The cyber-airwaves are humming this morning with “Is Miley Cyrus carrying Jonas Brothers, Nick’s love child?” rumors.
True or not, it brings to the forefront an important topic, “pregnancy weight,” and presents an opportunity to remember what one needs to do to stay healthy during pregnancy.
Healthy Reminders
First of all, no matter what the number says on the scales of injustice prior to your pregnancy, even if you are clinically obese, you must gain weight and eat well, because you are growing a new human being. Nutritionally deprived babies are smaller and can be sickly and sickly babies tend to need more hospital time, have a higher occurrence of problems and incidence of neonatal death.

Eating for Two
Remember that eating for two doesn’t mean that you need to eat twice as much. In fact, ingesting an additional 100 to 300 calories of nutrient dense foods instead of the ubiquitous high-fat, high-sugar junk foods is the way to go. Ditch the candy bars and bags of chips and reach for fruit!
Gain, How Much?
The rule of thumb is that women who are clinically obese should gain a minimum of 11 pounds, women who are average weight should gain 25-35 pounds and women who are underweight need to look at an average gain of 25-40 pounds.
Nevertheless, you may need to gain more or less, remembering that these are the averages. Therefore, you should definitely put this on your checklist of things to discuss with your health care provider.
BabyCenter.com has a fabulous pregnancy weight gain estimator. Just punch in your height and weight and it will tell you the amount of pounds you will gain and how it is distributed!
Where does the weight go? (Source: Babycenter.com)
A woman who is 5’5″ tall and weighs 145 pounds
Maternal:
Uterus / 2.39 lbs.
Breasts / 1.0 lbs.
Blood / 3.09 lbs.
Water / 4.15 lbs.
Fat / 8.27 lbs.
Subtotal: 18.89 lbs.
Fetal:
Fetus / 7.5 lbs.
Placenta / 1.6 lbs.
Amniotic Fluid / 1.97 lbs.
Subtotal: 11.07 lbs.
Total: 29.96 lbs.
More Celebrity Weight!
Mo’Nique Loses 40 Pounds: Puts a lid on it.
Jon and Kate plus 8: Heavy matters.
Kelly Clarkson: Weight Gain
Spread the word, not the icing!
Janice

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