How Much Weight Gain is Healthy for Pregnancy?

As much as you may want to gorge with reckless abandon, being pregnant does not give one carte blanche to eat everything in sight. Healthy eating and weight management is still important during pregnancy, actually even more so since you are eating for two. The American Pregnancy Association suggests that women who are at a healthy weight prior to pregnancy gain somewhere between 25 and 37 pounds during the entire gestational period.

• Those who are underweight prior to pregnancy should gain 28 to 40 pounds during pregnancy.
• Women who are overweight before pregnancy, which statistics show is almost a majority of U.S. women, should gain only 15 to 25 pounds.
• Eat a healthy, balanced diet that includes three servings of milk, yogurt and cheese; four servings of veggies; three servings of protein and nine servings of whole grains.
• Eat healthy meals that do not contain excessive calories, fatty foods or junk foods.

If you follow these guidelines, you should not only maintain a healthy pregnancy weight, but you may also find that you won't have an excessively hard time getting rid of that baby weight once your bundle of joy arrives!

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