Is a Vegan Diet Safe for Pregnancy?

Nutrition and Pregnancy

Nutrition – it is hard to imagine a more important topic for vegans who wish to procreate, and you will often be asked ‘is a vegan diet safe for pregnancy’? Poor nutrition can have a profound impact on your health, and your health as would-be parents can have a profound impact on the small humans you decide to grow.

In fact, even the health of your forebears can play a role – every individual on this planet is the sum total of generations of people that go before. Mind-blowing really.

I feel the need to point out at this stage that I am not a geneticist, a doctor, or in any way medically trained. My English and French O’levels (yes, I am both that old and that uneducated) were never likely to get me into medical school…or anywhere else for that matter!

But this subject is of great interest to me for many reasons, and so I have used a combination of research (done by clever people who did go to medical school) and my experience to produce what I hope is a useful, straightforward guide to having a healthy, vegan pregnancy – if that’s what you decide to do…

My Experience of Pregnancy

During 2 of my 3 pregnancies, and whilst my children were young, I was a vegetarian, but following a largely vegan diet, although much of what I ate was accidentally vegan.

My youngest is (at the time of writing) in her late twenties, so we are talking about a time when vegetarianism was thought to be pioneering! My ignorance at the time meant that I was largely unaware of the vegan movement, although I was starting to attend the Living Without Cruelty exhibitions in London and educating myself further about the meat and dairy industries.

Following some well-intentioned, but misguided, advice from my GP I decided to re-introduce some meat back into my diet during my 3rd pregnancy. With hindsight, I needn’t have done it, but there was very little readily available advice around at that point about non-mainstream nutrition, particularly with the internet in its infancy – Google was just a twinkle in Larry and Sergey’s eyes at that time!

Not an excuse, it was a very difficult decision, but nurturing a new human is a huge responsibility and so I worked with the information and advice that I had at the time. But that is also why I am writing this. My hope is that my personal experience of vegan pregnancies makes this article informative, points you to useful resources and helps you to make the right decisions about the diet you want to follow in your pregnancy.

Never under-estimate the significance of the decisions you take during this time. It is important not to be judgemental about anyone who is trying to make the right choices about their pregnancy, whatever their ultimate decision is, although my hope is that this article helps you to choose to follow a vegan diet with confidence.

But it is your choice that you must make based on your judgement which is why having access to accurate information is so important.

Foods to Avoid in Pregnancy?

When I started my research for this article, the first thing that I came across was the list of foods to avoid during pregnancy. The UK’s NHS provides a comprehensive list here. I certainly don’t remember a list like this existing when I was having children, but it’s a great resource to have.

What’s the first thing you notice looking at this list though? For me, it was that most foods to avoid belonged under the following headings:

• Cheese, milk and other dairy
• Meat and poultry
• Eggs
• Fish
• Other foods and drinks

That’s already starting to tell me something! The only warning about fruit and vegetables is to advise you to wash them thoroughly. Oh, and don’t eat liquorice root…

But clearly, that’s not enough information to make a decision because it’s not telling you more about what you should eat. Whilst there is not a huge amount of recognised research out there about following a vegan diet during pregnancy, there is an overwhelming amount of unverified information, advice and opinion!

So, I have tried to identify the key areas you need to know more about and to present accurate information and resources clearly and objectively. Each key element is dealt with separately and I have also offered some helpful hints which might help you to boost your intake of those important nutrients.

Finally, you will also find some suggested sources for any supplements you might decide to take.

Key Nutrition Facts for a Vegan Pregnancy

Those key areas are:

• Protein
• Vitamins
  • B12
  • B9 – Folate / Folic Acid
  • D3
• Minerals
  • Calcium
  • Iron
  • Iodine
• Omega 3
• Choline

It’s important to stop at this point to say that the areas above are specific factors to consider in addition to eating a healthy plant-based diet containing lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, grains, nuts, tofu, beans, seeds and legumes. Lentils are legumes (as are peanuts) – if you’d like to know the definition of ‘legume’, see my Lentil, spinach, mushroom and potato pie recipe for more information.

So, if you are eating a variety of healthy vegan foods, all these things should already be providing you with plenty of protein, vitamins and minerals. In my humble opinion, I suspect that sensible vegans who are eating a balance of the ingredients above have a much more nutritious diet than those people who eat dead animals. But that’s an argument for another day…

However, there are certain things that you should pay particular attention to as a vegan, and some supplements are recommended. This becomes even more important if you are considering pregnancy.

OK, let’s get back to those key areas for pregnancy and look at them one by one. Before we do though, remember that you should be considering all this before you embark on producing that new human. And that goes for all parties involved in the, erm, creative process…

Vegan Vitamin B12

Approximate Requirement per day: 2.2mcg*

*Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine

Function of Vitamin B12

A lack of vitamin B12 can increase the risk of your baby developing a neural tube defect. This tube is the channel that goes on to form the brain and spinal cord, so pretty important stuff!

Good Vegan Sources of Vitamin B12

B12 does not occur naturally in the vegan diet but is often used to fortify plant-based milks, yoghurt and butter substitutes. Nutritional yeast is also a good source. Marmite contains B12 too, but you need to be careful about the salt content.
You may therefore decide to supplement this vitamin (even when you’re not pregnant it’s a good idea).

How to Boost your Vitamin B12 intake

• Sprinkle nutritional yeast on a variety of foods – it imparts a slightly cheesy flavour, so particularly good for things like scrambled tofu, sauces and ragu dishes. However, be aware that a very small number of people can experience discomfort with this product – see Healthline’s useful article for more information
• Use a teaspoon of Marmite dissolved in water or stock to add to stews and ragus – but go easy on additional salt. Nigella Lawson is famous for her Marmite spaghetti, one for all you Marmite lovers out there!
• Make yourself a hot chocolate with plant-based milk fortified with B12. A barista version will also froth up nicely – go on, you deserve it! A good example of fortified, barista style plant-based milk is Oatly
• Consider a supplement – see the section on supplements later in this blog

Vitamin B12 is also related to the efficacy of B9, commonly referred to as folate, or folic acid.

Vegan Vitamin D3

Approximate Requirement per day: 10mcg*

* Source: nhs.uk

Function of Vitamin D

This much talked about vitamin regulates calcium and phosphate levels and D3 in particular has been identified as the critical element (rather than D2 which was previously the common vegan supplement). Your skin should produce this vitamin when exposed to the sun, but many of us are unlikely to get enough exposure to fulfil our needs, even in the summer.

Again, it is a good idea to supplement this (although you should be careful not to take too much) and there is now a good lichen-based source of D3 available in vegan supplements.

Good Vegan Sources of Vitamin D3

• Mushrooms – particularly if exposed directly to sunlight! You can ‘fortify’ your mushrooms apparently by doing this, although not for too long or you’ll end up with dried mushrooms!
• Fortified plant-based milks, spreads and yoghurts
• Fortified orange juice, although be careful about when you drink this to avoid restricting your iron absorption – see the section on Iron below
• The sun – and it’s free! However, be very careful not to expose your skin to too much sunlight. Burning your skin can have serious implications. Nice.org offers a good guide to the risks and benefits of sun exposure
• Marigold fortify one of their nutritional yeast products with Vitamin D as well as B12

How to Boost your Vitamin D3 Intake

• Get out into the sunshine for 30 minutes every day with a bit of skin exposed! (Although take care to avoid over-exposure in summer and on hot days)
• Use fortified products – add plant-based milks and yoghurts to a daily smoothie
• Incorporate mushrooms into your meals – great in a chilli or ragu sauce, mixed into scrambled tofu, or roast a slice of tofu in the oven with a large mushroom, both brushed with a little oil and seasoning, top with a spoonful of fortified nutritional yeast and stick it in a burger bun for a tasty lunch
• Consider a supplement

Vegan Iron

Approximate Requirement per day: 27mg*

*Source: Mayoclinic.org

Function of Iron

Right – ready for this? Iron is incredibly important in pregnancy – it is used by your body to make haemoglobin, which carries oxygen to all your important bits. Anaemia (lack of haemoglobin) during pregnancy can significantly and negatively affect you and your baby.

Contrary to popular belief, you can get enough from a vegan diet, but it can be a little more difficult because of absorption of plant-based (non-heme) iron. If you are eating iron rich foods, you can aid the absorption by ensuring a good intake of vitamin C. But, don’t drink calcium-fortified orange juice with your iron source, because the calcium will inhibit the iron’s absorption.

Complicated, eh? It’s important not to reduce your calcium intake, just avoid combining the 2 at the same time.

You can supplement your iron – check with a medical professional and get a blood test because the need to do this is quite common for women of child-bearing age. There are some great vegan iron supplements out there if you need them.

You can read more about Iron in pregnancy at Tommys.org

Good Vegan Sources of Iron:

• Lentils
• Chickpeas
• Beans
• Tofu
• Cashew nuts
• Chia seeds
• Seeds
• Kale
• Dried apricots, dried figs, raisins
• Quinoa
• Fortified breakfast cereal

How to Boost your Iron Intake

• Avoid drinking tea or coffee for at least 30 minutes before or after a meal because they contain substances that inhibit absorption of iron
• Boost your vitamin C intake when eating an iron-rich food – eat an orange or kiwi fruit before or after your meal or add red pepper to a lentil sauce. Try my lentil and red pepper pasta sauce for inspiration
• Make a tahini sauce to drizzle over salads or roasted vegetables – simply mix up some tahini, water, lemon juice and garlic with a bit of seasoning for a quick fix
• Snack on some toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds and wash down with a glass of (unfortified) orange juice, or sprinkle them on your salad, making sure you have included vitamin C-rich foods like red peppers and tomatoes
• Add some oats to your smoothie, or eat your porridge sprinkled with fresh berries of any sort
• Yes, I’ve found yet another excuse for making that hot chocolate, but make sure you use a good quality cacao powder like Naturya (sweetened with a little maple or date syrup) and you will benefit from other minerals too
• Again, have some ground flax and chia seeds to hand and sprinkle them on everything from salads to porridge, include them in a smoothie or add to homemade or shop-bought granola
• Consider an iron supplement
• A square or two of dark chocolate never goes amiss and provides some iron at the same time – that’s a win/win in my book…

Vegan Omega 3

Approximate Requirement per day: 250mgs*

* Source: nutritionfacts.org

Function of Omega 3

Hands up anyone else who loses the will to live when they start reading about omega 3, omega 6, long chain, short chain, fatty acid, ALA, DHA, algae-eating fish that look like walnuts…could it get any more mind-boggling?

Confusing though they might be, they are incredibly important and play a huge role in the development and function of the baby’s brain and eyes and lots of other things, so not one to be ignored.

Consequently, I have stared long and hard at research on this, sometimes for many hours that I’ll never get back. And now, for my own sanity, I have translated it into something more palatable, I hope…

What is Omega 3 & Omega 6?

Omega 3 and Omega 6 are essential fatty acids that we can’t make in the body ourselves. We get these ‘short chain’ fatty acids from our diet, and our bodies convert them into ‘long-chain’ fatty acids.

Omega 3 = There are 3 main Omega 3 fatty acids – ALA, EPA and DHA
Omega 6 = LA linoleic acid in its ‘parent’ form

As a vegan on a healthy diet, you are very unlikely to experience a deficiency in Omega 6 because it is so readily available. However, it is possible to have too much, and here’s why:

Omega 3 & 6 both have to be converted (by an enzyme in the body) from ‘short chain’ fatty acids into ‘long chain’ fatty acids. Both 3 & 6 compete for that little enzyme, so if your intake of Omega 6 is too high, it’s probably going to ensure that this all-important enzyme is kept pretty busy, because it’s pushy that way…

So basically, if you eat a lot of foods containing Omega 6 fatty acids, you may reduce your body’s ability to convert the Omega 3s found in your food into long chain Omega 3s.

To add another layer of complexity, the 3 main Omega 3 fatty acids come from different sources:

• ALA – found mainly in plant oils like flaxseeds, rapeseed oil etc
• DHA & EPA – found in fish and seafood

DHA in particular is believed to be essential in supporting heart and brain health, protecting you from anything from heart disease to Alzheimer’s.

Tricky one for a vegan then, if DHA is found only in seafood and fish? Not any more! There are now supplements widely available that contain a vegan source of DHA – Algal Oil. Fish get their DHA from algae, so these supplements are simply cutting out the middleman, erm, fish…

Importantly for pregnancy, the baby’s store of DHA relies on placental transfer and so are determined by the mother’s diet. Speak to your doctor obviously, but for vegans, you really should consider supplementing Omega 3 DHA. Holland & Barrett sell a vegan algal oil capsule that delivers most of your daily requirement for Omega 3 DHA.

This is of course in addition to eating a healthy vegan diet containing many of the foodstuffs below.

Good Vegan Sources of Omega 3:

• Oils, including flaxseed, linseed and rapeseed
• Nuts, particularly walnuts
• Green, leafy vegetables
• Seeds – chia, hemp, flax and linseeds

How to Boost your Omega 3 Intake:

• Have some ground linseed/flaxseed and chia seeds ready in your fridge and add to porridge, salads, granola, smoothies, buddha bowls, even your cornflakes. In its ground form, the nutrients are absorbed much more effectively
• Stir some into homemade nut roasts or sausages (yes, I really do still like old-school vegan sausages using Sosmix. Another good one is made by Suma, available online at the Vegan Kind store and elsewhere
• Switch to a good, preferably organic, rapeseed oil for all your cooking and salad dressings
• Snack on a handful of unsalted nuts and include walnuts. I like a mix of almonds with their skins on with some lightly toasted walnuts and a handful of blueberries
• Make your own granola and include good handfuls of seeds and nuts. Nigella has a granola recipe on her website that is easily veganised and adapted to include your own selection of nuts and seeds
• Serve leafy salads alongside your main meals, and add a lettuce leaf or two to your lunchtime sandwich
• Use flaxseed ‘eggs’ in your baking, or to help bind vegetable fritters together – 1 tablespoon of ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons of water and left to coagulate for a few minutes
• Make a walnut sauce like Meera Sodha’s Aubergine Fesenjan for dinner
• Use this Anna Jones Almond Satay Sauce for…well, everything really. It is so delicious I can just eat it on its own…
• Dry fry some pumpkin or sunflower seeds, or both, until they are lightly toasted. Remove from the heat and add a splash of tamari/soy sauce – a delicious topping for salads, to add to a sandwich, or just to eat on their own

Heart UK and the Vegan Society both have some useful reading material online about Omega 3 if you want to extend your research on this topic.

Conclusion of ‘Is a Vegan Diet Safe for Pregnancy?’

In my research for this article, I have found nothing to suggest that following a healthy vegan diet before, during or after pregnancy will harm either you or your baby. Yes, you should take the appropriate dietary supplements to avoid the risk of any deficiencies, but that is also true for pregnant omnivores out there too.

Hopefully, this excerpt below from research cited by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells you everything you need to know.

“So updated evidence highlights that well-balanced vegetarian and vegan diets should be considered safe for the mother’s health and for offspring during pregnancy and lactation.”

Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine

If you are considering a vegan pregnancy, I hope this article has been helpful. Please also use the additional resources I have included below to continue with your own research, and if you are still in any doubt, consult with a medical professional or nutritionist. 

But you need to trust your own judgement too. Remember that nutrition is not a topic given much attention in medical school, so there can be a tendency to dismiss a vegan diet as inadequate. If possible, seek advice from professionals who also follow a plant-based diet – there are some out there!

You could start by contacting this group of Plant-based UK Health Professionals.

And don’t forget, growing a human is important stuff and whilst things can go wrong for reasons completely outside of your control, your job is simply to do everything in your power to give them the best possible chance…maintaining a healthy plant-based diet during that time was incredibly important, but also pretty easy too, and I thoroughly enjoyed my pregnancies. I wasn’t quite so sure about the giving birth bit, but did it 3 times so couldn’t have been that bad!

Please note that this article is not sponsored and is based purely on my own research, and my own experience of pregnancy, in order to try to provide clear, sensible options in this complex area. I have also suggested some suitable supplements below for which I may receive a small commission if you make a purchase through the link.

---

Best Vegan Supplements for Pregnancy

So what are the best vegan pregnancy-related vitamins? I have listed below those brands that appear to offer quality products and assurances that the supplements they provide are safe to take during pregnancy.

However, this is not an endorsement of them, and neither am I suggesting that you should be taking them. The above article intends to identify those nutrients that you may want to supplement based on your diet.

When thinking about supplements though, it is important to remember that you may be eating things that are already enriched with what you need. For example, if you eat 5g of nutritional yeast and drink 100ml of Oatly milk on a daily basis, you could well already be getting all the Vitamin B12 you need as a non-pregnant person.

Always consult with a medical professional.

• Dr Seaweed offer a range of vegan supplements including:
• There are several reliable brands of vegan Omega 3:
  • Dr Vegan
  • Brain Feed
  • NothingFishy.co, with the added bonus that they offer their supplements in glass jars and offer a refill service – brilliant!
• The Vegan Society have VEG 1, a supplement suitable for use in pregnancy which provides vitamins D, B12, B6, riboflavin, folic acid, iodine and selenium. A great all-rounder, although without any Omega 3

---

Useful Resources for Following a Plant-Based Diet During Pregnancy:

https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/vitamins-supplements-and-nutrition/
https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/keeping-well/vegetarian-or-vegan-and-pregnant/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/well/family/can-you-have-a-healthy-vegetarian-or-vegan-pregnancy.html
https://www.verywellfamily.com/is-a-vegan-pregnancy-right-for-me-4157838
https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/food-and-nutrition/vegan-diet-healthy-during-pregnancy-and-breastfeeding
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-pregnancy

---

Related Posts

Best Vegan Cookbooks

East by Meera Sodha cookbook review

Merchant Gourmet plant-based cookbook review

Dr Vegan supplements review

Allplants review – when you’re tired and don’t want to cook, you still need to eat healthy food. Allplants frozen ready meals can help!

Have a look at some of my nourishing recipes in Vegan Mum’s Food pages