The key to ensuring a healthy pregnancy is balanced nutrition, which, in addition to ensuring adequate weight gain for the mother and the baby, prevents problems that often occur during pregnancy, such as anemia or cramps, for example, which can impair quality of mother and baby life.
The needs of proteins, vitamins and minerals increase a lot in pregnancy and therefore it is important to eat more nutritious foods, so that the baby receives all the nutrients that it needs to develop perfectly ensuring that it has a correct mental development, avoiding low weight at birth and even malformations, such as spina bifida.
How many calories a pregnant woman needs per day
Although the caloric needs of the mother increase by only 10 calories per day in the first trimester, during the 2nd quarter the daily increase reaches 350 Kcal and in the third trimester of pregnancy reaches an increase of 500 Kcal per day.
Essential nutrients in pregnancy
During pregnancy, to ensure a good development of the baby and the health of the mother, it is necessary to ingest a larger quantity of some nutrients, mainly folic acid, magnesium, iron, iodine, zinc and selenium.
- Folic Acid Folic acid supplementation should be started at least 3 months prior to pregnancy, under medical indication, to prevent malformations in the baby and should only be terminated when the doctor indicates. See other foods rich in folic acid in: Foods rich in folic acid.
- Selenium and Zinc - To achieve the amount of selenium and zinc just eat a nut every day. This natural supplementation helps prevent the appearance of malformations in the baby and malfunction of the thyroid.
- Iodine Although the amount of iodine is higher during pregnancy, there is hardly any deficiency in this mineral and therefore it is not necessary to supplement because it is present in the iodized salt.
- Magnesium - To achieve the ideal amount of magnesium during pregnancy you can add in the diet a vitamin with 1 cup of milk, 1 banana and 57 g of ground pumpkin seeds, which has 531 calories and 370 mg of magnesium.
- Protein - To eat the amount of protein that is needed during pregnancy simply add 100 g of meat or 100 g of soy and 100 g of quinoa, for example. To know more see: Foods rich in proteins.
Supplementation of these nutrients can also be made into tablets, according to the medical recommendation.
Other vitamins, such as A, C, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 or B12, are also important during pregnancy, but their amount is easily attained by feeding and no supplementation is required.
See also: Natural vitamin supplements for pregnant women.
How many kilograms can the pregnant woman fatten?
If before the mother was pregnant, she had normal weight, with a BMI between 19 and 24, she should gain between 11 and 13 kilos during the entire pregnancy. That means a weight gain of 1 to 2 kg in the first three months of gestation, in the second trimester an increase between 4 and 5 kg, and another 5 or 6 pounds after the 6 months until the baby is born in the third quarter.
If the mother had a BMI of less than 18 before conception, the healthy weight gain is between 12 and 17 kg for the 9 months of gestation. On the other hand, if the mother is overweight with a BMI between 25 and 30 the healthy weight gain is around 7 kg.
Attention: This calculator is not suitable for multiple pregnancies.
Also see how to ensure a healthy pregnancy after age 30 in: Care during high-risk pregnancy.
