Nutrition During Pregnancy

What your body requires in the way of nutrients is different at different stages of life. This article starts a series on nutrition during life stages. Proper nutrition starts before birth. Adequate nutrition during pregnancy is extremely important to the mother and the child. A properly nourished and rested mother has more patience with her child. The lack of sleep and time to eat become common place after birth. It gives the mother a head start if she has set up some reserves before birth. A well nourished, healthy full-term infant is much easier to care for than a premature or sick infant is. Clearly we can't control all aspects of childbirth, but you can make sure you get the proper nutrition during pregnancy. Since most women are not even aware that they are pregnant until they are at least two weeks into the gestation it is important to eat healthy once you start to think about conceiving. Routine prenatal care is monthly until 28 to 30 weeks, every two weeks until 36 weeks, and then weekly. In a perfect world every women would receive nutritional education during her pregnancy. I speak from experience, and even though I had wonderful obstetricians, the most nutrition advice I ever got was to take a prenatal vitamin. While I recommend a prenatal vitamin there is more to good nutrition during your pregnancy.

Eating well is important even if you take a prenatal vitamin. With eating well comes weight gain. Our mothers where chastised for gaining weight. The reason being that the larger the baby the more difficult the delivery. We now understand how important weight gain is. Weight gain during pregnancy reflects the growth of both fetal and maternal tissues. To learn about weight gain during pregnancy WebMDHealth has an excellent article Gaining the Right Amount of Weight for Pregnancy. An additional 300 calories a day are recommended during the second and third trimester. Along with this increased calorie need there is also an increased need for protein and all vitamins and minerals are needed in increased amounts during pregnancy. Requirements for B6, folic acid, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc increase substantially. The increase in caloric needs is not large in comparison to the greater requirements for protein, vitamins and minerals. So the quality of the diet, that is the amount of nutrients for calories, must be high. To learn about nutrition during pregnancy WebMDHealth has another great article The Right Diet for Pregnancy .

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