Follow a healthy eating pattern.
Eating healthy means following a healthy eating pattern that includes a variety of nutritious foods and drinks.

Eat a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fat-free or low-fat dairy products, and protein foods.
Choose foods and drinks with less added sugars, saturated fats, and sodium (salt).
Limit refined grains and starches, which are in foods like cookies, white bread, and some snack foods.
If you are feeling sick, try eating a piece of whole-grain toast or whole-grain crackers.
Learn more about eating healthy.

Get the right amount of calories for you.
Being pregnant doesn’t mean you need to eat twice as much food.

  • First trimester (first 12 weeks) – Most women don’t need any extra calories.
  • Second trimester (13 to 26 weeks) – Most women need about 340 extra calories a day.
  • Last trimester (after 26 weeks) – Most women need about 450 extra calories a day.
  • Ask your doctor or midwife how many calories you need during pregnancy.

Create a personalized Daily Food Plan This link is external to health.gov..

  • Make healthy snack choices.
  • Examples of healthy snacks include:
  • Low-fat or fat-free yogurt with fruit (look for options with no added sugar)
  • Whole-grain crackers with fat-free or low-fat cheese
  • Carrots with hummus
  • Take a prenatal vitamin with folic acid, iron, and iodine every day.
  • Folic acid helps prevent some birth defects of the brain and spine.
  • Iron This link is external to health.gov.  and iodine This link is external to health.gov. help keep you and your baby healthy.
  • Talk with your doctor or nurse about a prenatal vitamin that’s right for you.

Eat 8 to 12 ounces of seafood each week.
Fish and shellfish have healthy fats that are good for you and your baby. But some fish is high in mercury, a metal that can hurt your baby’s development. It’s a good idea to eat seafood that is high in healthy fats but lower in mercury.

Best choices
These choices are lower in mercury, so you can eat 8 to 12 ounces a week.

  • Canned light tuna
  • Catfish
  • Cod
  • Herring
  • Oysters
  • Salmon
  • Shad
  • Shrimp
  • Tilapia
  • Trout
  • Good choices
  • You can eat 4 ounces of these fish a week if you don’t eat any other seafood that week.