Diet and pregnancy

Its always been the case that your obstetrician will tell you that its not good to put on too much weight. Well, from the mothers point of view this makes sense since excessive weight gain leads to diabetes, bigger babies and more difficult births. However, there appears to be new evidence from a study that showed that low carbohydrate diets and dieting in general during pregnancy is not good for your baby as it can lead to obesity in your child later in lofe. the study showed that pregnant women who were on a low carbohydrate diet increased the methylation of the gene which is responsible for obesity in childhood. http://diabeted.diabetesjournal.org/content/early/20-0979.abstract  So little weight gain and dieting in pregnancy can lead to fat kids later on. This is logical since starvation causes 'survival mode' to kick in allowing for increased fat stores in foetus. the answer would probably lie somewhere in between, eat a sensible diet high in protein and a moderate amount of complex carbohydrates. Oily fish such as wild salmon would be a good choice in addition tolean meats and vegetables. Aim to gain about 1-2kg per month. Weight gain will not be even but an overall weight gain of 12-15 kg would be about right.