Pregnancy weight gain

[glouise98]

I am currently in sixth form studying for my A Levels and hoping to study midwifery at university in September 2019. I am doing an extended on weight gain during pregnancy and whether or not there should be guidelines to how much weight you are able to gain to a certain point until it considered obese and affects your health. Please if any of you would share your weight gain during your pregnancy and the affects it had on you, it would be extremely helpful. And also include your opinion on whether you think weight should be measured repeatedly.

Anything would be helpful.

Thank you :)

I'm 23 weeks pregnant and have had bad nausea and sickness which I'm on medication for now. I've only put on 2kg on top of my booking in weight and I'm a bit worried about it. My bump is growing but I'm going to ask the midwife at my next appointment. I think weight should be measured regularly so that excessive weight gain or not enough weight gain can be picked up on and monitored but I think extra time should be given if weight is made part of the appointment. Hopefully to enable helpful conversations with the midwife about nutrition/ weight and nausea management/ energy levels/ exercise and spd etc in pregnancy. If they just weigh you and make a brief comment this could be upsetting and unhelpful at a time you may already be anxious about how your body is changing and how your baby is doing.

Best of luck with your studies as well!

I’ve never weighed myself, have always asked any doctors or nurses not to inform me of my weight and have continued this throughout pregnancy.

My first pregnancy I didn't monitor my weight, I ended up gaining a huge 6 stone!! My second pregnancy I gained 4 stone. I was absolutely heart broken by it as I just didn't realise.
My second pregnancy was more of a shock because due to my job I was walking 10 to 12 miles 6 days a week in the first 12 weeks and 5-10 miles in the last few months and I still gained that much.
I'm on my 3rd pregnancy now, and I have already gained 6lb in 7 weeks. I was classed as overweight before I conceived so I'm terrified.
I definitely think it should be monitored throughout appointments, especially if there is a health condition that's unknown for the reason but I understand that midwife's and health professionals can only give out so much advice.

Pregnancy 1 - lost 8lbs from conception to week 16. BMI was 27.7 pre pregnancy and went down to about 26. I then started gaining weight again and regained all the weight I lost be 26 weeks. I then continued to gain until birth. The day before birth (or somewhere that week) I was 2 stone heavier than at conception, which was the upper end of recommended for my starting BMI.

Pregnancy 2 - started at a BMI of 28.3. I'm now 23 weeks and my BMI as of this morning was 26.5 - I lost 13lbs until week 17, then have plateaued/ bobbed around 11/13lb loss since then. My appetite has just come back .

There is guidance available which I found helpful as without it I wouldn’t have a clue about what is a reasonable amount of weight gain. I have gained 13kg and am currently 32 weeks so I am slightly over the recommendation but not enough to be concerned.

I think regular weighing is helpful so that midwives can offer help and advice to women who are gaining too much/not enough but it should be optional not compulsory.

I have weighed myself regularly throughout pregnancy just out of interest really. I was 62kg when I got pregnant and am now 72kg at 38 weeks. I am “all baby” as some people say. I am 176cm tall. I’ve been very active throughout the pregnancy.

I was surprised that the midwife only weighed me once at the 8-week booking in appointment and never since. I have gone looking for guidance on the NHS website because like @darkstar above I wouldn’t have had a clue about what is considered “normal”. That said, the midwife measures my bump every time and she shows me the growth chart and I’m exactly where she expects me to be, so that is reassuring.

Started out 61kg (160cm tall) by week 34 I was 72kg.. should probably weigh myself again but need to be in a good mood (37 weeks now). I'm expecting to top out about 12/13kg in total though.

Not been as active as I wanted due to PGP but was very fit before pregnancy, ran + trained until 5/6months but I've lost confidence as my pain levels increased.

Have really struggled with the weight gain and not really knowing how much I should be gaining, although my intension has always been to try to keep my gain to be between 10-15kg which was a rough target I found online rather than anything my midwife mentioned to me.

the thing to consider is it's not just fat your gaining.

DS1 i gained 4 stone but lost 3 stone within 17 days of birth as i had horrendous water renton to the point i was on bed rest and went into early labour 37wks

DS2 i gained 5 stone, but again i lost 3 stone almost over night due to water renetion issues.

You need to be very careful about talking about weight gain

if i had read anything i would have flipped out whilst pregnant due to the water issues

33+4 and I’ve put on 8kg. Started with a BMI around 23 so I’m more or less on track over all. However, most of my weight piled on in the early stages when morning sickness was at its worst, all I could eat was bagels and pot noodles! Now I barely eat because of the heart burn so I’m not sure how ‘healthy’ my weight gain is even though it looks good over all... more monitoring would help with that.

They used to weigh women during pregnancy. My ex boyfriends mum still had her card. She was weighed at every midwife appointment. I don't know why they stopped.

I have no idea how much weight I have gained in this pregnancy and I don’t especially want to know. I’d be happy to be weighed at every appointment and have it noted as long as it was a case of only being flagged up if I was well outside normal and it was used to investigate whether the baby, fluid levels etc was OK rather than berate me about eating too much cake!