Every mother needs to get the best healthy proper nutrition for the mothers and child that saves them from getting any signs of general weakness, anemia, or any other disease that may occur due to pregnancy, parturition, and lactation. Every child needs to get the best healthy nutrition as well, to ensure that they are growing healthy, without affliction with any disease that may cause weakness or nutritional diseases.

In this article, we will give you a brief hint about proper nutrition for mothers and children through our platform, elmadrasah.com academy. We will give you a brief about means of proper nutrition for the mothers and child, nutritional requirements for mother and child, proper nutritional conditions for mother and child, ingredients of healthy food for mother and child, and finally, diseases that may affect mother and child due to improper nutrition.

What is the importance of proper nutrition for the mothers and child?

As we mentioned before, getting the proper nutrition for the mothers and child has a crucial role in getting the proper growth, and prevention of different diseases that may occur due to improper nutrition. In the following few letters, we will discuss in detail the importance of getting proper nutrition for children, which can be as follows:

• Getting balanced and appropriate growth, the appropriate and balanced diet can give the children the required amount of protein, vitamins, minerals, and energy required for their growth, which can maintain proper and healthy growth.
• The appropriate and balanced nutrition for children can prevent their affliction by any of the nutritional diseases that may occur due to improper nutrition, like anemia, growth retardation, and other types of nutritional diseases.
• Getting balanced and appropriate nutrition can prevent the occurrence of any problems that may affect the child’s mind, like confusion and forgetfulness.

Mothers need adequate and appropriate nutrition during all stages of their pregnancy, parturition, and lactation, and this is for the following reasons:

• Mothers have to get their nutritional requirements during their pregnancy, to avoid any fetal abnormalities that may occur to the fetus due to their improper nutrition.
• Supplying mothers with appropriate nutrition during their pregnancies can prevent the occurrence of nutritional diseases, like anemia, osteomalacia, weakness, and a lot of other diseases.
• Mothers who get appropriate and balanced nutrition during their lactation can maintain appropriate milk production during their lactation periods. They can maintain the production of good quality milk, supplied with all vitamins and minerals as well.

• Proper and balanced nutrition prevents the occurrence of nutritional diseases in lactating mothers, such as anemia, osteomalacia, and other diseases as well. 

What are the nutritional requirements for mothers in pregnancy and lactation?

For proper nutrition for the mothers and child, mothers in their pregnancy and lactation periods require more nutritional requirements than healthy adult people. Pregnant mothers need more requirements than normal states, their requirements differ between the different stages of pregnancy, as the requirements of the last trimester are higher than first and middle trimesters.in general, the nutritional requirements of pregnant women can be as follows:

• Pregnant women require between 70 to 100 grams of protein, which differs according to the stage of pregnancy, as it increases with the increase in the pregnancy age.
• Pregnant women require a calcium percentage of not less than 1200 milligrams.
• Pregnant women require an iron requirement of not less than 600 micrograms.
• Pregnant women require a high percentage of folic acid, not less than 600 micrograms.
• Pregnant women require more energy in their diet, more than normal persons, as they need 300 kcal in addition to their normal requirements. 

While the requirements of the mothers during lactation periods can be as follows: 

• Lactating mothers need to get a high amount of energy, as they need to get 500 kcal in addition to the requirements of normal people.
• Lactating mothers need to get not less than 1000 milligrams of calcium daily, to maintain milk production, and to prevent low calcium levels, and osteomalacia.
• Lactating mothers need to get not less than 3 litres of water, to maintain normal milk production.
• Lactating mothers need to get at least 67 grams of protein daily, to maintain the requirements of the mother and the infant.

What are the requirements of the children in their different age groups?

For proper nutrition for the mothers and children, the requirements of the children differ according to a lot of factors. Nutritional requirements differ between males and females, it differs between different ages, as older age requires more energy and less protein than the younger one, who needs more protein and less energy. In general, the requirements of the children can be summarised as follows:

• Children need energy that ranges between 1000 and 3200 kcal according to age, body weight, activity, and gender.
• Children need protein between 60 and 280 grams, which varies according to age, body weight, activity, and gender.
• Children require between 2 to 3 glasses of milk or milk products, to get enough calcium required for building up their bones and teeth.
• Children require between 1 to 4 cups of fruits, to get their required amounts of vitamins and minerals.

What are the means of proper nutrition for the mothers and children?

The most important means of proper nutrition for the mothers and child is to get all nutritional requirements according to the different variants, like health conditions, age group, and gender in children. And so, the most important means of proper nutrition for the mother and child are as follows:

• To be aware of the nutritional requirements of the mother, which differ according to a lot of variants, like the trimester of pregnancy during pregnancy, and the lactational stage during lactation.. The nutritional requirements for children differ according to age, gender, activity, and body weight.
• One of the most important means of proper nutrition for the mother and child is to be aware of any diseases or health-related problems, like nutritional problems that require a special diet formulation.
• Another important means from means of proper nutrition for the mother and child is to be aware of individual variations between people, such as the difference between body weight, height, and activity.
• There are some differences in nutritional requirements between males and females in children,

What are the ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child?

There are a lot of ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child, first of all, the ingredients of healthy food for mother and child for lactating and pregnant mother can be as follows:

• The ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child for lactating and pregnant mothers should contain an additional source of energy, as the breastfeeding mother needs an additional 500 Kcal to the calories of her normal diet according to her body weight. The most important sources of energy are carbohydrates with their different types, but we need to depend on compound carbohydrates such as oats, and wheat more than simple ones, as compound carbohydrates can increase the feel of satiety, and increase energy production.
• the ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child lactating and pregnant mothers should contain enough amount of calcium to compensate for the calcium lost in milk production and for the formation of fetal bone during pregnancy, as breastfeeding mothers need 1000 mg of calcium daily, so they need to take enough calcium through the consumption of milk, egg, cheese, and yogurt with their different types.
•  The best healthy diet for a breastfeeding mother in Ramadan should contain enough water, as the lactating mother should take at least 3 liters of water daily. This amount of water should be well distributed between Iftar and suhoor. You should not drink a lot of water at suhoor only, as it will be excreted by your kidneys, to have proper nutrition for the mother and child.
• The best healthy diet for a breastfeeding mother in Ramadan should contain good sources of proteins, such as red meat, poultry meat,  some types of fish (as breastfeeding mothers can not eat fish that contain high amounts of Mercury), and grains like peas and beans. Breastfeeding mothers need at least 67 grams of protein daily.
•  The ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and children for lactating and pregnant mothers should contain the required amount of essential fatty acids necessary for the human body’s vital health. The essential fatty acids are found in nuts, some types of fish, olive oil, corn oil, and other types of oil.
• The ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child for lactating and pregnant mothers should contain low amounts only of caffeine-containing drinks, like tea, coffee, and cola, as it can increase diuresis, withdraw water from the body, and increase the feel of thirst during fasting hours.
• The ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child for lactating and pregnant mothers should contain sources of different vitamins, like vitamins C, A, E, and other vitamins, which can be found in fresh vegetables and fruits. The breastfeeding mother’s diet should contain a source of Iron, to compensate for the loss that has occurred during pregnancy and parturition.

The second part of the ingredients of healthy food for proper nutrition for the mothers and child is the ingredients of the best nutritional food for children, which can be as follows:

• The ingredients of healthy food for children have to contain enough protein according to the child’s age, and weight. Examples of these types of food are red meat, poultry meat, eggs, beans, and others.
• The ingredients of healthy food for children have to contain the amount of vitamins needed by the child. The presence of fruits and vegetables is essential to cover this point and should be found in breakfast, dinner, lunch, and snacks.
• The ingredients of healthy food for children have to contain enough iron, as a lot of children may be affected by anemia due to low iron content in their bone marrow. Iron is found in red meat, animal liver, dates, and others that can prevent anemia.
• The ingredients of healthy food for children have to contain enough Calcium from products like cheese, milk, milk products, eggs, and leafy vegetables, as the children need Calcium for the formation of their teeth and bones

What are the proper nutritional conditions for mother and child?

The most important proper nutritional conditions for proper nutrition for the mothers and child are the following:

• You have to care about the presence of all nutritional requirements that are needed by mothers and children in each meal.
• You have to care about the difference between the differences between each age group between children, and the differences between the different gestational ages, and different lactational ages as well for pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.
• You should care about the variation between genders in children.
• You need to care about the presence of different nutritional diseases and other types of diseases, as diseases with their different types can affect the ingredients of healthy food for mother and child.
• You should care about the presence of post-gestational problems, like the presence of bleeding post parturition, this needs changes in the nutritional programs, as it can cause anemia and general weakness.
• You need to care about the presence of nutritional problems that may impair the consumption of certain types of food, as lactose intolerance, and favism.

• Care about the individual variations between children and mothers as well, the individual variations between people can affect satiety, and consequently, the health problems related to nutrition.

What are diseases and problems that may occur in children and mothers due to improper nutrition?

Of course, some nutritional problems may occur due to improper nutrition, either in mothers or in children. The nutritional problems that may occur in children and mothers due to improper nutrition can be as follows:

• Depression, that can usually occur in mothers and children as well due to improper nutrition.
• Anemia may occur in mothers due to low iron, low vitamin C, or low vitamin B12, and in children due to low iron.
• Confusion, and poor focusing in lessons.
• General weakness, and emaciation.
• Poor wound healing.
• Bad immunity and an increase in infection with different diseases.
• Decrease in milk production in breastfeeding mothers.
• Hairfall, and weakness in hair.
• Deficiency in vitamin A may cause some diseases, like night blindness, and conjunctivitis.
• Improper nutrition in pregnant mothers can cause some fetal deformities. An example of this point is the deformity of the neural tube due to folic acid deficiency,
• Improper nutrition in pregnant mothers can cause abortion, stillbirth, and low birth weight.
• Improper nutrition in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers may cause depression that may increase as well due to postpartum depression.
• Improper nutrition in mothers may cause general weakness, dizziness, and other health problems that may occur due to improper nutrition.

Conclusion 

Getting the proper nutrition for the mothers and child is considered one of the most critical points in maintaining the well-being of society, as mothers are giving nutrition to their children in their first days of life, which is considered a milestone for their future health as well. The affection of kids with anemia in their first days of life is due to the improper nutrition of the mother, and consequently, any effect on the nutrition of the mother will be reflected in the health and nutrition of their children.