Healthy weight gain in pregnancy
As a Dietitian and Nutritionist, and as a woman who has always worked hard to keep a healthy weight, the concept of weight gain during pregnancy, despite knowing all the science and helping many women through their pregnancies, was daunting to me to say the least. So, once I fell pregnant, I had to really begin to wrap my head around ‘letting go’ of the incredible changes happening to my body and let nature take its course.
This really got me thinking about weight gain during pregnancy; what was really going on in our amazing bodies and why these changes vary for so many women, even down to each individual pregnancy. I hear in clinic so often stories ranging from 30kg weight gains to women gaining just a portion of this and returning to their pre-pregnancy weight quite quickly. What made these pregnancies so different?
Weight gain is a completely normal and necessary part of pregnancy, but what really helped me get my head around pregnancy weight gain was knowing what was actually happening in my body during this time. A woman with a normal pre-pregnancy weight (BMI between 18.5-25), should gain between 11.5kg and 16kg by the end of her pregnancy, which naturally varies for each pregnancy, and is broken down roughly like this:
Baby – born at approximately 3.5kg
Placenta - 0.7kg
Amniotic fluid - 0.8kg
Womb – nearly 1kg
Extra blood volume – 1.2kg
Extra bodily fluid – 1.2kg
Extra weight in breasts – 0.4kg
A little stored fat for energy whist breastfeeding – around 4kg
For women who started their pregnancy underweight (BMI under 18.5), they should gain just a little more weight than this and on the flipside, women who started overweight (BMI above 25) should gain a little less weight than this. Of course, for multiple pregnancies, these figures changes again.
The other incredibly helpful bit of information that has stuck with me throughout my pregnancy is “you are NOT eating for two Jaime” – ever. In the first trimester, our calorie intake effectively doesn’t need to change, although your diet certainly may if you’re not feeling crash hot (ew ew ew meat and vegetables for me!) Your weight may increase by just a couple of kilos only and if you’re unwell may not change at all.
However, in those second and third trimesters, the growing really begins and this is when I really noticed my appetite and energy levels change in response to this growth. A great guide for healthy weight gain in the second and third trimester is around 400g per week.
The conclusion I have come to as both a practitioner and as a pregnant woman is that nature will take its course but we do have some control over weight gain during pregnancy. I have tried to maintain the same mind-set throughout my pregnancy that I have always had and see pregnancy as a time to take extra care to nurture my body. These include:
Simply continue to eat sensibly
Not be restrictive
Make sure to eat a broad range of foods – especially baby-specific ones like good quality iron-rich meat
Lay off the high sugar and high fat junk food
Stay as active as I can manage.
Information sourced from:
http://www.babycenter.com.au/a554810/weight-gain-in-pregnancy
https://www.health.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/450948/cf_antenatal.pdf