Let me begin today's post by first stating that I am not a doctor... however I do play one at home.
With that being said let’s talk about consuming spinach and other leafy greens while pregnant. When I found out my Significant Other (SO) was pregnant I immediately took a leadership role in her food preparation and nutrition regiment. For one, I am a worry wort when it comes to health issues. And instead of simply worrying about birth defects and labor issues I instead put that time and energy into educating myself to find out what I could do to create a healthy environment for my child and her mother to ensure the best possible start to our new lives together. That's #ninja protocol. The fact that I was already the chef of the house and preparing ninety percent of the meals didn't hurt either. And most importantly I made a decision at the very beginning that for me, fatherhood would begin during pregnancy and not once the baby arrived. More #ninja protocol. Proper nutrition and maintaining a healthy lifestyle have always been a staple in my parents life and they instilled that practice of healthy living in me.
So as you probably know almost all women begin taking folic acid pills during pregnancy but in my opinion a pill alone (although convenient) cannot replace the food that was designed by mother nature (spinach, kale, enriched grains) to effectively deliver the necessary nutrients to our body naturally, efficiently, organically. If you ever want to know how we as a species should be eating simply look at animals in their natural habitat. Dr. Mark Hyman (a real physician) explains the important difference between taking a manmade and sometimes unpredictable molecule such as B9 as opposed to natural leafy greens in the first link below. So besides taking your folic acid pills women should also be consuming plenty of leafy greens, especially spinach. It’s a superfood and cannot be replaced entirely by a pill engineered in a laboratory. Also take care in preparing your vegetables properly. Overcooking vegetables to the point that they fade in color and lose their firmness dramatically reduces their nutritional worth. The links below talk specifically about how spinach and other foods greatly reduce the risk of birth defects and in some cases autism.
Ensuring the mother of your child maintains a healthy lifestyle with proper diet and exercise is ninja protocol at it's finest. Which meant I was on my way to becoming a ninja...