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Vit. A detox before pregnancy?
Any thoughts on detoxing vit A before getting pregnant?
@anne 3 of my friends have had 4 babies in suspected high vit A and potentially detoxing situations. All the babies have been very healthy. The issues have been relatively minor with no tongue ties or cleft lips. I always say it's a good sign you got pregnant in the first place in terms of vit A being very high might prevent conception. The developing ideas of what to do would ideally start detoxing a year before conception. Some of us now think you dont want to trigger a big detox initially so keep to what you are doing and avoid or reduce the higher carotenoids like carrots, sweet potatoes, peppers, spinach and kale and avoid liver. Butter I'd limit to 1-2 tablespoons a day if that's roughly your intake.
What I do think is important is to keep eating the eggs for choline and folate. Perhaps 1-4 eggs per day. Don't worry about the Vit A. Liver is 50 times higher in Vit A. It's the choline that's very helpful. There's a post called Choline and pregnancy and other choline posts to read. I think I might do magnesium chloride baths if that's something you normally do or have any signs of leg cramps. Maintain a good diet of potassium foods. I wouldnt supplement zinc unless you feel in very poor mood as it might provoke detox too much.
Quote from Andrew B on January 1, 2023, 2:56 pm@anne 3 of my friends have had 4 babies in suspected high vit A and potentially detoxing situations. All the babies have been very healthy. The issues have been relatively minor with no tongue ties or cleft lips. I always say it's a good sign you got pregnant in the first place in terms of vit A being very high might prevent conception. The developing ideas of what to do would ideally start detoxing a year before conception. Some of us now think you dont want to trigger a big detox initially so keep to what you are doing and avoid or reduce the higher carotenoids like carrots, sweet potatoes, peppers, spinach and kale and avoid liver. Butter I'd limit to 1-2 tablespoons a day if that's roughly your intake.
What I do think is important is to keep eating the eggs for choline and folate. Perhaps 1-4 eggs per day. Don't worry about the Vit A. Liver is 50 times higher in Vit A. It's the choline that's very helpful. There's a post called Choline and pregnancy and other choline posts to read. I think I might do magnesium chloride baths if that's something you normally do or have any signs of leg cramps. Maintain a good diet of potassium foods. I wouldnt supplement zinc unless you feel in very poor mood as it might provoke detox too much.
Thank you Andrew!
@anne I think I would maintain cheese at about 50 grams or less a day. At 50 grams the amount of calcium and fat may become a problem if you do begin detoxing the Vitamin A. Hopefully that's in line with consumption. 50 grams is also roughly the amount of vitamin A in 1 tablespoon of butter. Too much dairy might lower zinc if zinc and mood/energy become a problem. I would maintain seafood at 2-3 servings a week at most from small fish. Again the vitamin A in most fish (100-150 grams) is about the same level as eggs, butter (1 tablespoon) and cheese at 50 grams. Hopefully that's in line with consumption too.
Please do comment back if the picture changes as the advice might change. It's also sometimes difficult to know with the first pregnancy what is normal or not.
https://ggenereux.blog/discussion/topic/new-baby-post-vitamin-a/
Sarabeth had good luck and posted about her pregnancy.
Quote from Andrew B on January 2, 2023, 2:47 am@anne I think I would maintain cheese at about 50 grams or less a day. At 50 grams the amount of calcium and fat may become a problem if you do begin detoxing the Vitamin A. Hopefully that's in line with consumption. 50 grams is also roughly the amount of vitamin A in 1 tablespoon of butter. Too much dairy might lower zinc if zinc and mood/energy become a problem. I would maintain seafood at 2-3 servings a week at most from small fish. Again the vitamin A in most fish (100-150 grams) is about the same level as eggs, butter (1 tablespoon) and cheese at 50 grams. Hopefully that's in line with consumption too.
Please do comment back if the picture changes as the advice might change. It's also sometimes difficult to know with the first pregnancy what is normal or not.
Thank you.
My husband and I both had a similar philosophy with Baby #5 (conceived just six months into our Vitamin A Detox, when I was forty) - the tests are basically useless, and possibly damaging psychologically, unless you plan to abort your baby or get further testing based on the initial screening tests. We opted for remaining "in the dark" so that we could prepare for a healthy birth, because any health issues will be easier to deal with if the birth goes calmly, and any terrible health issues...cannot be prevented at this point! And we just knew that we could not abort a baby based on test results.
Baby #5 did have midline issues (tongue tie/lip tie) just like the four older kiddos had had, and now I realize that in addition to consuming a high Vitamin A diet, I was also vegetarian for years (low zinc) and in efforts to "fix" things, had upped vitamin A and reduced B vitamins and choline still further. Sigh. One wishes for perfection, and one gets....life! 🙂 But, midline defects happen immediately after conception, as far as I understand it, and no amount of wishing can change their existence even if there was a magic formula (I sure wonder what would have happened if my B vitamins were in balance, among other things, at conception!). And our Baby #5 is, while equally intelligent as his older siblings, just FAR and away healthier and happier than they were. It is a revelation, that having a baby and a toddler can be so much FUN! I would have had ten if I'd realized how to prevent the "normal" health and behavior and feeding problems that are rampant among children, and still so normalized by the doctors and parents who care for them.
You are doing a great job! 🙂 Your baby will be amazing and miraculous and SOOOOO much better off since you did NOT load up on even more liver etc. during pregnancy.
And I think that Andrew and others are on to something with the encouragement to include eggs. As with every diet I've ever implemented, I have made decisions along the way that I regret, and in this case, it's my orthorexic refusal to eat any eggs at first due to their vitamin A content. However, I have to give myself a little slack, in that it's HARD to heal and change ones diet without getting a leetle crazy and hypervigilant, so I will simply sigh and say, "At least I'm not to far gone to change my mind and experiment halfway through"... 🙂 Things are WAY better now than they would have been if we'd continued on our previous dysfunctional course...
Congratulations! 😁 So happy for you, @anne, and I'm glad you're here.
I agree with @andrew-b that zinc supplementation can trigger negative symptoms of detox, as I have experienced this... However, it's also protective against birth defects! If you search Pubmed for "zinc" + "pregnancy" + "birth defects" there's some informative reading material there.
Eating a decent amount of meat every day should keep ya covered, though. If you do start to notice reduced immunity, that's a sign you might want to consider seeing a doctor to check your zinc status. [1]
The only other thing I would add, is that I think barley and chickpeas are superfoods while supporting the detoxification of vitamin A (due to their high soluble fiber content--nutritionist Karen Hurd is a helpful resource on that--and because they are an excellent source of thiamine--Dr. Lonsdale of "Hormones Matter" and Elliot Overton on YouTube are helpful resources on that--as well as being low in vitamin A and oxalates), but these aren't foods to "over-do." Just be aware that such high-fiber foods support your detoxification process in the gut, and observe how you feel when you eat these foods.
All the best to you and your baby, Anne!
Quote from puddleduck on January 9, 2023, 7:25 amCongratulations!
So happy for you, @anne, and I'm glad you're here.
I agree with @andrew-b that zinc supplementation can trigger negative symptoms of detox, as I have experienced this... However, it's also protective against birth defects! If you search Pubmed for "zinc" + "pregnancy" + "birth defects" there's some informative reading material there.
Eating a decent amount of meat every day should keep ya covered, though. If you do start to notice reduced immunity, that's a sign you might want to consider seeing a doctor to check your zinc status. [1]
The only other thing I would add, is that I think barley and chickpeas are superfoods while supporting the detoxification of vitamin A (due to their high soluble fiber content--nutritionist Karen Hurd is a helpful resource on that--and because they are an excellent source of thiamine--Dr. Lonsdale of "Hormones Matter" and Elliot Overton on YouTube are helpful resources on that--as well as being low in vitamin A and oxalates), but these aren't foods to "over-do." Just be aware that such high-fiber foods support your detoxification process in the gut, and observe how you feel when you eat these foods.
All the best to you and your baby, Anne!
Thank you @puddleduck!