First things first: the Louwen diet is not intended to help you lose weight during pregnancy, but rather to help you prepare optimally for the birth. In this article, we explain how nutrition can have a positive influence on your birth and how certain foods affect your body during pregnancy.
When you hear the term "diet", you probably think of losing weight. Losing weight during pregnancy can be useful if you are very overweight. However, this should always be done in consultation with and under the supervision of your doctor. Strictly speaking, the Louwen diet is therefore not a diet to lose weight. Rather, it is a form of nutrition designed to help you prepare well for the birth.
Louwen diet instead of Louwen diet
The word "diet" immediately activates our limbic system and sends a warning signal. Your brain then receives a kind of punishment. And especially during pregnancy, you should never punish yourself with anything. Quite the opposite: you should always pay attention to your well-being. A lack of relaxation is counterproductive and leads to stress. Therefore, consider the Louwen diet as a type of positive nutrition that contributes to a positive birth process.
And especially with regard to the mother-child bond after the birth, it is extremely important that everything goes well. So always remember: "You will not love what punishes you". A diet punishes you, but you will love a healthy diet that makes you feel good.
Good preparation for the birth
A Louwen diet is similar to an athlete's diet: it has a positive effect on the body and helps you to survive the marathon of childbirth. It's no exaggeration to say that your uterus has to do high-performance sport during a birth.
So how would a top athlete prepare for a competition? He would try to build up and strengthen his muscles and he would supply his body with good food. All of this helps to ensure that the body is strong enough to withstand the strain. And that's exactly what happens with the Louwen diet: you ensure that your body is strong enough for the birth with a balanced diet and certain foods.
>>> Reading tip: Birth preparation - What you need to know
Good foods in the Louwen diet
There are a number of foods that you can eat as part of the Louwen diet to achieve a positive effect. Before we give you a list of suitable foods, we would like to explain how the Louwen diet works. The basis for the right diet during pregnancy is your glycaemic index. This is your insulin level. Among other things, this has an effect on your cravings, but also on the release of insulin.
The more sugar and simple carbohydrates your diet contains, the sharper your insulin level rises and the faster it falls again. The rapid drop then causes cravings. The foods you should eat as part of the Louwen diet consist largely of complex carbohydrates, which keep your insulin levels constant.
Less insulin for free receptors
In the last few weeks before the birth, your body increasingly releases the Hormone prostaglandin out. This hormone is responsible for controlling the reaction to pain and inflammation. It can also provide information about when labour begins. Another - very important - task: prostaglandin promotes the maturation of the cervix. In order to promote this maturation, the hormone must be able to dock onto the receptors of the uterus.
With the Louwen diet During the last few weeks of your pregnancy, you ensure that your body has to secrete less insulin. During this time, your body needs less insulin, which also reduces its secretion. Too much insulin prevents your body from releasing prostaglandin. Both use the same receptors.
The free receptors on the uterus for the prostaglandin are extremely important, as they ensure that the uterus can react to the oxytocin. If the receptors are occupied by insulin, you may not go into labour and the birth has to be induced.
If labour is induced, this happens with the administration of prostaglandin. However, it is not possible to dose this correctly and women are therefore given Induction of labour actually always give too much. This overdose leads to severe pain after the birth. Many women whose labour was induced artificially think that they are only imagining the pain. However, this is by no means the case. The severe pain is mainly due to the fact that too much prostaglandin, which does not adhere to the receptors, remains in the bloodstream.
The Louwen diet table
For your body to be able to do all this, it needs the right foods. If you follow the Louwen diet principle before giving birth, you should avoid simple carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates are better:
| Good carbohydrates | Bad carbohydrates |
| Fruit (apples, pears, oranges) | tropical fruits (watermelon, pineapple, papaya, dates) |
| Pulses (beans, peas, lentils, chickpeas) | Potatoes |
| Brown rice & wild rice | Pasta, wheat flour products |
| Unsweetened dairy products | Honey & sugar |
| Nuts | Sweets |
Within the good carbohydrates, whatever you like is allowed on the Louwen diet. Cook as healthily as possible and make sure you use good fats for frying and cooking. But please don't be too strict with yourself! If you fancy a piece of chocolate, then indulge yourself. In moderation, jelly babies and the like are no problem at all. You can also easily get rid of the extra sugar by going for an extra walk. Because sport burns sugar.
