Ultimately it depends on how much you weigh before you become pregnant

Ultimately it depends on how much you weigh before you become pregnant. Weight gain in pregnancy will vary greatly from woman to woman. Most pregnant women gain between 10kg and 12.5kg (22lb to 26lb), putting on most of the weight after week 20. This is just an average though as some women put on less than this and many will put on more - like me who puts on around 20kg each time 😱 Much of the extra weight is due to your baby growing, but your body will also be storing fat, ready to make breast milk after your baby is born. Water retention is also a factor in weight gain during pregnancy so my advice is, as long as you are eating as sensibly as you can (not always easy when pregnant I know!) Then not to worry too much. If your care provider notes that your pre pregnancy BMI is lower or higher than the recommended healthy range, you might be given some extra dietary advice and monitoring. . It's worth mentioning, if you are of Asian of African descent, it might be worth while asking your care provider to use the BMI charting system specifically for your ethnicity as it is different from caucasian women. As an example, a black female with a BMI of 27 may be classed as slightly overweight according to the generalised BMI charts we see. However, people of African descent tend to have less visceral fat (fat around organs) and more muscle mass. Therefore these standardised charts may see a black woman labelled as overweight or obese when she is not as muscle is more dense than fat. . For Asian women this cut off is a lot lower, so by using the standardised charts, we are potentially classing some women as having a helathy bmi when in fact they are overweight and missing out on extra monitoring and advice. . . . . . . . #pregnancy #weightgain #weightloss #midwifery #newmum #momtobe #birthprep #bmi #birth #pregnancyguidelines