Although there are multiple books available for pregnant women to follow, it can be difficult to find a book that specifically deals with nutrition during pregnancy. So, we have created a list of the best pregnancy nutrition books to help you choose the right one. As a young mom, you probably want to know how to stay healthy for your child’s wellbeing. But, even when you find what you may be looking for, you must ensure the author is credible and trustworthy. If you are not careful, you may end up with false or outdated information that may cause more harm than good. Your primary goal as a soon-to-be mother is to ensure that you keep yourself and your baby healthy and fit. So we’ve reviewed several pregnancy nutrition books that provide you with all the information you need to have a healthy pregnancy. Read on to know more.
Why Is Pregnancy Nutrition So Important?
A nutritious diet ensures that you are getting the required nutrients at the right time. A nutritious diet helps your baby have a healthy birth weight, good physical and brain development, and lower risk of birth defects. If your folate levels fall, it can lead to your pregnancy naturally terminating, so nutrition has to be taken seriously. A balanced diet greatly reduces the chances of morning sickness, anemia, and fatigue, and can decide whether you will enjoy your pregnancy or not. Being aware of the effects of what you’re eating can reduce the chances of indigestion and acid reflux. You have special nutrition needs during pregnancy as you need more iron, calcium, proteins, folic acid, and vitamin D to avoid hazards like certain birth defects and preeclampsia. Hydration is also extremely important as water requirements go up during pregnancy. It’s important as it will help you stay within the weight gain limit of 25 to 35 pounds if you were at a normal weight, gain more if you were underweight, and gain less if you were overweight before getting pregnant. It helps you to monitor your calorie intake as you don’t really require extra calories in the 1st trimester, you need about 340 extra calories per day in the 2nd, and about 450 calories extra per day in the 3rd trimester. It also makes you aware of the foods you should avoid during pregnancy like alcohol, fish that has high mercury content, too much caffeine, and foods that could be carrying germs like unpasteurized milk, refrigerated meat spreads, and store-made egg, chicken, or tuna salads to name a few.
10 Best Pregnancy Nutrition Books
1. Best Researched: Real Food For Pregnancy – Lily Nichols
A lot of tips that you get about the food you should or shouldn’t be eating during your pregnancy may lack authenticity because it’s not evidence-based and may have no scientific backing. This book will not only tell you clearly what to eat but also why you should eat it, backed by research and evidence. The author, Lily Nichols, after a lot of research done in the context of ancestral diets, came to the conclusion that a huge gap exists between the prenatal nutrition of the present and what is actually required for you to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. Considered one of the best books for pregnancy, it’s extremely comprehensive with suitable references that will ensure that your choices of food will get you through your pregnancy in the best of health. If you are still unsure, check out this honest review.
2. Best For Standard Nutrition: The Whole 9 Months: A Week-By-Week Pregnancy Nutrition Guide – Jennifer Lang
Written by Jennifer Lang MD and Dana Angelo MS RD with a foreword by Jessica Alba, this book in its 222 pages tells you exactly what you should be eating and avoiding when you are pregnant. This prenatal book sets the standard in nutrition during pregnancy with its master class on nutrients that are necessary for making a healthy baby, your consumption every day, and how your choices matter to your baby’s development. There’s also a weekly breakdown of the milestones of your baby’s growth with accompanying changes in your body. It features a shopping guide for organic food to avoid pesticides and harmful hormones. There are also 100+ vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free recipes for your nourishment. All that’s rounded off with tips and advice to manage cravings, nausea, and other pregnancy symptoms through food.
3. Best For Healthy Pregnancy: The Feel-Good Pregnancy Cookbook – Ryann Kipping
This book offers you simple, delicious, and nutritious recipes for an extremely healthy pregnancy with all the nutrients required by babies and their mothers. This book gives you a variety of balanced and tasty meals to meet all the dietary requirements of expectant mothers, including recipes to reduce nausea and facilitate postpartum recovery. This pregnancy nutrition book helps you make sensible choices for your baby and yourself, and includes your pregnancy milestones and changes in your body while tracking the development of your baby in each trimester. You discover wholesome food in different eating styles like veganism and vegetarianism. And you can try 100 easy recipes to make dishes that help in promoting lactation, relieving nausea and cramps, as well as those that you can share with the family.
4. Best On Supporting Brain Development: Brain Health From Birth – Rebecca Fett
A lot of us realize rather late that we are doing things all wrong when it comes to nurturing and enhancing our children’s brain development. Research shows that actually the most crucial time starts during pregnancy and continues into early infancy. That’s the time when even the smallest thing, and especially your nutrition, can have a huge impact on your child’s learning abilities, IQ, attention span, and memory. Conditions like ADHD, autism, delay in speaking often have their roots in the early stages of development. This book for pregnant women guides you on how to support the brain development of your baby when it’s most important. It contains some of the latest research which the author has converted into practical, simple advice based on scientific evidence along with advice from obstetricians and pediatricians. It will familiarize you with all that you should do during your pregnancy and the first year, so that your baby can thrive intellectually.
5. Best For Baby’s Development: What To Eat When You’re Pregnant – Nicole M Avena, PhD
This 240-page pregnancy nutrition book features 50 recipes and guides you on what you should eat and what you should avoid for your baby’s development and your health through each stage while pregnant and while you are nursing. Studies suggest that what you eat through your pregnancy can have a permanent effect on your baby’s behavior and brain development, apart from the effect it has on your weight management. The author has taken input from the fields of nutrition, medicine, and psychology to help you understand what it is that you should really be putting into your body and how the food you eat decides whether you will have a happy and healthy baby.
6. Best Comprehensive: Eating For Pregnancy: Your Essential Month-By-Month Nutrition Guide And Cookbook – Catherine Jones
This comprehensive pregnancy nutrition book by Catherine Jones and Rose Ann Hudson gives you month-by-month guidance on your baby’s development and your own health based on research. It includes 25 new recipes apart from the 150 classic recipes, and has a very practical outlook as it runs mothers-to-be through the steps they need to follow to always eat right as it affects the growth of their baby. It covers the nutrients with recipes that mothers need in every month of their pregnancy, preconception, and postpartum period. This new edition is updated with easy-to-make dishes, and more vegan, vegetarian, low-carb meals, dining-out options, recipe variations, and gluten-free options. It also contains the most recent information on sources of nutrients, supplements, and high-risk pregnancies, as well as info for mothers with gestational diabetes or diabetes.
7. Best For Stress-Free Pregnancy: Mindful Pregnancy – Tracy Donegan
For a stress-free and natural pregnancy, it’s vital to have a positive outlook. This prenatal book aims at just that as it guides you through the various phases of pregnancy, trimester by trimester. It teaches you various techniques of nutrition, meditation, safe yoga, natural remedies, and hypnobirthing depending on the stage of your pregnancy. It guides you on how to reduce morning sickness through food and natural remedies, remove aches and pains with exercise, relax yourself through meditation, and keep your body and mind healthy for childbirth through nutrition, and strengthening exercises. Empower yourself with the knowledge of how to nurture a healthy and happy baby with this informative book.
8. Best For Knowing House Hold Hazards: The Healthy Pregnancy Book – William Sears, MD And Martha Sears, RN
Written by William Sears, MD and Martha Sears, RN, this prenatal book takes you through all the steps of having a trouble-free pregnancy and a healthy baby. It takes expectant mothers and fathers through the various stages of pregnancy to enhance the health of the baby and mother. It gives you simple ways to ensure your baby is healthier and smarter, tells you how your baby is developing, and the physical and emotional changes you will be undergoing. A list of superfoods for pregnancy so that you eat right, exercises you should do, childbirth options, genetic counseling, and apprehensions you may have about the technology used and tests conducted can all be found in this book. It also advises you on how to recognize household hazards and protect the womb environment, working while pregnant, childbirth classes, and choosing the appropriate healthcare provider.
9. Best Prenatal: The Everything Vegan Pregnancy Book – Reed Mangels
A thousand questions go through your mind when it comes to pregnancy and nutrition. Is there enough protein in your diet, is the baby getting enough nutrients, and are you doing the right thing if you want to continue with your vegan lifestyle during pregnancy? This pregnancy nutrition book is written keeping vegans in mind and the good news is that you can have an extremely healthy baby even if you maintain a vegan lifestyle. It guides you through all the phases from conception to birth and gives all the information you need on the foods you should eat and avoid so that your baby gets the required nutrients. It also tells you how to deal with the disapproval of well-meaning people, have a hospital birth that’s vegan-friendly, and set up a nursery that’s vegan. It features 150 nutritious recipes for the family and is a great resource for parents who want to maintain their vegan lifestyle and still do what’s best for their baby.
10. Best Guide For Herbal Supplements: The Natural Pregnancy Book – Aviva Jill Romm
This 304-page book is a powerhouse of information on nutrition during pregnancy, nurturing exercises, rituals, and herbs. It also features information on natural childbirth and alternative childbirth methods. This book may be exactly what you were looking for with all its natural remedies for all sorts of discomfort during pregnancy. It contains simple nutritional plans as well as tools for simple stretching. You get to know what’s most important when it comes to nutrition and what you can do without. If you are looking for a pregnancy nutrition book to guide you in herbal supplements for fatigue, nausea, colds, the flu, and for a practical guide as far as simple nutrition plans go, this is it. Now that you have been through our review of the 10 best pregnancy nutrition books, let us also tell you what to keep in mind while choosing one of the best pregnancy diet books for yourself so that you get authentic and reliable information and can derive the most benefit from it.
How To Choose The Best Pregnancy Nutrition Books
Reliable information
Whichever book you decide to buy, you must ensure that its information is based on scientific facts, reliable medical information, and sources that are reputable. The best pregnancy diet books don’t necessarily have to be written by a doctor, but you must check out the reliability of the author. It’s not a bad idea to research their credentials and check if they are known in the field of nutrition or pregnancy. Information on the internet can be rather sketchy at times, so it’s advisable to keep your doctor in the loop.
Tailored to your needs
Every pregnancy is different and a lot of our lifestyle choices differ too. Your pregnancy nutrition book should cater to your preferences and lifestyle. So if you are a vegetarian, vegan, expecting twins, or have any particular preference, make sure the book is tailored to that.
Keep ancestry in mind
We all come from different cultures and backgrounds where a lot of advice is meted out to the expectant mother. Not all of that advice can be discounted as old wives tales and may have a very solid basis without being scientifically recognized. There are a lot of pregnancy nutrition books that keep this in mind and tell you how to incorporate traditional ideas with the scientific research of today. It’s always better to do a bit of research and find a book that gives credence to both.
Why Trust MomJunction?
To understand the needs and requirements of people regarding pregnancy health, our researchers and writers have scoured numerous trusted websites to give you well-researched information. This list of the best pregnancy nutrition books has been curated after evaluating numerous reviews and features. Besides, we have added a brief description of each book for your convenience and a buying guide to help you pick the right one for yourself.
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