June 20 (UPI) -- The Indian government is giving health advice to women, including abstention from meat and sex. But doctors say it is dangerous and not based on science.
India's Central Council for Research in Yoga and Naturopathy published a booklet for expectant mothers with advice it deems to be beneficial to the baby. In addition to no meat and sex, it encourages women to be more spiritual.
"Pregnant women should detach themselves from desire, anger, attachment, hatred and lust. Avoid bad company and be with good people," the booklet says.
Doctors in India derided the booklet for being potentially harmful to pregnancies and mothers' health.
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"The advice is unscientific," said senior gynecologist and obstetrician Malavika Sabharwal of the Apollo Healthcare Group, according to the Hindustani Times. "Protein-deficiency malnutrition and anemia are health concerns for pregnant women and meats are a great source of both protein and iron, which is better absorbed from animal sources than plant sources."
"Pregnant women need to be happy and instead of being prescriptive about what they should think and do to be happy, we must urge them to do things they enjoy and strongly advise the family be to supportive," Sabharwal added.
Shripad Naik, the minister for India's Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy, defended the booklet's suggestions.
"The booklet puts together relevant facts culled out from clinical practice in the fields of yoga and naturopathy. It also contains wisdom accumulated over many centuries of yogic practice," Naik told the New Indian Express.
Naik also said that the book doesn't tell women to avoid sex, only lust.
