Magnesium is essential in over 300 metabolic processes in the body, and unfortunately many pregnant women do not get enough of this essential nutrient.
One of magnesium’s most important jobs is to relax muscles. Naturally, this means magnesium is important for the prevention of tense muscles, charlie horses, and post-workout strain. Less obvious, however, is the role that muscles play in so many other parts of the body. There are muscles surrounding your arteries, intestines, and bronchi; your heart and uterus are also muscles, and magnesium is important for the health of all of them.
Tight muscles in the arteries can cause migraine headaches in the head and high blood pressure throughout the body. High blood pressure from low magnesium can contribute to cardiovascular disease, leading to heart attack and stroke. In the heart, magnesium also helps maintain rhythm, preventing some forms of arrhythmia and heart palpitations. In the jaw muscles, insufficient magnesium can contribute to jaw tightness leading to TMJ pain and jaw popping. The muscles surrounding your intestines help move food through the intestines. Magnesium helps relax these when necessary, improving regularity and alleviating constipation. There are also muscles surrounding your bronchi. If magnesium is low and these muscles are tense, a person is more prone to asthma and breathing complications from viral infections.
There is an interesting connection between magnesium and fibromyalgia. People with fibromyalgia usually have low magnesium in their muscles. Magnesium is also independently linked with fatigue.
In the brain and elsewhere, magnesium, along with vitamin B6, is an essential nutrient for the production of dopamine. Low magnesium is associated with anxious and/or depressed mood. Low dopamine levels lead to nervous tension, shyness, passivity, drowsiness, and lowered ability to concentrate.
Lack of magnesium is also correlated with eclampsia of pregnancy, calcium oxalate stones, and osteoporosis.
These are just a few of the many functions of magnesium in the body.
Magnesium and Pregnancy
It is estimated that only 35-58% of pregnant women get enough magnesium in their diet. Magnesium is the “forgotten twin” of calcium, and is essential for bone health, cardiovascular health, placental health, and adequate energy levels. Magnesium is also important for the overall health of your baby: it’s brain, vascular, and bone development.
Low magnesium is implicated in gestational diabetes, toxemia of pregnancy, hypertension, and preeclampsia. Magnesium is important for relaxing the uterus and magnesium deficiency may be one contributor to pre-term labor. In fact, magnesium is so effective at relaxing the uterus that magnesium injections are used to stop premature labor.
Signs of Low Magnesium
Some signs of low magnesium are listed below. Different people respond to nutrient deficiencies in different ways depending on their personal biochemistry, so not all symptoms will be experienced. Also, some symptoms overlap with deficiencies of other nutrients. Here are some symptoms of low magnesium:
- Energy levels:Fatigue
- Muscles: Twitches, cramps, tension, and soreness in muscles, increased soreness after exercise, restless leg syndrome
- Head and Neck: Neck pain, tension or migraine headaches, and TMJ
- Lungs: Frequent sighing, chest tightness, slight discomfort on breathing deeply
- Digestion: Constipation, sensitivity to sugar dips and surges.
- Mood: Insomnia, anxiety, feeling “uptight”, restlessness, panic, agoraphobia, PMS irritability
- Sensory: Sensitivity to bright lights, sensitivity to loud noise, easy to startle, limb numbness, tingling, and “zinging” sensations.
- Heart: palpitations, arrhythmias, angina, high blood pressure, mitral valve prolapse
- Cravings: Chocolate, sugar, salt, and/or carbohydrates
Why Magnesium Deficiency is Common
Magnesium deficiency is common because a) food processing mechanisms (especially grain processing) remove it, b) we don’t eat enough leafy greens, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and seafood, and c) dairy (and calcium) is over-emphasized in the diet.
Magnesium recovery
A balanced diet of whole foods is the best way to maintain good magnesium levels. Magnesium can also be supplemented in the diet.
Good sources of magnesium include:
- nuts, legumes, whole-grain cereals (especially oats and barley), spices, seafoods, and green leafy vegetables.
- dark chocolate
- buckwheat pancakes (sourdough)
- sourdough bread
- spinach
- halibut
- pumpkin seeds
- cornmeal (if treated for phytates using lime)
- black beans
- white beans
- brazil nuts
- beet greens
- green leafy vegetables
- lima beans
- oat bran (soaked with phytase-containing freshly ground wheat)
- blackstrap molasses
- corn
- peas
- carrots
- brown rice
- parsley
I have compiled a list of delicious recipes and food items that are particularly high in magnesium (or that improve its absorption and retention). I also recommend magnesium supplementation, as described later. Try to incorporate these recipes into your regular routine:
Breakfast: Bircher Muesli, Soaked Oat Porridge, Sesame Seed Milk (good with dry muesli), Green Smoothie, Indian Buckwheat Cereal, Perfect Oatmeal.
Lunch: 15-minute Black Bean Salad, Autumn Slaw, Pepita Salad, Quick Garlicky Beans, Whole Wheat Sourdough Bread.
Snack: Apple (with nuts or seeds), Chili and Lime Roasted Pepitas, Lime Roasted Pepitas, Roasted Pepitas, Terrific Trail Mix.
Dinner: Asian Broccoli and Ginger Salad, Asian Collard Greens, Black Bean Salad, Broccoli Salad, Brown Rice, Brown Quinoa Rice, Quinoa, Cod and Vegetable Stew, Delicious Child-friendly Daal, Tempeh in Spicy Orange Sauce, Enlightened Tempeh Chili, Garbanzo, Corn, and Kale Soup, Red Lentil Soup With Mustard Greens, Sesame Fish, Spinach Lentil Soup, Venezuelan Black Beans, White Bean Soup, Wilted Spinach.
Treats: Better Brown Rice Pudding, Molasses Popcorn Balls, Dark chocolate (70%-85% cocoa).
Cocoa contains a lot of magnesium, and so it may be good for you. It also contains caffeine and other methylxanthines (related to caffeine) that may exacerbate heart palpitations in sensitive individuals. Too much chocolate is probably not good for pregnancy. A little, on the other hand, might be good. Read an article on chocolate’s effects on baby’s mood. If you eat chocolate, make it dark chocolate and keep it to less than half an ounce a day. Pay attention to how you feel afterwards.
Supplement with Magnesium Citrate. Look for this at the health food store. Magnesium Oxide won’t work; magnesium citrate will. The tolerable upper intake level from non-food sources for magnesium is 350mg/day. In other words, to replenish magnesium, shoot for 300mg daily in a supplement, but don€™t go over 350mg in a supplement, regardless of what you eat in your food (too much magnesium is only a problem for people with lowered kidney function).
Fruit sugar improves magnesium absorption, so eating magnesium citrate with fruit or adding powdered magnesium citrate to your fruit juices is a good idea (it’s okay if it doesn’t all dissolve in the juice; your stomach acid will dissolve it).
Avoid soda pop, crackers or quick breads, and baking powder. These foods have excessive phosphates and/or phytates, which inhibit magnesium absorption. If you’re eating the recommended meals and supplementing, however, you can get away with some of these. The process of fermenting homemade whole wheat sourdough bread greatly improves the absorption of magnesium from grains. See http://www.sourdo.com/culture.htm for cultures if you’re interested.
Lessen dairy consumption. While dairy has a lot of calcium, it has relatively little magnesium. Too much dairy can disturb magnesium/calcium balance. Avoid cottage cheese and ricotta cheese. These cheeses have high Potential Renal Acid Load (PRAL) values and strip out magnesium, calcium, and potassium through the urine.
Avoid excessive animal protein. Large amounts of protein and salt can also increase magnesium excretion.
Avoid processed foods. Processed foods like white flour, sugar, cakes, candy, etc, are stripped of magnesium.
As important as magnesium is, it is worth the investment for yourself and your baby to get enough of it!
Click here to access the Magnesium Recovery Recipes.
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