
Whole or low-fat yoghurt in pregnancy?
Yoghurt during pregnancy should be consumed whole (the presence of a higher amount of fat compared to low-fat yoghurt is not a problem).
Greek yoghurt during pregnancy: can you eat it or not?
Yes, you can take Greek yoghurt during pregnancy.
Since it has twice the protein content of conventional yoghurt, it is good to pay close attention to requirements during the various trimesters of sweet expectation.
According to the LARN, whose indications are also taken up by the SIGO expertsthe daily protein requirement is 54 grams in adult women.
For the first trimester an extra 1 gram per day should be considered, for the second 8 and for the third 26.
Does yoghurt increase the risk of toxoplasmosis in pregnancy?
Taking yoghurt during pregnancy does not increase the risk of toxoplasmosis.
This is associated with the intake of foods such as raw or undercooked meat.
Benefits of yoghurt in the pregnancy diet
Among the benefits of yoghurt in pregnancy we find first of all the contribution to improving the quality of the bacterial flora.
Fundamental in this respect are the probiotics.
Their presence in yoghurt is useful, as evidenced by this scientific review published in 2020 in the pages of the magazine Cureus Journal of Medical Sciencefor the improvement of metabolism and outcome related to infection and inflammation during waiting.
Also worth mentioning is the wealth in football, a mineral that plays a primary role when it comes to the formation of the foetus' skeleton (the requirement in pregnancy is 1200 mg per day).
How to eat yoghurt during pregnancy?
Yoghurt during pregnancy should be taken with an approach of moderation in mind and trying, when possible, to replace cow's milk yoghurt with coconut yoghurt.
Having clarified this premise, let us recall that during sweet expectation, Yoghurt can be eaten with cereals.
If one chooses puffed ones, one should opt for millet and quinoa, which, in comparison to rice, have less impact on blood sugar levels.
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