Macrobiotics Today, July/August 1994, Vol. 34, No. 4
"Weight Concerns for Mothers and Babies" Diane Avoli
Did you ever see a rolly-polly, fat, healthy-looking baby with a very thin malnourished looking mother? Or an overly thin baby with skinny arms and legs and a big rounded tummy? Over the years I have worked with many families who were trying to practice a healthy lifestyle and diet but just couldn't seem to get their children or themselves to gain or loose weight. I'd like to share some of those experiences with you.
First of all, you can ignore any standard charts for growth and development. Those charts are produced with data from a primarily meat- and sugar-eating group of people. People who practice a macrobiotic lifestyle, especially children, should have their own charts for comparison: From the development of teeth (i.e., macrobiotic children often do not get their canine teeth until 3 years of age since they do not eat or drink much animal quality foods), to menstruation (teenage girls following a macrobiotic lifestyle usually do not menstruate until between 14-17 years of age), to the development of motor skills (babies born to parents who have been practicing a macrobiotic lifestyle develop fine motor skills more quickly than gross motor skills - often able to cut with blunt edge scissors before they run). Along with these and other developmental growth areas, height and weight can and should differ between children raised macrobiotically and those who aren't. Without so many heavy animal foods, children raised macrobiotically should weigh less. Also, growth often slows in late summer, fall, and winter when energy is downward, inward, or more floating. Growth spurts usually occur in spring and summer when energy is upward, expanding, and outward moving. Often with young children, this time of year is a very active, outdoor time so they run off weight as they put it on so weight increase isn't as noticeable.
In the future, I would like to see charts and records of growth and development based on macrobiotic children so that parents can have some guidelines to help them determine the health of their own children without resorting to the conventional growth charts.
Pregnancy
During pregnancy, if a mother is eating a wide variety of foods prepared in a variety of ways (satisfying her needs as much as possible within the standard macrobiotic diet with perhaps a little bingeing once in a while), she should have all the nutrients she needs for herself and the baby. The biggest problem in pregnancy is the mother getting to yang, too tight, tired, overworked, overstressed, and bingeing too widely and too often. Pregnancy alone is very yangizing and the added stress of everyday life, as well as worry over the baby's health, make a mother more yang. When this occurs, instead of turning to extremely strong yin foods like tomato sauce, tropical fruit, ice cream, and sugary candy, a mother should try to lessen the yangizing causes and/or appropriately widen the diet in both yin and yang qualities, e.g., more fish or longtime cooking dishes that strengthen, more oil, more salads, and good quality desserts and fruit. Those strong yin foods deplete calcium and other minerals from the body and leave the mother weak and sometimes anemic. The baby will take what it needs from the mother, leaving the mother deficient and often very thin.
To ensure plenty of calcium, mothers can eat sea vegetables (not salty), tofu, dark green leafy vegetables, sesame seeds, and tahini cooked into dressings, sauces and desserts, or fish. Protein is abundant in the macrobiotic diet from whole grains, beans, and bean products. Sea vegetables and green leafy vegetables contain more vitamin C than citrus fruit. On a macrobiotic diet, iron is supplied by whole grains, beans, green leafy vegetables, seeds, and sea vegetables.
Vitamins are found in abundance in the variety of whole natural foods consumed using macrobiotic dietary principles.
After the baby is born, mothers often mistakenly try to "eat well." A mother's diet should continue to be wide and healthy. If the mother suddenly cuts food out of her diet that she ate during pregnancy, she may discharge excess nutrients or other substances through her milk and the baby will be affected. Often the baby gets rashes and/or is irritable and loses weight. The mother, when seeing the rash, thinks she is eating something that isn't good for the baby and narrows her diet even more. This continues until her milk is weak and the baby needs solid food too early or supplements to gain weight and grow.
Fat Babies, Thin Moms
Fat babies with thin mothers are usually the result of the mother eating too "narrow" or "clean" a diet. Everything consumed by the mother often is reserved to nurse the baby and the mother then becomes too weak to do anything. Then others have to help out with jobs, household chores, cooking, and taking care of other children. All new mothers should have some help right after the birth of a child, but often they are so weak that just maintaining daily household chores is exhausting. In this state, for one or two years the mother can't have a normal life.
Sometimes after a birth, the mother is overly concerned with her weight and figure. New mothers pursue all kinds of exercises and diets to get back into shape. This will cause thin milk and cause the baby to want to nurse every hour or more - day and night, leaving both mother and baby weak, overtired, and thin.
Another cause of thin milk and a baby wanting to nurse too often is when the mother takes a great deal of fruits, fruit juices, and sweets. These yin foods can help produce a great deal of milk, but the trouble is the milk is too thin and passes through the baby too quickly. This rapid transit time doesn't satisfy the baby nutritionally or bulk wise and the infant wakes up hungry shortly after being fed. A smaller supply of rich, heavy milk will satisfy the infant longer. To see if milk is rich enough, express a drop out of the breast onto a thumbnail and turn it sideways. The drop should not roll off, if it does it is too thin.
To promote good quality milk production, get plenty of rest after giving birth (for at least 2 weeks), don't climb stairs often if avoidable, and eat plenty of rich foods and good quality foods as long you are breast feeding.
Some suggestions for rich and good quality foods, allowing considerations for time of year, are: fish, tempeh, tofu, beans, rich stews and soups, a wide variety of mostly whole grains with some cracked or processed grain products, oil, lightly toasted seeds and nuts (not salty), some flour products, but little if any hard-baked cookies, crackers, chips or breads. Sea vegetables can be eaten often and occasionally cooked fruits and desserts. Some raw fruits, juices and salads are okay depending on the season. Sometimes a good quality beer to balance fish is helpful. A wide variety of vegetables prepared in many different ways is important. Dark leafy green vegetables, especially blanched watercress helps make very good quality milk. Good quality yin food is needed, but first have good quality yang to keep the milk rich. The mothers "baby fat" gained during pregnancy should come off naturally as normal activity increases. Then the mother can get her pre-pregnancy (or better) weight and figure back when the baby is weaned.
A toddler or young child who is very thin with a big belly and is usually not very active may be eating too yang of a diet. Once on solid food totally, the baby's diet needs to be balanced for his needs. Until 3 years old, or in some cases older, the little one should not be eating adult food. Too much salt, dry grains, or too much grain, baked foods, not enough vegetables, or not enough variety of vegetables, too many long-cooked dishes, rice cakes, or other hard, dry foods can make a child too yang. When the child is too yang he will overeat trying to create balance the only way he can. Overeating causes the stomach and intestines to become too heavy and food passes through too quickly to be digested properly and fully utilized. Thus the child constantly has a big belly, remains thin, and is always hungry or craving sweets, desserts, and fruit. Taking the yang causes out of the diet, removing all fruit, sweets, and desserts from the house and just supplying plenty of vegetables, even without grains, for a few days usually reverses this problem quickly. The child will soon get hungry enough so that the vegetables look and taste delicious and are satisfying. Removing the excess yang-quality foods, especially salt, will help the child be less stubborn. Take special care regarding eggs. Be sure an overly yang child is not getting any egg at all in his diet, this can create extreme yangness and stubbornness in all people, especially in children.
A very chubby baby who is just starting to crawl should not be considered overweight. The excess weight will gradually come off as the child crawls, walks, then runs. If the child is very active, say around 3 years old and is still overly chubby, there still is no problem with this condition unless the cause is too much salt and extreme yin foods. If this is the case, the child may suffer from ear infections, throat infections, cold symptoms and/or chest congestion. In this case, the diet is most likely too high in any or all of the following: cracked grains, flour products, heavy oil dishes, soy milks or cheeses, or baked foods.
The health of a child should be judged by muscle tone, activity level, awareness, alertness, curiosity, general mental function, and emotions, not by the scale.
As children get older and participate in sports, they need plenty of beans, bean products, oil and good quality desserts along with plenty of variety in grains, vegetables and sea vegetables. Our children are very active, their health and weight are good. If they do not receive the variety at home that they need, they will look for it in the candy, dairy, potato chips, and tropical fruit their friends are consuming.
Giving birth to and raising eight children has been a wonderful experience. We do our best to meet their ever-changing needs and look forward to the continual challenge.
End of Article
Author bio-statement: Diane and Joe Avoli work with many people to help them create and maintain healthy families. They take phone calls week days between 9-11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. There is a charge for this time so they ask that before calling you write down all of your questions and have paper and pencil ready to write down suggestions. Phone: (508) 632-8112. Address: P.O. Box 18, East Templeton, MA 01438-0018.
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