How to Gain Weight During Pregnancy

Most women find themselves dealing with how to keep from gaining too much weight during pregnancy. Unfortunately, there are a large number of women who have to struggle to keep their weight up while they’re pregnant. A developing fetus needs a lot of nutrients in order to become a healthy infant, and mothers who can’t manage to gain weight during pregnancy run the risk of having unhealthy babies and high-risk pregnancies. Luckily, there are ways around this.

Things that keep you from gaining weight

There are a number of problems that can keep a woman from being able to gain weight while she’s pregnant. If the mother has a natural difficulty with keeping her weight up, she could have problems figuring out how to gain weight during pregnancy. If she’s on certain medications, they might make it more difficult for her to put on the weight she needs to during pregnancy. If she has an overactive thyroid or other metabolic problem, she could have trouble, too. Sometimes, the morning sickness caused by pregnancy itself can be a big obstacle to weight gain. No matter what the issue is, if a pregnant woman is having trouble gaining weight, the first thing she needs to do is visit her doctor to make sure that an underlying medical condition isn’t the culprit.

Foods to gain weight during pregnancy

Gaining weight during pregnancy is about more than just eating more, or eating higher-calorie foods. Some women take this opportunity to begin to eat more of the sweets and junk food they normally avoid, but these foods really aren’t helpful from a nutritional standpoint. They can trigger health problems like high blood pressure and diabetes, and generally don’t provide the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that mother and baby both need to be healthy.

Better meal choices include lots of healthy fats, like those found in flax seed, olive oil, avocados, and coconuts. These provide a lot of calories, as well as essential fatty acids needed for proper organ development. Protein is very important too, since proteins provide the building blocks for muscle tissue. Complex carbohydrates help provide energy. Nuts, seeds, beans, lean meat, full-fat dairy, and fruits and vegetables provide these important nutritional components, as well as vitamins and minerals like vitamin E, C, D, iron, calcium, magnesium, zinc, folic acid, and all of the other nutrients needed for healthy fetal development.

Eating meals frequently throughout the day can helps stave off nausea and morning sickness for some women, and help keep blood sugar and energy levels stable, too. Frequent eating also helps women ingest more calories, which will help with weight gain.

Gaining weight properly during pregnancy doesn’t just make for a healthier pregnancy, easier delivery, and healthier baby, it also makes it easier to lose baby weight after delivery. There isn’t a rule for how much weight a woman should gain while she’s pregnant, so it’s important for women to follow their doctor’s recommendations regarding how much weight they should be gaining.