One of the things that women often worry about, especially for their first pregnancy, is exactly how much pregnancy weight they will gain. They get concerned that, as is the case with other women they may have talked to or heard about, they will gain lots of weight and be unable completely to get rid of the weight after the baby comes. They worry that they’ve entered a new stage of their lives – one that’s characterized by being bigger than they were before.
The good news is that this isn’t always the case. Not every woman that has a baby keeps the weight that she gained. It’s important to understand a few things about the weight that you’ll gain during pregnancy:
- The number of pounds you gain during pregnancy will depend on how big you were before you became pregnant. If you were in the normal, “healthy” weight range you can expect to gain somewhere around 25 pounds while you’re pregnant, give or take 5 pounds. If you are underweight before you become pregnant, that number will be higher, say between about 25 and 35 pounds. If you were already overweight or obese before pregnancy, you should still expect to gain some weight. Usually, this will be at least 15 pounds.
- It’s not health to drop weight while you’re pregnant. Losing weight usually means you’re not getting all of the nutrients you need, and neither is your baby.
- Each woman is different, and each pregnancy is different, too. You might gain more weight this pregnancy than in a previous, or you might gain less weight than a girlfriend who’s pregnant as well, even if you are about the same size.
- The way you carry your weight, during and after pregnancy, is a lot more important than the raw number of pounds you gain. The most important thing to do after pregnancy in terms of your body size is to tone, not to stress about the pounds.
