Author Topic: Pregnancy and Protiva?  (Read 4691 times)

jeromedawg

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Pregnancy and Protiva?
« on: December 08, 2016, 11:49:02 PM »
Hey all,

So my wife told me for her 28th week appt that her doctor said she is low on protein and iron. She's going to start taking iron but the doc also recommended Protiva... has anyone heard of or taken that stuff? It seems like protein powder specifically formulated for women, and it's like $50 for a bag of 30 servings! Can't she just eat more meat?


Kakashi

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2016, 12:11:45 AM »
I mean, yes she can, but it's a moot pointr.  Your wife is going to want the Protiva.   Cuz you know...the doctor said so...and it's for the baby.

StiffUpperLip

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2016, 12:26:26 AM »
Meat, fish, eggs, milk, beans... There are loads of options I'd go for before paying for protein powder! Why choose an expensive yucky form over yummier alternatives?

I've been there in both pregnancies and just ate more eggs and drank lots of milk - got a lot of other lovely vitamins and minerals from these sources alongside too :-)

(and I wouldn't just assume that she will want the protein powder 'cos the doc said so', we're not sheep you know!)

notactiveanymore

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #3 on: December 09, 2016, 09:08:39 AM »
She's got 12 weeks left, so you're looking at $150 total for this. Hopefully that's not the only factor in the decision calculus.

If your wife wants to try and increase protein through diet and not protein powder, then she should ask the doctor for guidance on how many more grams of protein a day she needs to try and hit. Then she can track and monitor her meals.

Personal anecdote, I recently started trying to pay attention to my macrobiotic intake and increase protein in my diet. It's really freaking hard without supplementing with protein powder. I imagine this would be especially true if you cannot eat deli meat or many kinds of fish. Or if you're dealing with any additional food aversions.


jeromedawg

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #4 on: December 09, 2016, 09:36:23 AM »
She's got 12 weeks left, so you're looking at $150 total for this. Hopefully that's not the only factor in the decision calculus.

If your wife wants to try and increase protein through diet and not protein powder, then she should ask the doctor for guidance on how many more grams of protein a day she needs to try and hit. Then she can track and monitor her meals.

Personal anecdote, I recently started trying to pay attention to my macrobiotic intake and increase protein in my diet. It's really freaking hard without supplementing with protein powder. I imagine this would be especially true if you cannot eat deli meat or many kinds of fish. Or if you're dealing with any additional food aversions.

Thanks, well for sure it would be a good thing to eat more red meat (for protein AND iron) :D We'll see... I wonder if she could take standard protein powder.

KCM5

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2016, 09:46:45 AM »
When I was pregnant I was told to aim for 100g protein per day. That felt pretty impossible. But I did usually get about 80.

Has your wife figured out how much protein she's eating daily? How much more protein does she need?

Pro tip: real Greek yogurt (like Fage) has a crazy amount of protein.

But really, it does seem easier to just buy the supplement rather than going crazy about protein/iron. But I'm sometimes quite stubborn about not doing things the easy way.

NeonPegasus

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2016, 12:17:27 PM »
Something is weird here. While you test for protein in the urine, the point is to ensure you aren't showing signs of preeclampsia, one of the symptoms of which is spilling protein in urine. I've never had a doctor look at protein levels for any other reason and I've been around the block 3 times, most recently 3 years ago.

Re iron. It's for more for her than the baby. By this point, her circulatory system has expanded by 50% to supply the baby. That can seriously tax iron reserves. If all goes well, she won't lose much blood during delivery and even then, she's going to be exhausted and would do a lot better if she's not starting out anemic. So, yes, she needs supplements. Also, she should consider taking colace along with it because they can be very constipating. Colace is very safe during pregnancy. I took it daily with all three of mine. Red meat is good and eating citric acid (e.g. tomato sauce) with it can improve absorption.

Re protein. Yes, she needs a good amount of protein but I wouldn't go overboard. A lot of people espouse the Dr. Brewer's diet (which is pretty high protein) to grow healthy babies. It also leads to excess weight gain and very large babies that some women later regret. I have known women who did the Brewer diet with one pregnancy, gained a bunch of weight and had a difficult delivery of a large baby, and then chose to eat more normally with subsequent pregnancies and gained less weight and had easier deliveries. I would recommend that she make a point of eating 10-30 grams per meal with every meal because it will help to keep her blood sugar levels steady. 10 grams is like 2 eggs. 30 grams is like 150 grams of chicken (maybe 1/2-2/3 of a large chicken breast). Non fat greek yogurt has lots of protein too. But anyway, if I were her, I wouldn't stress out about it unless she's having problems (like hyperemesis or poor weight gain).

ChpBstrd

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2016, 02:04:57 PM »
I agree with the posts about more eggs and yogurt for protein. These seem like much simpler ways to get protein than the supplements, but I've found that no doctor wants to prescribe dietary changes if they can help it. People at the doctor's office want a prescription, not a weekly menu. Vegans might have some trouble with this, but then there are soy and beans.

Iron, however, might be a different story. You can get a month's supply at the dollar store for $1. The only cheaper route would be to drink from a jar of rusty nails in water, which I don't advise!

However, in general I was wary of all these supplements during our pregnancy. Supplements are not FDA regulated, and studies have shown that most to not contain what the label claims they contain. Some even contain industrial toxins. No one is checking.

That said, we did go on experimental-dose-levels of lecithin during pregnancy based on scientific evidence suggesting it might protect against schizophrenia, which runs in one side of my family and confers about a 3% chance on my offspring. (Yes, with doctor's permission) So far, our 2 year old is cuter than either of us and very smart too.

Kakashi

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2016, 09:20:07 PM »
(and I wouldn't just assume that she will want the protein powder 'cos the doc said so', we're not sheep you know!)

Well OP has been silent on this one.  I just went with a guess of what OP's wife would say.  I think she's going to turn to you and say, "seriously to save $150 you would jeopardize the health of our baby?"  I just think that the maternal instinct would kick in, which, if I were to generalize, I would say is probably a bit irrational and overprotective.

Anyways, just so you guys understand how most doctors work.  They generally have some guidelines they follow.  They don't do the "well this worked for me so try it and see", which is what you get once you go on internet forums.  "This worked for me" confers a sample size of 1.  What works for 1 does not necessary work work for the majority.  And it all boils down to statistics.  (I'm making this up by the way) So let's say a study shows that if her protein level is less than 4 will confer low birth weight and poor feeding syndrome in 1 out of 20 babies.  And if you get the protein level up to 6 by the time of delivery will drop it down to 1 out of 100 babies.  Let's say a second study shows women who go on the protein supplementation is twice as likely to hit target protein levels as women who don't. 

Now, what would you recommend if you were the doctor?  Would you say, "well let's just not recommend anything since 95% chance this baby will do just fine regardless."  Or do you recommend to go on protein supplementation because statistically it will give the baby the lowest liklihood of poor outcome. 

Again, I completely made the above up.  But that's why you can't apply common sense to medicine. 



jeromedawg

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Re: Pregnancy and Protiva?
« Reply #9 on: December 09, 2016, 09:34:53 PM »
(and I wouldn't just assume that she will want the protein powder 'cos the doc said so', we're not sheep you know!)

Well OP has been silent on this one.  I just went with a guess of what OP's wife would say.  I think she's going to turn to you and say, "seriously to save $150 you would jeopardize the health of our baby?"  I just think that the maternal instinct would kick in, which, if I were to generalize, I would say is probably a bit irrational and overprotective.

Anyways, just so you guys understand how most doctors work.  They generally have some guidelines they follow.  They don't do the "well this worked for me so try it and see", which is what you get once you go on internet forums.  "This worked for me" confers a sample size of 1.  What works for 1 does not necessary work work for the majority.  And it all boils down to statistics.  (I'm making this up by the way) So let's say a study shows that if her protein level is less than 4 will confer low birth weight and poor feeding syndrome in 1 out of 20 babies.  And if you get the protein level up to 6 by the time of delivery will drop it down to 1 out of 100 babies.  Let's say a second study shows women who go on the protein supplementation is twice as likely to hit target protein levels as women who don't. 

Now, what would you recommend if you were the doctor?  Would you say, "well let's just not recommend anything since 95% chance this baby will do just fine regardless."  Or do you recommend to go on protein supplementation because statistically it will give the baby the lowest liklihood of poor outcome. 

Again, I completely made the above up.  But that's why you can't apply common sense to medicine.

I think she very slightly feels that way (in terms of maternal instinct/overprotectiveness) but moreso, I think she also thinks having to take a supplemental protein powder is a little weird... especially since she didn't do it for the firstborn and we have the same doc. Not that all pregnancies are the same, but I've never heard of a doc advising a pregnant lady to take protein powder. Then again, it's not like I've had a ton of kids either. For something like this though, it would just seem like they would recommend that she make sure she's getting enough meat, etc in her diet and not fallback to protein powder. Iron supplements, prenatal vitamins, etc I've heard of all that... just not this Protiva stuff (hence, why I'm posting and asking about it).

As far as what the doctor actually said about what this means for my wife and/or baby, it seemed she was saying that lack of protein would just take a harder toll on my wife during and after pregnancy, especially in the context of recovery. And she didn't really speak to the effects of [lack of] protein in terms of the baby's health directly, but it seems like the focus was more on my wife's body and her recovery. Perhaps if it were more about the baby, my wife might have that heightened sense of overprotection but that doesn't seem to be the case as much.