Pregnancy and Weight Gain
I was never told how much to gain – or not to gain. When I got pregnant, I was only like 15 pounds – if that – over what I wanted to be. About 8 months pregnant – I had advanced to drinking 3 – 16 ounce glasses of full fat milk, in an iced glass no less – a girlfriend informed me that I shouldn’t be eating more than 500 calories extra. Now you tell me!
Consume only 300 extra calories a day and gain no more than 35 pounds.
That info came just a tad too late, I had gained about 65 pounds at that point. I ate things while I was pregnant that I hadn’t eaten in years.
Mistake number two was thinking I’d actually lose the weight as soon as the baby came. I didn’t even lose what the baby weighed! I think I lost a total of 2 pounds.
A study in the April issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology suggested that the current guidelines may raise the risk of mothers having overweight toddlers. Women in the study who followed the IOM’s recommendations ran four times the risk of having a child who was overweight at age 3, compared to women who gained less than the advised amount.
Read more about weight gain and pregnancy