Can The Brewer’s Diet Help You Avoid Pregnancy Complications?

The Brewer’s Diet – Can it really solve so many pregnancy complications?

Hey mama. If you are here, I’m guessing you want one thing in your pregnancy – a healthy mama and baby. First, congratulations on your pregnancy, second, let’s take a moment to explore how food can help you reach your goal. Specifically, let’s take a look at the Brewers Diet. Let’s discover how it helps mother’s like you avoid things like preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and even more importantly, preterm birth.

It’s true, most doctors appointments are too short to focus on nutritional counseling. You have 15 minutes to monitor your vitals, baby’s vitals and grab a prescription if anything is needed.

But, one of the best things a mom can do for herself and her pregnancy is to understand which foods contribute to building a healthy pregnancy.

While you’re here, I’ll also share with you my favorite meal delivery program. It makes eating a healthy, well rounded diet so much simpler. So, before you go on, remember you can claim 50% off your first four boxes today.

How Much Of A Difference Can The Brewers Diet Make In A Pregnancy?

If prematurity were preventable, would you want to know how? I think most of us would. Especially if we consider that in 2021 over 10% or more than 1 in 10 babies are born before they were ready.

Preterm birth is extraordinarily important. 35% of infant deaths are related to being born preterm. And, we spend over 25 Billion dollars a year (in the US) to try to support and save these babies.

Dr. Brewer was an OB that observed that women who had more nutritious diets were less likely to have preterm babies. They also didn’t struggle with preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, which are complications that can contribute to preterm birth.

He created a set of nutritional guidelines and taught it to the moms in his practice. When moms followed his diet, the preterm birth rate went down from 12% in his population to 2%. That means close to 90% of preterm births were prevented from nutritional counseling and mothers putting that counseling into action.

He was also able to eliminate preeclampsia in the mothers he worked with as well. Not through medicine, but something we all use every day, food.

And the great thing is, the diet is simple, easy to understand and not that expensive.

When Should The Brewer’s Diet Be Started?

Let’s talk about why this diet is so effective and when it should be started.

By the time a mother is symptomatic or suffering from complications of toxemia in pregnancy, it is mostly too late to intervene with food. So instead of waiting for symptoms, it is important to begin a preventative diet right from the beginning of pregnancy, or even before.

The Brewer’s diet is not a treatment to these things, but an attempt at preventing them that is most often successful.

Much like understanding that if we want a plant to thrive in our homes it needs the right amounts of soil, light, and water, we need to look at what a mom needs the moment she begins pregnancy or even before if we want to take prevention seriously.

Of course, I have guessed wrong about soil, light and water many times when it comes to my plants. And diet changes are not always easy to stick to. Not to mention less than half of moms have any nutritional counseling at all in their pregnancies. And too much nutritional counseling is only focused on losing weight or not gaining too much weight. This advice is not always about helping a mom get the right nutrients.

It’s okay if we aren’t perfect. We are lucky to live in a time where we can utilize both prevention in the form of food, and medicine if problems still pop up. Discussing the power of nutrition is not an excuse to place blame on mother’s if they suffer losses or challenges in pregnancy. The goal is to put a useful tool in the hands of more mothers.

How Is The Brewers Diet A Great Preventative Tool For New Moms?

Dr. Brewer’s approach to nutrition is focused on supporting the blood expansion taking place in a pregnant mother’s body.

This is important because a new mother will increase her blood supply by 50% by the time she is about 30 weeks pregnant. This increase in blood is vital to supporting all the changes going inside a woman’s body as she grows a baby, develops the placenta, a new organ to support the baby, and makes structural changes to be able to breastfeed the baby.

Did you know pregnant mothers blood vessels and arteries even dilate, or expand, to allow more blood to travel through the body?

If the blood is not able to expand – usually a result of poor nutrition, then the body goes into crises. It shuts down critical systems and may even try to expel the baby early. Good nutrition is about supporting the blood expansion. Blood expansion means that every other critical system in a mother’s body is able to operate successfully because the circulatory system is able to support the other systems of the body. Everything gets what it needs.

This is why Dr. Brewer believed that when mother’s received proper nutritional counseling so many problems and difficulties common in pregnancy seemed to disappear. Wouldn’t it be great if as a society we could use food to prevent complications in pregnancy, while still having medicine to treat complications when necessary?

What Do You Eat If You Are Following The Brewers Diet?

Dr. Brewer worked with women in the deep south and in the inner city of San Francisco. In both these areas, he found that women had diets that lacked protein and a variety of whole, healthy foods. You may be surprised how simple his recommendations for nutrition are.

1. Eat 2 eggs and drink a quart of milk a day. Not only are these high in protein, but at the time, they were also affordable ways to get more nutrition and energy into a person’s diet. Eggs continue to be considered a super food for pregnancy. As is whole milk.
2. Eat five servings of whole grain, complex carbohydrates a day. This would be wild rice, brown rice, barley, oats, etc.
3. Eat five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.
4. Eat two or three other sources of protein, such as meat, fish, other dairy, nuts beans, seeds or tofu.
5. Salt food to taste and drink plenty of clean, fresh water.

At first, it may seem like a stretch to say that this diet can prevent so many complications, but modern research continues to verify the importance of these different elements.

Not only is this balance laid out in Dr. Brewers Book, but Lily Nichols emphasizes many of these same points in the more modern nutrition book for pregnancy Real Food For Pregnancy, and many of the findings are reiterated again in the book the Culprit and the Cure where Dr. Stephen Aldana explores how food is related to chronic illnesses of many kinds.

We also have great tools inside our childbirth class to help you track your nutrient intake an build a varied and delicious diet to support your pregnancy.

Is The Brewers Diet Simply A High Protein Diet?

Let’s Take A Closer Look At Protein In Your Diet During Pregnancy

We live in a world where we have quick fixes and supplements for everything. When looking at a diet like this, it may be easy to simplify down to the idea that this means a ‘high protein diet is good for pregnancy.’ And while this diet is high in protein, it is not just the fact that protein is included in the diet that makes it so effective.

In fact, when the variety is removed and protein is replaced with protein shakes instead of whole food sources of protein, the benefits seems to disappear. In most cases, a protein shake cannot replace the nutrients your body absorbs through a well rounded whole foods diet.

Protein in a diet is an extremely important part of the diet. But, protein on it’s own does not make for a well rounded diet.

Inside our childbirth class, we have tools to help you track how much protein you are getting from what food sources. Curious how much protein is in a chicken breast, a handful of almonds or a glass of milk? All of it is laid out in one place within the resources of our class. We’d love to have you join!

What About Fruits And Vegetables?

Another reason it is important to not interchange the Brewer’s Diet with a high protein fad diet is fruits and vegetables. Dr. Brewer was very clear that it is important to get a minimum of 5 fruits or vegetables a day. However, today, many people seeking a high protein diet will completely cut out every carb. Because fruits and vegetables contain quite a bit of carbs, these are often cut out of high protein diets entirely.

In one of the books I recommended above, Dr. Aldana reviewed hundreds of nutritional studies and synthesized the information into one book. One of the claims he makes is that fruits and vegetables are one of the most important things to consume when thinking about preventing chronic conditions of all kinds.

He summarizes his findings into a small quip: 5 a day to stay a live, 7 is better, but 9 is divine.

The healthiest people in the world eat a large amount and a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Too often, these are cut out of a diet in favor of more protein. Both are needed for a well rounded, balanced diet.

Why Didn’t My Doctor Tell Me About This?

While Dr. Brewer was an OB, he was also a bit of an oddball. He was passionate about creating healthy pregnancies. He independently developed a curiosity for nutrition and pursued it with a lot of research. Unfortunately, nutrition and diet is still not required in most medical schools.

The National Academy of Sciences recommended at least 25 hours of nutrition education in medical school. Unfortunately, a survey of U.S. medical schools in 2010 found that only 27% of programs met that recommendation. Many don’t even require one class in nutritional studies.

So if you ask your doctor questions about nutrition , stay alert. You are likely outside their scope of practice. They are educated to solve problems with medicine, not food. Which, at the right time, is incredibly important.

Who can properly answer your questions about nutrition during pregnancy? Search for a holistic nutritionist near you.

This is a person who has completed at least 500-900 hours of nutritional training. They can take blood tests and help you interpret the results. Based on those findings, they can help you finds foods within your budget and preferences that will support your needs.

There are hundreds of years of research showing the importance of nutrition. Let’s be the generation that uses food to transform our health!

How Can I Cut Down On The Work Of Preparing So Much Food?

One downside of the Brewers Diet is that prepping fresh whole foods takes a lot more time and effort than throwing a protein shake in the blender.

One tool that has helped me is Home Chef. Every Wednesday, I go in and order 3 meals for my family, add a couple add-ins like soup and frittats for breakfast and lunch. Then, on Friday they deliver a box with all the ingredients, pre portioned out ready for me to cook.

I love Home Chef because many meal delivery services just taste awful. But, the chef behind Home Chef? Passionate about making meals that actually taste good and are healthy.

I find it simple to arrange my diet in a way I can get enough protein and enough fruits and vegetables with this service. The meals are well rounded and simple to make.

If you’d like to try them out, you can get 50% off your first four boxes here.

The Brewer’s Diet Conclusion

I hope you have everything you need here to begin taking steps towards a healthy and well balanced diet during your pregnancy. The Brewer’s diet might be summarized quickly, but there is nothing uncomplicated about our relationship with food.

If you find yourself with large gaps, I hope you will make conscious efforts to fill them, while being careful to not place blame or shame on yourself for your choices.

Rebuilding our food habits takes time, effort and awareness. You should congratulate yourself just for caring. And as your skills stack, you will be meeting the requirements in no time.

Here’s to your healthy and beautiful pregnancy journey. Welcome to motherhood. You are going to be spectacular! (Actually, you already are.)