Blood Volume

First things first. One of the key things that happens during pregnancy is an increase in blood volume. By the end of pregnancy, you should have 40-60% more blood than you started with — up to 1 liter more! Isn’t that amazing? What’s it all for? Well, I used to think it was just Mother Nature’s way of preparing for blood loss at birth, and that’s part of it. However, that’s not the main reason. To comprehend its importance, we have to understand how the placenta works. It’s an awesome organ that’s actually a part of your baby’s DNA, which produces hormones for you and baby, absorbs the nutrients and oxygen for baby from your blood, and picks up the waste from baby for you to excrete. It attaches to the lining of your uterus with little roots called chorionic villi, which basically dig little spaces into the lining so they can absorb everything they need from your bloodstream. Your blood vessels spurt blood into the spaces, bathe the roots, and then drain back out into your bloodstream. As pregnancy progresses and the placenta grows, these spaces (called intervillous spaces) for the roots increase in size, so more of your blood has to fill them up. This means you need more blood volume.

How to Increase Blood Volume

There was an awesome OB who did a lot of research on this topic named Dr. Thomas Brewer, and he discovered a few factors of pregnancy diet that assured blood volume increase. In fact, his nutritional guidelines were so effective that he saw no major complications in pregnancy for the over 7,000 women he studied. We’ll get to complications later, though. First, what should you consume:

1. Protein – when you eat protein, your liver produces albumin which helps to bring fluid into your bloodstream
2. Calories – when you eat enough calories your body will use them instead of the protein for energy
3. Salt – this also helps pull fluid from your tissues into your bloodstream
4. Fluids – you need fluids for there to be something to fill your bloodstream with

What Happens When Blood Volume Doesn’t Increase

Your body will still fill those spaces around the placenta’s roots even if your blood volume doesn’t increase, but what happens is that your body thinks it’s losing blood, or hemorrhaging. When this happens your blood vessels constrict to hold the blood in your organs. Blood vessel constriction causes an increase in blood pressure, and in pregnancy this is known as Pregnancy-Induced Hypertension (PIH). If blood volume still doesn’t increase, the high blood pressure can lead to seizures and stroke. It can also damage the kidneys and liver since they have to work overtime. Many times, low blood volume is also the cause of pre-term labor, placenta abruption (where blood clots form that cause the placenta to detach), low birth weight, and a more difficult labor.

Nutrition for Pregnancy

This isn’t about scare tactics. This is about understanding how your body works, so you can work with it. So, store all the scary information away in the rare case you might need it, and focus on the solution. Ideal nutrition starts with the four components listed above (protein, calories, salt, and fluids), and is filled out by the other nutrients need to build a healthy baby:

1. milk products – calcium and vitamin D
2. eggs – choline and good cholesterol
3. dark green vegetables – folic acid and iron
4. whole grains –  B vitamins
5. Vitamin C food -prevent infection
6. good fats and oils - brain development and skin elasticity
7. Vitamin A foods – cell integrity
8. a good probiotic – homemade yogurt, kefir, or kombucha for gut health and immunity

It sounds like a lot, but if you eat nutritious foods at least every 2 waking hours you can do it!

Your Ideal Birth

We all want uncomplicated pregnancies, positive birth experiences, and healthy babies. Good nutrition will help with all three. You might also want to consider a good series of childbirth classes to learn your options in pregnancy, birth and parenting, and a doula to help you through the labor process. Your choices matter — care provider, birth place, options in pregnancy and childbirth, and everything in between — and you’re the most qualified to make them.