Pregnancy Nutrition

Overview of Pregnancy Nutrition

Healthy Eating for pregnancy

Pregnancy is a time when almost all of you will think more about what you are eating.  Many of you will wonder what is best for your baby and make changes to the types of food you eat. There are many aspects of diet that need consideration during pregnancy – and I just touch on a few of the most important here.

It’s quality not quantity

You do need to eat extra when you are pregnant, but the amount of extra energy (kilojoules/calories) each day is quite small i.e. equivalent to a couple of slices of bread and a glass of low fat milk only!  What you do need more of are nutrients – more B vitamins, folate, vitamin C, iron, protein among others, so it can take some planning to make sure that almost everything you choose to eat is giving you something worthwhile.  Don’t worry – I did say almost everything!

One of the simplest ways of achieving this is by thinking about your diet in terms of food groups.  Our food groups exist because the foods within each group provide similar nutrients i.e. milk, cheese and yoghurt are all good providers of protein and calcium.  There are guidelines to help you to choose the right number of serves from these groups each day.

The benefit of this approach is also that it lets you keep track of your total intake as well as the balance in your diet.  It also can help draw your attention to the frequency of those ‘extra’ foods in your diet – the ones that don’t really fit into any of the groups very well.  It’s these ‘extras’ that can cause trouble!  High energy, low nutrition = not great for you or bub.

The following table provides a guide as to the amount of food you need for a healthy diet in pregnancy:

For more information on pregnancy nutrition, please discuss it with Dr Rahul Sen.