Paleo from Pregnancy

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Conception

Ideally, preparing for conception begins at least six months prior to the moment of implantation. It rarely works out that way, however, and it definitely didn’t work out that way for me. In the days of my grain-based, packaged-food-centered diet I suffered from my share of conditions, one of them being polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and infertility.



In my case, the infertility was more of a blessing than a plague. I didn’t want children anyway so it was pretty cool not having to worry about birth control.

I read quite the lineup of worthless “health” guides before finally stumbling upon Dr. Loren Cordain’s The Paleo Diet. The concept of eating according to evolution immediately resonated with me. I was 100% compliant within the first week.



That’s not to say it was easy. On the contrary, throwing out the entire kitchen of packaged foods was tough, really tough and, over the years, I have both failed and triumphed and have recovered from a lifetime of malnutrition.

My body could have used a year or more to build up nutrient stores but, much to my dismay and surprise, my hormones balanced quickly and within three months I was pregnant. So much for my good old “natural” birth control.



Pregnancy

I was a math tutor back when I was pregnant so I had a lot of spare time. I spent that time reading about pregnancy and parenting, I started practicing relaxation, I walked five miles a day, and got so into cooking I nearly wrote my own paleo cookbook (but with so many great ones out there already I didn’t bother).



I was totally excited about getting healthy for this baby and finally, for once in my life, actually feeling good. I didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t take caffeine. I ate eggs every dayand made beef stews every day. I didn’t eat out at restaurants and I didn’t eat grains or sugar.

The effort paid off.

I had an enjoyable, healthy pregnancy. My mood was even most of the time, my energy was high, I didn’t experience cravings, and I didn’t gain a ton of weight.

Childbirth

My childbirth experience was kind of a flop. We went to a hospital which boasts a 30% cesarean rate and within five minutes of arrival, I was told that my daughter’s cord was wrapped and the only solution was to cut her out.

This sounded crazy to me. I had read about cord wrap. I knew this wasn’t the only way. After some arguing with the doctor (who was just some random on call doctor and not the one I had been seeing for the last nine months) they agreed to give me a little time for the cord to work itself out but not without all kinds of drugs to “assist the process”.

Doctors in the US aren’t trained in much more than cutting and pill popping so, needless to say, the whole mess finally ended in emergency c-section.

Evelyn was born and I recovered quickly, so quickly in fact that the doctors were shocked. I was up and walking the next day (albeit slowly) and back in to an exercise routine within a couple of weeks. My 4 inch scar is almost totally invisible, thanks to my nutrient dense diet. And my mood never crashed at all. Having spent a lifetime with poor wound healing and severe depression, this was quite an unexpected blessing.

Colostrum and Breastfeeding

During the four days in the hospital I kept my daughter, Evelyn, with me in a little cradle beside my bed or in my arms feeding her the colostrum that’s produced before the milk comes in.

According to every single nurse that came through my room in those four days, I produced an inordinate amount of colostrum. Most women produce little dribbles of it. Colostrum is so high in fat that it doesn’t take much to satisfy a newborn. I seemed to produce the “liquid gold” in bulk. The nurses joked about pumping the stuff out and donating it to mothers who didn’t produce enough of it. My baby had a steady supply of this high medium chain fatty acid, antibody rich first food. This would be my pattern for the next year and a half. I produced so much milk I could have put Enfamil out of business.

I don’t know why I produced so much of it while other women are lucky to spurt out just a few drops but what I do know is that the foods we eat make up our breastmilk and it is important to eat as healthily as possible.

Growth and Development

Evelyn was a strong baby. This is common in babies who are breastfed by mothers who watch what they eat. She was also calm and rarely cried. This is common in babies who are carried in slings and who co-sleep with their parents. I was blessed with an easy baby. Some of this might be due to her personality but more likely it is due to many factors. My diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding, my fitness level, my own calm disposition, our practice of attachment parenting techniques.

And she has grown up into a good kid. She has always been very coordinated and strong. She didn’t get her first cold until she was 2. She’s never taken any kind of conventional medicine, not even Ibuprofen – and her blood is not laced with the mercury and formaldehyde found in a vaccine syringe. All of these factors play a role but, of course, there are many reasons we turn out the way we are.

Attachment Parenting

I allowed Evelyn to nurse whenever she wanted. She slept in bed beside me (and no I didn’t ever roll over on her!). I didn’t leave her to cry to toughen her up. I carried her against my body in a backpack much of the time for the first 2 years. These are all principles of attachment parenting which seem in line with the ways in which our Primal ancestors would have had to have raised their babies since the beginning of time. There were no kid’s rooms in the cave, there were no cribs to leave kids in, carrying babies freed the mother’s hands so that she was free to live some kind of life.

Solid Foods

When my daughter was about six months old I started adding solid foods to her diet. At first I had no idea what kinds of foods were right for babies. Rice cereal is the “typical” first food but I couldn’t feed her something which I wouldn’t even eat myself! So I started researching. I discovered the Weston A Price Foundation and Sally Fallon’s book Nourishing Traditions (which is a great resource even though it includes fermented grains and raw dairy, neither of which I eat).

I decided to keep her diet mostly raw, high fat, low carb, and densely nutritious. She ate things like avocado, raw liver, fruits and vegetables blended with lots of butter, raw fish, and home made chicken and beef soups made with bones. I happily breastfed for a year and a half.

Feeding a kid under two was easy because I controlled what went in her mouth. She never whined for sweets or junk food or juice boxes because she had never tasted them. Babies will never cry for cookies, will never throw tantrums for more junk, will never eschew a real dinner if they never get addicted to junk food in the first place. It is such an incredibly simple concept that many parents of our culture, unfortunately, miss.

Over all these years I have had a steady flow of moments reminding me that even in the face of opposition I did the right thing by choosing to eat, breastfeed, and feed my baby like our Paleolithic ancestors would have done.

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104 Comments

  1. Thanks for sharing your journey. And honestly sharing it! We need more of that! I appreciate so much of what you write about here, particularly your experience with PCOS, infertility, and then conceiving shortly after staring the Paleo diet. I also agree about the sugar. I never gave my first child sugar in any form other than fruit until he was at least two, and even then it was maple syrup or some other thing. Children absolutely should not be sugary sweets as babies. It truly does them a disservice.

    • I appreciate the kind response, and it’s SO nice to hear of other mothers restricting sugar in their children!

  2. Great article! I, too, am raising a paleo baby! He is 10 months old now, and he gets a teeny bit of rice in the form of “mum mums” at daycare, but he is 100% gluten, dairy, soy, and sugar free! I have experienced many of the same things you talk about in this post, and I know it is because of his diet of fruits and veggies and meat, oh, and breastmilk! It will be great to share this article with others, so they know i’m not just lucky and blessed with a “good” baby. It’s no accident!

    Looking forward to following this blog :)

    • Healthy, happy children are definitely no accident! Thanks for the support!

  3. This is a very interesting point of view. I had never considered that.

  4. I posted not long before you about pregnancy and Paleo or Primal eating. Of course, you did it long before I did, but it sounds like we had a lot of the same experiences during pregnancy. Although my labor and delivery went a bit different.

    We need to write a book! ;)

  5. I am writing one!

    We do have some experiences in common for sure. I’m so glad you’re spreading the word and that you’ve had such great success so far!

  6. Thank you for writing this! I am 16 weeks along in my paleo pregnancy and things are going so well. It is so nice to hear the perspective of someone who has already been through it.

  7. Thank you for reading it! I want so badly to spread the word about pregnancy and nutrition so that mothers can have an easier time raising babies who are happier.

    Please tweet it and share it on Facebook!!!!!

    Let’s get the word out!

    • hi! I just came across your blog…. did you take prenatal vitamins? I’m leaning towards the thought that if you can just eat your nutrients, then you don’t have to take “vitamins” that are technically unnatural since they have been “created” and don’t grow from the ground…

      I’m not pregnant, but my husband and I have decided to start trying! :) Its really important to me to be as natural as can be… any additional thoughts or blog posts you have written would be appreciated! :)

      thanks!

      • Hi Jenn. I have written about supplements in my book which isn’t out yet. :) And I also wrote quite a bit about the nutrients you need and where tok get them. There are definitely some supplements you want to avoid and if you can get everything you need from food that would be ideal. Be sure to eat a variety of foods. You can check out nutritiondata.com for some help figuring out what foods have what nutrients.

  8. Wow…all this time surfing around the primal blogosphere, and I never saw a single post about paleo baby raising. So I wrote my own post, it got linked at MDA, and boom – I got the single biggest surge in blog traffic in 4 years!

    So checking out the reaction at MDA, I find your comment and this blog…simply awesome!

    I don’t doubt for a minute that paleo diet both pre and post natal is responsible for a lot of things you wrote about – the easy-going, non-fussy temperament, the solid nights of sleep, etc.

    What surprised me, though, was the number of MDA regulars that were quick to dismiss my experiences as just “proud parent syndrome.”

    I look forward to your book, Peggy!

  9. It surprised me too!

    Somewhere, either on his blog or yours, I replied to a comment by a woman suggesting your naivety because your kid is only a year old. She said something like when your kid hits two you’ll understand. HA!

    My kid never had the terrible twos at all. She never had tantrums. So much of the “problems” of raising children is just nonsense. I’m still walking the road of naivety I guess because my daughter has yet to cause me problems. (Well actually, we went to Colombia for a month and she ate wheat every day. she had some serious attitude problems then but that was the first and last I ever saw of that.)

    Thanks for dropping by and commenting!

  10. Your post really made my day! I love the rest of your blog too- so refreshing to read of mothers in tune with natures wisdom. I think you really summed it up in one sentence “healthy, happy kids are no accident”. If you haven’t already, (and seeing as you know of Weston A Price) I recommend the book “healing our children” by Rami Nagel. And I’ll just go ahead and say it now, you are just STUNNING and your daughter is beautiful. But yeah, you already know that :)

  11. I appreciate the compliment, really, and I’m thrilled you enjoy the blog.

    We the parents really do shape our kid’s health and happiness. In fact, I think I remember learning a little about that from Rami Nagel years ago. I’ll have to pick that book up again. Thanks for the suggestion!

  12. Hi Peggy, I have been looking into nutrition of late, particularly the primal way of eating.
    I was a confirmed vegan prior to falling pregnant and did a ton of outdoor activities, but during pregnancy and breast feeding I started eating EVERYTHING and am now overweight and want to lose weight. As I am no longer cycling the world and I have to look after a man and a boy I have no interest in going back to being vegan (though I did feel good on it, primarily I think because I did so much exercise) and am interested in starting to eat primal.
    I just wanted to ask you if you found any changes in your menstrual cycle – specifically PMS/PMT related issues since eating primally?

  13. Yes I sure did! Well, actually, I was pregnant withing 3 months of starting paleo. Before that I was infertile and had amenorrhea – I went months at a time sometimes without menstruating.

    So, then I was pregnant for 9 months and breast fed for a year and a half. By the end of all that I hadn’t menstruated in almost 3 years.

    When I finally started menstruating again it was as regular as could be and lighter than it had ever been before, plus I didn’t have cramps anymore which used to be a big problem for me.

    • I just wanted to say that I was fairly paleo/primal during my pregnancy (did end up having a lot of dairy and some cheats) and would like to echo the experiences. I had a very, very easy pregnancy. My labor was manageable; however, I, too, ended up with an emergency c-section, and I think it is because I own a business and drive 3 hours per day, and my posture was most definitely NOT paleo. So my son was “sunny side up” and slightly transverse and wasn’t moving much after 29 hours of labor.

      But he was alert, breastfed like a champ (the nurses were surprised at how quickly he latched on), and I made a lot of colostrum and milk.

      He currently is almost 2 years old, and I’ve had so many comments about what a sweet, cute kid he is. Of course, many parents have that, but I’ve had daycare teachers who’ve been in the business 30+ years say that he’s one of the most even-tempered kids they’ve ever had. His teeth are coming in straight in a nice even arch. His teeth never “popped” through. They just slowly came in, never causing problems.

      He’s about 90% with his diet. My mother does give him a cookie, which averages about 1x/month and sometimes slips on things like juice. I sometimes struggle with how much to dictate when she is watching him. I own a business and sometimes need to travel, and she is generous with her loving babysitting. She kind of “gets” what I am doing, but thinks she’s being the sneaky loving grandma, giving him treats that mom won’t give him.

      My son did get a lot of colds after starting daycare (never was sick in the 4 months where he was 100% home). But about 8 months ago, he seems to have completely stopped and hasn’t had so much as a sniffle since then.

  14. It’s great to hear other success stories! Keep ‘em comin’!

  15. Can you provide any more information (or can anyone else comment on) weight gain during pregnancy? I’ve heard before (CW, I suppose) that you should gain 25 lbs or so, and my mother is telling me I should gain more because I am on the slim side (not underweight). Thanks for the post!

  16. I will make a point to write about that soon! This is an important topic. Thanks for bringing it up.

    The recommendation to gain 25 to 35 lbs is ludicrous. Women definitely do need some fat to maintain healthy hormone levels, but getting fat is a bad idea. What kinds of foods would you have to be eating to gain that much weight? Sugar and starches. Those aren’t good for you while you’re not pregnant; they are even worse when you are.

    The repercussions of gaining too much weight in pregnancy are huge and can easily be avoided by eating a healthy diet including meat, fruits, vegetables, and fats. Never restrict calories while pregnant but also don’t think that you need to eat for two. You don’t.

  17. Just read your story on MDA and I love the 5280 backdrop in the photo!

    Have an 8 month old son that we are feeding primal as well and wanted to check out your site- lot of good info you have in here and I look forward to reading more of it!

    EL

  18. I’m one of those other mothers. My kids are 4 and 1 at the moment. I couldn’t breastfeed either of them, I had very little colostrum and milk. I reduce my grain intake a LOT with my second because I was afraid of weight gain (I’m already obese!) and she breastfed for the first 2 weeks. My first couldn’t breastfeed at all.

    I just started my attempt at primal living two weeks ago. I’m not sure how much I can reverse, especially with my 4-year-old. He still doesn’t talk well and he’s very aggressive… I hope it’s not too late to reverse some things. He does ask for sugar but I try my best to avoid it. My 1 year old, however, has never had sugar. She even cringes at very sweet fruits now.

    Thanks for sharing this, I will share it along with other paleo pregnancy stories I’ve read with anyone who’s pregnant or trying to be.

  19. Eric,

    Thanks for the support! It’s great that you’re son is getting a primal start in life.

    Yasmine,

    Wow! You are doing so much for your kids in making these big changes. Your daughter will be so healthy despite her short time breastfeeding. Give her bone broths and organs as supplements.

    You know, I have heard so many stories about kids who rebound from autism or other developmental difficulties after totally eliminating grains, sugars, vegetable oil, and artificial ingredients. I think there is much hope to reverse some of the disadvantages his diet has inflicted. Take a look at this website for support. This woman has been fighting for her child’s health, like you.

  20. Hi! Stumbled across yr blog from Mark’s Daily Apple and I’m so happy I found it. I am a student midwife/labor doula, and I eat primal and encourage my midwifery clients to, but it’s tough going against the grain (no pun intended) of our cultures ways of eating. I have to meet my mamas where they are at and often watch them make poor food choices. It’s SO encouraging to see women blog about their healthy pregnancies. :) Keep up the good work!

    xoxo
    Beth

  21. Beth,

    That sounds rough. It’s hard for me to see kids and pregnant women eating junk food. I can’t imagine how frustrating it would be to work with them when there’s a life involved.

    Jena,

    Thanks for the support! You are a smart woman for preparing early. I bet Beth would love for you to be her client. You’re going to be an easy one!

    I am working (slowly) on two books right now. The first would be done by now if I weren’t so busy with writing articles and spending time in the sun (finally). Once I’ve absorbed enough vitamin D, I’ll be writing more. :)

  22. Hi

    Thank you for sharing your story! And your blog is fantastic! I’ve always had food sensitivities and am planning on conceiving next spring…. so I’m planning on going primal now, to prep my body for 6 months prior. I will be reading your blog for future reference!

    Thank you!

    Also, I can’t wait to read your book! Any idea when it will be published?

  23. I saw a comment of yours on MDA and had to check out your blog. I really wish I had started primal eating before I had kids. I have 5 kids (10 years and under) and I am trying to make the switch for them as well.

    • The early years are a lot easier when you’ve started out Paleo without a doubt. But there are challenges with eating healthy no matter when your kids start. One of the things I’ve had to deal with is my child coming out of the dark. She had never had sugar or grains at all for the first two years, then very rarely after that. She has never had any food with artificial colors, and those are so enticing to children. She has never had fast food. She’s never drunk pasteurized milk until just recently when her pre-school started giving it to her (much to my chagrin). I have a lot to explain just as you do, but our kids are coming from different perspectives. Your kids remember the taste of bad foods, mine is curious. All we can do is teach and hope for the best.

      I think the most important thing is to feed high nutrients in the form of broths and organs if possible, cod liver oil, saturated fats, and other highly nutritious foods. Once they are better nourished, their disposition will start to change and things will get easier.

  24. I just recently found you through a friend of mine.
    I love this post. I gt turned on to the primal way last summer. We happily ate that way for a while until I was pregnant with my second at the end of august. I struggled to eat snugly decent in the beginning of pregnancy but in the second trimester my husband and I went back to eating that way. (with some slip ups that I usually regretted but sometimes you just have to have that milkshake). I noticed I felt better, I hardly gained any weight while eating high fat foods. You say two eggs and two slices of bacon for a primal pregnant woman… I’m thinking like some eggs with a whole pack of bacon ;) anyway i felt really good. Most of my weight gain was when I was eating carbs and it was also when I felt the worst (hmm imagine that). Anyway, We’ve been feeding my son who is two that way and he was just so healthy last year. He really didn’t get sick and he’s just so healthy. I know it’s due to his diet. Now that I have another baby I’m excited to start her on solids and not have any grain. With my son we gave him grains before we knew any better. It’ll be interesting if we notice any difference.
    I love your blog. I wish everyone knew about this way to raise kids and eat. It’s so great. Thanks for sharing your experiences!

  25. I was delighted to run across you blog, especially when I saw you mention PCOS. This condition has spurred my interest in therapeutic eating. I’ve had some success minimizing my symptoms with diet and exercise. Now that I’m pregnant again, I need all the encouragement I can get. I’d be very interested to read a post about specific triumphs you’ve had combating your PCOS symptoms with a paleo lifestyle!

  26. Cassie,

    Thanks! It’s great to hear you’re doing so well with your paleo family. Did you ever see lord of the rings? We have a saying around here, “what about second breakfast?” A whole pack of bacon would sound good to me to!

    Lesley,

    It seems there is a lot of interest in a more in depth treatment of pcos. It is definitely on my list, maybe by the end of July. I really struggled with that even after going paleo. It took a long time and a lot of expirinentation to get the symptoms under control. The good thing is that it is totally controllable with diet alone.

  27. Peggy,

    I was linked to your blog from MDA and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I am about 4 months away from officially trying to start a family and have had so many questions about how my recent primal diet would fit into this!

    I started eating paleo about 4 months ago. I’m almost 26 years old, and for the first time since puberty my last cycles have been regular, and not terribly painful. I’m still battling acne (though it’s cleared up a huge amount), but I’m really starting to feel great. I just have a few questions if you don’t mind:

    1) how long from when you started eating paleo did you really start to feel 100% better in terms of your symptoms.

    2) how did you deal with doctors during your pregnancy? I’m very petite, and worried that if I dont gain A LOT of weight like I’m ‘supposed to’ I’ll be put on something by my doctor or made to feel guilty.

    3)did you bother telling your doctor about your diet, or did you just nod and ignored when they went over the whole grain requirements?

    Thank you so much for this blog! It gives me the confidence to have, and raise a primal family, and hopefully save them from so many of the health issues myself and the rest of my family has had to deal with!

    • Hi Amy. I’m happy to have something to offer you! Drop by with questions any time.

      1. It took me a long time before I felt good, honestly. I mean things started improving immediately but I still had problems for years. I attribute that to food allergies and intolerances. I can’t eat fruit without messing up my bacterial balance, my blood sugar, my skin, my mood. It’s really bad for me. But I was on Cordain’s paleo diet and didn’t have any reason to suspect a little bit of fruit was a problem. It took me a while to figure that out. I am also sensitive to chocolate and spices and vegetables and starches. It took me forever to figure this stuff out. It wasn’t until 2008, 3 years into the paleo diet, that I went on a raw sort of primal diet that totally cleared up all of my symptoms. In the last 3 years since then I have been experimenting with bringing foods back in so I’ve struggled periodically since.

      2. My gynecologist was native Japanese. He didn’t think it was weird at all that I was so thin. In fact, he was the one that quelled my fears about my weight (because I had been brainwashed to believe that pregnant women must get fat). I kept a food diary and I showed it to him. He thought it looked fantastic. He said it was all natural and that was what my baby needed – natural, highly nutritious foods. If a doctor ever tells you otherwise, walk out the door. Don’t even bother arguing.

      3. He never said a thing about grains. He said it was fine that I got my carbs from fruit and sweet potato at the time. Too bad actually because those both mess me up so bad! hahaha

      • Thanks so much for the reply! Wow! It must’ve been such a shock to be intolerant to fruits and veggies. Excuse my ignorance, but how do you get your vitamins and nutrients found in plants? For the first time in my life I actually crave and like fruits and veggies so I’m hoping I’m not headed down the same path, I wonder how rare it is? It’s difficult for me to ‘re-learn’ about healthy foods. Eggs and nuts were ‘fattening’ and ‘bad’, now I eat and love them. Same with butter! I am hoping that I continue to heal, and although sometimes it feels like 2 steps forwards 1 step back I’m trying to stay positive.

        It’s wonderful that you had such a great OBGyn! I live in Canada, in one of the smaller provinces, and the doctors here are very pro c section, pro induction, pro formula supplementation…basically everything I want to avoid. And we dont have midwives as the province can’t fund them! So I turn to blogs (like yours!) to learn what I can and educate myself enough to be strong in my beliefs.

        Anyways thanks again! I love reading everything.

        • I do eat a lot of special foods like shellfish and organs. Those are even better nutritional powerhouses than veggies.

  28. Thanks for sharing your story! I had a very long, very hard homebirth in November (I feel like I can say it was long and hard here – normally I feel like I have to sugarcoat and only say how terrific it was). My mom had a c-section for breech and then had three VBACs, including a set of twins and a homebirth. Not having yet discovered the primal thing, I followed the Brewer diet for pregnancy, which is great in its no sugar, high proteins recs, but still includes grains. If you just struck a line through the grains part, it’s a pretty decent guideline. Anyway, I gained about 35 pounds, and the last 5-10 stuck around until I ditched the grains.

  29. Hi Peggy,
    I’ve seen many of your comments at MDA after reading for a solid week now. Your story is so inspiring! I may not have to endure the difficulties of bearing a child, PCOS, or celiac disease, but through your story I have seen many of the merits of the Primal lifestyle. I’m only on day five of my own story with primal, but I all ready see the same things you learned so well. I feel terrific, have a tremendous amount of energy, sleep great, and I’m shedding fat and water weight at around a pound a day! I’m so blessed to have read your story and I look forward to reading some more on here shortly. Thank you for making this blog and please continue to Grok on!

  30. Hi Peggy!

    I am new to your website and I have really enjoyed all of your wonderful information, thus far. I was wondering if you have had more than one child. All the Paleo pregnancies I have been reading about have been first-time pregnancies. My first pregnancy, (in NZ) sounded a lot like all of them, but my second pregnancy (in the USA) was not at ALL like the first, unfortunately. I am considering having a third baby, yet I wanted to see if you knew of anyone that has been on the Primal/Paleo diet for more than one pregnancy. I would LOVE to know if they had the same lovely experience with pregnancy both times or not.

    And do you feel that you have to supplement your child’s diet with any protein or other kinds of supplements? (I hope that made sense!)

    I appreciate your time in reading my post and responding! And THANK YOU for your great lunch ideas and your Minimalism Kitchen posts!! They put my mind at great ease!:)

    Take Care!
    Gairyn

  31. Yes, I only have one child, right now. But there are a lot of women in the Paleo community who have more. These are a couple of women that I know of who have a whole bunch of kids. They have interesting stories so I would check them out.

    http://www.healthyguts.net/
    and wellnessmama.com

    I definitely don’t need to supplement her diet with extra protein. For one because children do not need as much protein as adults and because we eat a lot of meat.

    I do give her a multi vitamin from time to time because our food supply is just not what it used to be, but realize that a diet of meats and fats, veggies and fruits, is far more nutritional than a diet of grains sugars, artificial ingredients, and overly processed vegetable oils.

  32. Thank you so much for the links! I will definitely check them out! I cannot wait to see what their experiences are with having multi births and at what ages they has their babies.

    I was so thrilled to read about your Paleo pregnancy!! I have been planning on getting pregnant this year for a couple of years now. I envisioned/hoped that I would be able to be pregnant, active(to keep up with my kids life like usual, if not better), feeling healthy (no morning sickness), looking healthy (acne-free skin, and not looking anemic), and emotionally stable (as much as possible). I also wanted a home birth for my third child. In reading your story, as well as Wendy’s. I was super excited to see how amazing your pregnancies were, as well, as births, recovery, and especially colostrum and milk production!! Your Stories showed me that what I hoped for my 3rd pregnancy could very well be a reality!! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences!! I cannot wait to share your PCOS story with women I know that have been diagnosed with it, too!

    I am so happy to hear about not having to use supplements. I didn’t think that we would but then again I am so new to this I just wasn’t sure. What brand of multi-vitamins do you give your daughter?

    My sister introduced me to the this way of eating in April. I have been slowly trying it for myself and I LOVE it! Now, I am trying to get my family on board with the eating. My husband is supportive but a bit annoyed that he can’t have wheat in his 20%. I have the grain article from MDA to explain to him why, but I can see it’s going to be a bit more challenging for him than my kids to eat Primal.

    Thanks for your quick response!!
    Gairyn

    • Hi! I’m 38 and ttc a 3rd child with my new husband. Thank you so much for writing this article. I’ve been worried about not eating the cw way for conception and pregnancy. My first baby I gained 80lbs and 60lbs with my 2nd. I’ve lost a total of 100lbs going the atkins route now I’m converting to paleo. I got off my blood pressure medicines and don’t want to ever have to go back on them! Because of my age I’ve got more concernes than most younger people ttc.
      How did your Doctor react to your WOE?

      • You’re welcome Kaylakala! I wish you the best on your next pregnancy!

  33. Congrats on a wonderful pregnancy and paleo/primal journey with your sweet girl!
    I am envious of your ability to stay paleo throughout pregnancy. I was primal for months before conceiving and I really wanted to have a successfully paleo pregnancy, but as soon as that 6th week hit – I couldn’t eat anything without being very, very sick. Around the 8th week I was able to keep down small and very frequent amounts of protein, only in the form of eggs, full-fat dairy and turkey. Anything else was too…intense or something. Even high-quality grass-fed beef! I tried to listen to my body – the same way I’d been listening to it while being successfully primal – but the relief only came in (at best) fringe primal foods and the dreaded occasional simple carb(toast, crackers).
    I have two other children, so I couldn’t just writhe and vomit all day.

    Now that I’m in my 21st week, I’m feeling much better and steering back toward primal and paleo foods. I want to be healthy for the remainder of this pregnancy, so I hope I haven’t done any major damage. I need to clean my gut back out! It’s so encouraging to read of other mothers’ primal experiences, but I wanted to add that the morning sickness may not be an indication of poor health/diet (prior to pregnancy) but just a symptom of pregnancy and all of the different hormonal demands we each have, as well as the placenta’s desire to be built with a steady flow of specific nutrients (in my case, constant but not heavy protein). I’d love it if you or someone else could share thoughts on this!

  34. I appreciate your post — and the fact that you didn’t let pressure from the Dr. force you to change your eating habits. That said, I don’t think the point of ANY diet is to “stay thin” during pregnancy. Ideally, you eat healthy diet (I virtually stopped eating cheese/dairy, and ate a high raw diet), and then let your body decide what it wants to do. I gained some weight, but in spurts (my Dr. commented several times I wasn’t gaining weight “healthfully” and it would be “hard to lose”). Since I wasn’t really doing anything different than before, I ignored her and followed my gut. I had a wonderful NATURAL childbirth (thank goodness for a supportive doula and spouse), and lost all the weight in 6 weeks — again, not changing anything in my diet. So, basically, I think you focus on nutritious, not weight, and everything events out.

    • Absolutely. It’s not all about weight gain. Though that’s what most women are concerned about it seems. Losing a little bit of weight after the baby is born really isn’t that big of a deal anyway. After the baby is born, you’re so in another world of happiness and busyness that you would hardly care anyway.

  35. Before I got pregnant I was doing a whole-foods, gluten-free, dairy-free version of Atkins, which is pretty much Paleo, from what I’m reading. When I got pregnant I had a rough start with lots of spotting due to a low-lying placenta, but after the first trimester I felt pretty great. I am pretty close with my midwife because I worked in her office as a phlebotomist for years, and she knew how well I stuck to my gluten-free whole-foods diet, but she discouraged me from continuing the grain-free part for fear of being too much in ketosis. She told me to eat gluten-free grains. I still avoided sugar but I wish I had enough resolve to just say no even though I had a pretty easy pregnancy and birth. I think it could have been easier. I didn’t gain very much weight until my last 4 weeks and it was mostly water retention, which I lost within the first 6 weeks post-partum. I had an easy birth, which I contribute to my midwife because the overseeing doctor was pushing her to give me pitocin to get my labor going faster, but I ended up with a natural birth with the assistance of some cytotec. The cord was wrapped around my baby’s neck two times when she came out, but the midwife skillfully cut it as soon as she noticed it when she was coming out and my baby was fine.

    My daughter nursed right away and I breastfeed until she was 14 months and I didn’t want to give her the standard baby food but I didn’t know there was any other way. I also had a hard time going back to my no-grain lifestyle while I was still breastfeeding because I was told I would lose my milk if I stopped eating grains. Thank you for sharing your story. I did the best I could, giving her more than the recommended fats and proteins and I didn’t give her any gluten or sugar for the first year. We still limit sugar, but now we are cutting gluten again and dairy because she is sensitive to it. She was also happy and healthy like your baby. She slept well and is very calm and easy. I think we did better than most, but you inspire me to do even better with her and in my next pregnancy.

    Thank you for sharing your story.

    • We can only do as well as we have the tools to do at the time. You definitely did better than most from the beginning and it’s never too late to do even better. I strive to be a better mom every day and always have so much to learn. Whatever mistakes we do end up making our kids will just have to fix. :)

  36. Oh my how beautiful! Your daughter’s fuzzy little blonde head is the cutest :)

    I just stumbled upon this post since my coworker is pregnant and is curious about my diet and if a “primal pregnancy” is possible. I’m trying to point her in the right direction! While I don’t think she’s ready to make the switch, I want her to be aware of the great resources out there when she is. Your blog is definitely one of the gems.

    • It starts with awareness! And that leads to curiosity and then to experimentation. Baby steps. :)

  37. Really great stuff. I’m still trying to get pregnant, but have been wondering about being primal during.
    Great great read and hopefully soon, I’ll have my own Primal/Paleo pregnancy experience to share with everyone :)

  38. Hi Peggy, I have noticed you in the comment section of MDA and hopped over here to check things out. I love this post and have a question for you. I would like to start paleo now, but I’m 16 weeks along. Obviously cutting out sugar and white flour can only be good for baby and me but what about cutting out so many carbs at once (like rice, potatoes, etc – the not-as-bad carbs)? I hear differing opinions about ketosis in pregnancy (though I suppose I could stay out of ketosis with just fruits and veggies, correct). I also hear people talk of sort of “detoxing” when they go off sugar – is this potential dangerous? Finally, will my body be able to switch over to burning fats quickly enough to provide nutrients for the baby? Sorry to throw so many questions out there – I just haven’t found much on paleo during pregnancy. I don’t have much doubt of it working if you were already eating that way (since that’s how are ancestors went through pregnancy); I’m just concerned about transitioning during pregnancy. Thanks for any advice you can give. Looking forward to checking out the blog more!

  39. My hubby and I are “going” primal, and it is a LEGIT addiction to sugar that we are facing. but the more primal I am the better EVERYTHING iS. I hope to be a lot more disciplined, meaning getting over my addiction before we get pregnant. Until then I KNOW I’ll be following your blog for motivation and inspiration. This specific post is soooo encouraging!

  40. Your daughter is so healthy and beautiful. Well Done :-)Did you take any supplements while pregnant? And were you eating raw(milk,or meat) while you were pregnant as well?

    • I got back to you about this in email but yes I did take supplements while pregnant and hadn’t learned of eating raw until my daughter was 1.

      • Hey Peggy I’m back and I’m pregnant! Only 4 weeks or so. I’m just not going to discuss my diet with my Doctor other than lots of veggies and no sugar.If I feel good and my baby is healthy its none of their business.

        • Congratulations Kaylakala! How exciting that you’re going to have a healthy Paleo pregnancy this time. Great attitude. What you eat is definitely not your doctor’s business. He is there to deliver your baby (and suggest expensive drugs and procedures) but not to control your pregnancy. Good for you!

  41. Peggy, would you mind adressing controlling weight gain? I had real problems with being somewhat in charge – when I followed my appetite I didn`t gain anything, when I force-fed myself I gained more than a pound/week. I didn`t end up gainind a lot but I was shocked how little weight was lost in the initial post-partum period. Although your weight gain was small and this might not be optimal for everyone it would be great if you could give some recommendations about how to be “in charge”. I also feel that the recommendations (25-35 pounds) are somewhat too high (I lost 15 pounds in the two weeks following delivery, if I had gained 35 pounds I would have had 20 pounds of fat to lose and I cannot imagine that it would have made my pregnancy any healthier…). So if you wouldn´t mind sharing your thoughts on it I would be happy1

    • Christa,

      I have a long chapter dedicated to weight gain in pregnancy in my upcoming book. In short, yes 25-35 lbs is too much. Women shouldn’t gain this much weight, nor should they force feed themselves when they’re not hungry. Loss of appetite is short lived in pregnancy and it is pretty much the norm for most women. The embryo will not suffer from a few weeks of a scanty appetite.

  42. Peggy, would you mind sharing a little more about how to be “in charge” of the weight gain? I had difficulties when I was pregnant: When I ate according to my appetite I didn`t gain an ounce, when I started to “force feed” myself I gained more then a pound/week. Also, I was shocked at how little weight is lost in the initial postpartum period. Though your weight gain of 13 pounds (which was perfect in your case) might not be attainable or desirable for everyone, 25-35 pounds might be too much (I lost 14 pounds in the two weeks following birth, gaining 35 pounds would have left me with 21 pounds of fat to lose which wouldn´t have made my pregnancy or my baby any healthier!). I know is is a controversial issue but I would love to learn about your system of weight management!

  43. Absolutely true! Many kids who don’t eat unhealthy diets do exhibit a few healthy behaviors and likewise, many kids who are healthy exhibit less than desirable behaviors. I think the point I was trying to make is that as a whole my daughter and I came out very healthy as a whole. I produced a lot of milk, felt great, didn’t gain excessive weight, didn’t get depressed, had energy. It wasn’t just one of those things. My daughter latched on to the nipple easily, rested peacefully, didn’t cry much at all, was smart, had great poops, walked and talked well and in good time, smiled all the time, got straight teeth, etc. That doesn’t mean that she or I didn’t have a single annoying affliction of any kind, but that we missed out on much of the suffering that people these days face.

  44. I think that the recommendation to increase calories by 200-300/day is flawed as most of the new tissue that is built is lean tissue (placenta, uterine muscle, even most part of the fetus) which require less calories than 3500/pound as fat does (James Clapp mentions it in his book on exercise). I wonder, however, if weight gain in pregnancy mostly depends on calories that are increased because of increased appetite or if hormones promote fat storage in some women. I have a friend who gained excessively with both pregnancies and is left with 36 pounds of fat to lose after her second baby who swears she didn`t it differently than pre-pregancy. I don`t know enough about what the different hormones do but I have difficulties in believing this…

  45. Hi Peggy,

    Please write a cookbook for parents! My one year old just started eating solid foods (he was exclusively breastfed for the first year). He likes pemmican, green smoothies with avocado (spinach, cucumber, 1/2 avocado, 2 peeled lemons, stevia), some fruit. I just tried him on some homemade chicken broth (he wasn’t a fan). Could you be bribed into writing an e-book recipe guideline for kids?

  46. Hi Peggy

    Than you for great article and sharing the experience.

    I have a small question on the menu:
    How many fruits daily did you eat?

    • I wouldn’t recommend more than a couple pieces a day. I don’t recall exactly how much I ate personally. You don’t want to be low carb while you’re pregnant so try to eat a mix of carbohydrate foods like a little fruit, sweet potato, and other things.

  47. Would you mind giving a sample menue you enjoyed when were pregnant? Your diet seemed to be more “conventionally” primal during pregnancy(with veggies and some starch) so this might be a guideline for most readers. You managed to grow a perfectly healthy baby while not gaining a lot of weight – some details are welcome :-)!. I also didn´t gain much and my kid is healthy (thanks god) although my diet (though not unhealthy) was more random and not as perfect as it might be. Next time I would like to be well prepared and have a plan!

    • I am writing a chapter on eating the book I’m writing about pregnancy, and it is definitely not an example of my weird diet right now! I’ll try to post something soon about what I did (as much as I can remember) and what I think now is a good idea.

  48. I am looking forward to your book! And your diet isn`t “weird”, it is extreme and radical and not for everyone but it seems to be what is perfect for YOU right now!

  49. i would so love to know your meal plans! i am 5wks pregnant with baby #5 and my goal is too only gain baby and no extra fat!! i’ve been doing eating paleo as best as I can for a couple months now but I feel like I might not be eating enough. It worries me now especially since i am pregnant. Can you help? Thanks! I also do Crossfit.

  50. Thank you so much for your story, as well as for your entire blog.
    I am currently 6 weeks pregnant with my 5th child. My first four were premature and had to spend time in the NICU after delivery. Two of them also have fairly severe food allergies/ intolerance. Obviously, I would like this time around to be different. I have been grain-free for about 6 months now and did a full “30 Day Paleo Challenge”, which I got unintentionally pregnant halfway through. I was steadily losing weight prior to getting pregnant and have not lost any since. I am at 131 lbs and 5′ 1″. Not huge, but definitely still have excess body fat. My question is this. What do you consider to be an ideal pregnancy diet? Is it different than a regular primal/ paleo diet? Also, I tend to not feel my best after eating fruit and even some veggies, so is it alright to have a diet of mostly meat and fats (including raw dairy) while pregnant or will I be missing any nutrients? Thank you in advance for any advice you can give. It is so appreciated!
    Danielle

  51. I was paleo for about 3 months before I found out I was pregnant and I was so excited to have a paleo pregnancy i am about 8 weeks and have all day morning sickness :-/ but I am hoping I will feel better soon….. Is there any natural foods that I can eat that will help with morning sickness I’ve been having gluten free bread and GF bagels and GF pretzels to settle my stomach but now im getting chunky having all these stupid carbs! what ratio of fat, carbs and protein do you recommend for a pregnant women?

    I also notice which Ive known forever that when I eat carbs or sugar like 2 days later my hair will fall out…. when I dont eat that stuff it still falls out by not as drastic….. before I got pregnant i tried to experience with carbs and trying to see which foods were better for my hair but I couldnt figure it out I dont know if you have any insight or advice with this awful problem im 28 and have been tested for thyroid and all that I was told i might have PCOS but i fixed most of those problems with food just cant fix the hair problem its been going on for like 4 years!

  52. Any thoughts on this:http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/19/us-exercise-limit-pregnancy-weight-gain-idUSTRE79I71V20111019? I was quite surprised – how can diet NOT have an influence on weight gain? Exercise might be dependend on if you make up for it with additional calories but I think a good diet has a great impact. Either the hadline is misleading concerning the fact that THE COUNCELLING didn´t help (for the women didn´t follow the advice)or they received bad advice (which I doubt in this case because even conventional advice – eat more veggies and lean protein and limit sweets – is somewhat reasonable in helping the overweight.)Sorry if I double-posted but my first try to comment went lost, that is at least what it seems right now..

  53. Did you continue with intermittent fasting while pregnant/breastfeeding? There isn´t much information on this (Johnny at “Lean Saloon” reports that his wife continued with 12-16 hours fasts- though 12 hours isn´t fasting for me, it is my usual interval between dinner and breakfst -). I am asking because when I was pregnant I suffered from “evening sickness” until about 16 weeks and had to force myself to have dinner which I dreaded. I was scared to skip it because you read so much how pregnant women have to eat very frequently…I think this issue deserves to be discussed, advice for pregnant women is sometimes so overly careful that I think it misses some common sense!

    • I wasn’t into intermittent fasting back then! But I have read in a number of places that a woman should listen to her body even while she is pregnant. If there is a period of some weeks during which a woman doesn’t feel very hungry, that’s fine. 12 hours is not a fast. That is the space between dinner and breakfast and that is fine, but I don’t see much reason for a woman to continue intermittent fasting while pregnant. If she were somewhat ill, the autophagy might be therapeutic but otherwise, I would follow my body and save the strict fasting schedule for later.

  54. Peggy,
    I was reading your entry and it moved me completely. I used to work for a family that was raw/gluten/soy/dairy free. I was a nanny to a three year old that was on the autism spectrum. The mother was convinced that he developed this brain injury when he was 12 months old, and he fell on a set of keys that went straight through his eye socket. His mother took him to the hospital where he then got a vaccination that set him back developmentally. She started to research neurological reorganization in order to get him back on track developmentally. I know that you mentioned that you wore your child a great deal for the first two years. Id like to know how much creeping and crawling your daughter did as an infant. The first year is the most primitive stage in a child’s life. I have been teaching and studying primitive reflexes and patterns for four years now as well as fetal patterning under Bette Lemont, and The Institutes of Achievement for Human Potential. I think you would find this movement to be very interesting and I am always looking for more open minded individuals such as yourself to share this work with. Thanks for reading this, and thank you for all the info you have shared with me through your website.

    • Jessica, she did tons of creeping and crawling – probably more than most babies these days because I didn’t restrain her to some protective chair or playpen. I did not use a play pen. I just kept a very simple home which she was free to roam in. I carried her while I did chores, when I was out shopping, when I was out for a walk, basically whenever I wasn’t able to pay attention to her.

      • I am loving your blog and learning so much! We have a lot in common :) My second child is paleo all the way and I see the same things you describe in this post. We practice AP with both our kids and I say the same thing, “We didn’t place our kids in another cave, did we? LOL” We are thinking of moving to Colorado next summer, around South Denver, and would love to learn more about that as well :)

  55. Great point, Katie!

    My son has never had sugar/grains/dairy, and at 15 months, he is still breastfeeding as well. (I am also on a paleo diet.) However, he has a STRONG personality that I would attribute to genetics over what he eats.

    I had a completely natural birth – no drugs at all – and he still didn’t latch well in the beginning. In fact, it took him almost 5 weeks to get his sucking organized, and we were only attempting to feed him at the breast or “finger feeding with a tube” with expressed milk. (I met with the lac consultant so many times that she gave me her cell#.) He just would get frustrated right away when he was hungry, and that determined little attitude still remains today. I’m sure having two strong-willed, first-children as his parents plays into that more than anything else. He started crawling at 6 months and walking at 10 months, which I think was due to this desire to “be places!”.

    Likewise, with sleeping, he didn’t get into a good rhythm until he was about 9 months old. At that point he’d still wake once per night for feeding (which most sleep experts would say is normal for that age), and he didn’t sleep through the night until 11 months old.

    It was a HARD first year, but we love the fun, exploratory, happy side of our kiddo as well.

    Thanks for sharing your story, Peggy.

  56. I am pregnant with our first baby… I too probably needed start being a bit stricter with my paleo eating knowing we were trying (and not succeeding for a while). However, I am so grateful to have access to a site like yours to help ease some of the anxiety I have about what to eat while pregnant and what to feed my baby once he/she is born. Thank you very much! Please keep the info coming ! Xo

  57. Hi Peggy,
    I just found out yesterday that I am offically preggers(5 weeks + days) and really want to stick to primal through the pregnancy but was wondering… did you take prenatal vitamins while pregnant?
    Also, as far as seafood, I’m a big fan of all seafoods, especially oysters and anything they serve in sushi restaurants… how much was your seafood intake? did you erred on the side of caution as described by the medical community or did you eat them freely without reservation?

    Thanks for your input.

  58. Thank you so much for this post! This was exactly what I was looking for. My husband and I have been low-carb/wheat-free since September, and just quit eating grains and legumes altogether right before the New Year. We are now TTC, and I was looking for confirmation that I don’t need to add grains back into the diet. Mark Sisson allows “high-training athletes” quinoa and wild rice, and I thought, does a pregnant woman count as a “high-training athlete?” After reading this, though, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing, and trust that I’m taking care of my body.

    Thanks again for the encouragement!

  59. I was curious what you give your daughter to drink after she stopped feeding. Just water? I’ve heard some people dilute juices, but I hate that idea too. So much sugar. My husband definitely wants whole milk in their diet cause he loves it. I’m not feelin great about it, but I guess a cup or two a day wouldn’t be awful. But other than that…water?

    Thanks!

    • I gave her water and raw milk from pastured cows. I never gave her juice, not even diluted – fruit yes, juice no. Most of the time, though, she drank water.

  60. Peggy – was googling for Paleo blogs to share with some of my fellow PCOS “cysters” and sooooo glad I came across yours! I’m about 6 months PP from my 2nd pregnancy and really wanting to change our household to a Primal way of eating and living. I can’t eat quite the way you do though because of my food allergies – mainly seafood – but I plan to make my own Paleo diet with the staples that I am able to eat! Totally sharing your blog with my cysters and other Primal mamas and can’t wait to hear about the release of your book(s)!

    • You wouldn’t want to eat the way I eat anyway! lol. And most people don’t need to. Over the last year, in fact, my need for such strictness has ebbed. I hope some of my suggestions work for you!

  61. Peggy,

    I am so inspired by your story – it brought me to tears, for many reasons. I have no children yet, but have recently gone to a “Paleo” diet…and I’m continuing to make more and more changes regarding that lifestyle. I’m not overweight and have no diagnosed hormone imbalances (although I have seen many changes for the positive re: my acne and menstrual cycle just in 1 month of eating a Paleo diet), but I just want to be healthy to raise a healthy family. This story is the exact reason why I am so into my health and fitness…not b/c of the weight loss/management that is so effortless with primal eating habits, but b/c of what is in store for me, my husband, and our unborn children in the future. I am the friend of many who have children and a 1st grade teacher so I am witness to many behaviors and antics that, in my opinion, are affected by what is in each child’s body. I cringe when I hear my friends say “Well, it’s easy for you to be Paleo with no kids, it’s not that easy with a family. Just wait.” I don’t have the credibility of being a mom to share with them that it can help. So thank you for posting this – I’m going to share it with everyone that will read it! I look forward to following you!

    Meghan

    • Meghan,

      I am thrilled that I have been able to offer inspiration! Of course all children are different as are all circumstances while raising them, but I think it is clear from the experience of modern day Paleo parents and from the observation of traditional peoples that good, healthy kids are possible. I wish you the best when you are ready to start your own family!

  62. If only I had known…we’ve had four children who are now 15, 12, 10 and 6. I was sicker than a dog, gained quite a bit, and fed myself carbs all day long to keep the nausea away when I was pregnant. I have thyroid issues, dry skin and aching joints. I feel almost angry that I was fed the way I was and that I didn’t know and fed my children the same.

    Any other moms who feel like it’s just too late for their family? I know it’s not, and sure I can adjust what we have in the house, and what I buy, but it’s just so drastic for the older kids who have eaten bread/cereal their entire life. I feel kind of defeated before I even start. We are trying to implement paleo as much as we can, but I feel almost cruel taking away what they have learned to love and what I thought was healthy. Twelve grain bread, oatmeal, granola, brown rice…I’ve got a daughter that hates eggs in all forms–she gags. And a son that can’t stand any salad of any kind, no matter how much I force him to eat it. They have been like this their entire life and I don’t know how to make them like these things that are so good for them.

    We are the perfect candidates for a reality show–“How to Get Your Whole Family to Love Paleo in 30 Days…”

    Anyways, kudos to you. You look AMAZING and I think you are 100% right in what you’ve done with your eating. Wish I was starting over 15 years ago!

  63. I’ve been doing some research lately on primal eating, but have not fully made the switch yet. My son is almost one, and he has only had veggies, fruit, and eggs in addition to breast feeding. I was wondering what I should give him when I stop breast feeding. Whole raw milk? Or something else? Anything else I should be feeding him in general? What do you recommend for a primal friendly birthday cake?

    Thanks!

    • Hi Krista,

      I’d love to write a post on first foods once I have a little more time. Some of the foods I fed my daughter in the first year and half included shredded raw liver mixed with egg yolk, banana and egg yolk, bone broth soups (the veggies and meats are super soft and you mix them with a little broth to make a baby food consistency), bites of fish, homemade cultured raw milk mixed with all of those things.

      I do not personally recommend a “primal friendly” birthday cake. 1 year olds are too young to know what they’re missing and it is still too young to introduce sugar or any kind of processed food. Personally, I didn’t even throw a 1st birthday party (of course I will this time around with another kid in the picture). For her second and third we did not have cake or anything sweet. We just had good company and good food. The adults felt like they were missing something with no birthday cake, but she wasn’t the wiser.

      • Thank you for the information! How do you make homemade cultured raw milk? Is that what you have when you stopped breast feeding?

  64. Hi Peggy,
    First of all, excuse if my writing is not perfect, but English is not my first language.
    I have read your blog occasionally in the last year as my kids, husband and I have changed to a grain- and sugar free diet (and avoiding bad vegetable oils, margarine and other bad stuff) 02since beginning of this year. We are far from where you are, but quite happy and maybe we’ll take it a bit further in the future, but as for now, I feel we’re doing pretty good!
    Read this post today and just feel I want to comment. My second child was born a year and a half ago. The labour was very quick (or I didn’t realise that I was in labour until it was too late – kept thinking it was the Braxton-Hicks… lol.
    Anyway, so the labour was very quick (but sure intense and very painful!!) and my daughter was born in the car en route to hospital, delivered by my husband. When the head was out my husband noticed that the cord was wrapped around her neck 3 times…! He managed to unwrap it before the body was born. All went fine and she is perfectly healthy. My point is that it makes me very sad to hear that you had to have a c-section because of the cord being wrapped, as that obviously doesn’t need to be a hinder! And now I’m sooo glad that I didn’t make it to the hospital as they probably would have cut me open!! My dr actually wanted to deliver my baby by c-section a week earlier as the scan estimated her weight to 3,8 kg (which isn’t even much!) and in the end she was 3,3 kg born a week later.
    My daughter spent her first year screaming, very tiring for us all. We are currently trying to conceive for a third child, and I’m so curious to see if the pregnancy and baby’s first year will be different, thanks to my improved diet. I hope so! :-)
    Keep up the good work!
    Love
    Weronika

    • Wow, what a story! Something straight out of the movies. :) Good job!

      I have heard many accounts of midwives unwrapping the cord on the baby’s way out. I’ve always wondered how things might have been different if we’d done it at home with a midwife. Cord wrap might not be so much of a problem (as it wasn’t for you) in a quick labor but I can see how it might be very dangerous in a long labor. My labor with Evelyn was somewhat artificial with the fear that started in me, the drugs to stop labor, the glucose IV, the drugs to start labor again. Labor went on for hours and hours and the pitocin contractions were essentially strangling her. So, after many hours of all that, obviously, cesarean was necessary but in another situation? Who knows. Maybe it wouldn’t have been. That’s the thing, you never really know if all the tragedies that are “prevented” in hospitals weren’t actually brought on by being in the hospital to begin with. If you had had a heart rate monitor hooked up to you and the contractions were pulling on the cord, I suspect they would have cut your daughter out too. Thank god for your husband! What an amazing experience.

  65. Hi Peggy- love your blog! My husband and I have been primal for about 9 months now and we are feeling amazing! We are starting to think about having a baby in the near future and I am SO excited to eat/live this way during. I am thinking alot about after the birth and was wondering if you would be willing to speak more about your decision to not vaccinate. I am a biologist and when I read the primal blueprint- like you it immediately resonated. As I read the research associated with CW and of course SAD diet and now things that I took for granted like vaccinations, I am feeling a bit like Dorothy as she steps out from her black and white Kansas into the technicolor worl of OZ…

    • Hey Maria, after all this time I have finally been putting together some posts on vaccines. One of them is up today! It’s a tough decision to make for a lot of parents.

  66. I really enjoyed this post. I am new to Paleo and trying to conceive our 4th child. I was wondering if you drank milk while you were pregnant. I don’t normally, but I remember wanting it so badly when I was pregnant my last 3 times.

    • I didn’t drink milk at all with my first pregnancy. With number two I gave in to cravings but wish I hadn’t. Dairy is both addictive, displacing many other nutritious foods, and it is also inflammatory for me.

  67. This is amazing, thank you for sharing! I started paleo when my daughter was six months and she has been eating everything I eat from the moment she started solids. I only wish I had started sooner. She is now 13 months and eats everything, fish, meat, fruits, veggies, and good fats as well as still breastfeeding. A lot of my friends kids refuse to eat anything fresh and processed foods are staples in their diets. I am a huge advocate of attachment parenting and co sleeping also. I feel judged sometimes by others and have realized that I cant feel bad because they have not chosen to make the same commitment to their children’s health. I actually feel enlightened and it is so good to read your story. I know what we’re doing is right, thank you for sharing!

  68. I just stumbled upon your website via facebook and thank goodness. I am 29 years old, live in Colorado, and about a year ago started finding out about the paleo/primal way of living. It’s exactly how I’ve always felt about how to take care of our bodies etc, but I had never researched more into my intuition. I just kept eating and exercising the way I was brought up, thinking we were a healthy family but falling for every “healthy” T.V gimmick out there. My fiance is from New Zealand and just moved here permanently with me. In New Zealand their culture is so much more aware of natural health, active lifestyles, and promote mid-wives and as much of the natural birthing as possible. Here however most of my friends think paleo/primal is hippy and a fad, and natural birthing is just ridiculous. Thus being said, he and I are trying to find like-minded people to surround ourselves with.
    We are getting married in May and hoping for babies in the near future. I am going to libraries and trying to read up on paleo pregnancy’s so I can have the knowledge to give our child the healthiest life possible, but I have found your blog so much more interesting and real. Thank you

    • Congratulations on your engagement Jessica and welcome to Colorado! It’s a beautiful place with so many fun and health minded people. I recommend reading Deep Nutrition. Such an amazing book for women. And, of course, my book on pregnancy will be out in April!

  69. You are the most inspiring woman to me right now! I have been eating traditional foods for a couple of years now, and have just started eating low carb (higher fat) a few weeks ago… it helped me finally get my energy back up from pregnancy/delivery 16 months ago!!
    I am gearing up for my next pregnancy (in about another year or so and I expect a smoother, more energetic experience due to this big change in my eating.
    Thank you for sharing your low carb/paleo pregnancy success! I know I will need the encouragement when I have to face conventional, well-intentioned people during pregnancy. ;-)
    (By the way, cooking is SO much easier without soaking/fermenting grains and legumes. Low Carb has saved me time, too – A major plus for a mom!)

    • Wow pregnant one, that’s great! My pregnancy with Evelyn was fairly low carb but my second pregnancy was not. Energy was never a problem for either. Certain foods sap my energy and high carb certainly does too, but moderate and low are both fine for me. Just do whatever works. But remember, if you do start to feel low on energy, it might help to increase your carbs. Be flexible. While you are pregnant and breast feeding you have more need for glucose.

  70. Your child is beautiful!!! Wow! I’m inspired!

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