Nutrition During Pregnancy – Part 1

Introduction

• Healthy eating for two:
• Healthy eating is never more important than when you are expecting a baby.
• What you feed your body and the growing baby inside you, will affect now and for years to come.
• A good nutritive diet can help prevent constipation, acidity, control blood sugar levels, blood pressure levels, excessive weight and a host of other common pregnancy related problems.

For the first six months, women with a healthy pregnancy don’t really require any extra calories. Though during the final three months, they need extra 200 calories a day, for rapid growth of the baby. What you eat now can affect your baby for life.Therefore, by consuming the right kind of foods, you could also allergy- proof your baby. Consuming plenty of iron, selenium, and fish oils, some probiotics, and prebiotics may also help when it comes to allergy-proofing.

How to nourish your growing baby?

From conception to birth a baby requires large quantities of nutrients to grow. The requirements include about 925grams of proteins and 20-30 grams of calcium, as well as some 650 grams of iron.Though of course this is extracted in certain amounts from the food an expectant mother eats.If you eat a healthy and varied diet full of whole-some,unprocessed foods, you should be getting all the nutrients you need.

A healthy weight gain

Each pregnant woman will gain weight during each pregnancy which will vary.
The extra weight you gain consists of the baby, placenta, amniotic fluid, increased blood volume and extra tissues in the breasts and uterus.Some women may also experience water retention which contributes to further weight gain.Therefore a general advice is that, if you eat according to your regular appetite, then you should be able to gain a healthy amount of weight. Though many women eat more and are relaxed during pregnancy thinking that this is the time when they can eat anything they like so binging on junk food, sweats and large quantities of their favorite dishes leads to enormous amount of unhealthy weight gain.

Where some women may eat too less in fear of gaining too much weight, they restrict their food intake. Neither approach is good, as gaining too little or too much weight can cause health problems.

Hence, a pregnant woman should not try to put on more than about 12 kgs in the period of nine months in  total according to FOOD STANDARD AGENCY.

Also read: Pregnancy Nutrition Recommendations: What To Eat And How Much 

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