Real Food for Pregnancy: The Science and Wisdom of Optimal Prenatal Nutrition

Wow! This book was incredible! I highly recommend if you are pregnant, breastfeeding, or like me and planning to get pregnant! I have read lots of health books over the last few months and since my husband and I are planning to and conceive in the next year, I picked this up to prepare. This lady is very knowledgeable of nutrition and pregnancy. I was impressed at how practical her tips were. The meal plans were super helpful! I am already following them and feeling great! I have heard some people say no carbs and no sugar but I love that she includes some fruit in her meal plans. Her tips are easy to follow. She also has tips for how to manage common pregnancy complaints like morning sickness and acid reflux. Being a previous labor and delivery nurse, I really appreciate someone who actually takes the time to talk about ways to manage these issue, besides just prescribing medications that are not ideal in pregnancy. This book is also very empowering. She encourages readers they CAN have a healthy baby! That positive self talk is very important when you’re going through the many emotions of pregnancy. I cannot say enough good things about this book! Also, she provides recommendations (you have to follow the link she provides in the book and then she will email them to you since they are always changing) on what are the best prenatal supplements to take in pregnancy. I plan to buy one of the vitamins she recommends and take it in preparation for my pregnancy. I have heard that taking a prenatal for 6 months before conceiving is very helpful for the baby. Another thing I love about this book, she discusses birth spacing (not having babies too close together), which is something that is not talked about enough. My own mother talked to me about it, but I never heard anyone else discuss the potential risks involved with closely spaced pregnancies. She has definitely done her research! Another thing I absolutely love is that she has references for her info she lists! It’s not just opinion, but it’s research and she includes everything she references so you can look them up if you wish. I am so thankful I found this book and I have already recommended it to my sisters. This book is wonderful and as a nurse, I highly recommend this book!!

I can't recommend this book enough to anyone who's pregnant. I attribute my easy pregnancy and uncomplicated birth specifically to how this book changed my eating habits. I was able to stop and then prevent muscle cramps, swelling, nausea and more just by learning about some specific nutrients that I could use some more of during that time. It was game changing to say the least. Not only is the book incredibly well researched, but it was a surprisingly easy read and never felt like a "what not to do" manual - rather it gave me more ideas of what to add into my diet to insure my baby and I were getting everything we needed. 10/10 recommend.

My blood glucose levels were elevated during my first trimester. During my early appointments I notice this book at my OBGYN’s office and decided to look into it. Best decision ever! I read the book and followed the recommendations and meal plan and my sugar cravings and blood glucose levels dropped! The book helped clear up myths and I really like how she backs up a lot of her ideas with research. I have already recommended this book to my friends. Great book!

I'm a personal trainer and Nutritionist, this book has exceded my expectations. For years my clients have been Dr's wanting to know how to eat healthy. They are caught about health and nutrition from a real food standpoint. So when I became pregnant I knew they only knew enough to be annoying. This book made it simple to understand what you and baby need to grow. It talks about why certain foods are great and others not so much. It also has all the studies documented so you know its not just opinions.

If you are reading this review you should just buy the book. Even if you aren't pregnant, even if you are a dude. This book is a THE resource for how to eat for health and why! Pregnancy is a big motivator for being healthy (for good reason) but this book has information that is useful for anyone at any time of their life. Lily writes so well and makes it clear that this is not an opinion piece- this book is simply a summary of all the research that has been done on why you want to eat real food. Nothing was written without being backed up by the extensive citation. I was almost sad the citation was so long because I wished I had more content to read lol. Lily also explains what the studies actually showed- not just what the companies funding the studies wanted them to say. This book gave me so much hope and confidence that I will be able to eat my way to a happy and healthy life and pregnancies. If you are still on the fence, look up Lily Nichols on Spotify (or any podcast site) and listen to her talk. I guarantee you will want all three of her books after just one episode (look into Fertility Friday while you are at it)

This is a must-read for all pregnant moms and, I would imagine, birth workers. Real Food for Pregnancy is everything I never knew I needed.

Lily Nichols is absolutely brilliant. Everything written in this book is supported by science and cited studies as opposed to random folklore, old wive’s tales, and woowoo superstitions about what we should or should not be eating during pregnancy.

I, too, am tired and skeptical of the misinformed and outdated information from the internet, people on the street, and even OBGYNs. I’ve lived a (mostly) holistic lifestyle for nearly 20 years. “Let food be thy medicine” has been my motto for decades, and my twin IVF pregnancy only magnified that. Perhaps if I had read her other book about infertility, I could have avoided IVF altogether, which would have been ideal since I’m not an advocate for synthetic drugs in general.

As someone with a technical academic background (biochemistry/biotechnology), I appreciate the breadth and depth of Lily's research and knowledge on the matters she writes about in this current book.

I think she is a revolutionary at the beginning of another shift in the medical industry, where new developments are eventually embraced, albeit decades after they're pioneered. And sadly for the rest of us, still only half-heartedly by the medical profession we all rely upon.

What she's up against: Consider the general effects of environmental toxins on daily health and those of stress on the body. Discovered and pioneered in the 1960-70's or earlier. First embraced in the 1980-90's by the rare, renegade physicians and by environmentalists, and still, in 2019, there are a world of physicians (mostly the elders) who still insist that these things are only mildly involved in your health outcomes. And so it is also with diet and exercise in the world of physicians. Slow change.

Maddening.

It's shocking, astonishing and demoralizing to face your own doctor who still tells you they can't explain why such and such in your health, when you know stress, anxiety and diet have contributed. It happened just 4days ago with ours at our annual physical.

Alas, we wait upon those like Lily, to whom God has given voice to speak on our behalf, and to educate us in the meantime.

To wonder into, and marvel at the phenomena of genetic outcomes - decades later - stemming from lifestyle and dietary choices is a bittersweet but liberating discovery. (As she urges us on: your diet and lifestyle now effect your child later in their life).

Finally, a healthcare professional with a voice to stare deep into the mysteries and complexities of the human wonder, and she does so with reverence rather than ego.

Thank you Lily for swimming upstream, especially in the still-mostly-male-and-rigid-climate of the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

My wife and I are so grateful for your work. And [we] are blessed immensely to learn these things (that many of us already hunched at) a few months out still from trying to get pregnant.

Encore! Bring it on! We're behind you.

Oh, one more thing. I'm not in agreement with [every]thing in Lily's book. I need to personally look more deeply into the healfulness of eating pork, bacon and cured meats, as even when they're raised healthfully (pastured, etc.), their meat is not the cleanest meat. Cured meats usually are steeped in unhealthy chemicals as part of the curing process. Other than that, "jury's still out" for the moment on pork products...

An example I'm completely (but respectfully) in disagreement with is the consumption of shellfish such as oysters and other "filter feeders" like shrimp. I believe they should never ever be consumed from any source. Not wild, nor farmed.

As a biochemist, here's why:

1. Most shellfish dwell at or near the bottom of the water bodies they live in, just like lobster, crab, grouper, flounder, etc. Gravity draws particulates down: dead matter, feces, human waste and trash. So, it's long been established that the lower strata of any water body has the highest concentration of environmental pollutants, even in the absence of a city to contaminate it. In a nutshell, the meat and other tissues of the species that dwell closer to the bottom have the highest density of toxins. Further, almost all of these species dwell in coastal areas, and thus have much greater exposure to urban pollutants such as automobile pollution and industrial runoff, sewage treatment facilities, etc. This is what we're consuming when we eat shellfish.

2. Further, many of these species including ones that [aren't] always found at the bottom, but covering vertical surfaces as well - such as sea urchins, clams, mussels and barnacles - but also shrimp, squid, crill, etc. are what we call "filter feeders". They feed by consuming water and most everything that's in it, good or bad. So, over the course of their lives, in effect, their bodies become an unchanged filter. Consuming them can be a bit like going to change your fish tank filter saturated in algae and bacterium, but rather than toss it out, you decide you're going to filet it, fry it up and set it out on the dinner table for the family.

Unfortunately as our oceans become more and more polluted, especially in coastal areas, we flee from coastal fishes and shellfish and seek the deep ocean creatures like tuna and swordfish only to find they're not clean as they once were. But coastal species and shellfish are horrendous.

All told, consuming shellfish has been my only outright disagreement so far as I read. Otherwise, this is an excellent piece of work. And I give honor to Lily, again, for swimming upstream. NPI.

She herself throughout her book notes that more research is still needed in many areas.

Thanks for moving us forward Lily.

I was looking for any ways to optimize my health while we're in the TTC stage since there is such a lack of resources for women about their health and the resources we can find tend to be contradicting and misleading. I'm a few days in to reading and re-reading this, but so far I'm pretty satisfied.

Some pros I would note so far:

1. Unlike most books, the way everything was organized was perfect for binge-reading as well as wanting to read about a specific section very easily, which is especially helpful since I have ADHD.
2. This seems to be a very well researched and fact-based book - however, I'm not a nutritional expert and I'm not a mother so I can't really fact check any of this. I plan on writing down key takeaways from this book and checking with my doctor to make sure these recommendations would benefit me for my reproductive health as well as some of my other conditions (such as the author's recommendations for high blood pressure).
3. The book not only consists of nutritional information, but information on exercise, stress management, etc.

The Cons:

1. This tends to follow the pattern of every nutritional advice we receive in the sense that everything isn't really clear. For example, the author recommends dairy products for a variety of health reasons such as protein content, but discourages them at the same time. The author recommends eating carbs because it's the body's preferred energy source, but also discourages carbs and says higher fat intake is the way to go and jumps back and forth about carbs throughout the whole book. The author recommended to eat lots of vegetables and berries but smoothies are not recommended (which I make smoothies primarily consisting of berries so I don't understand what the disconnect is). I was hoping to find something that would avoid the back and forth confusion.

2. Not really realistic in terms of time, budget, or skillset of the average first-time mother. I'm 23 years old and I have a full-time salaried job that pays decent, but the meals and meal plans that are recommended are definitely for a stay-at-home mother rich mother in my personal opinion. There's multiple course meals recommended for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks that are not just time consuming, but also pretty expensive. The water filter to remove fluoride that the author recommends is $400 and the prenatal vitamins are around $60 a month and always sold out (and you can't find them in typical stores). While I am prepared to do anything for my child, I would rather put as much money aside for them as I can for necessities when they're born and this book has no recommendations for how to be healthy while also being budget-conscious. I know the author can't help the price tag of the things she recommends, but maybe offering budget friendly alternatives would've been nice so we're not feeling like we're neglecting our children and grandchildren if we don't have it in the budget to drop a ton of money on all organic food, supplements, and equipment - we're all just doing the best we can. Also, a lot of the recommended sources of nutrition is seafood such as swordfish, etc. and the author does not recommend taking a supplement to account for the lack of nutrients if we don't have the taste, time, or money to eat specific things that are recommended.

3. I would've liked to see more recipes or sample meal plan options, waking up before work everyday and making spinach quiche and beans for lunch just isn't possible, so I would have liked more recommended meal plans so I can mix and match on my own what works for my time and budget.

Overall, rating four stars because the author really took the time to do the research and take many things into consideration, and I really liked how the author was providing a lot of information but not too much information that would cause you to get bored or overwhelmed. I was just expecting something a little different in terms of "real food" in hopes of more black and white instruction and accounting for "real" lifestyles.

This book appears to be well researched, with hundreds and hundreds of citations. However, I take issue with some of the approaches to citing scientific papers and studies. The author often writes in statements of fact, and offers a citation, but very seldom discusses the nuances of the studies she's citing and their merits/drawbacks. While the book appears to be very transparent, this deluge of citations with little discussion of the research really makes it difficult for the reader to decide for themselves whether a piece of advice is one they which to follow without extensive additional research. Practically speaking, you kind of have to decide if you're going to take her word for it.

Looking more into some of her conclusions about the dangers of flouride and soy, for example, it would seem there is not a scientific consensus on some of the "facts" she presents. I would have appreciated a more nuanced discussion of the studies and what the science community conversation is on these topics. It also made me wonder about some of the other statements she made and whether they were also generally accepted or still up for discussion within the science community.

That being said, I appreciate her approach to nutrition recommendations, which did not rely on a lot of numbers (calories, mg etc) but rather presented a strategy for what types of foods to eat more of, or less of, and how to think about designing meals and snacks to be filling in consideration of changing dietary needs during pregnancy (eating a carb? add a fat or protein to it. eating protein? add fiber, etc).