Diet during pregnancy

Managing your diet is important for everyone – it doesn’t matter what you look like, whether you’re small or big, tall or short, what you eat is important. In the same way that putting the wrong fuel in will damage your car, so too will eating the wrong food lead to poor health.

Even if you don’t exhibit the symptoms of any condition, it’s important that you watch what you eat, and it’s never more important than when you’re pregnant.

Eating well during and preceding your pregnancy is an excellent way to aid in the development and growth of your baby. When your baby is born you will want to provide it with all the nutrients and foods that it requires, so it makes perfect sense that you should apply the same principle to your diet during pregnancy.

Eat a variety of foods

Cravings aside, it’s important that you include a range of foods in your pregnancy diet, incorporating a mixture of all of the recommended nutrients. Ensuring that you are healthy yourself is important to a healthy pregnancy and so following a diet that makes sure that your body operates as well as possible is vital.

There are some foods and consumables that you should avoid during pregnancy – caffeine and liver products, for example, can both cause harm to you foetus and are better avoided.

There are also some foods that you’d usually consider to be perfect for good health but that can actually be detrimental over the course of a pregnancy. Tuna is a food that provides a lot of benefits, but eating it too often when you’re pregnant can be bad for the baby – because of the high levels of mercury that the meat contains, tuna can potentially affect the development of your baby’s nervous system if intake is not moderated.

Clean food well

Additionally it is important that you ensure that all food that you eat is cleaned, prepared and cooked properly – it may seem obvious, but it’s important that you take care during your pregnancy to make sure that everything you eat is as safe as it can be.

With many foods, the risks to you are the same as they would be when you aren’t pregnant; the difference is though that there is an added risk in that the unsafe food may lead to problems in your pregnancy.

Planning ahead is a good way to ensure you eat correctly, and planning a diet with your nurse or doctor is an excellent way to ensure that you take in all the correct food types and nutrients over the course of the pregnancy - there may be some food types that you need and don’t consider, just as there may be some foods that seem ok but that would be better avoided.