Pregnancy Weight

[bertine]

I have started to gain weight. Just a couple pounds but that is okay because I am still 10 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. My starting weight was about 10 pounds over the weight I like to be so I am okay with what I weigh right now.

From here on out the recommendation is to gain an average of a pound a week for the next 24 weeks. All this seems sensible and good recommendations but all the articles that go with this advice are really preachy. Is it terrible if I gain a little (or a lot) more than that? I know people that gained 60-70 pounds during pregnancy and everything was fine. I also know my mom gained an average of 10 pounds a pregnancy and ended up being too thin afterwards.


Maybe it is because all the advice out there is the same advice you get when you are dieting. "Don't do full fat dairy, don't drink your calories, limit sugar intake". Maybe because I have never really restricted what I eat so I don't feel like I have permission to eat anything I want right now. Not that I don't eat what I want.

Also, while we are talking about food, for the first time in my life I have to eat right when I get hungry. It is so weird. When I am working I tend to forget to eat, esp if I don't have lunch plans and then I get really jittery and spacey. I am sure it is just low blood sugar but it is still an odd feeling.

Comments

[patrickwonders.livejournal.com]

Our preachy advice is: Eat!

Soon (if they haven't started yet), the OBs will be trying to panic you about Gestational Diabetes. And, it's true that that's a bad thing. And, it's true that one of the effects of that is big weight gain. But, there isn't any evidence (AFAIK, me, the doctor, eh?) that the causality goes the other way. There's no evidence (AFAIK) that eating more increases the risk of GD.

Water weight gain toward the end is much more indicative of troubles than real, actual, food-based weight gain. But, water weight you can tell because if you push down on it for a few seconds, it doesn't spring back but rather slowly fills back up.

Eat.

[bertine.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I am eating. I just think it is weird how much people worry about their weight gain while pregnant and how much society gets on woman about that gain.

There was some talk about me being tested for GD early because I am over 35 but I am not really worried about it.

[jonthedull.livejournal.com]

People have had healthy babies for tens of thousands of years with out worrying about every single molecule that may enter their body.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

there is not anything real that they (either doctors or internets busybodies) can do about pregnancy. Your body is handling everything, it and only it knows what to do. But the doctors/busybodies/internet police of women feel obligated to order you around in SOME way. Otherwise they are bored. Micromanaging your weight is perfect for them.

Ignore them and eat whatever you want. Your body knows what it needs.

[bertine.livejournal.com]

Very good point.

I don't think I will get over the number of busy bodies there are out there. I won't wen go into the looks/comments I get about diet pop. I don't like sugar pop, it has nothing to do with calories but drinking it while pregnant is like eating radioactive material.

[bertine.livejournal.com]

Yes!

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

what, because it has caffeine in it?

Your baby will clearly be born with two heads.