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Posts Tagged ‘pregnancy and lactose intolerance’

If you have a lactose intolerance and are pregnant, then it is important that you pay attention to some nutritional principles to help your baby grow healthily inside you.

There are some general nutritional issues that you must be aware of and some issues specific to your lactose intolerance.

Obtaining sufficient dietary calcium can be difficult with a lactose intolerance.

Try to drink calcium enriched lactose free milk or orange juice. However, if you don’t think that you can get 600mg of calcium into your diet every day, then you should consider using a dietary supplement to help you achieve this. Take 500-1000mg of supplemental calcium every day. Don't take more and more calcium though - 2500 mg a day is the maximum you should ingest.

If your skin has limited exposure to sunlight - either because of where you live or how you dress, then consider taking supplemental vitamin D to help your baby. You should aim to take about 400 IU a day.

If you struggle to get enough vitamin D or calcium in your diet, there is a chance that your baby will have a low blood calcium level. A low calcium level will make it difficult for baby's nerves to work proplerly and this may result in your baby having a seizure. This is obviously really scary to cope with and easily prevented by taking a sensible supplement.

Another problem of having low calcium levels is that your baby's bones may not grow properly and they can develop rickets. The statistics reveal that this is a more common problem than you might expect.

For more advice go to your maternity unit and ask them.

Best of luck with your pregnancy!