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feeling weak

I am breast feeding my 3 month old son, but am feeling very weak since moving Raw. Any tips on what to eat or do so I can still feed him and be strong?

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  • Link to vitamins/deficiencies- http://www.vitamins-supplements.org/vitamin-def…

    You sound possibly anemic (depleted hemoglobin). I would recommend vitamin B comlex (B6, B12, folate, biotin, niacin, etc), sunlight (vitamin D), and possibly a multivitamin supplement. B12 in supplement form is necessary for vegans. For iron, I suggest you incorporate plenty of sea vegetables, dark leafy greens such as kale, chard, spinach, etc.into your diet. I find blending and juicing these dark leafy greens into smoothies breaks down the tough cellulose of the plant allowing your body to assimilate the nutrients. I have suffered anemia on several occasions,and weakness and fatigue are the general symptoms. Vitamin C is important as well. Make sure your diet is varied, and read up on the vitamins/their deficiency symptoms/and their raw food sources.

  • Consider seeing an open-minded nutritionist. I know breast feeding leaves many women FAMISHED and eating more than they ever thought possible, and if your raw experience is anything like mine, raw foods are a lot of work. I can’t even imagine combining it with a new baby!

    Finding a nutritionist and showing them what you’ve been eating could save you tons of time in pointing out whatever it is you might be deficient in. They could see it in a heartbeat and say “iron! eat more kale!” or you could play around with your diet for a few months. But I wouldn’t when you’re breastfeeding because it’s nutrition for both of you!

    Have you checked to see how many calories you were bringing in? With all the nuts, I’d guessed I was eating about 2,000 but was shocked to see I was coming in at 1450…

  • fyi kale doesn’t have iron in it, I’m NOT a nutritionist! see laraj’s answer for nutrition facts :)

  • Just to be safe I’d get to a good doctor pronto. (which unfortunately is only about 1 in a thousand.)

    You should definitely have your red blood cells tested for b12 and folate levels.

    If for some reason you don’t want to do this or can’t do this then I’d start taking methylcobalamin. (the active form of b12.) As well as a b complex that contains folic acid if you’re not taking this already. It’s possible you may need b12 injections to rapidly bring up your b12 stores.

    If you look at the medical literature on pubmed you’ll see many articles on developmental delays due to b12 and other deficiencies in vegan mothers.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pub… (type in Vegan mother b12)

    Also, look at these inspiring weston price healthy baby photos— while admittedly not every baby looks exceptional, there are enough that do look a little more robust and beautiful then normal that it makes you say “hey what’s going on here?”

    http://www.westonaprice.org/children/babies.html

    These people are all following about 80 percent of what you’re doing. plus about 20 percent liver, eggs, raw cream, and other nutrient dense foods.

  • Hi Lilt2n- I hope you feel better soon! I like what other people have to say. I would recommend wheat grass juice and spirulina added to a drink. Add more sprouted chick peas as hummus if you aren’t eating them already. One thing to remember is that certain vitamins may thin your blood like vitamin e. Almonds are high in this, and octacosanol in grapefruits can do the same thing. I would cut back on those if they are significant in your diet.

    Also if you have been napping I would try to stop for a few days and go to bed around 9pm to get you on a better sleep schedule. You may have to ask someone to help watch your baby for a couple nights so you can catch up on your sleep.

    I don’t know your situation at all but this is a guess that you really need to get some quality sleep. Good luck with everything and the little one! =)

  • Definitely see a good nutritionist/doctor. Listen to your body. I would include some cooked whole grains/manna bread and look into the possibilities of raw diary/cooked eggs. You need to be as strong and healthy feeling for yourself and your baby. I don’t know what your personal commitment to raw is, but if you are feeling depleted, something is a miss. Don’t be hard on yourself if raw is not working during this time in your life.

    Like Granola said, I am no nutritionist. Just a few thoughts.

  • Avo Cado: The trick to not getting really weird text like that is being sure not to put spaces before your sentences. If you “indent” your paragraphs, it goes all crazy like that. Also, the links work if you don’t put a space between “website link”: and the actual website link.

    Also, even though the web links seem to cut off, they still work. It’s just doing that so that your text around it looks prettier and words wrap better. It’s only trying to help, honest!

    I’ve corrected your posts for you, though. I definitely need to write some help on this for our forthcoming FAQ section!

  • Ah thank you Ray. Yeah it definitely was going all crazy on me. and then I’d try to correct it and it’d make it even worse.

    off topic, but I’ve never understood why the computer code on every forum corrects indentations. Did someone write one basic code underlying forum type structures and everyone else just copied it?

    Also, hypothetically, is it possible to change my name on here and then have the computer automatically change it for all my old posts?

    Great site Ray! Thanks for creating it.

  • Avo Cado: Yeah, the indentation thing seems to throw many folks off, so I might take that feature out of the code. If you want a different username on here, just let me know (you can write to rbrigleb@gmail.com) and I’ll change it. Once changed, all old posts will show that name too.

    This is of course one of many features we’re planning on adding when we get the time!

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