So you've cut caffeine, alcohol, and raw fish, started prenatal yoga and birthing classes, and detoxified your beauty routine. What's left? The one thing your prenatal vitamin probably doesn't have. Gut-friendly bacteria, aka probiotics! You can't forget about gut health during pregnancy. It's the missing ingredient to your healthiest pregnancy possible.
Importance of Gut Health
Good health begins in the gut, meaning that gut health is at the center of total health. That's a truth for both pregnant and non-pregnant women alike. Poor gut health is linked to depression, anxiety, auto-immune disease, and so much more. When you can restore your gut, your whole body can begin to heal as a result.
Microbiome balance
Your gut is teeming with tons of bacteria, some good and some bad. This is what we call our "microbiome." What we want to see is the good guys far outnumbering the bad guys, but unfortunately our busy lifestyles today can be pretty tough on the digestive system, throwing our microbiome completely out-of-whack.
Alcohol (even wine), dairy, gluten, processed foods, antibiotics, caffeine, and sugar can all be major microbiome-disruptors. The good news, is that the average person doesn't have a severely off-balance gut.
Restoring Microbiome Balance
The microbiome balance can usually be restored by simple changes in the diet like eating more whole, easy-to-digest foods, reducing intake of added sugars, and temporarily cutting back on caffeine, alcohol, and dairy.
Fermented foods are natural probiotics
Another thing we can do to give our gut a break is pop a probiotic supplement at least once a day, or increase our intake of fermented foods (which are high in natural probiotics.) These are things like sauerkraut, kimchi, and kombucha to name a few!
KeVita's Sparkling Probiotic
A favorite fermented food we love is KeVita's Sparkling Probiotic Drink that comes in several different yummy, fizzy flavors. While perfectly delicious when consumed plain, it adds a refreshing 'zing' to this smoothie (and ups the health factor for the recipe, too!)
Dreamy Probiotic Smoothie
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
- 1/2 cup frozen banana slices
- 1 handful spinach
- 1 pack of frozen acai
- 1 cup Strawberry KeVita Sparkling Probiotic Drink
- 1 scoop Vital Proteins collagen peptides
Directions:
- Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth
- Serve immediately