If you are pregnant, you should have a complete blood count every month. Such frequent blood tests can detect possible anemia. This is an iron deficiency that is easy in pregnancy. Anemia, or anemia, affects about 40 percent of people. future mothers. Fortunately, it is quite easy to deal with.
Causeanemia( anemia ) most often areiron deficiencyin the body. It may not be enough for various reasons. First of all - the diet is too low in this element. Secondly - iron is not well absorbed, and thirdly - the body excretes too much of it.
Iron - role in the body
Iron is needed for life like oxygen. Literally and figuratively. This element causes the bone marrow to produce the red blood cells, erythrocytes, that we need. They contain a specific protein - hemoglobin, whose task is to transport oxygen from the lungs to every cell in our body. Due to the fact that its component is iron, hemoglobin can bind and carry oxygen around the body. If your body does not have enough of it, you also have too little red blood cells and hemoglobin. This means that the cells lack oxygen. And this is precisely the anemia that can be detected by performing a morphology.
Anemia symptoms
Pale skin, lack of energy and drowsiness are not the only symptoms of anemia. They are also: worse mental performance, problems with concentration, decreased immunity, bad mood, tendency to form seizures, rough skin, splitting hair and nails. When you are pregnant, the consequences of your anemia may also be borne by the baby and, for example, it may be weaker, with a low birth weight. To prevent this from happening, give your body as much iron as it needs.
You must do itIf your doctor tells you to take supplements with iron, wash down the tablets with fruit or vegetable juice, preferably tomato juice. In this way, you will additionally increase the absorption of iron by the body.
Pregnant iron
This element should be supplied to the body from the outside, i.e. along with food. The woman needs 14 mg a day, and the expectant mother needs much more - 26 mg. This is because as pregnancy progresses, the amount of plasma circulating in the body increases, and hence the blood thinns. If the quantityhemoglobin will drop below 11 g / dl - this already means anemia. It is also important that the baby developing in your belly draws iron from your body through the placenta. This contributes to the reduction of the stocks of this element.
Diet for anemia
You can avoid anemia by taking good care of your diet. It should be valuable and varied. But remember: when you are pregnant, you are to eat "for two", not "for two." You will find iron in both plant and animal products. The body, however, better assimilates those of animal origin (so-called heme), e.g. from veal meat as much as 22% is absorbed. iron, and spinach - only 1 percent! So if only for this reason, you shouldn't avoid meat during pregnancy. Include foods rich in this element in your diet every day. There is a lot of iron in pork liver, offal (lungs, kidneys), egg yolks, beef, veal, blood dishes (black pudding, black head cheese, blood soup) and fish. Yellow and green leafy vegetables, legume seeds and whole grains (dark bread, coarse groats) and cocoa also contain large amounts of it. Interestingly, the infamous spinach is not as valuable a source of iron as it was once believed. 100 g of spinach contains only 2.4-3.9 mg, while the same amount of white beans contains 6.9 mg of iron. However, spinach has another advantage: 100 g of fresh leaves have around 140 mcg of folic acid, which is essential, for example, in for the production of red blood cells in the marrow. Is it possible to increase iron absorption by the body? It turns out that it is: Vitamin C, supplied simultaneously with iron-rich products, contains a lot of it in blackcurrant, cranberry and chokeberry juices, so it is worth having a glass of one of them with breakfast. Doctors advise against drinking coffee and tea because they delay the absorption of iron from food.
Iron supplementation in pregnancy
You don't need to take ready-made iron preparations "in reserve". You should do a morphology first. Not only the amount of red blood cells and hemoglobin is important, but also the mean cellular hemoglobin (MCH) and the mean hemoglobin concentration (MCHC). When only red blood cells and hemoglobin are insufficient, multivitamin supplements with iron (eg Feminatal, Materna) are often sufficient. If the MCH or MCHC is too low - then the doctor usually recommends iron preparations (eg Sorbifer, Tardyferon). You must know that by taking iron your stools will be dark and you may have more trouble passing your bowels. Don't worry about it, because these are the body's natural reactions to this element.
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