Bone Broth for Pregnancy

I love looking back to traditional cultures to see what was consistent about fertility/pregnancy/postpartum nutrition among these cultures all across the world. One of those consistencies is women eating collagen rich cuts of meat and utilizing the bones to make collagen rich bone broth.

Now with our modern science, we can see why so much emphasis was put on collagen and gelatin rich foods around pregnancy.

Collagen is the main protein in the body; it represents 30% of all human protein content. It’s found in skin, bone, muscle, ligaments, tendons, and joints. It acts as the “scaffolding” that holds everything together. And during pregnancy you’re creating an entire new human that needs a lot of “scaffolding”! Don’t forget about the changes that are happening to your collagen rich tissues like skin, breast tissue, and uterus during pregnancy either.

Glycine is a particular amino acid that is found in collagen. This amino acid becomes essential during pregnancy meaning your needs are so high you have to consume glycine through food to meet your needs.

Glycine is particularly important because it helps balance our intake of muscle meat which contains high amounts of methionine. Methionine is not bad. It’s actually an important amino acid to consume, but you also need enough glycine to have a healthy balance. 

If you want to learn more about collagen and pregnancy, read on here .

Bone broth for pregnancy: an easy source of collagen, or more accurately, gelatin.

Because collagen is found primarily in skin, bones, ligaments, tendons, and joints, we need to consume those things to increase our intake. Making bone broth especially with joint bones which contain lots of connective tissue is one way to get lots of those important amino acids found in collagen. 

When collagen is simmered, it forms gelatin. This process partially breaks down collagen but the nutrition composition is nearly identical to collagen. Gelatin solidifies (think Jello-O) when cooled unlike collagen. 

Bone broth can be bought or made at home and it’s a fantastic way to increase your glycine intake! Proline is another important amino acid found in bone broth. 

I shared a post recently about how I make bone broth but the most important part is making sure you’re utilizing gelatin rich bones. That includes using hooves, feet, or oxtail in your broth to boost the glycine content. For beef broth it is best to also use marrow and knuckle bones. For chicken broth, use the entire chicken carcass boney parts and even better if you add some chicken feet. This is what will lead to the broth ‘gelatinizing’ in the fridge and how you know you’re getting a bunch of glycine!

The glycine content of bone broth will vary greatly depending on how it’s made and the types of bones used.

Bone broth also contains some minerals such as calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium, and some trace minerals but the level of these minerals are minimal so you shouldn’t rely on bone broth to meet your needs for these nutrients. Though the mineral content is low, they are readily absorbable by the body. 

Bone broth is a great way to utilize the whole animal and get more out of the cuts of meat you’re already buying. Bone-in cuts tend to be less expensive. Even better if you purchase a meat share directly from a farm because the bones come with it! If you don’t utilize those bones, they just get thrown away.

Local farms or butchers are a great place to ask for bones for soup making and cooking. 

How to make bone broth

Homemade bone broth is best. It’s much less expensive and you can be sure you’re avoiding those less-than-ideal added ingredients like “hydrolyzed yeast protein” which is common in broth products. 

You can make it on the stove top, instant pot, or slow cooker. It’s very easy, you just have to let it sit for a long time.

Fish bone broth only needs to simmer for a couple of hours but poultry is best simmered for 12+ hours and beef broth for 24+ hours. 

You want to have some kind of acid in your stock to help draw out the minerals in the bones. Vinegar is often used but traditional cultures would also use wine. Add vegetable scraps like carrot peels, celery tops, and onion peels or whole vegetables that are a little past their prime for extra nutrition and flavor.

I like to keep a bag in my freezer that I put my vegetable scraps in, then when I’m ready, I’ll use to make both. 

I do a similar thing with bones. As I have bones from a roast I made or leftover chicken parts I’ll store them in a bag in my freezer until I have enough to make a pot of broth. 

I like to roast my bones before using them for broth because it deepens the flavor. The popular food additive, MSG, tries to imitate the flavor of browned proteins. 

Bone Broth Tips

If your broth gelatinizes while cooled, you know it has the amazing gelatin that we’re after. 

You can remove the fat once it’s cooled and solidified or keep the fat for extra flavor and nutrients. If you choose to remove the fat, I encourage you to store the fat in a separate container in the fridge and utilize it for cooking. 

Broth will keep in the fridge for a few days or can be frozen for longer storage. You can also choose the pressure can broth to make it shelf stable. 

Here is a wonderful resource on broth making.

If you do choose to buy it instead of making it yourself, I’m a huge fan of Fond. They use high quality ingredients and it comes in glass jars to reduce your endocrine disruptor exposure.

If you’re buying bone broth, it’s ideal to get organic, pasture-raised. Ideally a product that doesn’t come in a can or a plastic container because those contain BPA or BPA substitutes which act as an endocrine disruptor.