Last Updated on November 9, 2023 by Fasting Planet
You’re about to give birth to a little bundle of joy. Perhaps this is your first pregnancy, or maybe you’ve been around the block before, but you’re thinking of fasting. Is this a good idea while pregnant? What about when breastfeeding?
Yes, you can fast while pregnant or breastfeeding, but you must make sure you do it safely. For example, pregnant women should not do strenuous exercise while fasting so they don’t torch too many calories the baby needs. Breastfeeding women must maintain their hydration, as breast milk is mostly water.
In this in-depth article, we will walk you through how to fast when pregnant or breastfeeding. From the types of fasts, what you may expect, and inherent risks, by the time you’re done reading, you can make an educated decision on whether fasting is right for you as a soon-to-be or new mother.
Fasting and Pregnancy: Which Types of Fasts Can You Do?
You’ve decided you want to fast while pregnant. There are many reasons to do so, such as reducing your cholesterol, lowering your blood pressure and blood sugar, lessening inflammation, and keeping your weight under control as you carry a baby. Religious occasions may also mandate you to fast even before you give birth.
Here’s an overview of the various types of fasts you may do.
Intermittent Fasting and Pregnancy
When intermittent fasting, you switch between periods of not eating/drinking and then eating/drinking more regularly. The main types of intermittent fasts are time-restricted feeding and alternate-day fasting.
According to a Healthline article, it’s not necessarily clear whether intermittent fasting helps or hinders a pregnant woman’s health as well as that of her baby. While this means of fasting could be beneficial, you should always speak to your doctor and follow their recommendations on whether you should fast.
A Center for Fetal Medicine & Women’s Ultrasound piece mentions that there may exist a link between intermittent fasting and early pregnancy, also known as premature labor. There’s also a possibility the baby could be shorter in stature as well as underweight, so those are things to keep in mind if you do decide to fast.
Fasting During Ramadan and Pregnancy
Sometimes whether a pregnant woman begins fasting isn’t necessarily her choice. If you observe Ramadan, then it’s expected you will fast from sunup to sundown, which is between 11 and 16 hours. This goes on for about a month, or 30 days.
If you’re a Muslim woman who’s pregnant during Ramadan, fasting isn’t mandatory. Some may choose to anyway because they feel obligated to. If you’re one of them, you may want to tread carefully.
While a 2015 study published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth noted that babies born after a Ramadan fast weren’t of any lesser weight compared to babies with mothers who didn’t fast, it’s not as cut and dried as that. The study also mentions that further data will have to be collected on the effects of pregnant women fasting during Ramadan before a more conclusive statement can be made.
Further, another study, this time from Medicine in Islamic Culture, notes how when women of Gambian descent went on a Ramadan fast, their triglycerides, insulin, and glucose levels were all different than before the fast. While this study is from 1996, it still holds weight, even today.
Fasting During Yom Kippur and Pregnancy
Another religious occasion in which you may fast while pregnant is during Yom Kippur. This is a Jewish holiday with a fast that lasts for 25 hours, so slightly over one day. However, while fasting for Yom Kippur, you’re not allowed to consume food or water. In fact, you must refrain from using any water at all, even to bathe or brush your teeth.
The warnings against fasting during Yom Kippur when pregnant began back in 1983, when an article in The New York Times noted that this religious fasting could induce early labor.
A much more recent article published in The Times of Israel in 2014 cites a study from The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine. That data stated that women risked delivering early by at least two times more by fasting, proving what was published in that 1983 article is very likely true.
Catholic Fasting and Pregnancy
If you’re a Catholic, fasts are more frequent throughout any given year. Those who follow this religion are eligible to start fasting once they turn 18. This would continue until they turn 59 years old. For some Catholics, between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, they will fast.
Those who are pregnant or nursing do not have to follow the fasting rules under Catholicism, even from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday.
How to Fast When Pregnant
If you’re still interested in starting a fast while carrying a baby, here are the steps to follow. Remember that any time you feel ill or something seems off with the baby, it’s best to cease your fast immediately.
Step 1: Get Your Doctor’s Approval
Fasting when pregnant, while it is possible, is generally not the smartest or safest thing to do for yourself and the baby. Before you ever engage in a fast yourself, be it an intermittent or religious one, you must speak to your doctor or OB/GYN.
During your appointment, you will receive a checkup. Talk to your doctor about your interest in fasting and ask if you’re in good enough health to do so. Your doctor may recommend a type of fast as well as a recommended duration. Stick to these guidelines.
Step 2: Prepare Your Body
While you don’t want to stop eating altogether until the fast (provided you’re not allowed to eat), taking your body from a daily full load of calories to far fewer can be jarring. Given that you’re already pregnant, you don’t want to do anything to rock the boat, so to speak.
That’s why it’s recommended you begin scaling back on what you eat leading up to your fast. Shrink portions somewhat and begin removing extraneous dietary items such as caffeine and sugar. As fast day gets closer, you might want to introduce foods in liquid form, like vegetable and fruit juices.
Step 3: Begin the Fast
For the next 12, maybe even 24 hours, you will fast. As a pregnant woman, the shorter your fasts, the better. Without sufficient calories, your baby may be underdeveloped or underweight.
If you’d prefer a medically supervised fast, that may be best. This way, your doctor or OB/GYN can monitor your health and your baby’s as the fast proceeds.
Step 4: Monitor Symptoms
Since you’re cutting down on the number of calories you usually consume, it’s normal to feel fatigued on a fast. That said, if your symptoms progress to dizziness, weakness, extreme exhaustion, a severe headache, or blurry vision, you want to stop the fast immediately.
The same is true if you notice less movement from your fetus, an increase in contractions, and any vaginal bleeding.
Step 5: Watch Your Activities
Exercise on an intermittent fast is typically allowed, but since you’re pregnant, you should try to take it as easy as possible. If you have to do any activities that day, keep them light. When you can, sit or even lie down. Take naps when possible, too, as that makes the fast go by more quickly.
Fasting and Decreased Postprandial Blood Sugar Levels in Pregnancy: Is There Any Connection?
Earlier, we mentioned one of the perks of intermittent fasting is a lower blood sugar. This is a good thing, as a too-high blood sugar could lead to a condition known as hyperglycemia.
If left unchecked, hyperglycemia can cause nerve issues, vision difficulties, and kidney disease. You’re also at an elevated risk of having stroke or heart disease, as your vessels that move blood to your body’s most important organs are severely damaged by the condition.
While a lower blood sugar is a health goal to work towards, there is such thing as going too low. This is known as hypoglycemia. Since your body relies on glucose or blood sugar for energy, if it drops precipitously, you may feel shaky, woozy, tired, and hungry.
Some people also report tremors, slurred speech, exhaustion, pins and needles, palpitations, headaches, blurry vision, and anxiety. Your lips might tingle and feel dry, you may have nausea and vomiting, and you could sweat more than usual.
While it’s incredibly uncommon to have hypoglycemia as a pregnant woman without a diagnosed case of diabetes, it can happen. This condition can also be triggered in pregnant women if they don’t eat enough, such as when fasting.
That’s why it’s good to know the normal blood sugar level before and after fasting during pregnancy. In the morning, your blood sugar should be around 100 milligrams per deciliter or mg/dL or less. It should remain there before you begin a fast that day. After fasting for eight to 10 hours, the levels may drop to 70 mg/dL. In some cases, they increase to 110 mg/dL.
Your post-meal plasma glucose goes by another name, postprandial blood sugar. If you don’t have diabetes and you’re on a fast, then it’s normal for blood glucose to drop because you’re not supplying your body with calories, i.e., energy. Therefore, a connection between a lower postprandial blood sugar and pregnancy is well-established.
Fasting and Pregnancy Risks
A healthy eating plan during pregnancy includes small frequent meals. When you reduce the size of those meals or cut them out altogether, such as through an intermittent fast, a pregnant woman might be at risk of the following.
Premature Birth
As you may remember from earlier in this guide, the article from the Center for Fetal Medicine & Women’s Ultrasound noted that studies have reported that some pregnant woman who fast may be at risk of preterm labor. This is just another way of saying premature birth.
An early birth means your baby could develop a whole host of health issues, among them psychological and behavioral issues, hearing difficulties, impaired learning, vision problems, and even cerebral palsy.
Fetal Complications and Death
A 2013 article in The Jerusalem Post notes how as a woman gets later into pregnancy, fasting is a riskier and riskier move. The data comes from a Soroka University Medical Center study published that same year and cited in the article.
Once you’re past the 20-week mark, you should stop fasting. Since the baby is at a higher risk of being born premature, their chances of having complications or even dying are at about seven to 11 percent around this time, says The Post.
Underweight Baby
Premature babies are also often born underweight. While this may not seem like such a big deal, the less a baby weighs at birth, the more health problems he or she may have. These include breathing issues (such as infant respiratory distress syndrome), difficulties gaining weight, being unable to stay at proper body temperature, and less oxygen upon birth.
Water Fasting and Pregnancy
Another type of fast that we haven’t discussed yet is one in which you consume only water. This is known as water fasting, which is considered a form of intermittent fasting. There are both soft and hard water fasts. The soft version allows you to use water for hygienic purposes, but not for drinking. Hard water fasts prohibit both.
You’re carrying a baby and your caloric needs may increase even more than usual. Since water fasting involves drinking nothing but water with no added calories, we wouldn’t suggest it for pregnant women. Not only do you have to think about your own health while pregnant, but your baby’s as well. Make smart choices whenever possible.
How to Fast When Breastfeeding
You may have decided to wait to fast until after your baby was born. Now you have all this extra weight you’d love to drop, and fasting seems like a great way to go about it.
While intermittent fasting is a safer choice now since the baby was already born, you’re not completely out of the woods yet. You’re nursing, so you’re already at risk of dehydration. We’ll talk about this more in the next section, but dehydration can be dangerous, so don’t get lax.
To get started with your fast, you’d want to follow the same steps as those we laid out in our section about fasting while pregnant. Always begin with a doctor’s appointment so they can confirm if it’s even a good idea for you to fast.
If you can do an intermittent fast, then discuss the duration and type of fast so your doctor can give you the green light. Then, just like before, you want to begin reducing the foods you eat in preparation for the fast, cutting down on your diet.
Keep your fast short, no more than 24 hours unless for religious observance. While you fast, you still want to take it easy. Avoid exercising or running around too much. You may not be carrying a baby anymore, but you’re still a new mother who acts as the primary food supplier for your baby.
When the fast ends, gradually reintroduce foods into your diet. You may drink a mostly liquid diet for the day after the fast before moving back to solid foods. Eat these in small quantities for a while to avoid upsetting your stomach.
Fasting and Breastfeeding Risks
We’ll reiterate what we said in the section about fasting while pregnant. If you start to feel sick, dizzy, weak, or you get severe headaches, then stop your fast immediately. You could be dealing with these potentially dangerous side effects of fasting while breastfeeding.
Lack of Breast Milk
Whether you fast or not, it’s crucial you keep up on your fluids so you can continue nursing. After all, although it’s called breast milk, it’s comprised almost entirely of water, as 90 percent of the milk is H2O. Without enough water in your system, you may not produce as much breast milk.
This could put your newborn at risk since they no longer have anything to feed on. Skipping breastfeeding isn’t the best idea, either, as your baby’s risk of having allergies and asthma may go up if you don’t nurse. Also, babies who spend the first six months of their lives nursing deal with fewer respiratory illnesses and ear infections.
Dehydration
As if the act of giving birth isn’t strenuous enough, since you’re producing so much breast milk, your body uses a lot of water. The newborn also feeds on the breast milk several times a day, as we said, thus depleting your supply of water even further.
Any fast in which you can’t drink water or other fluids is not recommended when breastfeeding, such as a hard dry fast. Dehydration can lead to symptoms like dizziness, dry skin, headaches, low-volume urine, exhaustion, and dry mouth. In the worst cases, it can be fatal.
Less Nutritious Breast Milk
Breastfeeding and parenting resource KellyMom.com mentions in an article that several studies have confirmed that breast milk changes after a fast. There are biochemical alterations, plus, the milk may not have the same nutrient quality compared to breast milk from a woman who didn’t fast. For example, your breast milk may lack as much potassium, magnesium, and zinc.
While it appears that very short fasts and ones that don’t deprive women of water won’t affect the quality of breast milk, longer fasts may.
Conclusion
If you’re pregnant or breastfeeding and thinking of trying an intermittent fast, we’d recommend you wait. While fasting can be beneficial for a healthier lifestyle and a trimmer you, there are many risks associated with fasting while carrying a baby and immediately after.
Those who have no choice but to fast, such as for a religious observance, should work closely with their doctor to maintain their health pre-and-post-fast.