Eating regular, well-balanced meals is more important when you are pregnant than at any other time of your life. What you eat provides food for you baby as well as yourself. You need about 300 more food calories a day than when you were not pregnant. Most pregnant women need about 2200 to 2700 total calories each day. Your healthcare provider will suggest a range weight that you should gain. The usual recommended gain is about 20 to 25 pounds. Your need for protein increases to about 60 grams a day when you are pregnant. Many women already eat this amount of protein daily when they are not pregnant. However, if you are a vegetarian or eat little meat or dairy, you may not be getting enough protein in your diet. You may also need more vitamins and minerals, especially folic acid and iron. These nutrients are important for your baby’s growth and development. They give your baby strong bones and teeth, healthy skin, and a healthy body. Foods that are excellent sources of protein and vitamins are: beans and peas, nuts, peanut butter, eggs, meat, fish, poultry, cheese, milk and yogurt. Good sources of folic acid (also called folate) are: leafy green vegetables, broccoli, asparagus, fortified breakfast cereals and grains, beans, oranges and strawberries, yellow squash, tomato juice. Foods rich in iron are: lean red meat, pork, chicken and fish, fortified cereals, dried fruit, leafy green vegetables, beans, eggs, liver, kidneys, whole-grain or enriched bread.

At specific stages of the pregnancy, certain things are expected. For example, first hearing the heartbeat, or feeling the baby move, is expected to happen at a certain time of the pregnancy. How the pregnancy is going can be judged as normal or abnormal only when the age of your baby is correctly known. It is very important to know your baby’s age if problems occur and the baby needs to be delivered early. It is also important to know when a baby is overdue so the health of the baby can be more carefully watched.

Your healthcare provider will look for various signs of pregnancy and ask about your symptoms at different stages of your pregnancy. These signs and symptoms include: nausea, fatigue, breast tenderness or enlargement, and urinary frequency in early pregnancy, an embryo that can be seen in an ultrasound scan as early as five to six weeks after your last period, enlarged uterus at about 6 to 8 weeks, enlarged abdomen at about 14 weeks, parts and movements of the baby that can be felt by your healthcare provider at about 18 weeks, the baby’s heartbeat heard by a Doppler fetoscope at 12 to 14 weeks, or by an ordinary fetoscope at about 19 weeks, movement by the baby felt by you at about 20 weeks if this is your first pregnancy, or as early as 16 weeks if you have been pregnant before, changes in the color of your vagina, cervix, and skin.

It is best to not take any medications but acetaminophen (Tylenol) in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. If you need symptom relief here are some medications that are safe to take when pregnant. For a stuffy, runny nose: Chlorpheniramine, Diphenhydramine (Benadryl). The side effects of those two medications include drowsiness and dry mouth. Pseudoephedrine HCL (Sudafed) which keeps you awake at night. Also, saline spray may help and is totally safe. For cough: cough medicine with the expectorant guaifensin. Other ingredients are not safe to use. If you cannot sleep due to your cough, consider calling for a prescription medicine with a narcotic cough suppressant. Cough drops with natural ingredients like menthol are safe. Also try half and half honey and lemon juice. For fever, headache, or muscle aches take acetaminophen (Tylenol). Do not take aspirin or ibuprofen. Do not let your fever go above 101 degrees. For sore throat: non-medicated throat lozenges are fine. Try acetaminophen for the pain and try gargling with salt water. For nausea: Vitamin B-6, Emetrol, Ginger, Seaband acupressure bands, Acupuncture, and take prenatal vitamins with dinner, not in the morning. It is important to avoid severe dehydration. For heartburn: Tums are safe to try. For diarrhea: Avoid dehydration by drinking plenty of fluids, eat easily digestible foods like white bread, bananas, applesauce and white rice. Also, Kaopectate is safe to use. Do not use Pepto-Bismol when pregnant.

Your first visit may be as long as an hour. Your provider will ask for history of your health, the father’s health, your family’s health, and the health of the father’s family. This information can help give your provider an idea of any problems you might have during your pregnancy. You will have a physical exam, including checks of your height, weight and blood pressure and a pelvic exam. You will have a Pap test, urine tests, blood tests, tuberculosis tests, and cultures of the cervix and vagina. Your provider will calculate your due date and the age of your baby. How the pregnancy is going can be judged as normal or abnormal only when the age of your baby is clearly known. If your periods were regular before you became pregnant, and you are sure of the first day of your last period, your due date will be estimated to be 40 weeks from the day you started your last period. Your provider will talk to you about how to stay healthy during your pregnancy.