New here & wondering if anyone has heard of/followed the Brewer's Diet?
Hi 
First of all, a quick introduction - My name is Therese, I am 38 & just found out I am pregnant with my 2nd child. My son is almost 4 & was born by C-section due to complications from severe pre-eclampsia/HELLPS syndrome. We were extremely lucky in that the condition did not rear its ugly head until I was 40 wks along. Nevertheless it was not a great experience & one I would not care to repeat, if at all possible.
I am planning this time around on having a VBAC & hoping to learn a lot from this board. I also have done a little research on diet in pregnancy & found this Brewer Diet which claims to eliminate pre-eclampsia. I was wondering if anyone is/had heard of or is following this diet or knows of anyone who has done it. I would love to hear some experiences & feedback. tia.
Re: New here & wondering if anyone has heard of/followed the Brewer's Diet?
I've heard of it but don't know a whole lot. I also had HELLP w/ DS and he was born at 37 weeks. I have seen mixed things on the Brewer diet. I don't think I'll follow it. I think my focus for the next pregnancy is just to eat as healthy as possible and maintain exercise. I personally am not a fan of these types of diets, especially when we don't know what causes HELLP.
Have you talked to your OB about it? I plan on doing that as well.
Congrats on your pregnancy!
I followed the Brewer Diet with DD's pregnancy and I had a successful VBAC with a healthy baby. I don't know if that was because of the diet or not, but I am doing it again this time (although much more loosely simply because now I have 2 kids to chase after so I don't have time to write everything down).
I started following it with DD because we took Bradley classes and they recommend the Brewer Diet. I researched it a bit and I like what I found. It seems like a healthy plan to me, basically making sure you eat a well rounded diet and lots and lots of protien. The protein is what is supposed to eliminate pre-e/toxemia.
I know some people say the Brewer Diet creates huge babies, but DD was 7lbs 15oz at birth (so totally normal size).
Some days it does feel like a whole lot of food, and so on those days I don't eat as much, but some days it is not. I think that a lot of the idea that it is a lot of food comes from our skewed idea of what a serving actually is though (like he wants 2 servings of lean protien daily which is probably really just one serving of what most of us eat at a meal).
Ladies thanks for all your opinions!
ShansBride, I am so glad to hear that your followed it & got your VBAC too. I have a few questions, if you don't mind.
1. Did you follow the diet from a book or mainly from your Bradley classes? Would you recommend the Bradley classes?
2. Did you have pre-e or HELLPS in your 1st pg? If so when did it start?
3. Did you exercise during your last or this pg? I am asking this because it seems like the Brewer diet doesn't really rec much exercise or if you are going to to increase your cals even further. I am a total exercise junkie & I can't imagine going 9 months on a high cal diet without it
4. Did you gain much weight yourself from doing the Brewer diet? I am sorry, this is such a personal question I know but just trying to form an impression of it & figuring out if it is right for me.
Thanks a lot, this is an amazing help!
I just followed the diet from what I learned in Bradley classes, which I would totally recommend. They didn't really do a whole lot for me I don't think because I was reading everything I could get my hands on anyway, but they really helped H.
I didn't have pre-e or anything during my first pg
I didn't do heavy exercise or anything, but I did prenatal yoga, walking, and the exercises Bradley recommends (pelvic rocks, kegels, 30 min a day of light activity). I didn't know Brewer doesn't recommend exercise, but I know Bradley does.
I gaind 27 lbs with my first pregnancy and about 30 with my second, but my first baby was born at 38 weeks and my second at 39. I really don't think the diet affected my weight gain at all.
Thank you so much! Your input has helped me more than you know! I so appreciate it!