I recently attended a very insightful lecture delivered in Mumbai by the Coimbatore-based Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev. In his trade mark chatty style he asked the audience, what makes a newborn (child) into an five-foot plus adult. I thought, surely life force i.e nature’s energy. But his answer was “food”. A straightforward answer from an enlightened guru.

Being a professional nutritionist he had my full attention! I had stumbled into the world of nutrition via this very route (a newborn and his food intake), seeing my infant son grow day by day purely on a diet of mother’s milk. At the age of 23 it was the second of nature’s miracles I encountered, pregnancy and the growth of a foetus being the first.

But of the two of nature’s miracles I experienced early in life, it was nursing my son and watching him grow that had me in a state of wonder, especially since I was unable to see even a drop of milk pass from mother to child. For most urban mothers it requires suspension of disbelief and great trust to believe that their newborns are receiving adequate nourishment, when they cannot measure or monitor the quantum of milk a baby receives. Distanced from nature, urban women seldom witness an animal suckle its young as nature intended.

The Sadhguru went on to add that food is simply a part of the earth. It is what we are made of and when we die, we can’t take any of it with us. We go back to becoming part of the earth.

And yet, we are less than considerate towards the very earth that nurtures us once our mothers stop doing so. Breastfeeding is a transition from the womb to becoming independent. From a mother feeding her child to Mother Earth taking over the task of nourishing her adult children, it dawned on me that we don’t just live on our good Earth, but get all our food and nourishment from it.

So in this column I propose to discuss the miracle of nutrition and development of the foetus in vitro or within the womb. A growing body of evidence indicates that after a child is conceived, the nine months in the womb are critical for its physical and emotional development. Moreover birth-four years are the critical formative years when input is crucial. The development progression of an infant after that age does not have the same significance. Therefore feeding a pregnant and breastfeeding mother and child is of paramount importance. Or should be!

But it isn’t so in the new India designed by its self-serving establishment. According to UNICEF 20 percent of India’s children below the age of five are severely malnutritioned. Quite obviously the great majority of women and children are inadequately fed. Even in urban middle class India, lifestyles divorced from nature, processed and readymade foods, pesticide poisoning, chemical fertilizers etc are capable of diluting our genetic pool.

Actually to develop healthy sperm and egg both parents of in vitro children need to be non-smokers and free of drugs, alcohol or medication at the time of conception. Moreover, it’s not only important to eat with consciousness, it’s important to be happy with your spouse because the love of parents feeds the foetus. A mother-to-be should make it a point to read books, watch films (not so much on television) that relax rather than unnerve her, and should not use a cell phone, computer, microwave or be exposed to x-rays of any kind. I feel glad that at least some of these wonder inventions didn’t exist when I became a mother.

Assuming we are aware of all these essentials, let’s venture into the nutritional needs of a mother-to-be. She doesn’t need to eat for two, unless she feels like it. She doesn’t need to drink milk if she doesn’t want to. Even while breastfeeding she doesn’t need milk. Yes, if there is something that her body derives from milk, then her urge to drink it will naturally compel her to. But to drink it in the belief that it is nutritious is wrong. The best way to understand this is to remember that cows don’t drink milk to produce milk. Indeed no mammals except homo sapiens drink the milk of other mammals.

Another pointer for mothers-to-be is to eat natural foods in the right combinations. One of the very first rules I learnt was ‘you are as healthy as your digestion is good’. Because even the best of foods, if not digested, will do no good. In this respect keeping fruits separate from your meals is most important. Fruit should be had on an empty stomach. I won’t go into details because this has been covered many times before. It is interesting to note here that during pregnancy the body functions best. So this is a good time to eat well for your own health too. The golden rule is to keep it as simple as possible. Eat one cereal per meal instead of two. The other essential change in diet is to switch to unpolished rice, rock salt and unrefined cold-pressed oil, preferably organic produce.

Left alone, the human body has the most amazing natural mechanisms to deal with any eventuality. So what does the body do when first confronted with the mating of the egg and the sperm? In most cases, it will result in nausea and a deep need to rest for hours on end with nothing being able to push the body to work. This is easily taken care of by resting, drinking lots of water with drops of fresh lime and any natural sugar. This is nature’s way of demanding rest both physical and mental, to safeguard and nurture the foetus.

Another miracle of nature is that during pregnancy women crave sour foods like amla, tamarind and lemon to enable the body to absorb calcium which is an urgent need at this stage. So bhel-purimade with some healthy ingredients could be an ideal snack.

A newborn child being the most precious art form needs your best attention and conscious care. The subject of nourishment of newborns will be covered another time.

 

(Kavita Mukhi is a Mumbai-based eco-nutritionist and director of Conscious Food)