Getting the Necessary Nutrition While You are Pregnant When you find out you are pregnant, one of the first things you should do is evaluate and alter your diet to ensure that you are getting the nutrition you need, while cutting out the fats and sugars that you do not need. After all, your diet can have an extremely important effect on the mental and physical development of your unborn baby. You are no longer eating just for yourself—everything that you eat, your little one eats as well. That may cause you to think twice about that coffee and donut in the morning, and reach for a banana and a yogurt instead.

Eat Your Proteins

In general, pregnant women only need to eat about three hundred extra calories per day. The important key is to make sure that everything you consume is packed with the vitamins, minerals, and proteins that you need. Protein is one of the most important things that you can consume while expecting. Believe it or not, your baby will be packed with about nine hundred grams of protein when it is born. The more protein you consume in your diet, the better your baby will be able to grow and develop, and the more energy you will feel. After all, protein is a key building block in your body, and in the brain cells of your fetus. The more healthy sources of protein that you consume, the better your baby’s brain will be able to develop. This is critical to the health of your fetus, and you. In general, you will need about seventy grams a day, to keep your levels where they need to be. There are many different ways that you can meet this goal in your diet. You can find it in lean meats such as poultry, fish, and eggs. You can also find sources in dairy, such as yogurt, cheese, milk, etc.

Nuts and legumes also contain a certain amount, as do whole grains and cereals. Even some vegetables contain small amounts, such as broccoli, peas, and leafy greens. Make sure that you are getting a certain amount in each meal and snack that you consume throughout the day. It may be hard for you to get seventy grams at first, but the more sources you find that you enjoy, the easier it will get. For breakfast, try eating whole grain cereals with

milk or soymilk, and some fruit. For snacks, you could try snacking on nuts or peanut butter, making sure that you get some meat throughout the day as well.

Drink Your Milk

Next, you need to make sure that you get enough calcium every day. This will help your fetus to be able to develop healthy bones. You will need to make sure you are getting about twelve hundred milligrams a day, even while you are nursing. You can get this nutrient through dairy products such as cheese and milk, as well as some fruit and vegetable sources as well. You may want to think about taking a calcium supplement to make up for what you are not able to consume in your diet every day. Talk to your doctor about a recommendation.

Iron Woman

Iron is another very important factor while you are expecting. In general, you need about thirty milligrams of iron a day. This is another area where you may want to consider taking a supplement, as it can be a little tough to get that from your diet alone. Iron is generally found in lean meats, dark leafy green vegetables, eggs, and whole grains. Talk to your doctor about where you can get this supplement. The last nutritional powerhouse you need to be aware of is your intake of folic acid—you should have been consuming high levels of this in the months before you became pregnant. It can greatly reduce the risk of birth defects in your fetus, which should be a priority. You can find this in leafy vegetables, peanuts, whole grains, and liver. Taking a supplement here is also a good idea—it is usually packed into prenatal vitamins, which you should be taking right away. The more conscious you are about exactly what you are putting into your body, the healthier you and your baby will end up being. If you enjoyed this article, give Megadyne, the authority on electrosurgery and other medical areas, a call to receive more information.