Your diet during pregnancy is an important part of the health and growth of your baby. In the old days, women used to believe that they lost a tooth for each pregnancy. One of the reasons for this was that the baby tends to not go without the nutrients that it needs and will in fact take them from your body, in true parasite fashion if you do not take in the things that you need to help him or her to grow healthily.
Women who do not pay attention to their diet will experience sometimes tooth and bone loss and may in fact endanger their own health at the same time that they endanger the health of their baby. Making sure that your nutrient intake is adequate is imperative during pregnancy. The proper nutrition for a pregnant or nursing mother includes taking in additional calories, but definitely not empty calories. While foods like pizza and other things may become cravings during pregnancy, the intake of them should be limited.
Weight gain will vary during pregnancy but as a general rule it should be close to the table that appears below:
• 7 pounds-average weight of your baby
• 7 pounds-additional blood supply
• 4 pounds, stored fat and proteins
• 2 pounds-accounted for by breast enlargement
• 2 pounds-amniotic fluid
• 2 pounds placenta
As a general rule, gaining 25 to 30 pounds is not uncommon. You will need to take in about 300-500 calories extra each day to account for those calories that your baby needs to grow and become healthy. More than this is simply not a necessity.
In addition, pay close attention not only to how much you eat, but also what you eat. Increasing your green leafy vegetables as well as the intake of the right amount of calcium assures that your baby and you remain healthy. The relationship between what you eat and what your baby eats is far stronger than we once thought. In fact it is a serious consideration. For example, there is no amount of alcohol that is considered safe during pregnancy, even in the later stages of pregnancy.
Your body requires more of all of the essential nutrients than it did before the onset of pregnancy.
Increases in protein, in iron, in calcium and other nutrients must take place to give you a healthy diet during pregnancy. Food which are empty of nutritional value should be avoided and snacks, which are often a necessary part of pregnancy should be made up of more nutritionally rich foods.
If you find that you are having difficulty eating regular meals during pregnancy as many women do, due to the pressure of the fetus, then breaking down your meals into five or six smaller meals is acceptable so long as you take in the nutrients that your body needs to support a healthy baby. During the later stages of pregnancy often a full meal is not a comfortable process and many women eat more frequently and eat smaller portions. A healthy pregnancy diet will assure you will both breeze through pregnancy and birth.
