Managing Your Weight Throughout Your Pregnancy

Managing Your Weight Throughout Your Pregnancy

June 26th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

There is no other time in your life when it is perfectly acceptable and even highly recommended to gain weight. Most of the time we as women spend our lives trying to lose weight or keep slender, and then all of a sudden we are faced with the notion that we can and should gain weight. It can be a lot to get used to for some women. Others really embrace the concept of “eating for two” and enjoy eating foods that they normally wouldn’t.

Though eating during pregnancy can most certainly be fun, it is important to remember that it’s not a free for all. Eating too much or the wrong foods can be bad for our health, bad for the pregnancy, and ultimately bad for the baby. You want to ensure that you go about your weight gain in the proper manner so that you can maintain a healthy range throughout.

Managing How You Gain the Weight

Though you may be inclined to just eat as much as you want whenever you want, do your best to ignore that urge. As you can see from this chart that there is a lot that makes up the typical weight gain. You can usually expect to gain anywhere from 25-35 pounds in a typical pregnancy, though this can vary a bit. The growing uterus, the placenta, all of the fluids, and the baby itself make up much of this weight gain. The rest however is up to you and therefore it’s quite important to manage how exactly we gain the weight throughout our pregnancy.

Though you can give into your cravings here and there, do your best to ensure that you don’t do it each and every day. Try your best to eat a well balanced diet that is rich in nutrients that your baby needs and your body craves. Try to get in exercise throughout your pregnancy so long as you are cleared for this and feel up to it. The combination of exercise with healthy eating will help to ensure that you put on the pregnancy weight in the right way. It will also make the task of taking off the weight much easier at the end of it all.

Keep It In Check Throughout Your Pregnancy

Many women are astounded by just how they gain the weight, and this can vary quite significantly. If you were on the thin side before pregnancy, then you may find that you gain the weight quickly and keep it coming as your body prepares for the baby. If you were on the heavier side before pregnancy, then it may take you a little while to gain the weight and then it may hit all of a sudden towards the middle of your pregnancy.

Many women may make it through their first trimester gaining virtually no weight as they are sick all the time. Then when that magical second trimester hits, they find that the weight comes on rapidly. There’s no one set pattern for how the weight is gained, and therefore you need to manage your eating habits and healthy lifestyle throughout. This will always help you to ensure that the baby gets everything that it needs. It will also ensure that you stay in good shape, and that you ultimately deliver a healthy and happy baby.

Understanding Gestational Diabetes In Your Pregnancy

Understanding Gestational Diabetes In Your Pregnancy

June 10th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Many women think of pregnancy as a time to eat whatever they want. Though you are sure to indulge in some foods or treats that you never did before you were pregnant, it should be done within reason.

Although the common misconception is that you are eating for two, this can often lead to complications down the road for both you and the baby. Many women tend to overeat, and at that they tend to eat a lot of the wrong foods. Though eating far too many sweets alone can’t put your baby in an instantly dangerous situation, it can present some difficulties. Just as diabetes can occur in the body at any point in time, you are more likely to develop it in pregnancy. Though most pregnant women are safe from this risk, there is a very real possibility and therefore you want to be very in tune to what this means.

What Is Gestational Diabetes?

Just about every pregnant woman takes a blood glucose test in her second trimester of pregnancy. This is a simple test whereby a woman drinks a sugary glucose drink to see how her body processes. If all goes well, then the woman is fine and should go on with her pregnancy without the risk of gestational diabetes. Sometimes however there is a very real risk and it shows up through this risk. What happens is that the body can’t properly create and utilize insulin and this puts a risk to the pregnancy and most especially to the baby.

As you can easily see through diabetes advice, the inability to produce sufficient amounts of insulin means that the glucose that you have in your system isn’t able to be digested properly and ultimately has nowhere to go. This glucose in your body can come to you via sweets or even some less likely sources such as white bread, pasta, and rice, as well as fruit. Therefore it’s important for a woman to get a proper diagnosis and then to know how to contend with it if it is found that she has gestational diabetes.

Handling This Pregnancy Complication

So here’s how it works-there is hope and help if you find that you have gestational diabetes during pregnancy. In a simple or lesser case, you may just be put on a special diet whereby you are eating foods that can be digested and passed along to baby properly. This is easy to manage, but may also result in additional monitoring for the baby. If the case is full fledged or a bit more extreme, then you may need to take insulin shots on a daily basis as a regular diabetic does. If this is the case, then it may mean a great deal of monitoring of the baby, particularly as you move closer to your due date.

The biggest possible risk to your baby is that they will be rather large, and that this may mean not only a “fat” baby but also one that has health problems upon delivery. These aren’t the usual birth defects that you hear about, but certainly something that doctors don’t like to see. It is manageable for you as a mother and for your baby, but something that is important to keep up with. So keep tuned into this condition and be sure that you handle the management appropriately if it should be necessary.

Ensuring That You Stay Within a Healthy Pregnancy Weight Gain

Ensuring That You Stay Within a Healthy Pregnancy Weight Gain

May 20th, 2010 by admin  |  No Comments

Though you may not want to admit it, you are going to gain some weight during your pregnancy. Even the healthiest and most fit woman will gain weight. This is a time in your life when it’s a good thing to gain weight. You don’t want to focus on dieting or any weight loss efforts. It’s actually desired that you gain weight for the good of your pregnancy and your baby. This may come as a very difficult adjustment for some women who focus so much of their time and attention on losing weight and staying fit and trim.

When it comes to pregnancy though, this is a time to focus on what’s best for you and your unborn child. If you limit yourself with your calories or work hard to avoid weight gain, you are going to regret that decision later on. Gaining the proper amount of weight ensures that your baby gets all the nutrients that it requires. It also ensures that the baby grows to a healthy and suitable size for delivery.

So What’s the Proper Range Anyhow?

The average weight gain that should be expected during a pregnancy is around 25-35 pounds. As you can see though that is due in large part to what your body type was before pregnancy. If you were underweight before you got pregnant, then you may be required and encouraged to gain a bit more weight than that. If you were overweight before you got pregnant, then you may be encouraged to gain a bit less weight. If you are carrying multiples, then the amount of weight gain will be all together different and may be double the average. If in doubt talk to your doctor and compare where you should be with where you started from pre-pregnancy.

How Do You Keep the Weight In a Healthy Range?

The problem is that many women consider pregnancy to be a time for going crazy with their eating. They have it ingrained into their heads that they are “eating for two” and this somehow gives them a license to get a bit crazy with their eating habits. It’s important to remember that while you do want to eat a healthy number of calories, you’re not necessarily eating for two per se. You should increase your calorie count by about 300 calories per day. This really isn’t much when you think about it as it can be consumed in a half of a sandwich and a cup of yogurt. So think about that the next time somebody says that you are eating for two.

This should also be a time where you are focused on eating the right foods. Though you may have cravings or hankerings for a whole plethora of unhealthy and sabotage foods, you can’t give in to all of these. You want to eat foods that are healthy and which provide your baby with all the right nutrients. Eating a diet rich in vitamins and minerals that is well balanced and comprised of lean proteins, fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, and whole grains is the preference. Rather than giving into every single craving for ice cream and french fries that you have, make that more of a treat than a staple. Learn how to enjoy eating during pregnancy, but ensure that it is still a healthy affair for you and your baby overall.