Eat Right for Your Baby

Excerpted from
Eat Right for Your Baby: The Individualized Guide To Fertility and Maximum Health During Pregnancy, Nursing, and Your Baby's First Year
By Peter J. D'Adamo, M.D., Catherine Whitney

The Rh Factor

When your blood is typed, you also learn whether you are "negative" or "positive." Many people don't realize that this is an additional blood type called the Rhesus or Rh system, and it really has nothing to do with your ABO blood type. However, it has everything to do with reproduction. The Rh system is named for the rhesus monkey, a commonly employed laboratory animal in whose blood it was first discovered. For many years, it remained a mystery to doctors why some women who had normal first pregnancies developed complications in their second and subsequent pregnancies, which often resulted in miscarriage and even the death of the mother. In 1940, the mystery was solved by Dr. Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian-American scientist. Landsteiner discovered that these women were carrying different blood types than their babies, who took their blood types from their fathers. The babies were Rh-positive, which meant that they carried the Rh antigen on their blood cells. Their mothers were Rh-negative, which meant that this antigen was missing from their blood.

Unlike the ABO system, where the antibodies to other blood types develop from birth, Rh-negative women do not make an antibody to the Rh antigen unless they are first sensitized. This sensitization usually occurs when blood is exchanged between the mother and infant during birth, so the mother's immune system does not have enough time to react to the first baby. However, should a later conception result in yet another Rh-positive baby, the mother, now sensitized, will produce antibodies to the baby's blood type. The result is an attack on the baby's blood cells that can be devastating and potentially fatal. Complications include severe anemia, hemorrhage, decline in the number of blood cells, and heart failure. Reactions to the Rh factor can only occur in Rh-negative women who conceive the children of Rh-positive fathers. If the mother and father are both Rh-negative, there is no problem. Rh-positive women, who comprise 85 percent of the population, have nothing to worry about.

Today we have a simple immunization given to Rh-negative women after the birth of their first child, which protects against the effects of this incompatibility. Rh immune globulin (Rho-GAM, GammulinRH) is routinely given to Rh-negative women after delivery-although if you are delivering in an underdeveloped country you'll want to make certain it is available.

Rh sensitization is not just an issue in full-term deliveries. Even if you have a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, or abortion, you will need to receive Rh immune globulin. Since there's a small chance that fetal blood can enter a woman's bloodstream during amniocentesis, it is recommended that Rh-negative women receive Rh immune globulin after this procedure.

A successful pregnancy is a miraculous holistic event. The atmosphere that you create for this extraordinary happening is one that is formed long before you conceive. Pregnancy is an excellent example of body/mind integration, involving every physical and neurological function.

How can you use your knowledge about your blood type's role in nutrition and health to maximize your well-being before pregnancy, improve your condition during pregnancy, and give your baby the best start in life-from the moment he or she is conceived?

I have said many times that blood type science is about individuality, and perhaps no experience is as completely individual as pregnancy and childbirth. Chances are you will hear many stories from others during your pregnancy and receive more advice than you care to. Some of it will be contradictory. Some of it will not conform to your experience. Your blood type advisory is a touchstone that can offer you reliable individualized recommendations. All of these recommendations are safely within our current scientific and medical understanding of reproduction and childbirth. This book is not designed to replace that knowledge, but to enhance and personalize it.

In the following sections you will learn how to maximize your chances of enjoying a healthy, successful pregnancy by employing strategies that have been individually crafted for your blood type. Obviously, blood type is not the sole factor involved in a healthy pregnancy. So your plan is really a combination of the best naturopathic advice and the best blood type-factored advice. Every so often I'll see a pregnant woman in my practice who is so obsessed with doing everything perfectly that she's a nervous wreck. She's convinced that if she makes one bad choice or eats one food that isn't right for her blood type, she'll jeopardize her baby's health.

Although it's wonderful to live in an era when we have so much knowledge about how to keep both mother and baby healthy during pregnancy, I always advise mothers-to-be (and dads-to-be, too) not to go overboard in monitoring their compliance with every detail of the blood type diet and other recommendations. Such rigidity is a big stress-inducer, and right now you need to be eliminating stress, not adding to it. For the most part, your body will let you know if you've gone astray.

Pregnancy can be a uniquely rich and satisfying period. Don't miss the opportunity to savor the totality of this experience.