Prenatal Nutrition

How does prenatal nutrition impact the physical and cognitive outcomes for infants? This question is probably the number one question expecting mothers ask their OBGYN doctors. Mothers are always wondering what they can do to ensure their little one is healthy. This is the exact reason why this topic is of interest to me. My fiancé and I are expecting a little one in late August of 2012. When I first found out I was able to research any early childhood topic; I immediately chose something that would be very useful for me to know rather than just researching a topic that was of interest. Researching this topic will also help me as a future early childhood educator. Knowing how malnutrition during the prenatal stage can effect a child's physical and cognitive aspects of life is important as an educator because you may have students that come into your classroom, or child care center that have developmental problems. As an educator, knowing how these problems may have surfaced, or how they were developed in the child, will help you to better understand how to deal with the developmental difficulties as well as know strategies to help the child succeed. My research for prenatal nutrition began by looking at American Pregnancy Association (2011) in which I found the recommended diet of an expecting mother. Second I looked at Medscape (2011) and found the recommended supplements and vitamins that a mother should be taking during her prenatal care as well as how much weight should be gained during pregnancy. After looking at the nutrition side of things, I began to look at how living styles of expecting mothers can impact the child's development. I found Grimm (2003) stating that a child can adopt mother's eating habits, later in life. As an expecting mother myself the first thing that I was worried about was what I should be consuming each and every day of my pregnancy.

Each and every day Americans hear about their appropriate nutrition through the media, whether it is through television or a magazine. When women first find out they are expecting, they always worry about what they should be eating. Pregnant women, just like any other American can find what they should be consuming each day of their prenatal care in the media. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (2012) Americans should be eating two to three servings of dairy, three to five servings of vegetables, two to three servings of meat, two to four servings of fruit, and six to eleven servings of grains each day. While during pregnancy the American Pregnancy Association (2011) states that mothers should be consuming three to four servings of dairy, two to four servings of vegetables, two to three servings of meat, two to three servings of fruit, three servings of grains, two to three servings of legumes, which is beans and peas, and two to three servings of lean protein such as beef, and seafood each and every day. As you can see there is not a whole lot of difference between normal nutrition and the recommended pregnancy nutrition, just a couple of add-ons. The main difference is that during pregnancy women should be consuming more protein. Consuming more protein during pregnancy "positively affects the growth of fetal tissue, including the brain", while also helping your breast and uterine tissue to grow and expand while keeping a good blood supply (American Pregnancy Association, 2012). The three main ways that women can obtain more protein is by eating more beans, peas, beef, or seafood. If expecting mothers are not consuming the recommended servings each day, they are taking away nutrients that the fetus should be getting to help grow and develop appropriately. According to Derbyshire (2007) if a mother has "inadequate dietary intake during pregnancy it may result in low birth weight delivers. In the long term, low birth weight infants have an increased risk of developing obesity, glucose intolerance, and cardiovascular disease later in life". Since expecting mothers are consuming more food and more calories, they will be gaining more weight naturally.

Weight gain tends to be a controversial topic for most expecting mothers. Most women are afraid to gain weight during pregnancy because they want to make sure they can get back to their pre-baby body as quick after deliver as possible. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2000) expecting mothers are informed to gain about twenty-five to thirty five pounds throughout the pregnancy. Women who are underweight should gain about twenty-eight to forty pounds; normal weight women should gain what is normally recommended. Overweight women should gain about fifteen to twenty-five pounds, while obese women should gain about eleven to twenty pounds. Many women believe all their weight gain comes from "eating for two". The American Pregnancy Association (2011) states that as an expecting mother your energy requirements only expect you to in take three hundred extra calories per day for the second and third trimester. Yes, nutrition requirements increase during pregnancy, but the fact that you only need about three hundred more calories during a pregnancy can put a myth on the assumption that expecting mothers are "eating for two". Even though expecting mothers should be consuming three hundred more calories Eisenburg (1991) wants to make sure that mothers understand there is a difference between three hundred calories of a doughnut, and three hundred calories of whole grains. Pregnant women should be making sure they are added three hundred of the "good" calories rather than three