Some really good info on exercise and diet during pregnancy can be found on Cassandra Forsythe's blog:
http://cassandraforsythe.com/

General conventional scientific advice: + ~300 kcal, + ~ 0.25 g / kg protein, for a "normal" ~ 60kgs woman, targetting "normal" birth weight of about 3-3.5 kgs.

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A study looking at the link between mothers' weight gain and the weight of their children found that decades later their children were more likely to be obese if their mothers had been so during pregnancy.

It would be nice to tell us if the study in question establishes whether or not this is definitely a causal relationship. It's not hard to imagine that a woman who eats nothing but kentucky fried chicken might feed her child the same kind of junk food as they are growing up. In that scenario, the woman's eating habits would thus be the main causal factor of her child's obesity rather than her weight during pregnancy.

People confuse 'watching your diet' and 'dieting'

Watching your diet means making smart choices, high in nutritional value with adequate calories and ensuring sufficient physical activity to maintain a healthy weight range. Dieting means restricting caloric intake and burning more than you earn to deliberately lose weight.

If your pregnant and dieting to lose weight, you are doing a very foolish thing.

I hate the association of deliberate weight loss with the word 'diet'...

You don't go on a diet, you go on a holiday, your diet is your diet and it should be a healthy one for whatever your physical circumstances are. Conversely, saying 'my diet gone to pot recently' or words to that effect works, because one is referring to 'diet' as the norm, not as the exception.

Do we really even need experts to answer this one?
I haven't read the rest of the thread, and I am no medical professional, but surely (surely...) common sense should be enough here?
a) eat a varied, balanced diet, and enough of everything to keep energy levels up
b) if obese, switch as far as possible to nutrient-dense foods, but obviously do not drastically reduce calorie intake while pregnant
c) if anything feels wrong, seek medical advice
d) preferably think things through before trying for a baby, so that if at all possible, you're not having to think about more than one thing, health-wise.

In the image caption:

The general advice is to eat healthily and stay active.

Oh, oh, does that still apply after pregnancy? Or are we advised then to just let ourselves go?

Or, wow, it isn't a good idea to eat twice as much because pregnancy doesn't even come close to doubling your size?

This article is one big shout of "No shit, Sherlock".

Let's boil it down. Avoid the hard stuff - alcohol, tobacco, some medications, et cetera. Avoid disease-heavy environments, massive weight fluctuations, extreme stress, et cetera. Check in with a medical professional regularly and whenever necessary. And, last but not least, avoid micro-managing your own life. You'll do fine.

There you go: how to be pregnant in a paragraph. Did you really think it would be any more complicated? Women have been doing it since at least the Mesozoic!

I've lost weight in this pregnancy, which is fine by me and at 21 weeks i'm still under my starting weight!
There shouldn't be dieting i don't think but people should definately be watching what they eat, that baby needs good stuff! :)

In all fairness, this article is reporting on scientific research, so keeping the units as they are given in the original source is recommended. I suppose it would have been nice to put a conversion in brackets or something though...

Professionally, the metric system is mostly used these days - whenever you have a check up with your GP, they record your weight in kilos and height in metres.

rofl, the idea that I could choose what I ate while pregnant, particularly early pregnancy, has me in stitches. Anyone who's suffered relentless morning sickness will tell you choice goes right out of the window, whether you can't stomach anything or, like me, your diet goes from pre pregnancy home made soups and bean stews to pasta, bread, pasta, more bread and whatever looks good on the menu at McDonalds. My younger brother jokes we have more in common now I'm pregnant than ever before (have learned to burp too, among other things!). I've gained just over a stone at not even half way and I'm not worrying, because I was a healthy weight and in good shape before I got pregnant, which seems very material to me, given the bloody physical rollercoaster that pregnancy seems to be.

This study was not talking about 'watching your weight during pregnancy'. If you are not maternally obese you have nothing to worry about. For maternally obese women there is a link between weight and complications like PE, shoulder dystocia etc. These particular women could diet safely, in fact it may be better for them to do so.

ps I do find these columns in general fail to be grounded in any sort of reality.... they read enormously impersonally which is fine I suppose, but I can go to the NHS website or indeed my own GP if I want more of that.

reminds me of my 16 week antenatal appointment: when the GP asked how I was, and I cheerily replied "fat!" (sitting in front of her in all my nine and a half stone glory) - I earned myself a lecture on the dangers of weight gain for delivery. Lesson learned: never try to have a laugh with your GP. (Hospital doctors, on the other hand, seem to do an excellent line in the blackest of jokes.)

My partner's midwife gave some great advice I thought:

First trimester - extra slice of bread a day
Second trimester - extra bread roll a day
Third trimester - extra buttered bread roll a day

(not cumulative).

I thought this was great advice and along with regular exercise really helped her manage her diet and weight effectively.

Yup, they forgot morning sickness. When melon tastes of onion one does chose pasta, potatoes and polenta.

Sad to say that although you need more calories during pregnancy you also tend to do less exercise and therefore burn fewer calories. In my experience the two cancelled each other out and I didn't get to eat anything extra.

This does not take into account the massive food aversions suffered in pregnancy. Personally I ate whatever I could keep down, or whatever wouldn't be too traumatic coming back up. There seems to be a new article every week about what women should and shouldn't do during pregnancy which is far from helpful, you are usually stressed enough without idiotic headlines adding to your worries. I'm sure if you are relatively sensible that giving into the occasional craving won't do any damage, as long as your cravings aren't for fags, absinthe or crack.

You can eat shellfish in pregnancy!!!!
Please stop saying this, as long as you know the origin it is fine!

Just don't stuff your face for 9 months and you'll be fine - I found the feeding phase caused me to eat much more than during pregnancy (although I did crave a lot of pies and carb rich items when pregnant!).

There is also almost certainly a genetic element: a predisposition towards weight gain.

Do women really need to be told this stuff? Advice seems to change constantly anyway. My sister has four kids ranging in age from 15 to 7 weeks and she says each pregnancy has been accompanied with contradictory information to the point that she just listens to her body and eats what she fancies which seems to be mostly fresh ginger and full fat milk in addition to her 'normal' healthy diet.

"Of course there are limitations (no pate, soft cheese or shellfish)" except of course you can have shellfish, and soft cheese. And pate unless you take the guidelines to be law.

I was out of the UK for my two (long ago) pregnancies so didn't know what the NHS advised - I ate loads of Brie and drank an occasional glass of red wine.... I guess I should start channeling some maternal guilt, right?

...no pate, soft cheese or shellfish...

Oh for god's sake! What rubbish! You think French and Italian women give up their mediterranean diet when they are pregnant? I ate all of those when I was pregnant in countries where they don't give a damn what you eat when you are pregnant as long as you eat. I ate everything I wanted both times, and was exactly the same weight after birth as I was before. Breast-feeding on the other hand required eating much more to keep up the milk.

Just go with your body and give it what it asks for: mine couldn't eat fresh bread, or anything green in one pregnancy, and wouldn't take meat or coffee in the other one. Your body knows what it needs to produce a healthy body, just listen to it!

Babies are parasites, they take what they need from your body. If you don't eat enough they will take it from you. If you don't take enough calcium rich foods, they will take the calcium from your teeth and bones. Just eat healthily and if you are craving something, its because the baby needs it!

You just sent me scurrying for a calcium chew! I quite like my teeth as they are ;)

Eat when you're hungry and carry on as normal?
Balanced diet, daily walks and yoga classes maybe.

It's pretty simple to understand isn't it? There's a small person in you that also needs food, but a) your body is designed to ensure it gets the nutrients it needs, b) it is definitely not a *whole* other person. How much do you feed a toddler in a day? Divide that by half or even into a quarter and that's a good estimate. For the record my wife ate 'for two' as it were during her first pregnancy and as normal during the second. Guess what? Give or take a few hundred grams between them, both our kids were well over 3kgs

The best course of action? Stop telling pregnant women what to do as if they are children.

Just because a woman is pregnant does not mean she has become incapable of thinking for herself. We know what is good and bad for us and most mothers will make the best choices for them and their unborn children, the others wont start to do so because someone else said to so why don' we just leave them be?

You're probably right! However that advice is nothing to do with weight gain - it's related to increased risk of miscarriage. Not sure what exactly the evidence is, but apparently there is some.

I can't find a link to the original study, but here's a more detailed article on that study, which I presume is the one being referred to.

It does indeed suggest that the more weight the Mother puts on during pregnancy, the more likely it is that the child will become obese. It seems to be yet another study highlighting the power of epigenetics. Fascinating.

Sorry, here's the link.

http://www.hivehealthmedia.com/pregnancy-weight-leads-obese-babies-children/

The Guardian loves to state the blimmin obvious and reveal more pointless research into something generally regarded as 'common sense'.

So, while pregnant women should not go on calorie-controlled diets, this research does suggest that eating a healthy, well-balanced diet and not becoming obese when you are expecting are good things to aspire to.

i ate for two and ended up the weight of four average adults so these calculations aren't always spot on you know...

If you are not maternally obese you have nothing to worry about.

You mean "morbidly obese", don't you?
Maternally obese would mena that the mother of the expecting mother is obese too, and does not make a lot of sense...

there are limitations (no pate, soft cheese or shellfish)

Really?! Why?!

Firstly, soft cheese, shellfish etc. can carry bacteria that can cause a miscarriage, at any stage of pregnancy and are best avoided. yes people ate them years ago and they probably do eat them in some european countries now but they had a higher rate of miscarriage years ago and I don't know the rates in other countries to compare.

As for weight gain, I was a healthy weight when I got pregnant but put on a ridiculous amount of weight as I had chronic morning sickness and could only eat stodge. I then got high blood pressure and was put on beta blockers which slowed me down totally and made me sleepy, so I ate to keep me awake and to get me through the boredom of not being able to do much.

Because of the weight gain I almost lost my life and my child in childbirth, if I had lived in a non developed world I would not be here, my doctor informed me. I did not realise how much weight I had gained when pregnant, I thought I would be fine, I was naive. It is easy to do and easy to pretend it will all be okay, so yes an obvious article but a subject most will think does not apply to them but actually might.

rofl, the idea that I could choose what I ate while pregnant, particularly early pregnancy, has me in stitches. Anyone who's suffered relentless morning sickness will tell you choice goes right out of the window,

Totally. I was really skinny before I got pregnant (BMI around 17) . By the time I had my booking appointment at about 10 weeks I'd gained over a stone. i went from living on fruit, veg, lean meat and fish to white bread and porridge. I felt hugely nauseous and only eating bland stodge would help, for a short time.

I gained more weight in the first trimester than the other two put together!

If I have another pregnancy though, I would really make the effort not to give in to that, remembering that it only helped the nausea for a short time. My daughter is approaching 2 years old now and I still haven't got back down to my ideal weight - I've got a healthy BMI of 21 or 22, but would prefer personally to be around a stone lighter than I am now.

It's really hard to lose the weight afterwards when you're breastfeeding, exhausted, and time-deprived.

http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Listeriosis.htm

It is really uncommon, but TOTALLY preventable through dietary changes. Which is why they advise it, for the 0.001% of unlucky people who end up being screwed over by it and eternally guilty about the duck pate.

I know, my mum (four kids) told me it's so hard to shift the weight, better to try to avoid putting it on. But honestly if it all happened again I don't think I could change anything - I think I had hypoglycaemia too, because if I didn't keep my stomach basically more than half full I would almost black out and the nausea was almost painful. The oddest feeling, the first I've ever had that I simply can't describe. Now I'm halfway it's better and the weight gain has levelled off a little, so perhaps I'll have your experience! I'm happy it's summer and I can finally stomach vegetables and salads again...... lordy.

Interestingly, my mum recently lost a radical amount of weight (from a 14/16 to an 8/10) quite naturally it seemed, just around the time my younger sister, her last child at home, reached mid teen self sufficiency. I don't think it's unconnected.... it seemed that mothering left her so little time for herself, the only option she had for nourishment was food, instead of the spectrum (food, relaxation, exercise, time to herself). Not that she was a mad binger, but I think she relied on it to get through the day. Now she doesn't seem to need it that way any more. It's all so hard. But your BMI is perfect so go easy on yourself......

Well French women do actually give up pate, soft cheese, shellfish and wine when pregnant.

Very well said.

This was the most shocking thing for me when I became pregnant, the way I was suddenly everybody's business. Complete strangers remarking on what I was eating in a cafe, for example, or on how big I was. Or coming up to me at bus-stops and asking me what kind of birth I was going to have (like I had a crystal ball.)

A pregnant woman is as capable as she was before becoming pregnant. And she is nobody's property.

Doctors need to bear this in mind too.

Oh helenamay, you sound just like my best friend, who is also nearly halfway, and had horrible morning sickness which stopped her being her superfit eight-stone self for the first time in her life! She's just been eating as and what she can, and totally unable to do her usual bike rides / runs / riding. Apparently it's more or less cleared up for her in the second trimester, so I hope it has for you too!

I think I had hypoglycaemia too, because if I didn't keep my stomach basically more than half full I would almost black out and the nausea was almost painful. The oddest feeling, the first I've ever had that I simply can't describe.

That is really similar to the way I felt. It's not something i knew about beforehand. The good news is that it went away by the second trimester and the weight gain slowed down a lot as well, so hopefully it will be teh same for you.

In terms of natural weight loss and mothering, what I've found most difficult (other than breastfeeding, which makes you feel in constant need of nourishment) is having to make 3 meals a day, not something I would ever have done before, and certainly not when I was trying to lose weight. Especially as i've got a very small kitchen with no storage and no freezer, I find myself constantly shopping for food, preparing food, cleaning up after food... It means you're constantly tempted and it's extremely difficult to e.g. throw away half a cheese sandwich or a bowl of muesli rather than finishing it off!

Perhaps your mum has also lost weight because she's freed of the necessity to feed others all the time?

Totally! that's such a good insight. quite often when I speak to her now she's happily having a bowl of cereal or some toast for her tea. I have to say, one of the things I miss about the single life is the absolute freedom to eat what I wanted, and when, and for the cupboards often to be fairly bare. It probably really did help me to keep my weight in check. And I too hate the endless food shopping and prep - which is sadly not my husband's forte, though he's in training!

The lack of freezer must be such a pain in the arse. My sympathies. I have no idea how feeding this baby will work but because we're chronically skint, I'm hoping to be able to make and freeze a lot of individual portions of bean / vegetable / fruit goo. Whether I will, and what the baby will have to say about it, remains to be seen-!

What's interesting to me are the recent studies (sorry I can't remember where I read about them) that link having C-sections to a higher risk of obesity. Of course what the studies haven't done is establish a causal link between the C-section and the resulting obesity and many researchers have pointed out that if the pregnant woman is obese already she runs a much higher risk of needing a C-section. So much we still don't know.

Oh, I have nothing smug to add here.

I was told it is just an extra apple a day....I don't think loosing weight does any harm to a baby (if you need to) I was a good healthy and fit weight when I got pregnant, I had severe hyperemesis and lost a third of my body weight, did not show until 6 months pregs (and it was twins) My kids are fine, no development or health issues, I ate nothing for weeks.

I would say always be healthy, before, during and after it is very hard to loose weight with a new baby as you have no time to do anything let alone exercise

I found that article very interesting because in the summary I saw the authors went "more obese women needed caesareans, we think it is actually something to do with gut pathogens". Which I find odd, since maternal obesity is one of the STRONGEST predictors of obesity in a child and the connection between gut bacteria and obesity is much weaker.

I think this may be a cultural thing. Out of 7 pregnancies, one took place overseas and the others on home ground. The overseas one was full of pressure not to gain weight. I was frantic because I had no appetite, it was ghastly hot which completely took away my appetite, yet in the last weeks I gained weight anyway. I dreaded each appointment simply because I anticipated a tongue lashing about something over which I had NO control! Unfortunately that baby died due to a labour gone terribly wrong. He was a completely average weight at birth.
With the others I was told not to worry. During one in which my gall bladder was acting up in addition to my routine hyper-emesis I was worried the baby wasn't getting enough nutrients. My doctor reassured me by saying that if I am not eating enough the baby will rob my stores of vitamins, minerals such as calcium (as such rob my bones!) and it would be highly unlikely that the baby would be born unhealthy considering the fact that I'd been healthy before becoming pregnant. He was born at a slightly under average weight (6 and 1/2 lbs...3kg?) and I was 15lbs lighter than when I'd become pregnant. He cluster fed himself to health, though, and was soon a chunky baby. I don't remember being told to avoid certain foods, but that may be a grey cell disfunction ;-)....Since I was nauseated all the time it was all I could do to get something into me once a day. The last pregnancy I had diabetes and was constantly controlling my diet. Luckily by the time it was diagnosed most of the nausea was under control so I could properly manage the diabetes. Despite being very responsible about all of that the baby was taken early and was unwell for the first little while. I have since heard of friends who gained an incredible amount of weight and subsequently had a terrific problem getting rid of it. I've found, unfortunately, that some baby weight will stay, and I can only remember with nostalgia, and look at photos, of myself before all of the baby business and I was a svelte size 4/6. Getting old generally sucks. Enjoy these baby years....they do a heck of a job keeping your mind off the aging process too!

I have a friend who, when she was about a week away from giving birth, had a woman come up to her in a cafe and actually poke her in the stomach, remarking "Goodness, what a big bump!" I think it was a remarkable act of self-restraint that she managed not to punch the interfering baggage on the nose.

It stands to reason that it's important to eat sensibly during pregnancy. Most women know that you don't really need to 'eat for two' but just need a small amount of extra calories during the last 4 or 6 weeks (I forget which). However, it is quite surprising how many of my friends when pregnant seem to mistake 'hungry' for 'cravings', give themselves licence to eat anything they wanted and now they are unable to shift the extra weight. I have never been pregnant so I realise I cannot talk on this, having never experienced a pregnancy foodcraving myself. I really hope if I become pregnant I can distinguish 'pregnancy craving' from 'I'm extremely hungry'. I'm good at self-discipline so I'm confident I will be able to maintain a healthy diet (that does *not* mean I won't put on 'too much' weight! To some extent weight gain in pregnancy can't be controlled by the woman as everyone's body is slightly different and some women put on loads of weight and then lose it again very quickly) but I also know it will likely be a tough fight.

There is also a danger of losing weight or not putting it on due to morning sickness and not being able to eat anything or keep anything down.

I would have thought you would be quite physically active after having a baby because of picking up, holding, carrying a small child so much, and as soon as they start crawling running around after them, not to mention extra calories burned if you're breastfeeding... however, I do understand the complete lack of time to exercise by yourself!