Healthy Weight Gain During Pregnancy
When you become pregnant, your body goes through a lot of amazing changes. Every system in your body is affected – respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, musculoskeletal, urinary, gastrointestinal – orchestrated by the release of hormones, your entire body adapts and changes to support and care for your baby. In order for your body to proceed forward through a healthy pregnancy – it needs proper nutrition. This will include carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, vitamins, minerals, fats, etc.
Many women become concerned about how much weight they are going to gain during their pregnancy and whether or not they will be able to lose it after the pregnancy. So, what is a healthy weight gain? Should you be concerned about how much weight you are putting on? What is causing the weight gain? Should you do something to control it? These are the questions we will be looking at in this article.
How Much Weight Will I Gain?
Depending on whether you are underweight or overweight when you become pregnant will determine how much weight you can expect to gain during the pregnancy – typically, this will be somewhere between 25 to 40 pounds. If you are at a healthy weight when you become pregnant, you will probably gain about 25 to 35 pounds. If you are underweight, you may gain about 28 to 40 pounds and if you are overweight when you become pregnant, you may only gain 15 to 25 pounds during the pregnancy. Roughly speaking, you will gain 2 to 4 pounds during the first three months and about a pound per week for the rest of the pregnancy. Does this mean you will steadily gain this amount of weight precisely on a certain schedule – NO. Your weight gain will fluctuate week to week.
These numbers are just an estimate. Every woman is different. Weight gain has many factors to it including metabolism rates, age, number of children you have had, fitness levels, starting weight, etc.
“There is no magic number on how much weight you should gain.”
The amount of weight you gain and the pattern with which you gain it will vary depending on your personal physiological make-up. Our culture (and sometimes doctors and midwives) tend to put way too much emphasis on how much a woman weighs rather than putting the emphasis where it belongs which is on good nutrition. If you focus on getting good nutrition throughout your pregnancy, then your weight gain will be exactly what you and your baby need.
Focus on Nutrition
When I had my midwife practice, I would strongly encourage my mothers to make half of their diet raw – meaning they were eating fresh, live fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. The more wholesome, healthy foods you can include in your diet, the better your chances are of receiving the nutrients needed by you and your baby to maintain a healthy pregnancy. Along with a healthy diet, my recommendations included a good all-natural prenatal, red raspberry leaf tea, wheatgerm oil and liquid chlorophyll. Walking every day, drinking plenty of fresh, pure water and breathing deeply will all help to sustain your healthy pregnancy.
Listen to your body! Make time each day to get the rest you need. Eat multiple small helpings throughout the day instead of trying to eat three large meals. Take time out for reflection and meditation – make sure your baby is aware of how much it is wanted and loved. Love yourself and your body – appreciate what a miraculous time this is in your life!
Unfortunately, many women use this time to turn to ‘comfort’ foods and junk food. This is an extremely poor decision to make because not only are you going to put on a lot of extra pounds – you are not going to get the nutrients you need to sustain a healthy pregnancy. Poor diet and/or malnutrition can result in complications such as:
Low birth rate
Gestational Diabetes
Heart Disease
Hypertension
Cancer
Anemia and infections in the mother
Chance of needing a C-section
Early birth
Too much weight gain
What is the Recommended Caloric Intake During Pregnancy?
Again, these are approximations – remember each woman and her circumstances are unique.
The recommended numbers are:
About 1800 calories per day during the first trimester
About 2200 calories per day during the second trimester
About 2400 calories per day during the third trimester
Recommended foods are:
Bread, cereal, rice and pasta:
Eat 9 to 11 servings per day
These foods give you carbohydrates which turn into energy for your body and help with your baby’s growth
Whole-grain and fortified products have folic acid and iron
Vegetables
Vegetables are a good source of vitamins A and C, folic acid, iron and magnesium
Eat 4 to 5 serving a day
Try to get at least 2 of your daily servings from green, leafy vegetables
Fruit
Eat 3 to 4 servings a day
Fruit gives you vitamins A and C, potassium and fiber. Choose fresh fruits. They are much more nutritious than frozen or canned.
Milk, Yogurt and Cheese
Eat 3 servings a day
Dairy products are a great source of protein, calcium and phosphorus.
Meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs and nuts
Eat 3 servings a day
Foods from this group are good sources of B vitamins, protein, iron and zinc
Fats and oils
Fats provide long-term energy for growth and are needed for brain development
These are the national recommendations and can give you an idea of the nutrients you need in your diet. However, I would choose to get a lot of these nutrients from other sources rather than using these animal products.
According to Anne Frye, in Holistic Midwifery, A Comprehensive Textbook for Midwives, a healthy diet for pregnancy would include a daily intake of:
1 quart of milk per fetus (or the equivalent)
2 eggs a day (or the equivalent)
2 other servings of protein-rich foods
2 servings of green vegetables
5 servings of grain products
3 pats of butter
1 iron rich food weekly (for omnivores, others may need more)
5 yellow or orange vegetables weekly
3 baked potatoes weekly
I would definitely add fresh fruit to this outline and then vary the basic diet outlined above to meet the needs of different types of diets such as vegetarians, vegans, fruitarians, etc.
So Where is That Weight Going and Why is It So Important?
The following chart will give you an idea of where the weight gain is being distributed.
Placenta: 2 – 3 pounds
Amniotic Fluid: 2 – 3 pounds
Larger Breasts: 2 – 3 pounds
Increased Blood Volume: 3 – 4 pounds
Larger Uterus: 2 – 5 pounds
Stored fat for delivery and breastfeeding: 5 – 9 pounds
Baby: 8 pounds
Total: 25 – 35 pounds
Your blood volume increases by 30 to 50% during your pregnancy to help manage the demands of fetal nourishment and fetal waste removal. The stored fat which may be deposited on your thighs, behind and/or around your middle will serve as a reserve for the increased metabolic demands of breastfeeding. Your body can also draw on the stored energy for help during delivery. Our body is truly remarkable and efficient when it comes to doing what it was designed to do.
Complications of Restricting Calories During Pregnancy
This is definitely not a time to be trying to lose weight or to restrict your caloric intake in order to avoid weight gain. Your baby’s health and birth weight depend on you taking in the correct amount of nutrients daily to sustain his or her growth in the womb. Using this time to lose weight or to restrict the amount of weight you are gaining could not only be detrimental to your health but could have devastating effects on the health and growth of your unborn child. Some of these could include:
Perinatal mortality (stillbirth or early infant death)
Poor brain development
Mental retardation
Cerebral Palsy
Learning Problems
Visual and hearing defects
Poor growth and development
Older women will often comment that they sacrificed a tooth to each of their pregnancies or ended up with osteoporosis. These conditions don’t need to happen if you are getting all of the nutrients necessary to support you and your growing baby. If you are not eating a healthy diet, then the baby will draw on your supplies to try and get what it needs. The more children you have had – the more important it becomes for you to replenish your body between pregnancies and during subsequent pregnancies so these type of deficiencies do not occur.
Postpartum Weight Loss
Will you be able to lose the weight when your pregnancy is over? Absolutely! The key is to be patient with yourself and your body. It took nine months to get where you are and it’s going to take more than a couple of days to return everything back to normal. Although there are some things which will begin to happen immediately. Obviously, when you give birth – you will immediately lose quite a bit of weight. As soon as your baby is out – you will have lost their birth weight along with the amniotic fluid and the placenta.
As soon as you begin to nurse your baby, your body will begin to draw on the reserves (fat) you have stored to start making milk. The sucking action of your baby will immediately begin to contract the uterus and start shrinking it back to it’s normal size. If you continue to focus on a healthy diet, drinking plenty of water and start some moderate exercise six to eight weeks after your birth – then the rest of the weight will continue to come off and you will return back down to your healthy, normal weight.
