Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy, Revised Edition: The Complete Guide to Eating Before, During, and After Your Pregnancy

I am a nutrition major, and I want to specialize in nutrition for pregnant women. I bought this book because of the wealth of information. I showed it to my teachers, all Registered Dietitians, and they were surprised by how accurate it was. Three months ago my sister found out she was pregnant. I gave her my copy of this book and her husband sat down for an hour highlighting pretty much everything this book. He liked the recommendations for what food products to avoid and what items she was going to need more of. She is now four months pregnant and is still using this book. I ordered another copy so I could keep one for my knowledge. Last week, my other sister found out she was seven weeks pregnant. I immediately gave her the copy that I had just ordered for myself. This is her first pregnancy and she had no idea what to do. This book is also turning out to be very useful to her. I am now ordering my third copy, however, my third and final sister is getting married in a month, and I see another pregnancy in the future.

After reading a few "high level" books on nutrition and pregnancy, I was SO excited to pick up "Nutrition for a Healthy Pregnancy." (Although I am not pregnant, we are trying to concieve our first child.)Not only was the text **easy** to read and understand, the author didn't just say "get more iron in your diet" or "eat more whole grain foods" (like other books I've read)- the author actually provided list after list of what (realistic) foods one could add to their diet to get the vitamins and minerals. This was great for a "nutrition newbie" like me!I have always thought that pregnancy was a time for a woman to eat as much ice cream, candy, pickles, etc. or WHATever she was craving. However, this book was a wake-up call: Nutrition is essential for the baby's health. I enjoyed learning about what nutrients were essential - and WHEN they are essential - from conception all the way past birth. I also enjoyed learning WHY all these minerals and vitamins were needed for each stage of the baby's development.Women, if you are even THINKING about trying to concieve a baby, get this book! If you're already pregnant, it's not too late to read up and change your habits for the sake of your health - and your baby's health!

I bought this book when I was preparing for my pregnancy. It had excellent tips on healthy eating, not only from a pregnancy perspective, but from nutrition in general. It covers the preconception stage, gearing up for pregnancy, then pregnancy itself, and lastly has a section on what to eat postpartum. One thing I loved about the book is that it explains how eating right will bring you back to your pre-pregnancy shape much faster. I gained 35 pounds with my pregnancy and lost it all within the first 3 months, and I've continued to lose. This book is an excellent resource for nutrition in general, even beyond the pregnancy part.

I bought this book after returning a vegetarian pregnancy book, and I'm really pleased with it. I find the nutrition information detailed, easy to read and understand, and well-organized. The author is positive about vegetarian diets (many pregnancy authors are way too conservative about this, in my opinion). She makes easy to follow dietary recommendations for each stage of pregnancy--it's very easy to fit "your own" diet into it, including a vegetarian diet. I really appreciate the tables listing calcium-rich foods, iron-rich foods, etc.

Elizabeth Somer's Pregnancy Nutrition Book is a breath of common sense that is much needed. Most nutritionists spend all their time trying to persuade everyone that all that is needed in pregnancy is the proverbial good balanced diet. Most nutritionists badmouth supplements for fear that people will just swallow pills and eat junk. As a reaction to the overuse of supplements most academics decry all supplements. (The official RDA of folate was lowered from 0.4 mg in 1970 to 0.2 mg in 1980 just because it is difficult to get more than 0.2 mg in the diet, so they lowered it so not to have to admit the need for supplements, even though the early reports from England about neural tube defect sparing were already published.) Somers never fell for that nonsense and has always encouraged sensible supplements in addition to a "good" diet. She always recognized the need for folate and iron supplements and was the first nutritionist to recognize the need for fluoride supplements in pregnancy. She anticipated, by four years, the present recommendation (Aug,'97 prelim; March'99 final) of the Food and Nutrition Board that pregnant women get 3 mg of fluoride a day. As the average diet in the US contains 0.5-2.5 mg, supplementation is necessary to meet this new Dietary Reference for Adequate Intake. Elizabeth Somer deserves great credit for her foresight and for the best pregnancy nutrition book on the market.