The function of supplementing blood in pregnant women
Release time : 06/03/2025 09:30:02
The greatest moment for every woman is when she becomes a mother.
During pregnancy, pregnant women experience significant physical changes that may make them feel particularly vulnerable and frail.
Suddenly, I started to feel dizzy.
If you find yourself in such a situation, expectant mothers should pay attention; it might be an indication of anemia.
The function of blood supplementation for pregnant women is that pregnant mothers are prone to anemia or insufficient qi and blood during pregnancy, so blood supplementation is basically a compulsory course for every pregnant mother! However, many expectant mothers do not pay attention to these and think that it doesn't matter whether they supplement blood or not. In fact, this is a wrong idea. It is necessary for expectant mothers to supplement blood.
So, what are the functions of blood supplementation? What benefits will it bring to pregnant mothers and babies?
Iron is the main component in the production of hemoglobin, and pregnant women need to absorb more iron to produce hemoglobin.
Since iron stored in the mother's body is absorbed by the fetus, it is necessary for pregnant women to consume iron continuously. Otherwise, they might suffer from anemia and hinder the development of the fetus.
2. To prevent postpartum anemia, pregnant women need to supplement their blood more to prevent fatigue, dizziness, palpitations, wheezing, and feeling cold hands and feet caused by anemia.
Pregnant women will lose a lot of blood during childbirth. If they do not consume enough iron and supplement blood before giving birth, they are prone to anemia after childbirth.
3. Preparing for the milk production phase involves blood replenishment, which is beneficial not only for the subsequent breastfeeding period but also contributes to augmenting milk production. During childbirth, there is often bleeding, so it's crucial to ensure adequate blood supply. Additionally, blood replenishment can aid in stimulating milk production.
Blood-supplying benefits for babies: 1. More oxygen supply, normal fetal development. Pregnant women can increase their blood cell oxygen-carrying capacity by appropriately replenishing their blood, thereby providing more oxygen to the fetus and facilitating its normal development.
2. The development of visual and motor skills is better in children with good blood circulation, and pregnant women can improve the development of their baby's vision and motor skills by appropriately nourishing themselves.
3. It is known that better language development can be achieved with proper blood enrichment during pregnancy, which can facilitate the development of cognitive abilities and language skills in the baby.
Due to iron deficiency, infants have difficulty concentrating and are indifferent to the changes in sound. They do not seek to understand what these sound changes signify, nor do they bother to imitate the pronunciation. Consequently, their ability to understand is insufficient.
Active engagement, with modest demands, means that my language skills lag behind.
4. Promote memory development, adequate blood nourishment during pregnancy can promote the development of a baby's memory.
Since iron-containing enzymes are predominantly located in the brain's periphery, also serving as the storage area for memories, deficiencies in this region can result in insufficient enzyme activity, leading to memory decline. This can make it difficult for children to learn new things, recite nursery rhymes, or count numbers.
5. The development of the light perception ability is better when pregnant women appropriately nourish their blood, which can provide the baby's brain with enough nutrients and cultivate the baby's light perception ability. This can also help establish a regular pattern of day waking and night sleeping for the baby.
6. Better muscle movement development, appropriate blood replenishment in pregnant women can make the baby's muscle movement development better. The infant will be able to learn earlier than others to sit up, turn over, sit up, crawl, stand and walk.
What foods should pregnant women eat to nourish their blood? We all know that pregnant women need to replenish their blood, and not only is it beneficial for them, but it is also beneficial for the baby! But do you know what foods to consume to nourish the blood? Firstly, pregnant women must choose foods rich in iron to replenish their blood. This includes animal-based foods such as lean meats, fresh and clean pig liver, etc. In addition, dark-colored foods like black fungus and soybeans, as well as soy products, red dates, and spinach are excellent sources of blood-nourishing foods.
Secondly, choose foods that have a high absorption rate of iron. Generally speaking, the absorption rate of animal food is 20%, while plant foods only account for 1%-3%.
Under normal circumstances, a pregnant woman should consume at least 1.5mg of iron per day; taking 100g of egg yolks as an example, it contains 2.7mg of iron, but its absorption rate is only 3%, so one needs to eat 25 eggs in a day just by eating egg yolks alone.
So, you can supplement iron through meat. If you eat 30g of lean meat a day, the absorption rate of iron will increase by a factor of two.
The absorption rate of iron in staple foods also varies, with flour being 7% and rice being between 1%-3%.
Secondly, during pregnancy, it is important to consume Vitamin C. The absorption rate of iron increases with the intake of Vitamin C, and it is best to take it within four hours after meals.
If a person eats one orange, orange juice, strawberry, and kiwi fruit after meals, they can obtain Vitamin C and iron absorption rates will increase accordingly.
Conversely, the polyphenols found in tea and coffee can interfere with your body's absorption of iron from supplements and iron-rich plants, thereby affecting your iron supplementation effectiveness. Therefore, pregnant women should avoid drinking tea during their most critical period for blood enrichment.
When should blood-supplementation be administered to pregnant women? Since blood replenishment is a long-term process and the blood-repletion of pregnant women is not simply, casually, but rather throughout the entire pregnancy! However, many new mothers do not know when to supplement their blood. Let's take a look and become proficient in this role as a new mother.
Firstly, during the early stages of pregnancy, it is also important to pay attention to blood-supplementation. This applies to the first three months of pregnancy.
During this period, the fetus grows slowly, and all nutritional needs are essentially the same as before the pregnancy.
If nausea and vomiting occur, it is advisable to adapt the appetite of pregnant women and provide foods that they prefer.
To reduce vomiting reaction, dry food can be provided, such as Shaobing (Baked cake in griddle), biscuits, baked Mantou, dried bread, etc; For those who vomit severely, eat more alkaline foods such as vegetables and fruits to prevent acidosis.
However, if severe morning sickness is observed in early pregnancy and it is difficult to absorb iron, it is advisable to begin consciously supplementing iron in the six months leading up to the pre-pregnancy preparation.
For pregnant women with anemia, in addition to a balanced diet to supplement iron, taking Iron Supplements can help replenish iron and increase blood production. This will meet the nutritional needs of pregnancy and quickly improve anemia.
It is important to note that during pregnancy, one should maintain a diverse diet and ensure balanced intake of various nutrients.
Additionally, during the middle stage of pregnancy, which is from 4 to 7 months, it is also necessary to nourish the blood.
Moreover, during this period, the fetus grows rapidly, so it is necessary to provide a diet rich in nutrients. This includes foods such as eggs, milk, lean meats, fish, legumes, and vegetables and fruits. It is also important to include vegetables and fruits that are high in fiber and pectin, such as celery, leeks, apples, and pears, to prevent constipation.
Finally, in the last two months of pregnancy, which is the final stage, fetal growth accelerates and the nutrients stored in the fetus are at their peak during this period. Therefore, dietary requirements for pregnant women must be rich in various nutrients to ensure the rapid growth of the fetus.
Food variety should be increased, such as fine grains, coarse grains, beans and their products, animal foods and vegetables, fruits. Reasonable combination should be made to expand the source of nutrients.
If the edema in the lower extremities of pregnant women occurs, low salt diet should be adopted. Protein and iron are supplied to ensure adequate nutrition, such as milk, scrambled eggs, braised fish, stir-fried pork liver, etc.
The reason why pregnant women need to bleed is that after becoming pregnant, the demand for iron in pregnant women increases significantly because the body's nutrition is no longer just absorbed by one person.
As is well known, iron is the basic element for making hemoglobin, because hemoglobin-containing red blood cells are the main force that carry oxygen to other cells in our body. Iron deficiency will slow down the body's hematopoietic function.
And after pregnancy, the mothers' blood volume increases by 30% to 45%, so pregnant women need more iron than people do to make up for the additional blood volume.
So, it's not necessarily a case of needing to "supplement" iron every day. Why is that? Because pregnant women simply can't meet the demand for iron from the baby and placenta.
After a mother becomes pregnant, as her baby grows and the placenta and umbilical cord develop, it is important for the mother to meet not only her own nutritional needs but also those of the developing fetus and placenta. If these nutritional demands are not met with additional iron supplementation, anemia can easily occur.
Moreover, most women don't store enough iron at the start of their pregnancy to meet the increased need for iron.
If, in addition to the fact that pregnant women often have a preference for certain foods, there are other conditions such as heavy menstrual bleeding, gastric and intestinal parasitic diseases, etc., which can easily lead to insufficient stomach acid secretion, affecting the absorption of iron, resulting in anemia in pregnant women.
When it comes to blood nourishment for pregnant women, many people immediately think of pig liver and red dates.
However, are you sure these methods are effective? It's because of this persistent misconception that MaNet Dictionary is here to correct it for you. This might shake your previous beliefs. But, with a sense of responsibility, we want to remind everyone not to fall into these traps again.
Misconception 1: Consuming red dates to boost blood circulation is somewhat misleading. This belief is based on the fact that consuming red dates alone has minimal effects in terms of blood replenishment. Although red dates do have a nutritive effect on blood, consuming them solely can lead to very limited results. If you wish to achieve effective blood replenishment through red date consumption, it is recommended to pair them with foods such as grapes and longans. This combination will yield more significant benefits than simply eating red dates alone.
Additionally, it is important to note that long-term consumption of red dates can lead to gas in the stomach and may cause weight gain. Those who are concerned about gaining weight should avoid long-term use. It is sufficient to consume 2 to 3 times a week, as consuming too much blood can still lead to concerns about weight loss.
Misconception Two: Experts emphasize that nutritional blood-boosting products cannot replace the treatment of anemia. Anemia is a symptom, not an independent disease.
During treatment, it is essential to identify iron deficiency anemia. Although various commercial iron-fortified nutritional supplements contain trace amounts of various forms of iron and can provide supplementary therapeutic benefits for iron deficiency anemia, they cannot replace conventional iron supplementation due to their low iron content.
Misconception Three: No Blood-Blood-Increasing Effect of Brown Sugar. There has been a longstanding folk belief that drinking brown sugar water can boost blood health, and women frequently consume it during their menstrual period or after childbirth for this purpose.
However, experts have pointed out that the blood-reducing and other miraculous effects attributed to brown sugar water do not exist.
Experts have stated that there is no miraculous effect attributed to brown sugar as people commonly believe. In fact, brown sugar lacks an effective ingredient for blood nourishment and does not promote uterine contraction to expel the retained blood in the uterus or hasten the early restoration of the uterus. Furthermore, brown sugar may contain impurities due to insufficient purification.
During the postpartum period, it is advisable for expectant mothers to consume sugar water in moderation. Consuming too much can damage teeth, accelerate hydration, and hinder the rapid recovery of the body. It may also increase the risk of heatstroke.
Does blood supplementation during pregnancy affect the fetus? We all know that nutrition from pregnant women is absorbed by the baby, so the various nutrients consumed by pregnant women will directly affect the baby.
Therefore, iron supplementation in pregnant women is beneficial for the fetus. If there is a deficiency of blood, it poses a risk to the baby! Mild anemia in pregnant women does not significantly affect the fetus, but chronic anemia can lead to fatigue and dizziness, which can also impact the healthy development of the fetus.
Moderate to severe anemia can have significant impacts on the fetus. Insufficient blood supply and oxygenation to the placenta can affect fetal development, leading to conditions such as short stature and intellectual disability in newborns. Additionally, it can cause congenital anemia in the fetus. Pregnant women, due to their reduced oxygen-carrying capacity, are prone to placental hypoxia and necrosis, which can lead to fetal asphyxiation. Severe cases may even result in premature or stillbirth! Anemia is a common condition among individuals, but it poses a serious risk to the fetus. Therefore, understanding the impact of maternal anemia on the fetus is crucial.
For pregnant women with anemia, what impact does it have on the fetus? Experts point out that if pregnant women do not pay attention to timely treatment and blood replenishment, it is very likely that it will lead to fetal developmental defects.
If anemia is prolonged, there is a high possibility of complications such as miscarriage and stillbirth.
So, supplementing blood for pregnant women has an impact on the fetus* The medical section mentioned in this article is for reference only.
If you experience any discomfort, it is recommended to seek medical attention immediately. The diagnosis and treatment should be based on the medical consultation conducted in person.