Healthy Drinks for Pregnant Women
Staying hydrated is always important, but even more so during pregnancy because your hydration needs increase. Water is a great healthy drink to be consuming, however with the amount you should be drinking while pregnant, that gets boring. Learn healthy drinks for pregnant women to sip on all summer (some are even more nutritious than water!)
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Hydration During Pregnancy
Hydration is extremely important during pregnancy. Every day your body is gaining fluids, creating blood, and building a multitude of tiny components of a brand new body inside it, most of which is composed of water. There is a good chance that you will feel extremely thirsty throughout pregnancy. Even if that is not the case, you need to remember to stay hydrated regardless.
The amount of water that you need to drink per day during pregnancy is a bit higher than the regular recommendation. Typically, eight 8 ounce glasses of water a day is seen as ideal. Add two more and you will be right at the average amount that is recommended to consume at minimum during pregnancy.
Keep in mind all nutritional guidelines are simply that, a guideline. Everyone’s body is different and each pregnancy, even each subsequent pregnancy for the same woman, is drastically different as well. Some women will require a higher amount of water per day in order to reach their own optimal level of hydration, and others might not need so much.
(Personally, I could never drink only 10 glasses of water a day without feeling extremely dehydrated even when I’m not pregnant.) Many factors come into play when determining how much water you really need to be drinking; such as body type and activity levels. But the most straightforward and accurate measure of whether you are drinking enough water for your pregnancy is to simply look at your pee. It should be a pale yellow or colorless.
What you are drinking matters.
Of course water is the recommended drink for most of your liquids, but doesn’t that get old? In addition, if you are anything like me, often during pregnancy water doesn’t even sound good. With hormones fluctuating and nausea more often than not, sometimes it really is difficult to consume that much water while pregnant.
If that is the case, what is safe to drink instead? Are there other ideal drinks that are recommended during pregnancy?
I’m happy to inform you that there are a number of wonderful choices that you can consume in addition to water to be sure you remain hydrated, that are packed with nutrition, and can actually benefit your baby’s health!
But before we delve into the ideal drinks for pregnancy hydration, let’s clarify what does not constitute a recommended pregnancy drink.
What Should You Drink Besides Water In Pregnancy?
First, know that if water fully satisfies you during your pregnancy, it is just fine to get all your hydration from water alone. Water is the ideal drink for your pregnancy.
But there are lots of ways to enhance your water to make it carry even more nutritional benefits for yourself and your baby! As well as a few other drinks that offer large benefits for you during your pregnancy.
Infused Water
This was my absolute secret weapon to staying hydrated throughout my third pregnancy. Imagine my horror when I was in my first trimester and suddenly water didn’t even taste good, and yet I was ALWAYS thirsty… and hungry… and nauseated.
I found myself waiting until I was dying of thirst so that water tasted more appealing, and then drinking about 30 ounces, feeling bloated and not wanting to eat. I began making a large pitcher of infused water every evening before bed and would finish it each day.
Adding fruits, vegetables, and herbs to your water brings new life to a vital drink that can quickly become mundane when drinking 10 or more glasses a day. Simply slice up some fruits and vegetables and add into your pitcher. Top it off with water and place in the fridge at least overnight.
The longer the fruits and vegetables sit in the water the more flavorful it will be. Infusing not only increases the flavor of your water, but it also increases its nutritional content! Water soluble vitamins including vitamin C, folate, riboflavin, and the other B vitamins leave the fruits and vegetables and enhance your water with nutrients!
The amount is small, but at a time when you are attempting to get in as many nutrients as you can without substantially increasing your caloric intake (about 100 to 300 calories a day only), any easy and delicious way to incorporate more nutrients directly derived from whole food should definitely be incorporated.
If you are attempting to wean yourself of fruit juice in your diet, infused water is a great method! By making fruit infused water with a bit of added healthy sweetener such as stevia, you will eventually completely replace fruit juice in your diet. The more sweet things you consume, the more your body has a propensity to crave them, so it is ideal to eventually wean yourself off of adding additional sweeteners to the water and simply appreciating the sweetness that fruit gives the water alone, but take baby steps.
Or even just add in additional healthy sweetener on occasion for a special treat or to crush a sweet craving. See the recipes for a bunch of delicious infused water blends.
Chia Water
Chia seeds are one of the top foods that I recommend adding into your pregnancy diet every day. (Foods you should consider adding daily for the nutrients your baby needs while preggo.) Chia seeds are rich in fiber, omega-3’s (healthy fats that are vital to consume enough to grow a healthy baby brain), phosphorus, magnesium, and antioxidants.
Chia seeds also aid in digestion, which is vital to focus on throughout pregnancy when constipation is virtually a given! Simply add ¼ cup of chia seeds to 4 cups of liquid. Alternately you can add 1 tablespoon to any 12 oz glass.
Water is ideal but any drink on this list can be super-charged by adding chia seeds (which become chia gel) into it! Stir the seeds as they have a tendency to clump as they gel. Allow to sit at least 10 minutes and stir again. The chia seeds add a fun texture and a ton of nutrients to any drink!
Red Raspberry Leaf Tea
Tea is a hugely beneficial way to enhance your water during pregnancy. But be wary of black, green, oolong, and white tea as they are known to contain fluoride and should be avoided during pregnancy.
There are seemingly endless options of tea flavors and blends, making staying hydrated much easier. Most teas have medicinal benefits as well. One great tea for pregnancy that I highly recommend drinking Red Raspberry Leaf Tea, especially every day throughout the third trimester.
Be sure when shopping that you locate tea made from the leaves of the raspberry plant, as opposed to raspberry tea created from dried berries. Red Raspberry Leaf Tea provides vitamin C, B vitamins, iron, zinc, phosphorus, and potassium and is packed with antioxidants. But Red Raspberry Leaf Tea goes far beyond being full of vitamins and nutrients required for a healthy pregnancy.
This tea actually tones the muscles in the pelvis and uterine wall. Essentially it tones the uterus and is said to improve labor, reduce bleeding after labor, and speed healing postpartum.
You should be drinking Red Raspberry Leaf Tea every day in your third trimester and even before then if you’d like. There is no defined amount of how much you should be drinking to get the best results for your pregnancy, but this tea should definitely be on your list of things to be drinking daily!
Pregnancy Tea
This is a wonderfully delicious and nutritional tea blend created by a high quality but affordable tea company called Traditional Medicinals. (I personally drink their tea daily even while not pregnant.) Traditional Medicinals Pregnancy Tea contains Red Raspberry Leaf (so it has all the benefits we just mentioned) as well as Nettle Leaf which is packed with nutrients like vitamins A, C, D and K as well as iron, potassium, and phosphorus.
In addition, Nettle tea is said to ease leg cramps, which many women suffer from in pregnancy. Along with these powerful herbs, Pregnancy Tea contains spearmint and lemon verbena to ease nausea and a couple more herbs that are beneficial during your pregnancy and create a delicious blend!
This could easily be your choice to include daily during your pregnancy as it has even more nutritional benefits than Red Raspberry Leaf Tea alone.
Lemon Ginger Tea
A staple item to keep on hand especially during the first trimester is lemon tea, ginger tea, a combination of the two, and fresh lemon and ginger so you can make your own. Both lemon and ginger are full of healthy antioxidants that strengthen your immune system (Boosting your immune system naturally is something that you want to be focusing on during pregnancy as your immune system is weakened during your gestation.)
In addition, lemon and ginger aid in all stomach discomforts but specifically in naturally easing nausea. (As a side note, having both of these essential oils on hand is extremely helpful to aiding nausea during pregnancy as well. You can either sniff the bottles, create a roller with a carrier oil for topical use, or diffuse them in your house to ease stomach discomfort.)
Peppermint Tea
This is another tea safe for pregnancy that can help to ease stomach discomfort. Peppermint tea is also known to ease headache and migraine, sinus discomforts, and improve energy. The aforementioned are all symptoms of pregnancy, primarily in the first trimester, so peppermint tea is another drink you may want to keep on hand at all times throughout your pregnancy.
Peppermint tea contains vitamins A, B6, C, E, K, Riboflavin, Folate, iron, potassium, magnesium, and more! This light tea is delicious when included in your infused water, or chia water as well!
Senna Tea
Senna is the leaf of a tree known to help ease constipation. It is FDA approved for medicinal use as a laxative, which is pretty rare for an herb. I’ve been assured by my personal OBGYN and midwives that senna is safe to use in pregnancy. Senna is only recommended if you have tried gentler laxatives and are needing something stronger, but is an important tool to know is highly effective and safe to use while pregnant.
Constipation is highly prevalent throughout all of pregnancy and can be very uncomfortable and exacerbate nausea. Traditional Medicinals also has a delicious senna tea called Smooth Move that you may want to try. Senna can cause uncomfortable cramping in your intestines (it does not cause contractions of the uterus though as previously feared) so I’ve found it best to take it before bed so you don’t feel it’s effects and simply have a bowel movement first thing in the morning.
Carbonated Water
Many women turn to ginger ale and sodas to ease the nausea that they encounter in the first trimester of pregnancy. As discussed earlier in this chapter, those are not healthy choices to make and honestly are not even the most effective. Seltzer water or carbonated water lightly flavored naturally is a much better alternative.
You are looking for flavored water (or even unflavored) without sugar or artificial sweetener (those usually contain sucralose and claim to be sugar free).
Fortunately, in recent years this type of drink has surged in popularity as people attempt to curb their soda addictions and search for healthier alternatives. Sipping a cool seltzer water or La Croix type drink is a perfect treat for a pregnant mama.
They keep you hydrated, ease nausea, and feel a bit fancy. And who doesn’t need a fancy drink when you’ve sworn off alcohol? While this is a healthier alternative than alcoholic or sugary drinks they don’t come without their own issues I should mention. Any bottled seltzer drink has been tested and found to contain PFAS (forever chemicals) as well as synthetic components deemed “generally safe” by the FDA. So while they make a great healthier alternative to sodas and other drinks, they still have issues. The safest way to get in carbonated drinks is by investing in a soda stream. I
t will cut down on waste, doesn’t include any chemicals or PFAS, and pays for itself quickly if you really love carbonated drinks.
Coconut Water
Coconut water is exactly that, the water straight out of a coconut. Not to be confused with the thick and creamy coconut milk, or sweetened juice type coconut waters. Pure coconut water is a wonderful natural source of electrolytes. If you have been vomiting from morning sickness you’ll need to replenish your electrolytes and coconut water is the perfect way to do it!
Think of coconut water as natural Pedialyte or Gatorade (which are both loaded with sugar, dyes, and chemicals.) Only 1 cup of coconut water actually contains 3 grams of fiber in addition to vitamin C, magnesium, manganese, potassium, and sodium. Coconut water is delicious on it’s own or can be mixed with chia seeds, lemon, ginger, or more for a stomach easing or refreshing treat.
Kefir
During your pregnancy it is vital to consume probiotics daily. Probiotics are the “good bacteria” that help maintain a healthy gut flora and are the backbone of your immune system.
There are high quality probiotic supplements to buy but it is always best to get as much of your nutrition as possible from your food. For most nutrients, they are much better absorbed and utilized by the body when they come directly from whole food (with only a few exceptions). The drink that contains the most concentrated amount of probiotics is known as kefir (say kuh-fear). Kefir is fermented milk that tastes like yogurt.
Merely 1 tablespoon of kefir can contain up to 150 billion CFU! Probiotic supplements typically contain about 50 to 100 billion CFU per serving. Kefir is a delicious and affordable way to get tons of those beneficial bacteria into your gut! You can buy unsweetened plain kefir at most grocery stores (Nancy’s makes a high quality) or you can learn to make your own at home.
Kombucha
Another probiotic drink that can be very beneficial during pregnancy is Kombucha. Kombucha is fermented black or green tea. Kombucha contains B vitamins, probiotics, and antioxidants and is actually wonderful for combating morning sickness as it is naturally a bit fizzy and contains B vitamins. But as mentioned before, black and green teas do contain some fluoride.
In addition there is a lot of mixed data on whether or not kombucha is safe during pregnancy. Some doctors will tell you to stay away from it because of the live cultures, while others feel quite the opposite because of the strict food safety guidelines and probiotic benefits kombucha has.
Make your own choices on drinking kombucha during pregnancy and if in doubt consult with your trusted healthcare provider. If you are very into DIY you can also get a kombucha making kit with a scoby and make you own indefinitely!
Bone Broth
Bone broth is wonderful for cooking throughout your pregnancy and even postpartum period, but you can simply drink a warm cup of lightly salted broth as well! Bone broth is available in stores or you can make your own, but it is definitely something that you want to work into your prenatal diet.
Bone broth is rich in glycine, which is the main amino acid in collagen. Your need for glycine increases exponentially during pregnancy, though there is no RDA for it. Sipping bone broth or using it in your cooking as well is a wonderful way to get all the glycine your growing baby requires.
Smoothies
Pregnancy smoothies should be a staple in your prenatal diet. A smoothie is a wonderful way to get in a whole lot of nutrients fast in a delicious way! They are a fabulous way to increase your nutrients without substantially increasing your calories, get more protein, and also satisfy your sweet tooth! Learn about how to make the perfect pregnancy smoothie and also 9 more recipes for healthy pregnancy smoothies.
