OSTEOPOROSIS: HOW SOON TO HAVE CHILDREN, AND HOW MANY?
During pregnancy there is usually a natural high level of oestrogen to promote the production of active vitamin D, encouraging calcium absorption. There are also much higher levels of progesterone during pregnancy, to conserve the bone mass. Therefore pregnancy can be beneficial to your bone mass if your daily consumption of calcium is adequate for your body and for the formation of your unborn baby. The conclusion among many doctors is that if you have not had children, your risk of osteoporosis may be higher.
If, on the other hand, a teenager becomes pregnant before her bone mass has reached skeletal maturity (in 1982,90,000 teenagers in England and Wales were pregnant), and if an expectant or nursing mother does not maintain an adequate daily intake of calcium, or embarks on unwise dieting before lactation is finished, her body will steal from its own skeletal reserves to nourish the foetus and provide lactation. This explains the origin of the old saying ‘for every child, a tooth’.
Similarly, in poor countries where the level of nutrition is low, pregnancy and a lengthy period of breast-feeding can have a debilitating effect on a mother’s skeleton. Whatever calcium is available goes straight to the foetus to start bone building. With an insufficient intake, the mother’s calcium reserves in her skeleton will be drawn upon.
A new type of woman is becoming pregnant today – the older career woman who decides to have a family at a later date in her life. She may already be at an age when she is starting to lose trabecular bone tissue from her vertebrae, making good nutrition of vital importance, and sufficient intake of calcium essential.
If you have many pregnancies at frequent intervals, with no due regard to proper nutrition, each child will represent a drain on your calcium reserves and bone strength.
Many experts consider it prudent to build up calcium levels before pregnancy.
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Posted in Healthy bones Osteoporosis RheumaticTags: Healthy bones
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