The schedule and diet of the expectant mother at the very early stage of carrying the baby are very important. It is necessary for a pregnant woman to monitor what enters the stomach from the first days after conceiving a child.
The importance of eating the right diet
It often happens that a woman does not immediately find out about her pregnancy. As a rule, quite often this happens only by 4-6 obstetric weeks of pregnancy. A woman is alarmed by the absence of menstruation and the appearance of nonspecific symptoms in her, which motivates her to contact an obstetrician-gynecologist at the very beginning of the first trimester.
When pregnancy is detected, the doctor must draw up a set of recommendations for the expectant mother. An important part of it is the preparation of a correct and balanced diet.
It is important to note that each trimester of pregnancy has its own characteristics. The importance of formulating the correct diet for a pregnant woman in the first trimester cannot be overstated. The initial weeks of intrauterine development of the baby are characterized by its intensive growth and development. It was at this time that the laying and formation of all the vital organs of the little man took place.
A competent doctor must draw up individual recommendations for each specific patient. Drawing up the diet of the expectant mother requires a careful and comprehensive approach, which must take into account the individual characteristics of a woman, the type of her constitution, and the presence of concomitant diseases.
So, an expectant mother who suffers from diabetes cannot eat the same foods as a healthy woman who does not have problems with persistent hyglycemia (increased blood sugar levels).
Diet
The first and rather important component is the meal schedule. In the first weeks of pregnancy, the expectant mother should strictly observe it. Regular intake of vital nutrients ensures the physiological functioning of the body, and is also necessary for the proper intrauterine development of the fetus.
The expectant mother should eat in the early stages at least every 2.5-3 hours. This food is called fractional. In this case, the entire daily ration is "divided" into shares that are practically equal in volume.
With fractional meals, the main thing is not to overeat. Many expectant mothers in early pregnancy make a colossal mistake - they start eating for two. This myth has existed for many decades, almost every pregnant woman can hear such a "recommendation" from her mother or grandmother. You can listen to it so as not to offend your beloved relatives, but in no case should you put it into practice.
Currently, dietetics has advanced significantly. Numerous scientific experiments have proven that eating "for two" during pregnancy is absolutely pointless.
Compliance with clear recommendations for proper and balanced nutrition during pregnancy allows women to maintain both their health and their babies.
Main power components
The correct diet must necessarily include the main nutritional components: proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Medical recommendations from different countries reflect different daily requirements for these substances. They are revised every year, corrections and changes are made to them taking into account the data of scientific research.
Protein
The daily protein requirement of the expectant mother in the first trimester of pregnancy is approximately 1.5 grams per kilogram of body weight. So, the average woman weighing 60 kilograms should consume about 90 grams of protein per day.
In the results of some foreign studies, there is evidence that a pregnant woman at this stage should consume even 2 grams of protein per kilogram. Making recommendations should always be individualized.
The calculation of the need for protein food for each woman is carried out by the doctor, knowing the features of the anamnesis and the data of the clinical examination. For example, a future mother suffering from chronic kidney disease, accompanied by the development of chronic renal failure, should not eat a lot of protein foods. This can contribute to the progression of this disease in her and lead to adverse consequences for the fetus.
At the same time, healthy eating experts recommend equal distribution between proteins of animal and vegetable origin - 50/50. Only a small change in this proportion is allowed.
Legumes are excellent sources of vegetable protein. Including side dishes or soups made from them in your menu helps to provide your body with a quality source of protein. Women with chronic inflammatory bowel disease should be careful. Legumes can cause gassing.
Also, vegetable protein is found in cereal products. Many future mothers do not even know about this. Eating oatmeal or buckwheat for breakfast will also provide your body with a serving of vegetable protein. To improve the taste, you can add some fruit to such porridge or eat it with boiled chicken. Such a breakfast will not only be delicious, but also healthy.
Another source of protein is animal products, which include fish, seafood, eggs, meat and poultry. Each of these foods is unique in its chemical composition and contains certain essential amino acids that are essential for optimal overall body function.
In the use of protein products of animal origin, a number of rules should be followed.
- It is better to eat them with various vegetables. Vegetables contain fibrous fiber, which improves the digestion process. It is also essential for the growth of beneficial microbes that normally live in a healthy gut.
- Protein foods should be alternated... You don't need to eat just one chicken, cooked in different ways. It is better to have different dishes prepared from different protein products of animal origin on the table every day.
- The way of cooking is important. Frying in oil or deep fat is the wrong choice of cooking for the expectant mother. Better still bake, stew, boil or steam. In this case, you can reduce the amount of unnecessary and even dangerous fats that are formed when deep-fried meat or chicken.
Another source of protein worth mentioning is dairy products. Fermented milk products are an excellent source of protein, as well as very important lacto- and bifidobacteria. These beneficial microbes are necessary for the expectant mother's tummy to work like a clock.
It is especially important to include fermented milk products for expectant mothers who suffer from constipation.
Regular consumption of sour milk and coarse fiber contained in fruits and vegetables will help a pregnant woman to establish regularity of stools without taking additional laxatives.
The choice of fermented milk products for the expectant mother should be very careful. Consider the following tips when planning your grocery list.
- Be guided by your own taste. You can eat almost any fermented milk products. Women who are overweight should not choose foods that are too high in fat. So, cottage cheese will be a better choice than cheese with 40-50% fat content.
- When choosing you should pay attention to the date of manufacture and expiration date. Choose foods that have a shorter shelf life. Yoghurts that can be stored for months or even a year contain too many preservatives. Such chemicals will not bring health to either the expectant mother or her baby.
- Pay attention to the integrity of the packaging. Paper bags with kefir or fermented baked milk should not be swollen or badly deformed.
- Give preference to products that do not contain chemical dyes and additives... The abundance of such substances in yogurt can provoke the development of allergic reactions. The best choice is kefir or bifidok without flavors. If you want to pamper yourself with strawberry or peach yogurt, then it is better to choose more natural products where only natural ingredients are added. The best yoghurts are those made at home.
About carbohydrates
An equally important component of a proper balanced diet is carbohydrate-containing foods. For the active development of the baby, a sufficient amount of energy is required, and its main source is carbohydrates.
There are two types of carbohydrates: "fast" and "slow". The differences in their effect on the body are presented in the following table.
The diet of the expectant mother should contain both types of carbohydrates. In this case, more importance is given to the "slow" carbohydrates. They are predominantly found in various grains. Boiled buckwheat, rice, oatmeal, bulgur and other grain side dishes will be an excellent addition to your daily diet.
It is better to give preference to fruits as sweets. They contain "fast" carbohydrates. A small amount of fruits and berries will be an excellent addition to the menu and provide the body with vitamins and minerals. It is important to note that they should not be abused.
About fats
Fats are essential for the full development of a baby, but they must be correct. Thus, the fats contained in fish and vegetable oils will be much healthier than those found in mayonnaise and margarine.
Many expectant mothers are wondering if it is okay to eat butter during pregnancy. Definitely yes. It contains quite a lot of useful fat-soluble vitamins that will be useful for both the expectant mother and her baby.
When adding fats to the diet, it is always important to remember their quantity.
Experts recommend that expectant mothers consume about 65-70 grams of fat. ¾ they should be diverted to vegetable oils, which can be used to season salads, as well as added to side dishes.
How to eat right for a future mother?
Perhaps this is one of the most important questions for all pregnant women who responsibly approach this unique period of their lives. You should remember about a correct and balanced diet throughout pregnancy. If a woman, with the help of a doctor, learned how to properly formulate a diet in the early stages of pregnancy, then in the future this skill will be useful to her in other trimesters.
The main rule that must be followed is that you should only eat healthy and permitted foods. In this case, you will have to forget about the harmful ones.
All the little "snacks" or fast food that women can eat before pregnancy can worsen not only her own health, but also negatively affect the physiological course of the fetal development of the baby.
In the first weeks of pregnancy, a woman experiences changes in the work of her digestive system. They are largely due to hormonal changes occurring in the female body. At this time, specific pregnancy hormones appear in the bloodstream, which are necessary for the active growth of the baby.
Such changes often contribute to the fact that the expectant mother begins to feel nausea, decreased or extremely strong increase in appetite, soreness in the abdomen, changes in taste habits. Many women have a strong desire to eat a particular food. Most often, they get something that they did not like before pregnancy and often did not use in everyday life. Some mothers-to-be note that they are constantly hungry, and, as a rule, they begin to actively “make friends” with their refrigerator.
Features of nutrition by weeks of pregnancy
Each week of pregnancy is characterized by specific changes in the development of the baby. Every day, a tiny baby, which is a few more cells, undergoes serious biological processes. This is what leads to the fact that the composition of the diet for each week of pregnancy is extremely important.
In the first weeks of pregnancy
The very beginning of pregnancy usually does not cause any adverse manifestations in the expectant mother. At this time, the small embryo is still very tiny. As it grows and the level of hormones in the blood rises, the woman begins to feel certain subjective sensations.
In order to understand how to eat properly for an expectant mother in the 1st trimester of pregnancy, it is important to understand how the process of organogenesis itself (the formation of internal organs and systems) in a baby takes place.
A sufficient amount of protein is required to build all internal organs. It is protein that is an important building block. All cells of the human body are built from it.
Insufficient intake of protein in the female diet can lead to the fact that the child will have defects in his intrauterine development. This situation is dangerous by the development of defects in the structure and functioning of internal organs. They are revealed already, as a rule, after the baby is born.
Problems with the intake of proteins in the female body often occur in women who are on a vegetarian diet. The elimination of animal food during pregnancy is a very difficult and always controversial topic among patients.
Many women who promote this style of nutrition and actively use it in their lives categorically do not perceive the use of food of animal origin. Let us turn to medical recommendations. Each doctor, regardless of his specialty, will recommend that a future vegetarian mother still include meat, fish, eggs and dairy products in her diet.... It is extremely important to do this in the first weeks of pregnancy, when the baby's internal organs are forming.
Doctors emphasize that the expectant mother should think at this time, first of all, not about herself, but about the health of her baby. After his birth, a woman, at will, can again return to vegetarian food.
If the expectant mother, who uses a vegetarian diet, flatly refuses to eat animal products, then it is important for her to carefully monitor the composition of her diet. The amount of proteins entering her body should be within the recommended values. There should be no deficiency of protein nutrients at this stage of pregnancy.
It is also important to remember the principle of combining products. Each protein product contains essential amino acids. Lack of intake of at least one of them already contributes to a change in metabolism and even leads to the development of pathologies.
One example of a good food combination is eating rice and legumes. This combination has a good amino acid composition in terms of its chemical composition of nutrients - better than in any mono-diet.
5-7 weeks
Aversion to a certain type of food is a fairly common symptom that can occur during this period of pregnancy. It is also due to the fact that the hormonal balance in the female body changes.
It is important to note that if the expectant mother has no appetite at all for several days, then she should definitely see her doctor.
You should make an appointment with a therapist: he will assess the general condition of the pregnant woman and will be able to identify any concomitant pathologies. If they are not there, then the doctor will simply give recommendations on how to improve and change the diet so that the adverse symptoms decrease.
8-10 weeks
By this time of pregnancy, significant changes have already occurred in the baby's body. The condition of the expectant mother also changed. Chorionic hormone (hCG) is still building up in her blood, contributing to a change in well-being.
Many women note that at this stage of pregnancy they experience severe nausea and even vomiting. Such adverse symptoms usually occur with toxicosis in the first half of pregnancy. The degree of their severity is different and depends on the individual characteristics of each woman.
Toxicosis can also be accompanied by a decrease in appetite and a change in taste habits. To cope with the adverse symptoms that develop with toxicosis, adherence to the drinking regimen helps. To do this, a woman must drink at least 1.5 liters of water per day. If she suffers from severe chronic kidney disease or heart failure, the amount of fluid may be limited.
The best choice is plain water at room temperature. Compotes, fruit drinks and juices can also be consumed, but mainly for a change. Such drinks, as a rule, contain a lot of sugar, and if they enter the blood in large quantities, they can cause sharp jumps in glucose, which only provokes thirst.
The phenomena of toxicosis can increase with the use of low-quality food. So, convenience foods or fast food often provoke increased nausea in pregnant women. A balanced diet in this case will help to cope with unwanted symptoms.
11-13 weeks
This period is the final stage of the first trimester of pregnancy. By this time, the expectant mother should already know what is useful and what is harmful for her and her baby. During the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, a woman should already learn how to compose her individual daily diet with the obligatory inclusion of all the necessary nutrients in it.
At this stage of pregnancy, the daily caloric content of the diet should be at least 2700 kcal. The results of different studies provide different data on the caloric content of the daily diet, but most of them still indicate this value.
Prohibited foods
In addition to the permitted products, there are those that the expectant mother cannot eat. Women who want to lead a healthy lifestyle should not use them throughout pregnancy, not just in the first trimester. The consumption of these products can harm the body and significantly impair its functioning.
Alcohol
Alcohol is categorically contraindicated for all expectant mothers. Pregnancy and the use of alcoholic beverages are unacceptable concepts; under no circumstances should a pregnant woman consume drinks that contain ethyl alcohol. Even at family holidays, there should be juice or fruit drink in the glass of the expectant mother.
Many women make the mistake of thinking that small amounts of low alcohol drinks will not harm their baby. It's a delusion. The strength of the drink does not play a significant role. Even beer or wine can harm an actively developing child, especially in the early stages of his intrauterine development.
Alcohol negatively affects the formation and development of nerve cells, the central nervous system and other vital organs in the baby.
Coffee
The expectant mother should not consume this drink every day. You can indulge yourself with a cup of aromatic espresso or cappuccino, but not every day.
The caffeine contained in coffee has an active effect on the tone of the blood vessels. During pregnancy, the baby in the mother's womb receives all the nutrients through the blood flow system shared with his mother. The effects of caffeine on the blood vessels can impair the blood supply to the fetus.
If a woman cannot live without coffee, then she should choose a decaf coffee drink. In this case, the risk of adverse effects will be minimized.
Convenience foods and fast food
Such products are extremely unfavorable for consumption during pregnancy: they contain quite a lot of salt, chemical additives, flavor enhancers, preservatives, stabilizers, but they have nothing useful in them.
It is better to replace such foods with healthy poultry or fish. If the expectant mother wants fast food, then she can prepare alternative dishes at home. So, she can make chicken nuggets. You can cook them from chicken breast or thigh fillets. Chopped croutons baked from grain bread are suitable for breading. These homemade nuggets are a great alternative to unhealthy fast food.
You can find out more about nutrition during pregnancy in the video below.
