Expectant mothers need access to free nutritional supplements

Friday, April 30, 2004 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: nutritional supplements, cow's milk, health care costs

https://www.naturalnews.com/000985.html

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The real story here is about the importance of good nutrition for expectant mothers. It is here -- during pregnancy -- that a few pennies invested in nutritional supplements, vitamins and minerals can save potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in future health care costs while also producing smarter babies. In the United States, we do a terrible job of educating pregnant women about how their nutritional choices impact the health of their babies. Most mothers simply have no clue, and the vast majority of doctors never mention details of nutrition to expectant mothers. As a result, mothers are giving birth to babies with birth defects, health complications, or less than optimal intelligence. Later in life, these fundamental shortfalls can lead to behavioral disorders, hospitalization, and of course poor performance in schools and, later, in a career. Essentially, poor nutrition harms a child for life.

Even after birth, many mothers continue to practice poor infant nutrition by feeding their babies cow's milk, which is low in GLA. GLA is an essential fatty acid needed for development of the brain, and infants fed cow's milk formula score lower on intelligence test than those fed human breastmilk. (Cow's milk has all sorts of other nutritional problems, including the fact that the consumption of cow's milk increases the death rate of infants from cholic.)

It's astounding that such poor nutritional choices continue to be made by mothers when we live in a world where good nutrition is not only abundant, but actually quite affordable. As a society, if we were to invest in the health of pregnant women by giving them free nutritional supplements, we would have that investment repaid thousands of times over in terms of savings on future health care costs, not to mention the priceless effect of helping families be healthier and happier.

This is why I have long supported the idea that taxpayers fund nutritional supplements for expectant mothers. Any pregnant women should be able to go to any clinic or hospital and pick up a 9-month supply of nutritional supplements, specially formulated to help fetuses be healthy. It would cost society very little up front, yet the payoff would be tremendous. Because, today, the fact is that many pregnant women just won't spend money on nutritional supplements. So, in order to save themselves a few bucks, they'll end up putting their baby at risk for medical complications that will eventually cost society hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's silly, really, when you consider that giving mothers vitamins and minerals costs just pennies a day.