 A completely plant-based diet is suitable during pregnancy, lactation, infancy, and childhood, a position echoed by the oldest and largest association of nutrition professionals in the world. I asked a couple hundred health professionals, though, and as few as one in three appear to know it. Like any diet during pregnancy, though, it should be well-planned, which means consuming at large amounts and a wide variety of plant foods from all the plant food groups, including whole grains, legumes like soybeans, regular beans, split peas, chickpeas, and lentils, vegetables, fruits, and nuts and seeds. Make sure to get enough calcium from healthy plant-based sources and sufficient vitamin D from sun or supplements. And critically important, make sure you get a regular, reliable source of vitamin B12. I have a video about B12 in pregnancy and for kids here. The two books I recommend for raising plant-based families published by two of my favorite evidence-based dietitians are Your Complete Vegan Pregnancy by Reed Mengels and Nourish, co-authored by Brenda Davis. What data do we have on the impact of vegan diet on pregnancy outcomes? The vegans had a significantly lower gestational weight gain by about 6 pounds and lower birth weights, but just by a few hundred grams, both about 7 pounds each within the normal range, with no differences in the rate of pre-term birth, nor any significant differences in the umbilical cord blood B12, folate, or iron marker levels. Between the study groups, not surprisingly since the vast majority of both groups were taking prenatal vitamins as they should. What about the composition of breast milk from those eating vegan or vegetarian diets? The systematic review has shown that all non-vegetarian, vegetarian, and vegan mothers produce breast milk of comparable nutritional value. Even Omega-3s, there was no difference in milk DHA composition by diet group, but that's not saying much, since over 80% of study participants had milk concentrations of long-chain Omega-3 DHA below target. I talk about the best way to get pollutant-free sources in a previous video, which we'll link down in the doctor's note on nutritionfacts.org or in the description on YouTube. The meat and egg industries like to scare monger about choline, but wait, this study was written by someone with no conflicts of interest. Liar! Here's a corrected version. The competing interest section has been updated, and surprise surprise, the author is a member of a meat industry-funded advisory panel. The truth is there's just as much choline in the breast milk of vegans as those who eat eggs or meat. There is something egg-free, meat-free mothers may not be passing on as much though industrial pollutants like the banned pesticide DDT in cancer-causing PCBs. The highest levels were found in the milk of fish eaters, and the lowest levels found in vegetarians. Even just cutting out meat may cut DDT stores in half. For example, here's the levels of pesticides and carcinogenic PCBs found in the breast milk from two sisters with different dietary habits. The levels of DDT, DDE, a breakdown product of DDT, deeldron and beta-hexachlorocyclohexane, two other banned pesticides, as well as PCBs, were much lower in the milk fat from the lacto-vegetarian mother than in that from the non-vegetarian sister. That's because these chemicals build up the food chain in animal fat, our fat, as well as any animal fat we eat. What about mothers who eat strictly plant-based? Their milk is even less polluted. From us every contaminant, there was no overlap in the range of scores, meaning the highest worst vegetarian value was lower than the best lowest value obtained in the U.S. sample. And by vegetarian here they mean women who eliminate all animal products from their diets, including eggs and dairy. The one vegetarian mom who had more than trace amounts in her breast milk had only been veg for less than a year. But for some of these other toxic pollutants, the average vegetarian levels were only 1 to 2% as high as the average levels in the United States. Breast is still best regardless of the dietary pattern of the mother, but nursing infants of vegetarian women whose diets are low on the food chain, in other words, plant-based, have the advantage of being exposed to less chemical pollution.