Preventing eclampsia : an interview with Tom Brewer, MD

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Nov, 2004 by CJ Puotinen

Protein, good foods, salt, and water have protective effects, and prescription drugs have all kinds of adverse effects, yet the irrational, unscientific use of restrictive diets and prescription drugs in pregnancy continues. Doctors tell their patients to eat low-protein, low-calorie, low-salt diets, even though these have been thoroughly documented as being harmful to both the mother and her unborn child. (4-6,8,10-12,14,16-18,22,36-38,40,42,46,47,50,55,58-64,67,71,75) In addition, the blind use of "weight limitation" in pregnancy management has been shown in studies of thousands of pregnancies to be dangerous because it leads to malnutrition, especially in the last half of gestation. (31,40,46,49,52,54,58,59,62) Pregnancy is simply not the time to restrict food.

Q: What is the Brewer Diet for a Healthy Mom and Baby?

Dr. Brewer: I called this my Brown Bag Prenatal Nutrition Lecture. (65-67,74) A pregnant woman should drink one quart (four 8-ounce glasses) or more of milk every day. In addition, she should eat two eggs plus one or two servings of fish, chicken, lean beef, lamb or pork, or any kind of cheese.

She should also eat one or two daily servings of fresh, green, leafy vegetables such as mustard, collard, or turnip greens, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, or cabbage; five servings of whole-wheat bread, corn tortillas, or cereal; a piece of citrus fruit or a glass of orange or grapefruit juice; a large green pepper, papaya, or tomato; and three or more pats of butter.

The diet also includes five servings of yellow-or orange-colored vegetables five times a week; liver once a week if you like it; a whole baked potato three times a week; all the water and fluids you need to prevent thirst; and all the salt you need to make your food taste good. These are not optimum amounts, these are minimums, and you go from there.

You need 80 to 100 grams of protein every day to prevent toxemia. I never used this figure when describing the diet because it was hard enough to get patients to remember a quart of milk and two eggs every day, plus salt to taste. That was the diet's foundation. It is a little more difficult to reach your nutritional goals if you are a vegetarian or have food allergies, but you can do it. For protein, you can substitute vegetable proteins as long as they are "complete" proteins and you don't have trouble digesting them. Rice with beans, peanut butter, tofu, nuts, and seeds all provide protein.

This diet will prevent toxemia, other maternal complications, and all kinds of neurological, physical, motor, and behavior abnormalities in the child. I tested this diet for over 30 years on thousands of patients and those who followed it never had eclampsia, anemia, abruption of the placenta, severe infections of the lungs, kidneys, or liver, low birth weight babies, premature birth, or miscarriage, and all of their children were healthy.

It takes courage to adopt this diet because the concept behind it, that malnutrition is the cause of toxemia and other diseases associated with pregnancy, remains very unpopular in American obstetrics.