Forget Paleo or Whole30—when it comes to popular diet plans, the ultra high-fat, low-carb keto diet is king these days. But what is the keto diet, and why does it have people shunning bread, pasta and fruits for cheeses, meats and avocados? And is the keto diet safe while you’re pregnant? The short answer: no, pregnant women shouldn’t go keto. Read on to find out why experts recommend moms-to-be steer clear of this trendy eating plan. The keto diet short for ketogenic diet generally requires consuming 75 percent of your daily calories from fat, 20 percent from protein and just 5 percent from carbohydrates. Unlike some low-carb diets that recommend nixing sugar and processed grains like white bread and pasta, going on the keto diet also means eliminating nearly all carbs from your diet, including fruits, whole grains and some vegetables.
When Carolina Cartier discovered she was pregnant with twins this past March, she never questioned whether she would continue eating a ketogenic diet. The year-old Seattle area woman had been plagued by metabolic issues literally all her life: precocious puberty; polycystic ovarian syndrome PCOS by age 14; weight gain of lbs kg on her 6 foot cm frame and pre-diabetes by her 20s. Her PCOS caused her ovaries to be enlarged and covered in cysts. She was told she was infertile and likely never able to have children. In August , aged 28, her health was so poor that she went on medical disability from her job as a financial analyst. That first month off, however, she discovered and adopted the ketogenic diet. Between summer and February , she lost lbs 54 kg, experienced her first ever natural menstrual period that gradually established into a regular day cycle; her blood sugar normalized and her ovaries reduced to 3. Her long-standing depression lifted. While she lost two early pregnancies at the start of , she knew she was getting healthier every day. Her positive pregnancy test in March was a happy surprise, as was the news soon after that she was carrying healthy twins. Except for a bout of extreme nausea and sea sickness for a week on a low-carb cruise early in this pregnancy, she has adhered to the ketogenic diet now through to 20 weeks of pregnancy and counting. She plans to continue this way of eating for the rest of her life.
The increasing use of the ketogenic diet KD, particularly by women of child-bearing age, raises a question about its suitability during gestation. To date, no studies have thoroughly investigated the direct implications of a gestational ketogenic diet on embryonic development. To fill this knowledge gap we imaged CD-1 mouse embryos whose mothers were fed either a Standard Diet SD or a KD 30 days prior to, as well as during gestation. Images were collected at embryonic days E At E A ketogenic diet during gestation results in alterations in embryonic organ growth. Such alterations may be associated with organ dysfunction and potentially behavioral changes in postnatal life. The Ketogenic Diet KD is a high fat, low carbohydrate, adequate protein diet, which has been gaining support as a lifestyle diet for weight maintenance [ 1 ] and body-building purposes in healthy adults [ 2 ].
But what exactly is the keto diet? According to the Cleveland Clinic, the keto diet is a high-fat diet that switches you from burning glucose which carbs provide to burning ketones which fat produces for energy. Instead of storing fat, you burn it. No on brown rice, but yes on cheese.