BDA Press Centre
BDA responds to report linking overweight and obesity to pregnancy and birth problems
Responding to a Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health, Catherine Collins, dietitian and British Dietetic Association spokesperson, said: “Pregnancy is often the first time that women tend to focus on how diet influences their health but a varied and healthy diet is essential for a healthy baby. Women who are overweight or obese run the risk of health problems and a large baby to deliver.
“Weight loss is not recommended in pregnancy. Instead, women should aim to keep weight stable for some time during the pregnancy and aim to gain around 22lbs or 10kg only. The midwife or obstetrician can advise your personal goals. Women can help themselves by critically assessing their eating habits, firstly by recording everything that is eaten and drunk for 2 days, including quantities and then checking how healthy the diet is against what is recommended.”
Adopting the following simple tips can help control weight during pregnancy as well as help start on a healthy eating plan that will be beneficial beyond motherhood.
Do you eat 3 meals a day?
If you don't there’s temptation to eat whatever’s available when hunger strikes. Skipping breakfast makes that mid-morning Danish pastry or half packet of biscuits more likely, and is double the calories of a bowl of cereal with milk. The extra vitamins and iron in fortified cereals, and calcium and protein in the milk make an ideal start for the day - whatever time you get up
Do you eat starchy foods at each meal?
Both you and your baby require a constant supply of carbohydrate for energy, so make sure you include some at every meal. Bread, pasta, rice, potato, and cereals are all useful starchy carbohydrates. If you are trying to control your weight, use low fat spread on bread, choose plain boiled pasta or rice and have boiled, mashed, or jacket potatoes in preference to chips. A healthy portion includes two thick slices of bread, a hand-sized jacket potato or bread roll, or a small mug of boiled rice or pasta.
Do you eat five a day?
Include fruit or vegetables at every meal. Have a fruit juice with breakfast, a tomato or salad with sandwiches, and 2-3 vegetable servings with main meal. This is a great way of increasing your intake of essential vitamins and minerals, helping you to feel full and reducing your overall calorie intake.
Fats make fat
Biscuits, cakes, pastries and sweets give you calories you don't need. See below for savvy snacks. Fatty meats, meat pies, and deep fried foods are best avoided. Trim meat and oven-cook or grill where possible. Choose potato-topped pies in preference to pastry.
Savvy snacking
It is common in late pregnancy to need snacks, especially if meals make you full quickly. Avoid mindless biscuit eating, and choose a ‘single serve snack’ instead such as a 2 finger KitKat, a 25g packet of crisps, or a small snack-pack of pretzels – when they’re gone, they’re gone! Choose a fruit snack (fresh or dried) at least once a day. A bowl of cereal with semi-skimmed milk, a fruit scone, toasted muffin or cereal bar are also great health-conscious snacks.
Don’t cut the dairy
Calcium is essential in pregnancy, for healthy baby bones and protection of your bone strength, so aim for three portions a day. A portion is 150g low fat yoghurt, 1/3 pint of semi skimmed or skimmed milk, or a 30g portion of hard cheese. Low fat dairy foods contain much less fat and calories and also contain more calcium. Avoid unpasteurised cheeses – they’re unsuitable in pregnancy. If you can't take dairy products, make sure you get enough calcium from fortified soya milk, tofu, and other pulses.
Meat and fish
It is good to include fish a couple of times a week, and if one of them can be of the oily variety (not white flesh fish) then all the better. Trim the fat off meat and remove the skin from chicken before cooking. A healthy portion of lean meat is the size of a chicken breast, or a piece of meat the size of a deck of cards, cooked weight.
4th December 2007
Sanjay Mistry
National PR Officer
The British Dietetic Association
Media Hotline: 0870 850 2517