Proper nutrition and a balanced diet can go a long way in maintaining the health of you and your growing baby. To ensure that you have a healthy, happy infant at the end of 40 weeks, you'll want to pay attention to the weight that you gain during your pregnancy.
Fat babies may be super cute, but recent studies have linked a newborn's weight to his or her risk for developing diseases in the future – such as heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Your baby may be at higher risk for future illness if he or she is born at a high birth weight.
For a happy outcome at the end of your pregnancy—a healthy baby—you have to be careful about your total weight gain. More than 50 percent of women gain either too much or too little during their pregnancy, and this can be harmful to your baby's safety. How much you should gain during pregnancy depends on your starting weight.
Use the BMI (body mass index) table to help you.
During pregnancy, you'll want to keep the following recommended total weight gain in mind.- Underweight: 28 to 40 lbs. total weight gain by the end of pregnancy.
- Normal or Average Weight: 25 to 35 lbs by delivery.
- Overweight: 11 to 25 lbs weight gain.
If you gain too much weight during pregnancy, you face a higher risk of delivering a huge infant. This makes it more difficult to have a vaginal labor, so you're at elevated risk of requiring a cesarean section (c-section). | | Fun Tip:
When you are pregnant, you only need to add 300 calories to your daily intake. You can easily get this by eating half a sandwich and drinking a glass of skim milk. | | |
You will also have water retention longer than other mothers after delivery.
On the other side, if you don't gain enough weight, your chances of going into premature labor are higher, and your baby will be smaller.
Because your pregnancy weight gain is critical to you and your baby's health, it's important to understand how the weight you gain during pregnancy gets distributed in your body. |
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