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Food during labor  

post #1 of 13
6/7/08 at 2:12pm
Thread Starter 
I'm having a HB and need to keep some food on hand for eating during labor (at least the early part anyway)

What did you eat? I'm not sure what will be good for energy without being too heavy/making me sick.
post #2 of 13
6/7/08 at 2:56pm
nak.

I ate some fruit and some cashews. I also drank recharge. Its kind of like gatorade but made with juice instead of corn syrup. My dh made me some scrambled eggs but I couldn't eat them. They smelled too bad when I was in labor.
post #3 of 13
6/8/08 at 12:32am
The midwives forced (well, strongly advised) me to eat something during my first labor, so I had some granola. But I had no appetite.

For my second, a much easier labor, I made chilaquiles and lemon pound cake. I guess I was pretty hungry. That was early in labor though.

I had made some pineapple popsicles for labor, and found them heavenly after ds was born.
post #4 of 13
6/8/08 at 1:13am
I was really nauseous and couldn't eat anything... it led to me becoming very weak and dehydrated and was a big part of why i didn't end up giving birth at home
I'd recommend fruit, cheese, crackers, honey, water... but really it's a lot like morning sickness in that you will just need to gobble down whatever you can stomach or whatever appeals to you at the moment... so you should probably have a wide variety of stuff, i mean whatever you dont' use you'll eat in the days to follow anyway ( i ravenous for weeks after lizzy was born!)
post #5 of 13
6/8/08 at 4:35am
I ate two fish tacos when labor started (yeah, I know...) and nothing but water after that. I had no appetite at all and my midwives had to remind me to drink water.

We had stocked up on a lot of snacks but I didn't want any of them.

It might be good to have a variety of things on hand because you never know what you'll ended up wanting, or not wanting, when the time comes.
post #6 of 13
6/8/08 at 8:59am
2 'Rules' on food for labor:

have things on hand that you usually LIKE to eat. No sense getting what you think is the 'right' food, if it's something you don't ordinarily like!

have some things on hand that are easily digestible, some having protein. So, fruit/veg/juice is all good for awhile, but if you have a longish labor, you may eventually need some yogurt, nuts, tofu, another high protein food.
post #7 of 13
6/8/08 at 9:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrsfrenchy View Post
I'm having a HB and need to keep some food on hand for eating during labor (at least the early part anyway)

What did you eat? I'm not sure what will be good for energy without being too heavy/making me sick.
Lets see I had, sausage biscuit and gravy in the morning, then a bacon turkey bravo from panera for lunch, then by dinner time I was finally convinced to take some drugs, so that was it until I had her at 3 PM the next day. 36 hour labor, definately glad I ate something in the beginning.
post #8 of 13
6/8/08 at 12:57pm
when it came right down to it I couldn't eat, but I did have protein drinks on hand (bolthouse) and used those along with water and rehydration drinks.

my labors, however, aren't terribly long (9, 8 an 5 hours).
post #9 of 13
6/8/08 at 1:55pm
Applesauce, pretzels and lots of water. Weird I know but it was what I wanted at the time. Thankfully my best friend and I had a wonderful lunch of grilled chicken thighs, rice and macaroni salad (Hawaiian restaurant) right before I went into labor and I think that helped sustain me.
post #10 of 13
6/8/08 at 1:59pm
Subbing...
post #11 of 13
6/8/08 at 9:25pm
Personally with my second and with this one I'll be sticking to clear liquids, popsicles, jello, juices etc... With my first I ate real food and threw up and it was terrible to have all that going on while in labor. I remember being in the bathroom and having my mom knock on the door saying "are you okay, are you throwing up" and for some reason I said "no" uhh like what else would I have been doing??? It wasn't very fun...
post #12 of 13
6/8/08 at 9:54pm
The thing that tasted best to me during labor was thin, clear soup. I think it was beef broth. It was salty, with some protein.

One tip for eating during labor: a lot of women throw up during birth, so you may not want to eat anything you really can't handle seeing again!
post #13 of 13
6/8/08 at 11:40pm
I had breakfast and a light lunch that day. I ate Fig Newtons and drank Gatorade or tea during labor. I ate dinner as soon as I got home that night.
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