Alcohol. Complete abstinence is the safest choice (although your partner’s practitioner may sanction a glass of wine once in a while to induce relaxation). Regular, high-dose alcohol consumption can cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, a set of irreversible mental and physical impairments and abnormalities. Even moderate social drinking has been linked to low-birth-weight babies, learning impairments, and miscarriages in the early stages of pregnancy. “[I]f you have a glass of chardonnay here and there, you do so at your own risk,” writes OB Lissa Rankin in her book, What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend. “It’s probably just fine to enjoy the occasional glass of wine. There’s a big difference between being reckless (a definite no-no) and having one drink at dinner. But there’s just no data to help us make safe recommendations.” If you’re worried about any drinking your partner may have done before you found out you were pregnant, talk to her practitioner about it.
• Fasting. Unless she has a doctor’s approval, your partner should never, ever go twenty-four hours without eating. This is especially important in the first nineteen weeks of pregnancy, when the baby’s brain is developing.
• Over-the-counter or prescription drugs. Your partner should talk with her doctor before taking any medication, including aspirin, ibuprofen, and cold medicines—especially anything that contains alcohol or codeine. Antidepressants in particular have come under a lot of scrutiny lately. Several recent studies have linked one class of antidepressants, SSRIs (which include Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa, and Paxil), with increased risk of several fetal abnormalities. Others haven’t found any connection. But as you might expect, untreated depression can cause plenty of problems too. So if your partner has struggled with depression, talk with her doctor about whether the risks of taking antidepressants are outweighed by the risks of not taking them.
• Caffeine. Avoiding an excessive amount of caffeine is especially important in the early months. Some studies have shown that pregnant women who drink more than three or four good-sized cups of coffee per day have a greater risk of having a miscarriage, delivering prematurely, or having a low-birth-weight baby than women who can walk by a Starbucks and keep their wallet in their purse. Most studies seem to indicate that a cup or two a day is okay, but check with her practitioner to get the final word.
• Recreational drugs. Abstain during pregnancy—unborn children can be born addicted.
• Certain foods. Raw meats and fish may contain Toxoplasma gondii, which can blind the fetus or damage its nervous system. Unpasteurized milk and soft cheeses such as Brie may contain Listeria, another dangerous bacterium. Raw eggs and chicken may contain salmonella. Practitioners do disagree, however, on the magnitude of the risk involved. My wife’s first OB/GYN was Japanese and had absolutely no problem with her eating sushi. Some fish you do need to watch out for, though. The FDA recommends that pregnant women stay away from shark, swordfish, mackerel, and tilefish, all of which contain high levels of mercury. Limit albacore tuna to a serving or two per week. If she wants fish or seafood, salmon, pollock, and shrimp are low-mercury choices.
• Cat feces. Okay, cat feces don’t have much to do with nutrition, but they do contain high quantities of the same parasite found in some raw meats. So if you have a cat and you want to be chivalrous, take over the duty of cleaning the litter box for the duration of the pregnancy. Actually, litter boxes don’t pose much of a problem for most women. She’s got a much better chance of coming into contact with cat poop when she’s outside, digging in the garden (which, in many cats’ view, is nothing more than a giant litter box anyway).
• Insecticides, weed killers, and the like. As long as you’re taking over the gardening, put on your gloves and take a load of chemical fertilizer and pesticides to the nearest toxic waste disposal place (your regular trash company won’t take it if they know it’s there). Prolonged and repeated exposure to those toxic substances has been linked to birth defects. If you really need pesticides and fertilizers, now’s the time to switch to organics. Also, keep your partner far away from other potential chemical contaminants, such as diazinon (a common cockroach killer), as well as no-pest strips, flea sprays and collars, and pesticide bombs. Two chemicals in particular—PCBS and DDE (an insecticide byproduct)—can have some very negative effects. Kids exposed to those chemicals in utero tend to be taller (about two inches) and weigh more (an average of eleven to fifteen pounds) as teens than kids who weren’t exposed, and they often enter puberty too early.
• Hair dyes. Long-term use of hair dyes by adults has been linked to increased risk of several types of cancer. But could hair dye be absorbed through a pregnant woman’s scalp, enter her bloodstream, and harm her unborn baby? The jury’s out on that one. The American Pregnancy Association says that hair dyes (and other chemical-intensive products) are fine during pregnancy. After all, your partner isn’t planning to drink the stuff—she’s putting it in her hair, right? Other experts in reproductive health, including Joanne Perron, point to research that indicates that using hair dye may affect a growing fetus on the cellular level and could increase a child’s risk of developmental and reproductive disorders. May. Could. Big words. But why take the risk? The easiest solution is for your partner to avoid dyeing her hair while she’s pregnant—at the very least, during the first three months, when the baby’s organs and nervous system are forming. If you can’t convince her that her hair looks wonderful just the way it is, Google “nontoxic hair dye.”
A WORD ABOUT A VEGETARIAN DIET
If your partner is a vegetarian, there’s no reason why she and the baby can’t get the nutrition they need—especially if she eats eggs and milk. But if she’s a strict vegan, she’ll need to be especially sure that she’s getting enough protein and other nutrients. Check with her doctor or a good nutritionist for special guidance.
A FINAL NOTE ON NUTRITION
Helping your partner eat right is one of the best things you can do to ensure that you’ll have a healthy, happy baby (and a healthy, happy partner). But don’t be too hard on her. Being pregnant is tough enough without having someone standing over her shoulder criticizing every choice she makes. While she’d undoubtedly be better off eating nothing but healthy foods all the time, an occasional order of fries or a candy bar isn’t going to do any long-term damage. In fact, there’s some evidence that eating dark chocolate may actually be good for her. Several studies have found a correlation between dark chocolate and reduced heart attack risk, weight management, and stress relief. In one study, pregnant women who had five or more servings of chocolate every week (in the third trimester) were 40 percent less likely to develop preeclampsia (a very dangerous blood pressure condition; see pages 63–64 for more).
Finally, be supportive. This means that you should try to eat as healthily as she does. If you absolutely must have a banana split and you’re not planning to share, do it on your own time (and don’t brag about it).
The Hunger Campaign
One of the things I constantly underestimated while my wife was pregnant was how incredibly hungry she would get, and how quickly it would happen. Even though she might have had a snack before leaving the office, by the time she got home she’d be ravenous again.
If you’ve been doing most of the cooking at your house, things probably won’t change much during the pregnancy. But if your partner has been making the meals, there are a few things you can do to simplify her life significantly:
• Learn to cook simple, quick meals. There are plenty of cookbooks specializing in meals that can be made in less than thirty (or twenty or ten!) minutes. Easier yet, there are quite a few blogs and websites that can help. I like realfoodbydad.com, www.stayatstovedad.com, cookingfordads.net, and dadcooksdinner.com. You can also stock up on healthy microwavable dinners or order take-out meals, but that can get expensive pretty fast.
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