Assessment of Nutritional Patterns for Pregnant Women to Control Weight Gain

Abstract

Healthy eating is important during pregnancy, good nutrition is needed to meet the added demands of pregnant women’s body and the growing fetus, pregnancy is a great time to change old habits and develop healthy new ones. Maintaining a healthy balanced diet is important for maintaining optimal health of pregnant women (Procter, 2014) During pregnancy a woman’s macronutrient (energy) and micronutrient (e.g. vitamins, mineral) requirements increase, and it is even more important that she consumes food which will give her both the energy and the specific micronutrients which are essential for maintaining her and her growing fetus health, for example, women require an additional 240 calories of energy per day in the second trimester and 452 calories per day in the third trimester of pregnancy to account for fetal growth (ACOG, 2012). Nutritional recommendations for women during pregnancy vary based on age, pre-pregnancy BMI, trimester, and physical activity level, the amount of weight a woman gains during pregnancy can directly influence pregnancy outcomes and the long-term health of both mother and child (Melanie, 2017). Pre pregnancy weight is an independent predictor of many adverse outcomes of pregnancy for the woman and her fetus, a woman’s body mass index (BMI) at the start of pregnancy also is