Gestational Weight: What are the limits? Wellness Health Fitness

Gestational Weight: What are the limits?

Posted by Hayden Solomon 28 Jan, 2011

Oh yes, they call it the “miracle of birth”. Almost every species depends on it in order to survive, and when this process fails, then there is almost no chance of survival.

Charles Darwin called it ‘natural selection’, which also takes into account the food chain, and the imminent dangers of falling prey to other species higher up the food chain.

Of course, this is something that humans don’t have to worry about as we are at the top of the foodchain but the fact remains that we are animals as it is our females (women) that actually have the unflattering responsibility of giving birth.

Along with this process comes another issue that women are constantly obsessed about. Yes, it’s called weight gain, and it varies from woman to woman when they get pregnant!

Safety: A Big Issue with Pregnancy

There’s no doubt that this is a vulnerable time for both mother and child, the stress that both can go through during this time can impact the safety of both the child and the mother.

If that’s not enough, mood swings, labour pains and the like begin to also take its toll on the mother, and if there’s anything that a woman has to be very particular about, it is to do with their sense of weight.

Single women, by themselves, are pretty conscious about it… so you can imagine how pregnant women feel about gaining a lot of weight.

However, in the case of pregnancy, this isn’t about looks but most importantly, can bring about safety issues when it comes to the pregnancy before and after the delivery of the child. And so, those who specialize in childcare consider this to be an important factor to watch out for when going through each stage of pregnancy.

However, if you are pregnant mother, then there’s no need to panic just in case, you do cross certain limits of weight gain during your pregnancy. Your doctor will tell you whether or not things are getting out of hands.

Generally, doctors consistently measure the mother’s body mass index, and since the United States Institute of Medicine (IOM) has compiled research that offers the safe limits within one can gain weight during pregnancy, all one has to do watch out for weight gain while comparing it to these charts.

Weight Gain Chart Values for pregnant women

Based on the data that they had collected from research, this chart also provides you with a week-by-week mean increase in weight while also providing the recommended weight gain depending on the aforementioned categories.

Interestingly, if you read the values on the chart, you’ll see that obese women might have to be extremely careful about their weight gain, as they are already dangerously overweight whereas underweight are rather obviously allowed a larger bandwidth of weight gain.

In Closing

Being a man, it’s hard to fathom how this “miracle” takes place but the joy of having a son or daughter whether you are the father or mother has nothing to do with whether you delivered the baby or not.

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