Dieting in Pregnancy?

There's been interest in the potential for 'programming' of the fetus to be prone to obesity since the publication of Barker's research into birth weights and the incidence of heart disease in adults, but to my mind women are really not getting the message about what a healthy diet in pregnancy can help to achieve- or what the aims of a healthy diet should be.

While the old 'eating for 2' still prevails, with some women abandoning all attempts to balance their food intake since they'll be getting 'fat' during pregnancy anyway, a more sinister and apparently increasingly common practice is for women to restrict their food intakes to minimise their weight gain and to have a smaller baby.The thinking seems to be to minimise the difficulty of labour - which is misguided, but understandable- but also not to loose their figure.

Coupled with an attitude to breastfeeding that focuses on the down sides in terms of inconvenience and cosmetic changes to the breasts, it makes me want to shake perfectly intelligent women for the superficiality of their decision making but even more so makes me question what in god's name those of us working in health care are doing to redress the balance.

I do see the majority of women trying their best and am impressed time and again by the changes a pregnant woman will make to improve her diet and lifestyle for her baby- stuff we all should do all the time but never seem to focus on...........ask me how my so-called exercise program is going for instance.....erm...maybe don't.