Pregnancy can bring all sorts of health challenges, but making sure you get enough magnesium can help prevent some of those challenges and is beneficial for you and your baby.
According to Livestrong, magnesium helps build and repair tissues and can help even out blood sugar levels. When you are pregnant, your need for this important nutrient increases. Magnesium also helps prevent uncomfortable leg cramps. You can get magnesium through your diet, but if you are still deficient, it may be best to supplement.
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Magnesium plays an important role in the health of your baby, too. Studies have shown that women who are deficient in magnesium have a higher risk of premature delivery, which can be dangerous for your baby,
explains Dr. Marilyn Glenville, a registered nutritionist and one of the United Kingdom’s leading authorities on women’s health. Women who had higher levels of magnesium deliver babies with higher Apgar scores, an important measure of an infant’s vital signs minutes after birth. Women taking magnesium also have less chance of delivering a baby with low birth weight.
Baby Center says magnesium and calcium naturally work together to benefit the body during pregnancy. They provide guidelines for how much magnesium a pregnant woman needs daily by age:
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• Under 18: 400 mg or 360 mg if breastfeeding
• Age 19-30: 350 mg and 310 mg if breastfeeding
• Age 31 and over: 360 mg or 320 if breastfeeding
Baby Center says it is not difficult to get magnesium through a proper diet as long as you eat plenty of dark, leafy greens like spinach or Swiss chard, whole grains, seeds, and fish. Just 1 ounce of pumpkin seeds provides 151 mg of magnesium while 3 ounces of halibut provides 90 mg.
Some signs you may not be getting enough magnesium include nausea, muscle twitching, irregular heartbeat, weakness, insomnia, fatigue, weakness, and poor memory.
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