Pregnancy and Weight Gain
Women dreaming of getting pregnant should also keep in mind the new weight gain guidelines. The Institute of Medicine released the new guidelines today in an effort to help women stay healthy during their pregnancies. Many doctors reported that their patients were gaining too much weight during their pregnancies. This resulted in added risk to the mother and fetus during the pregnancy and delivery. Also, weight retention after the pregnancy was an issue.
New Guidelines
The new guidelines address weight gain for women of all sizes. Underweight women should gain from 28-40 pounds, normal weight 25-35 pounds, overweight 15-25 pounds, and obese 11-20 pounds. Women carrying twins have new weight guidelines, too. Normal weight women should gain between 37 and 54 pounds and overweight women 31-50 pounds.
Importance for Women TTC
The importance of this study for women trying to conceive is that weight can play a role in getting pregnant. Many times, women with a BMI that puts them in the overweight or obese categories can impair the ability to conceive. Losing weight often times allows women who thought they couldn’t get pregnant to actually conceive. This is important information for women doing everything they can do conceive especially when there is no clear sign why conception is not occurring. If you have a few pounds to lose doctors are advising you to do it before pregnancy. Besides potentially helping you conceive you can be at a healthy weight before getting pregnant. That can reduce the risk of many pregnancy related problems for both mom and fetus so it’s worth the effort it takes to get healthy!
Personal Opinion
After reading about these new guidelines I was motivated even more than ever to lose the few extra pounds still lingering around my waistline. I’m ready to get pregnant again, but not interested in increasing my risk for gestational diabetes or a C-section. So, putting forth a little bit of extra effort now will certainly pay off for me and baby during my next pregnancy. I’ll let you know how I progress! It would be great if we could all join together and lose weight as a group!
2 Responses to “Pregnancy and Weight Gain”
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June 4th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
I am on a diet right now (Metabolic) and losing steadily. I am hoping to conceive this month, but any weight loss will help beforehand. If I do conceive, I will probably be able to lose at least 20 lbs. before I have to stop dieting, so that will leave me at a more healthy weight and if I only gain the 15-25 pounds during pregnancy, then I will be right about back at where I started. Then it will be easy to drop the baby weight between breastfeeding, working out and watching my diet. I would love to join the group and we can track our weight loss together. So far, I have lost 7 lbs. since 5/26, down to 208! Hopefully I can at least get down to 190 before I conceive or w/ in the 1st month.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
That is great. The more you lose beforehand the healthier you will be during your pregnancy. I’m happy to lose weight with you so we can both be healthier and be ready for pregnancy. Have you lost any more weight this week? I’ve been doing South Beach and it really works for me and I can pretty much follow it (stage 3) while Im pregnant and hopefully stay within the weight gain guidelines! Let me know how you are doing!