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What you should eat:
Pregnancy puts additional
nutritional demands on your body. You require to eat judiciously to meet
the demands of the body. Make sure that you eat a mixture of different
foods each day in order to get all the various nutrients that you and your
baby need.
Your diet should have plenty of fruit and vegetables which
provide vitamins, minerals and fibre. Eat them lightly cooked or raw. Let
starchy foods like bread, potatoes, rice and breakfast cereals with
vegetables form the main part of any meal.
Eat some good sources of nutrients like fish, eggs, cheese, beans, and
lentils every day. Dairy products like milk, cheese and yogurt are
important as they contain calcium and other nutrients needed for your
baby's development.
Avoid sugar and sugary foods like sweets, biscuits
and cakes and sugary drinks like cola. Cut down on fat and fatty foods as
well.
Mineral and vitamin supplements
A large
number of pregnant women suffer from varying degrees of anemia so
additional iron supplementation is provided by pills. Also tablets of
Folic acid (a vitamin necessary to prevent certain spinal disorders in the
growing baby) along with Calcium are generally prescribed by the health
care providers.
Pregnancy and weight
Most women
gain between 10 -12.5kgs (22 - 28lbs). Weight gain varies a great deal and
depends on your weight before pregnancy. Weight gain significantly more or
less than the average could be an indicator of a problem, so you must
monitor your weight gain carefully. Also if you weigh more than 100kg or
under 50kg your health care provider may have special advise for you.
Smoking during pregnancy
Try
to stop. When you smoke, carbon monoxide and nicotine passes into your
lungs and blood stream. This means that: a) your baby gets less oxygen and
cannot grow as well as it should, and b) the nicotine makes your baby's
heart beat faster. Constantly breathing in other people's smoke may also
have a harmful effect.
Babies of mothers who smoke are, on
average, 200g (about 8 oz) lighter than other babies. These babies may
have problems during and after labour and are more prone to infection; it
will be better for your baby later too if you stop smoking. Children whose
parents smoke are more likely to suffer from illnesses such as asthma; and
there is an increased risk of cot death.
Alcohol
It
has now been shown that even small amounts of alcohol can be harmful to
your baby. Alcohol has adverse effects on the baby's development and can
produce a lot of anomalies generally termed as 'Fetal Alcohol Syndrome'.
So to be safe avoid alcohol totally during your pregnancy.
Pills medicines and other drugs
You
should be very careful while taking any kind of medication, specially in
the earlier part of the pregnancy. Majority of drugs have some effects on
the growing fetus and the first three months are crucial. You would be
better off asking your doctor about any medications you want to take. Make
sure your doctor or dentist knows you're pregnant before prescribing
anything or giving you treatment.
At the same time it is important
to remember that if you on treatment for some chronic conditions like
epilepsy or diabetes you consult your doctor and continue your medications
because control of such conditions is vitally important for you as well as
the pregnancy.
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