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Survey says: vegan and vegetarian diets are safe for pregnancy! Take that, meat and dairy; babies grow up strong and healthy without any animal products at all.

(Of course, many a mother already knew this, but it helps to have science officially say so!)

An Italian doctor led a full review of the available literature on vegan-vegetarian diets and pregnancy outcomes in healthy females. The group came to the conclusion that these diets could be considered safe,  according to the study abstract.

 The final review was published in the April issue of “BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.” Dr. Giorgina B. Piccoli of Italy’s University of Torino and team embarked on the project because there were no recent systematic reviews on vegan or vegetarian diets for pregnant women, despite the growing popularity of these lifestyles.

Basically, the researchers went through 262 full texts from 2329 references to elicit their conclusions.

“The evidence on vegan-vegetarian diets in pregnancy is heterogeneous and scant. The lack of randomized studies prevents us from distinguishing the effects of diet from confounding factors,” the authors wrote in the piece. “Within these limits, vegan-vegetarian diets may be considered safe in pregnancy, provided that attention is paid to vitamin and trace element requirements.”

This is big news, especially since some groups and individuals still make the specious claim that eating vegan or vegetarian is “dangerous” or unhealthy. Science says otherwise!