Eating for Two-New Guidelines for Weight Gain

I remember loving being pregnant.  Not only did I love the idea of what was happening inside my body, but, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that I loved eating without reservation about weight gain.  I thought I had the perfect excuse to eat whatever I wanted because, afterall, I was eating for two.  Luckily I didn't actually gain much weight with either of my pregnancies.  Now, in the first new guidelines issued in almost two decades, we have some new numbers to go by in terms of what's healthy and what's not.  And guess what?  It's not ok to say "I'm eating for two!"

The Institute of Medicine has just released new recommendations on acceptable and healthy pregnancy weight gain.  The guidelines are based not only on what's healthiest for the mother but also the baby, and, in an era of epidemic obesity in the U.S., they hopefully will do much to help.  The researchers have put forth guidelines for several body types: underweight, obese, overweight and standard.  Those definitions are based on BMI ( body mass index).  So once you've calculated your BMI you can then determine if you're on the right track. 

• Underweight women should gain a total of  between 28-40lbs.  During the second and third trimester they should gain 1 to 1.3lbs a week.

• Normal weight women should gain a total of between 25-35 pounds.  During the last two trimesters they shoudl gain 0.8-1lb a week.

• Overweight women should gain a total of between 15-25 pounds, with the rate of weekly gain in the last two trimesters tipping the scales at a half to just over a half pound a week.

• Obese women should weigh in at 11-20 extra pregnancy pounds.  Weekly gain  in trimesters two and three should be 0/4-0.6lb.  Again, calculate your BMI

first, to determine what category you fall into.

The researchers also suggest a steady diet of exercise and nutrition counseling during pregnancy.  Meeting these guidelines will be a challenge when you consider the following: 

• 55% of women of childbearing age are overweight to begin with.
• precoception healthcare isn't as  porbable as you might think
• about half of pregnancies are unwanted

But what choice do we have?  Not following the guidelines not only puts the mother's and baby's health in jeopardy, but also the health of our healthcare system, which is in dire need of restoration.  And that affects all of us.