​Fasting and Abstinence For Lent When You are Pregnant or Nursing

Guess what fellow pregnant or nursing ladies? The Catholic Church states that we are excused from fasting or abstinence for Lent.*

Personally, I try to abstain from eating meat on Fridays all year, even when I am pregnant or nursing.  Sometimes I am unable to, but I especially try to abstain from meat during Lent on the penitential days.

While you can certainly abstain from meat if you’d like to and you have discussed and gotten approval from your doctor, you should not fast, at all, period.     Pregnancy and nursing are hard enough on a woman’s body and the Catholic Church recognizes that.  We should listen to Her.

Just because we are completely, 100% excused from fasting or abstaining from meat does not mean that we can’t have a meaningful Lent.   Since I am very pregnant (third trimester), will most likely give birth and nurse our daughter before Lent is over, I am sharing some ideas for myself to make Lent more meaningful:

1.  Don’t flavor your food.  (E.g. Eat the cheeseburger but omit the barbecue sauce.)
2.  Skip dessert on penitential days and enjoy fruit instead (Much better for health, too!)
3.  Eat one more vegetable per day (Bonus if it is one you don’t like, mine would be Brussel sprouts.)
4.  Abstain from social media or at least reduce the time you spend on social media.
5.  Pray the Rosary each day.  (Consider the Running Rosary program to combine it with exercise.)
6.  Donate your favorite treat food to a local food bank. (Mine would be salt and vinegar chips!)
7.  Watch less television and/or movies each day.  (I'm saying farewell (for now!) to HGTV!)
8.  Give up drive-through treats/coffee/tea/etc.. for the entire period of Lent and at the end donate that money to local crisis pregnancy center (E.g. Mother of Life Center in Providence, RI)
9.   Pray for those who are homeless, in crisis pregnancy, those called to religious vocation, etc…
10.  Read the Gospel each day and practice Lectio Divina, a slow, contemplative praying of Scripture.  For more information on Lectino Divina, click here

Do you have any other ideas on how to have a meaningful Lent while pregnant and/or nursing?  Share with us on Facebook.   Please don’t forget to like and share our Facebook page: Facebook.com/CatholicMomRI
 God bless you!