Weight Gain During Pregnancy

Weight Gain During Pregnancy

Happy New Year and cheers to a great start to 2019!

A Personal Announcement!

In case I haven’t seen you in a while, I have a bit of exciting news to share.  Jeff and I are expecting a baby in April!  It’s been a long and detoured journey for us to get here, but we’re finally here and we’re enjoying every moment of it.

Areas of Weight Gain

I’ve been doing a prenatal class, and I thought that I’d share a bit of information that I found very interesting.  There’s a section in my course that talks about WHERE pregnant women gain weight, and some of it was definitely news to me!

  • Baby = 6-8 lbs or 2.5-3.5 kg
  • Uterus = 2-3 lbs or 1-1.5 kg
  • Breasts = 2-3 lbs or 1-1.5 kg
  • Extra body fluid = 2-3 lbs or 1-1.5 kg
  • Mom’s extra blood supply = 4 lbs or 2 kg
  • Placenta & amniotic fluid = 4-6 lbs or 2-2.5 kg
  • Stored fat for energy = 5-8 lbs or 2-2.5 kg

TOTAL: 25-35 lbs or 11.5-16 kg

I had always known that pregnant women increased their blood volume, but to see it broken down into these numbers was a little bit eye opening for me!

Healthy Weight

I’m not going to write about different ways to lose weight while pregnant.  This is NOT the time to try to reach your weight loss goals.  However, in both of my clinics in downtown and midtown Toronto, I work with many women during their fertility journeys and have found that some women struggle to maintain a healthy weight while pregnant.

How to stay healthy while pregnant

Diet

The key to gaining the “proper” amount of weight during pregnancy is to NOT follow the old advice of “eating for two”.  You do NOT need to literally eat two people’s worth of calories in a day.  In fact, all you need to do is eat an extra 300-ish calories — depending on which phase of pregnancy you’re in.

The same old “boring” advice applies to pregnant women:

  1. Eat in moderation
  2. Eat lots of fruits and vegetables in a rainbow assortment
  3. Eat healthy fats
  4. Minimize your sugar consumption
  5. Minimize your processed food consumption
  6. And obviously, no alcohol or recreational drugs!

Exercise

When it comes to exercise, do what you always did before but listen to your body and take it easy.  If you didn’t do any exercise before, then just get outside and walk, and consider taking a prenatal yoga class and/or go swimming.  It’s important to exercise in moderation so that you can be as healthy as possible and prevent complications during your pregnancy for you and your baby.

 

If you’d like to sit down with me to discuss your fertility, how I can help support you during your pregnancy and labour or during your fourth trimester, CONTACT ME HERE to set up a complimentary 15 min discovery call/meeting and we can get started.

What’s a discovery call/meeting?  It’s where we get to know each other better to ensure that I’m the right practitioner for you and that you have the opportunity to ask your questions about Naturopathic Medicine before we move forward with an initial Naturopathic consultation.

 

Here are a few more posts on children’s health and pregnancy that you might be interested in:

 

 

 

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