Nutritional Balanced Diet for Pregnant Women

During pregnancy, a woman's body goes through many physiological changes, and these are often passed along to the fetus via the placenta. Almost anything a woman puts into her body during pregnancy -- nutrients, drugs, alcohol, medications, etc. -- can find its way into the fetus and may have an adverse effect on its development. The nutritional requirements of a woman change when she is pregnant for she is now eating for two (or more in the case of multiple births), and eating a nutritionally balanced diet sufficient to support the developing fetus(es) is important. This will be discussed below.

There has been much publicity about the effects of drugs and alcohol on the fetus: so-called "crack" babies and babies born with fetal alcohol syndrome, for example. It is known that drugs and alcohol have effects on the development of the fetus, and particularly on the developing brain and nervous system. Medications prescribed by doctors and over-the-counter medications can also affect a fetus, and this paper will discuss the effects of alcohol, legal and illegal drugs on fetal development. Smoking during pregnancy usually results in low birth weight babies, and it has other deleterious effects which will also be discussed. Not everything which can affect a fetus has been covered in this paper, but it will become obvious from the evidence presented below that a mother's behavior has serious effects on the health of her fetus.

When a woman is pregnant, she undergoes a

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rrhage in the fetus, and since it blocks tryptophan and serotonin uptake, the baby=s sleep-wake cycle is disturbed. Premature birth and low birth weight are often found in babies exposed to cocaine in utero, and fetal distress is often seen in the fetus either before or during delivery. Inhalant abuse is another problem that is fairly widespread and can be harmful to the fetus (6). The most common chemicals involved are the volatile aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, and of these, toluene, is the most readily available and commonly used substance. There is little in the literature about the effects of inhalants on the fetus, but what there is suggests that it induces neonatal acidosis and neonatal withdrawal. The clinical features of neonatal withdrawal are excessive and high-pitched crying, sleeplessness, tremors, hypertonia and poor feeding. The symptoms are very similar to those of fetal alcohol syndrome. Psychotherapeutic drugs used to modify emotions and behavior in such disorders as schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder can have potential teratogenic side effects on the fetus including effects such as cardiovascular malformations, facial dysmorphi

Category: Medical - N