The Wisdom of Adelle Davis from "Let's Have Healthy Children"

Growing blue-ribbon babies

My mother was one of four children born in the 50s to my Grandma Mary Ann at a time when smoking and dieting during pregnancy was not discouraged.

Thirty years ago, women who gained excessively during pregnancy had a higher rate of toxemia and eclampsia than others who gained little. The reason appears to be that the diets of obese persons are usually deficient in most essential nutrients, though some women do become overweight by eating too much wholesome food. Malnourished obese individuals have the same problems during pregnancy, including toxemia (preclampsia), as other women whose diets are inadequate. The muscles of such women become weak, waterlogged, and infiltrated with fat; hence labor is difficult; and their infants, likewise suffering from edema, may weigh as much as 9 to 11 pounds. For these reasons, obstetricians understandably have great fear that a large gain will cause heavy babies and difficult births. p114

Her children, my aunts and uncle, were all born about 6lbs. They were not breastfed as babies and their childhood diets consisted of the minimalist norm for post depression, post war parents: portions of nutrient poor, refined, canned, and processed foods. Considering her upbringing, the day that my mother’s coworker handed her a copy of Adelle Davis’ book was an act of divine intervention on behalf of our family. Adelle Davis’ books are what my mother read and referred to for her pregnancies which produced four 9lb, naturally born, breastfed, baby girls. Births that she remembers fondly for the most part. Adelle’s recommendations run parallel to Dr. Weston Price’s whose work I’ve recently taken an interest in. It’s remarkable that my mother and I came upon similar information and conclusions decades apart and from different sources.

The apathetic acceptance and cultural normalization of the rates of miscarriage, pregnancy complications, traumatic births, and chronically sick children seems criminal when most of these issues could be prevented with an understanding of nutrition (and that pharmaceuticals are poison). These outcomes are not normal whatsoever, although they are common and a little curiosity and do-diligence before conception can go a long way to avoid them. I highly recommend buying a copy of “Let’s Have Healthy Children” before it becomes extinct and if anyone has success in implementing Adelle’s suggestions let me know!

So what is required to have healthy children according to Adelle?

The hereditary potentials of children rarely achieve their full expression. The controlling factor is often the nutrition of the genes and chromosomes, which is limited by deficiencies existing in either parent before conception. p15

this idea is echoed by Dr. Weston Price in his book - Nutrition & Physical Degeneration

The general architecture of the body is apparently determined primarily by the health of the two germ cells at the time of their union. This architectural design may not be completely fulfilled due to interference with nutritive processes both before and after birth. In this large problem of the relationship between physical design of the body and resistance or susceptibility to disease, we may have determining factors operating at different periods in prenatal and postnatal growth. The accumulating evidence strongly emphasizes that disease susceptibility is a widely variable factor and associated with certain types of developmental disturbances. p474

The pivotal factors which will shape a child’s entire life are determined by the health and nutrition of the parents preconception. We should not see this as a paralyzing responsibility but as hopeful and empowering. Our babies’ health is not determined by the whims of chance but is the product of the natural laws of nutrition which we may wield to their benefit. What if you could plan ahead of time to have a minimally painful birth, peaceful postpartum, a happy baby, and to save thousands on doctors visits from something as simple as the foods and supplements you take before conception and during pregnancy? I refuse to believe that standard American motherhood was meant to be as difficult as the standard American diet has made it.

What if you could ensure that your children would become smart, self sufficient, and successful before they were born?

When pregnant and lactating rats are given diets only slightly deficient in protein for several generations, the young of each generation show progressively poorer brain development and slower learning ability. If their granddaughters and great-granddaughters are then given excellent diets throughout life, their young are still mentally retarded. The effects of faulty nutrition, therefore, cannot be overcome in a single generation, and what appears to be entirely a hereditary limitation is actually a nutritional one. Similarly, studies made 30 years ago of the diets of pregnant women in the United States showed them to be deficient in protein and many other nutrients. Humans, like the rats, may be unable to reach their intellectual potential in a single generation. The rapid brain development during the first three months after conception, thought to depend largely on protein synthesis, can be so limited by almost any deficiency that damage causing lifelong mental retardation can occur even at this early period. Deficiencies of high-quality protein and other nutrients cause the brain development of 70 per cent of the world's children to remain subnormal. Since the protein intake is usually higher, brain development is generally more normal when infants are nursed than when bottle-fed. p39

&

Research shows the babies weighing 7½ to 8½ pounds are in general healthier, smarter, happier, blue-ribbon babies, far superior to those whose birth weight was 5½ pounds or under. There are, of course, many exceptions. When compared with thousands of tiny babies, however, few large ones are born prematurely, are stillborn or die soon after birth, have malformations or cerebral palsy, and/or are mentally retarded. For example, in the Harvard study cited in chapter 2, when the mothers' diets were excellent, their babies averaged 8½ pounds; their deliveries were relatively easy; and though several women gained as much as 40 pounds, none had toxemia or gave birth to a stillborn child. When diets were poor, however, 44 per cent of the women who gained less than 20 pounds developed toxemia; their deliveries were prolonged and difficult, despite the fact that their babies averaged under 6 pounds. Much other research reveals similar findings. p112

Continuing to use my family as an example, due to my mother’s enthusiasm for producing the brightest babies she could, my eldest sister became a math major at the University of Mississippi on a near to full scholarship, my second eldest sister became a National Merit Scholar recipient, graduated cum laude from the University of Tennessee with a BA in philosophy in 2008, and then from the University of Alabama School of Law in 2013, and my younger sister, who also received generous scholarships, graduated from Indiana University with a BA in Political Science, and is currently stationed as a foreign service officer for the U.S. Department of State in Europe. These accomplishments are only a sampling. Fitting the pattern, even I received a full merit scholarship to the reputable ballet school I attended prior to my professional career. My mothers efforts were rewarded by the fact that her daughters went to school for near to free. Most families these days are pinching pennies to scrape together college funds for their children but the strategy of having schools throw themselves at your children is clearly more advanced. My youngest sister dabbled with the idea of getting her masters but, like Sylvia Plath and her infamous fig tree, could not decide between the multiple offers of full rides and stipends so she settled for becoming a diplomat abroad! Apparently these are the kinds of problems you can gift your children when you decide to follow Adelle’s advice - which is to eat an ample amount of complete proteins containing all essential amino acids.

Throughout pregnancy, you should eat 75 to 90 grams of protein daily if you are to produce a superior child. p88

She warns that -

Because the proteins from animal sources contain larger amounts of the essential amino acids than do vegetable proteins, they should be given preference.

A pregnant woman following a strict vegetarian diet may have a mentally defective child unless she is willing to eat cheese, eggs, and milk. p88

Adelle addresses that not all foods and supplements are created equal. For example she advises that Cal-Mag supplements be taken together in a 2:1 ratio, that the irradiated ergosterol form of vitamin D is toxic, that iron when not paired with copper and E is dangerous, and that mixed tocopherols are inferior to the stable form of vitamin E. Similarly to Dr. Price, she emphasizes the importance of whole food supplements like beef liver, cod liver oil, raw milk, and salt. I hope that you will acquire your own copy of this treasure trove of information, be inspired to raise your own “blue-ribbon babies”, and enjoy the rare benefits of a nourished preconception, pregnancy, and postpartum period.

As more and more women have substituted bottle-feeding for nursing, formula preparation has taken baby feeding away from mothers and put it into the "chemical laboratories" of the pediatricians. With this tragic rise in the authority of pediatricians - because they are untrained in nutrition - mothers have simultaneously lost faith in their own ability to be good mothers. Instead of relying upon themselves to protect their infants' health, they have shifted this responsibility to the nutritionally untrained physician, and in doing so, have unknowingly settled for mediocrity. Every woman has a heritage of millions of years of good mothering which nothing can take away from her. This heritage gives her built-in instincts which make her the best possible mother to a loved and wanted infant. If this baby is to become a superior adult, these instincts must be relied upon, and the responsibility for the infant's health must again be shouldered by the mother. p135

Adelle Davis, Let’s Have Healthy Children, 1951