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Healthiness, both in physics and mentality, is the biggest wealth parents can give to their child. It determines whether the child’s future will be poor, average, or optimal. It lays the foundation for the child’s education. Think about a student who always gets sick or is mentally retarded, his quality of studying will surely be compromised.
A healthy diet is one of the fastest ways a mother can provide to help building her child’s equipment for living. When I was pregnant, I followed the guidelines of Healthy Eating. Right now, I am following Heidi Murkoff’s nine principles of postpartum diet to maintain good nutrition for myself and to produce enough quality milk.
The nine basic diet principles for new mothers are: (from
What to Expect the First Year (Second Edition)
by Heidi Murkoff)
Principle 1: Make most bites count. Eat a wide variety of foods that help maintain abundant energy and ensure a plentiful supply of quality breast milk.
Principle 2: All calories are not created equal. Different foods, even they hold the same amount of calories, aren’t nutritionally equal.
Principle 3: Starve yourself, cheat your baby. A consistently irregular eating schedule can cut into mother’s own reserves and seriously reduce her milk supply.
Principle 4: Stay an efficiency expert. It is important to select foods dense in nutrition in relation to their calorie content.
Principle 5: Carbohydrates are a complex issue. Unrefined complex carbohydrates, such as whole grain breads, cereals, and cakes, brown rice, dried beans, peas, and other legumes which provide fiber and plenty of vitamins and minerals, are just the kind a new mother wants to concentrate on postpartum.
Principle 6: Sweet nothings are exactly that. Limiting the sugar intake helps trimming mother’s weight.
Principle 7: Eat foods that remember where they came from. Eat fresh foods rather than highly processed foods, which often contain excesses of saturated fat, sodium, and sugars, as well as artificial colors and other chemical additives.
Principle 8: Make good eating a family affair. Include the whole household in good eating and the baby will grow up in a home where good nutrition is natural.
Principle 9: Don’t sabotage your diet. Alcoholic beverage, tobacco or illegal drug use can definitely affect the baby adversely.
