Archive for pregnancy

“An angel of the Lord appeared to us in the form of our daughter”

By Jane Birch · Comments (8)
Saturday, January 7th, 2023

By: Michael and Marilyn Clark

While preparing for our summer 2019 family vacation, our married daughter Tiffany informed us she and her family were trying something new: abstinence from animal products. (You can read her story here.) Having great empathy for her multi-year health challenges, my wife Marilyn and I decided we would support our daughter by going along with this change on our shared vacation.

Up until that time, Marilyn and I thought we understood and lived the Word of Wisdom quite well. We were highly motivated to be healthy. We had seen four out of our eight grandparents die relatively young from heart attacks and cancer, and my mother died quite young at 63 from a number of chronic ailments. Marilyn had studied nutrition in college and was an excellent cook who made most everything from scratch and incorporated lots of vegetables into our diet. You could say we ate a whole food, plant-rich diet, but perhaps we were a bit deluded thinking we ate meat “sparingly” when in reality our consumption of animal products was incompatible with a face-value reading of the Word of Wisdom. Still, coupled with a relatively active lifestyle, we carried no extra weight and thought we were in pretty good shape.

Yet we were perplexed by the health challenges Tiffany had faced over the previous decade, despite her very best, remarkably-disciplined efforts to live the Word of Wisdom according to her knowledge. We wondered, how could someone so diligent—who ate better than her dietitian (according to her dietitian!)—be subject to gestational diabetes while pregnant, have two miscarriages, lose two babies to stillbirth, contract Hashimoto’s, and experience significant weight gain? Thankfully, her constant prayers and searching led her to discover the one thing that she lacked: abstinence from animal products.

While in the midst of supporting our daughter during our summer 2019 vacation, I turned to the Word of Wisdom with a greater degree of curiosity, honesty, and real intent. What followed was a journey of insight that perhaps could be best understood by comparing our experience to that of Amulek, the missionary companion to Alma the Younger, who seemingly made an instant transformation from being an inactive member of the Church to becoming an intrepid promoter and defender of the faith.

When recounting his conversion story to the people of Ammonihah, Amulek confessed, “for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things [the power of God], yet I would not know; therefore I went on rebelling against God.” Yes, he had no doubt received a series of promptings from the Spirit, yet he willfully chose to ignore them.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“Trusting God has made all the difference”

By Jane Birch · Comments (6)
Saturday, May 30th, 2020

By: Tiffany Mortensen

My challenges began at the age of 13 when I started to put on weight. Although my mom had studied nutrition in college and was a wonderful resource and support to me, my struggle to achieve and maintain a healthy weight would continue through the remainder of my teenage years. Although I was young, my observations of other family members who struggled with their weight and similar health issues was a great motivating factor in establishing healthy patterns of living and learning to take care of my body.

My devotion to health and my effort to eat in a healthy manor was valiant, but the results did not match, leaving me, and at times my parents, perplexed and confused. As a result, I began to believe that my body was unable to achieve a healthy weight. Although I did notice a positive difference in the way I felt when eating wholesome, healthy foods, eating became a daily ritual largely centered on self-denial and self-deprivation, not to be thin, but to avoid becoming more overweight.

Then I began having children.

Each of my pregnancies began the same: with a commitment to healthy eating for my baby and to stay within the recommended weight gain range.

Each of my pregnancies ended the same: with a confusion as to what I did wrong and how my eating habits could have resulted in so much excessive weight gain.

My second pregnancy with my son was especially difficult as I struggled with wide fluctuations in my post-meal glucose levels, the excessive accumulation of amniotic fluid, excessive weight gain, and a very large baby. I received diabetic counseling with a registered dietitian, but after looking over my food journal and reviewing my eating habits she was just as perplexed as I was and commented that I not only ate healthier than any patient she had ever worked with, but that I ate healthier than she did.

After my son was born, I was advised to lose weight and change my lifestyle habits to avoid becoming diabetic. I was also diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome).

I was confused. My only beverage of choice was water. I did eat treats, but not on a daily basis. I avoided sugary cereals, chips, crackers, and most prepackaged foods. I typically ate a large salad for lunch with some type of animal protein, and I was careful to not drench it in salad dressing. I predominately ate whole grains, lots of fruits and vegetables, and thought my dinners (which were typically made from scratch) were a healthy balance of all of the food groups, including meat and dairy.

Not knowing where else to turn, I decided to read the Word of Wisdom, a law of health given to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although cultural practice of the principles found therein centers on abstaining from the don’ts (alcohol, tobacco, coffee, and tea) there is an incredible list of do’s that is unfortunately largely ignored.

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Categories : Married-2 WFPB, Stories
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“The only solution that made sense was to turn to the Creator of our bodies”

By Jane Birch · Comments (0)
Saturday, May 16th, 2020

By: Faith Ralphs

I grew up in Sedona, Arizona in a large family, eating what is now referred to as SAD (Standard American Diet). Although we ate lots of fruits and vegetables, we also drank some Capri Suns, poured corn-syrupy maple syrup on our pancakes, and ate the occasional pepperoni pizza. But everyone was fit and healthy, so why not?

Fast forward to when I was about 15. My grandparents on both sides were suffering from various chronic diseases. It was hard to watch, and I think it made my parents think about preventing such problems from happening to them. We also had some friends who didn’t eat refined sugar (ever!), and that inspired us. My mom joined a Word of Wisdom email group and read a book called Super Immunity by Joel Fuhrman about the power of plant foods. She says she gained a testimony of those principles, and it forever changed the way she cooks. She shared some things she was learning, and I decided to join her in not eating meat. I am very thankful for my mom’s influence and example.

Although not fully whole food, plant-based (WFPB) yet, I didn’t eat any meat from the time I was 16 to when I left for college at 18. While at college I was more of a social meat-eater. On my mission in Paraguay I tried my best to get fruits and vegetables, but I also ate a lot of beef and more white bread than ever before in my life, trying to be polite to those who fed us.

Every marriage and family has their own food culture, philosophy, and health habits. When I got married we had to establish our own. My husband, Carson, had given up cow milk as a teenager to see if it would clear up his acne and prevent his frequent ear infections. He stopped guzzling the stuff and voila! His skin cleared up, and his earaches went away. Although he didn’t drink cow milk when I met him, he ate a typical college boy diet otherwise (think lots of spaghetti and $1 frozen pizzas).

My husband knew, before we got married, that I was prone to only eat meat for special occasions, that I bought almond milk instead of cow milk, and drank green smoothies every day. He loved that about me (and still does, thankfully!). I told him I’d be willing to cook him meat if he really wanted me to, but he said he was fine just eating it at restaurants. Although we didn’t eat meat, we still bought eggs and cheese those first few years, and probably way too many tortilla chips.

Fast forward to when we’d been married three years, had lost two babies due to incompetent cervix, and were now struggling to conceive for months. I had several symptoms of PCOS and rarely ever had a menstrual cycle. Although I thought I knew that a vegetarian diet was the healthiest, I needed reassurance. When you google the best diet for PCOS (or any other insulin-related disorder), you’ll be told to eat low-carb and high-fat. I desperately wanted to get pregnant and really needed to figure out how to eat to improve my fertility.

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“I have experienced all of the promises of the Word of Wisdom”

By Jane Birch · Comments (3)
Saturday, January 5th, 2019

By: Alicia Schick

It was summer of 2015, and I was expecting boy #4. We’d been seeing specialists in an effort to resolve digestive trouble my husband had experienced for years, and I was exhausted trying to make enough food for him on a strict elimination diet composed of primarily organic meat and four types of cooked vegetables. So much of the digestive advice emphasizes meat and recommends avoiding grains that we thought it was worth a try. While a few of my husband’s symptoms did subside, others became worse, and we were uncomfortable with the high intake of meat. Looking back I can tell it was a much harder pregnancy than the others–including my highest weight gain and challenges I hadn’t experienced before.

Shortly after our son was born in the fall, we were amazed to learn some new friends of ours didn’t really eat animal products at all. Janeen Alley and her family had eaten whole food, plant-based for at least 10 years and become an expert in the benefits, so we decided to give it a try. We ate a dramatic increase in plants between Thanksgiving and Christmas that year, and I was amazed that we managed to avoid getting sick—no easy feat with a newborn, a 3 year old, a Kindergartner and a 2nd grader in the thick of winter.

As the months progressed, I couldn’t believe the benefits I experienced by eating whole food, plant-based. By March, I had lost all of my pregnancy weight and then some. I had to buy new pants because everything I owned was too big. In June I competed in a triathlon. I was still up with my baby many nights and because of that was pretty inconsistent in my training. Yet my paces were not too far behind my pre-pregnancy times, something I had previously struggled to reach until my babies were much older and I was able to resume more consistent training.

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“We gained strength from each other’s commitment”

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, August 26th, 2017

By: Erica Rivera

As newlyweds in the summer of 2014, Heber and I were determined to not die young, fat, or sick. More importantly, we were aware that we had stepped into a potential “fat trap” with marriage: it seemed like so many of the people that we knew put on noticeable amounts of weight in the first year (and subsequent years) of being married. So we got serious. We signed up for a gym membership together, consulted various dietitians, and read numerous articles and websites about all of the best practices to stay fit and healthy. We set goals. We watched carbs. We ate grass-fed beef. We used “healthy” oils. We had so much to learn.

Happy for objectives and goals, I stopped really worrying about whether there was a better way for me to be fueling my body. But of course, the ever-inquisitive Heber was uneasy about some of the conflicting information we were receiving about what to eat. More importantly, previous to our marriage he had been doing research to help his mother’s heart condition and had stumbled upon Dr. Esselstyn’s work Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease. This led him to watch Forks Over Knives and read some of the accompanying literature. He was hungry for change, for truth. I was hungry for the pork that we had just purchased.

Though I was convinced that we had to ingest animal protein (and massive amounts of it) to properly build muscle and stay fit, I was not happy about the part of my brain that was constantly fixated on food and worried about calories and gaining weight. To me it was clear that my body was a machine and relied on exactly calculated proportions to function properly. For years I had been obsessed with labels and eating just enough to have all of the bodily functions in order. I went through phases of exercising obsessively in order to make sure all of those extra calories were put to good use in my body. One of the petty reasons that I had been reluctant to serve a mission (though I eventually did and was so happy to have served) was because I could not control my diet, or my companion’s desire to exercise, with the same precision.

Heber himself had gone through some issues with weight and nutrition. He is a chef, and besides the need to try the fine-dining dishes he made, for many years he worked long hours. There was no time to worry about “healthy” eating, let alone exercise. After some challenges with weight, he committed to himself that he would not let himself go down that same path. Moreover, he knew better than I did that food not only is a joy to eat, but is the life source of our bodies. He was aware of the different kinds of fuel available and the effects, including how his mother felt differently when she cut out animal foods for a time. Because of his conviction, I was more open to learning alternatives to my own carnivorous lifestyle.

One evening, Heber and I watched Forks Over Knives. I felt really moved by the film, almost as if my eyes had been opened to what seemed obvious all along: our diet and lifestyle were killing us! Both of us felt overwhelmingly like this was something good and promising for us and our future family. That same night, we committed to give up all animal products and start eating whole-food plant-based (WFPB).

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“I kept questioning why I was led to this way of eating”

By Jane Birch · Comments (10)
Saturday, July 29th, 2017

By: Brittney Fairbourn

Ever since college, I have steadily pursued information about healthy eating (all while eating pretty terribly). I started with a small goal to drink more water during the day. Almost anything was better than what I was doing. I got pretty good at drinking water, and it became my primary source of hydration. I slowly changed my diet over time to include whole grains and more fruits and vegetables as I read about the benefits they provide.

While nursing my third baby, who had terrible reflux, I tried quitting dairy to lessen her misery. Letting go of some foods (milk) were easier than others (cheese, chocolate, and ice cream). I wasn’t perfect at it, but this ban on dairy gave me a small success that helped my journey; I proved to myself that it was possible to change my diet in a way that seemed absolutely impossible at the outset.

Around the same time, I started to study the Word of Wisdom. I was struck by all the counsel I had missed. Most of all, my eyes were opened when I learned that God is pleased when we do not use animals for food.

The sanctity of animal life had never crossed my mind before, but now I realized every creature’s life has value. I realized that if I do eat animals, I need to be much more grateful for the life that was given so I could have that meal. I also realized that if I were required to butcher my own animals, you can bet I would hardly ever have meat.

I started to eat less meat and bought less for my family. I didn’t really have a desire to eat it anymore, but I wasn’t sure how to cook without it either. So I started cooking dairy-rich meals to fill the meat void.

About a year ago, I chose to read The China Study for a book club. This book changed me. The strong correlation between consumption of animal products and incidence of chronic illness, especially cancer, really stood out to me. Eating plants to prevent all types of illness made a lot of sense. All those “Milk does a body good” ads came to my mind, and I felt sad that Americans have been lied to for so many years. Everything I read in the book made me think about the Word of Wisdom.

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“I have learned that our bodies are remarkable!”

By Olga Maletina · Comments (4)
Saturday, July 1st, 2017

Yessenia OrnelasBy: Yessenia Ornelas

My journey started when my husband and I were living in Provo, Utah. I was getting ready to finally bring my little premature baby home from the hospital four months after he was born. I remember wanting to take so many pictures of him, but I despised the idea of taking any pictures of myself with him because of how I felt about myself. I was very overweight, and I somehow felt that my being overweight and not healthy had played a hand in my preterm labor.

Like most people, I love eating out and trying new places. Growing up, I was told to eat all the food on my plate and not to be picky or wasteful. As a result, I ate as much as possible, and, as you can guess, the weight piled on quickly. I knew it was wrong for me to have such negative feelings about myself and that I needed to make changes if I wanted to see myself more positively. I became determined to do better. I wanted to only do this for health so I was not going to worry how fast or slow I got results.

I didn’t know much about eating healthy, just what you mostly hear, which is eating more vegetables. So I started there and then figured that perhaps I was eating too much meat and started to cut down my intake to only twice a week and just fish and chicken. My Pinterest board became filled with some vegetarian meals and lots of chicken and fish meals that I looked forward to each week. I was consistent with exercising and managed to lose 45 lbs with my own efforts.

During this time of learning about health, I talked with a good friend of mine, Olga Maletina, who was also living in student housing at BYU. I had heard she was a vegan and thought it was interesting so I was intrigued to learn why she had made a switch to that way of eating. She told me about her health benefits and how good she felt. At the time I felt that perhaps it would be too extreme for me and that I would continue to do what I was doing.

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“I had the sweet feeling that this new baby was a special gift”

By Jane Birch · Comments (12)
Saturday, March 26th, 2016

Joy and Jane BarryBy: Joy Barry

I was blessed to be raised on a diet healthier than the standard American variety. In the 1970s when most kids were living on toaster pastries, Twinkies, and Wonder Bread, we were grinding our own wheat to make whole wheat bread and cracked wheat porridge. When we made cookies or Kool-Aid, my father insisted on using half the sugar that the recipe called for. As I grew older and moved away from home, I continued to cook most things from scratch, the way I was brought up. I wasn’t too concerned about health or a balanced diet, it was more about saving money and making homemade food that tasted better. Besides, I never had to worry about losing weight as I was always trim and thin as a child and young adult. I never even exercised.

When I hit my mid-20s, I started to put on a little bit of weight. It concerned me enough that I started exercising to try to get in shape. But all my bike-riding just left me worn out and discouraged. It never occurred to me that my diet was to blame. I thought I was doing just fine.

I married at age 29 and had my first child when I was 30. My new role as a wife and mother made me more concerned about healthy eating. It was not just about me anymore, I had a family to feed. The responsibility to not just feed my family, but to feed them well, rested heavy on my conscience. I read everything online that I could find about healthy diets and worried much about how to best feed my family a balanced diet.

Although I read many conflicting opinions from various “experts,” I felt blessed to have the Word of Wisdom as my foundation. If I read anything that said to eat lots of meat and avoid grains, I dismissed it immediately. However, I always wished that the Word of Wisdom had more specifics. I thought it was too vague and didn’t cover all the food groups. I knew it said to eat meat sparingly, and I tried to follow that advice, but what about eggs and dairy products? I also worried much about what kind of oils were the healthy ones, and other hotly debated topics.

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“Eating the way I do brings me joy”

By Jane Birch · Comments (16)
Saturday, November 7th, 2015

Manda Dangerfield FamilyBy: Manda Dangerfield

Growing up and into in my late twenties, I ate what the USDA food pyramid said I needed to eat daily: grains, milk and other dairy, meat, fruits, and vegetables. I really liked ice cream, milk chocolate, and other candy and processed foods. Grains were cold cereal, bread, and pasta that wasn’t whole grain.

My journey to a whole foods plant-based diet probably began in 2007. My husband and I had been married for three years and were new parents. Our baby girl was ready, at five months, to eat “solids.” My stepmom had given me a recipe book for baby food, and I liked it. I understood that we would save money by not buying baby food if possible. I made our daughter a variety of foods by steaming foods and using a mini food processor, or just mashing if it was banana. Some of the foods were vegetables that I personally didn’t grow up eating, or didn’t remember enjoying, including spinach and some kinds of squash. I know I had tasted cooked spinach but didn’t like it. I discovered that I didn’t hate cabbage, I only hated the ingredients in coleslaw sauce! I loved the ratatouille, other simple combinations, and the plain steamed cauliflower that I made for her. I did get pre-made jars or containers sometimes for convenience. The ones with meat in them didn’t smell so good, and I knew there was a difference between the pre-made veggies and my freshly-made veggies. I remember thinking one day, “Why am I feeding her a jar of lamb? We don’t eat lamb.” (And now I wonder why anyone would want to eat a baby sheep.) But we did eat a pretty typical American diet with other meat in it.

When our daughter was almost a year old, and not quite done breastfeeding, we started having her drink whole cow’s milk, like we thought we were supposed to in order for her to be healthy. By the time I took her for her twelve-month doctor appointment she had pretty bad eczema. Eventually — I wish I would have kept a journal of all this! — I read that dairy has been shown to be connected to skin problems, and I realized that her eczema had started at the same time as her introduction to cow’s milk. However, the doctor had said nothing about diet, only to bathe our daughter in plain water and put a specific ointment on her skin. Later, when I stopped giving her cow’s milk, cheese, and yogurt, the eczema went away. A few times it seems that her arms have gotten a little eczema again, after she has chosen to eat some dairy when away from home.

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Categories : Married-1 WFPB, Stories
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“He was not hiding it”

By Jane Birch · Comments (29)
Saturday, October 24th, 2015

Katie Johnson FamilyBy: Katie Johnson

Since becoming a new mother in 2003, I began to develop a passion for nutrition and healthy cooking. I tried hard to teach and feed my family good and healthy things. Over the years, I learned to make homemade wheat bread and enjoyed taking healthy recipes and adapting them to make them even healthier. I didn’t, however, fully adopt all the things I was learning and often fell back into the S.A.D. (Standard American Diet). Through much of my own personal study, as well as trial and error, I learned many good nutritional principles but with this also came “the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.” While I see that I’ve been guided line upon line, I can see more clearly that it all was meant to come together to ultimately teach me light and truth.

Health trials

During the time of having our family, I began to develop anxiety and post-partum depression. I soon found that having a family was taking its toll on my body and my emotions. Pregnancies were accompanied by weight gain and hormone changes. Weight gain called for dieting and weight loss, finances caused stress, motherhood brought time constraints, and being a support to my husband through school taxed my mind, body, and spirit. I spent many years struggling with whether I should take medication to help alleviate the stress and just put up with the accompanying side effects. I decided that I was not willing to deal with those side effects and preferred to seek more natural ways of coping, such as yoga and vitamin supplements. Throughout the years, I also rode a giant roller coaster of different fad diets, including several versions of the oh-so-loved “high-protein, low-carb” diets.

In early 2011, I was 29, had born three children, had struggled through years of schooling for my husband, and we were now embarking on opening our own law practice in the worst economy since the Great Depression. It was then that I discovered a lump on my right breast. Shortly afterwards, my OBGYN also discovered that I had an ovarian cyst. I was terrified and knew some things with my health just were not right. I received a breast exam, and I was told I needed an ultrasound to check for cancer.

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