VALUE OF TOMATOES DURING PREGNANCY

NUTRITIONAL VALUE OF TOMATOES DURING PREGNANCY

During pregnancy, pregnant women needs a little more than the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and nutrients to make sure her baby grows healthy and strong. While your child grows, you require feed yourself nutritious meals. You would be love to know that tomatoes is one such healthy vegetable that you should snack on while pregnant.

Rich in Vitamin c and iron: You all would be glad to know that tomatoes are rich source of vitamin C, one of the many essential nutrients you need during pregnancy to keep yourself and your baby healthy and fit. Vitamin C helps in forming healthy bones, gums and teeth. Also it wonderfully helps in absorption of iron which is very important during pregnancy as pregnant women generally have higher iron needs. While your doctor may recommend additional iron supplements in your diet during pregnancy, eating tomatoes rich in vitamin C can help your body absorb the iron you take in.

Loaded in lycopene: It is rich in high amount of lycopene, an antioxidant which protects against cell damage. The National Institutes of Health notes that it’s secure for pregnant women to eat foods that contain lycopene, though the safety of lycopene supplements for pregnant women has not been adequately studied. If you are also pregnant, make sure you also enjoy the benefits of this antioxidant as it is naturally found in tomatoes.

New developments: In 2007, plant biochemists from University of Florida found out that tomato contains folate, an essential vitamin for a healthy pregnancy. Foliate deficiencies during pregnancy might cause developmental problems such as slow growth rates and birth defects and all pregnant women are advised to make sure they are getting proper amounts of nutrient. Usually found in spinach and other leafy green vegetables, genetic engineering might soon make tomatoes valuable source of folate. Before these modified tomatoes can win approval from FDA, however, more tests must be done, and it might take years before you’ll see folate-laden tomatoes in your local supermarket.

Considerations: It is true that tomatoes can provide great nutrition during pregnancy but can also cause some discomfort in some pregnant women. During second half of pregnancy, heartburn becomes a troubling ailment as the hormone progesterone relaxes the valve separating your esophagus from your stomach, causing acid reflux and burning feeling of heartburn. Acidic foods such as tomatoes can aggravate this problem and make heartburn worse.