Pregnancy is one of the most critical times to optimize protein intake, and maternity protein shakes are an excellent way to accomplish this.
Here, we share why protein is essential during pregnancy, how much you need, plus three nutrient-dense and tasty maternity protein shake recipes you can make in under five minutes.
Why Protein is Essential For a Healthy Pregnancy & Baby
Maintaining a healthy pregnancy requires a significant amount of nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, carbohydrates, fats, and protein.
This is why eating a healthy, balanced diet with plenty of colorful veggies, fruits, proteins, healthy fats, whole grains, and 300 extra calories a day is so important for mother and baby.
Protein is especially important because it builds bodily tissue in the mother, such as the placenta, uterus, and breasts, as well as all the baby's vital organs.
Getting enough protein is also critical for increasing blood supply, which enhances three-fold in the mother by the time she gives birth!
Eating adequate protein also supports healthy blood sugar, satiety, sleep, muscle mass, and hormonal and metabolic function, all of which help promote a healthy pregnancy and baby’s growth and development.
How Much Protein Do You Need During Pregnancy?
Most experts, including the American Pregnancy Association, recommend between 75-100 grams, but your needs may be higher, so check with your birth team.
That comes out to 25-30 grams per meal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) or 15-20 grams per mini-meal (for those who have run out of room to eat larger meals).
If you’re not used to eating this much protein, it can seem like a lot to take in!
The simple addition of a protein shake can add 20-30 grams of high-quality protein to your daily intake.
Note: Consult with your doctor when taking any supplements, but if the ingredients are pregnancy-safe, then you can consume protein powder during pregnancy. Just make sure to watch out for any personal food aversions, like dairy if you are lactose intolerant or animal-derived ingredients if you are vegan or vegetarian.
Some mamas like to have a hearty maternity protein shake for breakfast, which includes fruits, greens, healthy fats, and superfood powders.
Others like making one for an afternoon snack or before bed to help increase the odds of a good night’s rest.
However you choose to incorporate maternity protein shakes, they can go a long way to helping meet your and your baby’s protein needs.
Are Protein Powders Safe During Pregnancy?
Reports about contaminants in various protein powders have many people, including expectant parents, concerned about safety.
So, is protein powder safe during pregnancy?
It depends on the quality, sourcing, and testing procedures of the specific brand and the formula.
Reputable protein powder brands will test for contaminants like lead, arsenic, mold, bacteria, and others and keep tight specifications to ensure a safe and pure product.
How can you tell if a brand employs end-product testing?
Check their website for information on their quality control and quality assurance procedures. If you can’t find anything there, contact the company to ask about their testing procedures.
You can even request a Certificate of Analysis (COA) to see how a specific product measures up.
Additionally, protein powders with added vitamins may be problematic if you take prenatal vitamins or other supplements.
You may also want to avoid protein powders with herbs and definitely avoid those with performance-enhancing nutrients or substances like creatine or guarna.
If you’re unsure, check with your prenatal care team.
In subsequent sections, we will share more about BioChem’s strict criteria for manufacturing clean protein powders.
3 Maternity Protein Shake Recipes To Support A Healthy Pregnancy
Although you can follow any recipe, the following maternity protein shake recipes are designed with pregnant mothers in mind.
They each contain a generous 20-30 grams of protein per serving while providing highly nutritious functional foods to help fill in nutritional gaps and help ease common pregnancy complaints like iron deficiency, sleeplessness, and regularity (and the third recipe may even promote smoother labor and delivery!).
These recipes are customizable and include substitutions and variations for low-sugar, nut-free, dairy-free, etc.
1: Iron Mama Maternity Protein Shake
This bright and citrusy shake is loaded with ingredients to promote healthy iron levels, such as:
- Dark leafy greens: These provide plant-based iron, vitamin K, and other blood-building nutrients
- Spirulina: Another source of plant-based iron as well as B vitamins, minerals, and protein
- Mango and citrus fruits: Are rich in vitamin C, which helps enhance iron absorption
Iron deficiency or insufficiency is common during pregnancy and can lead to dizziness, fainting, pregnancy complications, and developmental problems in the fetus, so getting enough is essential.
Yield: 1 Serving
Ingredients:
- 1 cup frozen mango chunks
- 1 cup dark leafy greens such as spinach or kale
- Half an avocado OR 1 cup of frozen cauliflower
- 1 whole orange + the zest of 1 orange
- The juice of a lemon or lime
- 1 cup liquid such as your favorite plant milk, coconut water, water, or orange juice
- 1 teaspoon high-quality spirulina
- 1 scoop BioChem Vanilla Whey, Sugar-Free Whey, or Vanilla Vegan Protein Powder
How to make:
Combine everything in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.
Substitutions & variation:
- Cherries are also high in vitamin C, and may be subbed for the mango, either alone or half and half with peaches
- If you’re watching your blood sugar, opt for water or milk vs. juice and use sugar-free protein powder
- If your doctor has recommended an iron supplement, ask about adding it to this smoothie
2: Sweet Sleep Pregnancy Protein Shake
Pregnancy often brings various sleep challenges, such as leg cramps or late-night hunger pangs.
This maternity protein shake recipe provides the protein you need to prevent late-night fridge raids and blood sugar dips.
It also includes magnesium-rich leafy greens, hemp hearts, avocado or banana, almond or pepita milk to promote relaxation and prevent leg cramps, and dark sweet cherries, a natural source of melatonin.
(Bonus: Optimal magnesium intake has been associated with a reduced risk of pre-eclampsia and other positive pregnancy outcomes!)
We can’t promise this will solve all your pregnancy sleep woes (like frequent bathroom runs!), but it will make a satisfying before-bed snack.
Yield: 1 Serving
Ingredients:
- 1 cup frozen dark sweet cherries
- 1 banana OR half to one avocado, fresh or frozen
- 1 cup kale, spinach, or your favorite smoothie greens
- 1 scoop BioChem Vanilla Whey, Sugar-Free Whey, or Vanilla Vegan Protein Powder
- 1 cup almond or pepita (pumpkin seed) milk
- 1-2 tablespoons hemp hearts
- 1 teaspoon almond extract (helps enhance the cherry flavor)
How to make:
Combine everything in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.
Substitutions & variations:
- Frozen berries can be swapped for the cherries, though they do not contain natural melatonin
- Chia seeds can be swapped for hemp hearts
- Swap avocado for bananas if watching your blood sugar
- Swap vanilla extract for almond extract if needed
3: Third Trimester Date Protein Shake
If you’re a health-conscious mama, you’ve probably heard about the possible connection between eating dates in the third trimester and better labor and delivery outcomes.
Although more research is needed to confirm how dates may benefit labor, they are chock-full of minerals, antioxidants, and fiber and make a great natural sweetener!
This shake is a nod to a classic ice cream-based California-style date shake, but it combines probiotic-rich yogurt, protein powder, and omegas to promote a healthy third trimester (and if the dates happen to help ease your labor and delivery, all the better!).
Yield: 1 Serving
Ingredients:
- 1 frozen banana
- 2-4 dates
- 1 tablespoon chia seeds
- Half a teaspoon cinnamon
- A dash of nutmeg
- 1 scoop BioChem Vanilla Whey or Plant Protein Powder
- Half a cup of your favorite plain yogurt or plant-based yogurt
- Half a cup of your favorite milk or plant-based milk
How to Make:
Combine everything in a blender and blend until smooth and creamy.
Substitutions & variations:
- No frozen bananas? Use a fresh banana + half a cup of ice
- If watching your sugar, use half a banana, half an avocado, and choose unsweetened or sugar-free protein powder
- Sub flax seeds for chia seeds
- Sub cardamom for nutmeg
- Sub frozen yogurt for regular plain yogurt for an extra decadent shake
How To Choose The Best Pregnancy-Friendly Protein Powder
Choosing a clean protein powder free from harmful contaminants is critical during pregnancy
How can you tell if a brand is safe?
Consider the following criteria when shopping for pregnancy-friendly protein powders:
- Sugar-free or low-sugar
- Sweetened naturally with stevia, monk fruit, or low amounts of natural sugars
- Free from artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners, and preservatives
- Contains a simple list of ingredients
- Contains at least 20-30 grams of protein per serving
- Contains sustainably sourced ingredients
- Tested for contaminants like heavy metals, mold, and pesticides
- Non-GMO
- Whey protein sourced from grass-fed cows
- Whey protein isolates are generally easier to digest than concentrates
- Vegetarians should look for Vegetarian Certification on Whey Protein powders
- Plant proteins should contain a complete amino acid profile. This typically requires using more than one type of plant protein
- Vegan proteins should be DNA verified-vegan
BioChem is proud to exceed the criterion in all of our protein powders, making them excellent for creating clean and nutritious maternity protein shakes.
Sources mentioned in this article
- Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Nutritional Status During Pregnancy and Lactation. Nutrition During Pregnancy: Part I Weight Gain: Part II Nutrient Supplements. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1990. 19, Protein and Amino Acids.
- “Pregnancy Nutrition: Healthy Eating While Pregnant”. American Pregnancy Association.
- “The effects of protein supplements on muscle mass, strength, and aerobic and anaerobic power in healthy adults: a systematic review”. Sports Med.
- “Are Dietary Proteins the Key to Successful Body Weight Management? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Studies Assessing Body Weight Outcomes after Interventions with Increased Dietary Protein”. Nutrients.
- “The active role of vitamin C in mammalian iron metabolism: much more than just enhanced iron absorption”. Free Radic Biol Med.
- “Iron deficiency in pregnancy”. American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Volume 223, Issue 4, 516 - 524.
- “Effect of Magnesium Supplement on Pregnancy Outcomes: A Randomized Control Trial”. Advanced Biomedical Research.
- “Magnesium for skeletal muscle cramps”. Cochrane Database Syst Rev.
- “The effect of late pregnancy consumption of date fruit on labour and delivery”. J Obstet Gynaecol.
- “Date fruit consumption at term: Effect on length of gestation, labour and delivery”. J Obstet Gynaecol.
- “Adipotropic effects of heavy metals and their potential role in obesity”. Fac Rev.