Meet your calcium requirement

Remember how your mother ran after you when you were small so that you finish the entire glass of milk and she must have insisted that it is rich in calcium.

Calcium is an important nutrient for bone formation, muscle contraction, neuromuscular transmission and blood clotting. Moreover, it is essential for women

especially when her body is going through changes. During pregnancy, women need

calcium for the development of foetus. While during lactation period, it preserves mother’s bone and supplies proper amount of calcium to the baby.

Furthermore, calcium is more essential for women

during the age of 15 to 25 as it is the time to attain peak bone mass that help protect to avoid osteoporosis later in life.

A must in diet

The best way to obtain the required amount of calcium in everyday life is to consume a diet rich in calcium. Every dairy product provides calcium. Non-dairy food products like salmon, tofu, spinach, turnip, okra, broccoli, almonds, peas and beans are also good source of calcium.

But there are times when a woman needs more calcium than what she gets from food. Elaborating on this Professor Dr Heera Tuladhar, gynaecologist, Kist Medical College Hospital, Lalitpur, said, “During pregnancy and the time of onset of menopause and after menopause women must add calcium supplements to balance the quantity of calcium in body.”

Requirement for mothers

When a woman is pregnant there is

additional need of calcium in body thus she requires extra calcium. During that

period the

growing baby consumes calcium from mother’s bones. Dr Tuladhar elaborated, “Calcium supplied through food is inadequate for a pregnant woman. The baby growing within her also needs calcium to build strong bones and teeth, to develop a healthy heart, nerves and muscles plus to build blood-clotting abilities.”

Calcium supplement maintains the normal amount of calcium — one to two gram per day — in the blood and protects bones from the loss. She added, “A pregnant woman needs 500 gram extra than the regular calcium requirement. The baby will draw calcium from mother’s bones where 99 per cent of calcium is stored and if she doesn’t take the

required amount she is at risk of bone damage later.”

Rich in calcium mother’s milk fulfils baby’s calcium

requirement, but leaves the mother without calcium. “To avoid such situation calcium supplement is vital, as extra calcium intake for the

mother during lactation

period is 500 to 1000 gram per day,” added the doctor.

Few misconceptions Calcium and iron supplements are very important for a pregnant woman from her first trimester till the end of the lactation period. A misconception prevails that if a mother takes calcium supplement when pregnant, baby’s size becomes bigger creating trouble while

delivery. Dr Tuladhar cleared the doubt saying, “Calcium does not make the baby grow extra large. When there is unnecessary amount of calcium in mother’s body, kidney helps extract it out through excretion.”

Another misconception is that calcium intake develops stone in kidney, “but that is not true as long as a person takes doctor’s recommended calcium supplement.”

Menopause and bones Before puberty, both boys and girls gain bone mass consisting calcium in the same ratio. But after puberty men have higher bone mass than women. Furthermore, when the ovaries stop functioning after menopause a woman’s bone structure weakens leading to problem like osteoporosis, which is decreased density of bone or bone mass. According to Dr Tuladhar, this makes the bone vulnerable leading to breaking even after slight trauma like falling or even from coughing or sneezing.

Dr Tuladhar said, “After the age of 35 till menopause most of the women slowly lose bone mass collected in early age. But the rate increases rapidly in post menopause phase because of ovary’s dysfunction.” Talking further on this she said that estrogen produced by ovary helps absorb calcium and when this stops bones become fragile and weak increasing the chances of osteoporosis and fractures. She added, “To prevent fracture and damage in the bone, calcium supplement is essential for woman after certain age.”