Five Types of Food You Should Be Eating

1. Plenty of fruit and vegetables - ideally fresh, but even tinned, frozen or dried will help you and your baby. Aim for five portions a day. Try to vary the types of fruit and vegetables that you eat. The vitamins and minerals will help to keep you and your baby healthy and free from infections.
2. Starchy foods, such as pasta, bread, rice and potatoes will help keep you vigorous and give your baby the energy they need to grow strong.
3. Eat foods rich in high quality protein, such as lean meat and chicken, fish, eggs and pulses. These foods will help your baby grow healthily and keep your iron stores to prevent you becoming anaemic as your body copes with supporting both of you.
4. Ensure that you eat lots of fibre rich foods, such as wholegrain bread, pasta, rice, pulses, fruit and vegetables. These will help to prevent you becoming constipated.
5. Make sure that you consume plenty of calcium rich dairy foods, such as milk, cheese and yoghurt.

Foods To Avoid

Try to avoid foods that are high in fat and sugar as these will lead to you putting on weight, which will strain your back during pregnancy and can be difficult to lose after your baby is born.

Some types of cheeses are made with a mould, which may contain listeria. If you were to contract listeria during your pregnancy, then your baby could be harmed. Cheeses to avoid are:

• Camembert
• Brie
• Chevre - a type of goat's cheese
• Blue cheeses

All types of pate should be avoided, as these too may harbour listeria.

Raw or partially cooked eggs may have salmonella, which will give you food poisoning and harm your baby. Make sure that any egg that you eat has a solid white and a solid yolk.

Meat should also be well cooked, as undercooked meats may also make you both unwell. Be especially careful with poultry (chicken, turkey, etc) and foods made with minced meat (burgers, sausages, etc). Make sure that you always wash your hands after touching raw meat.

You don't want to take in too much vitamin A, as these levels can build up and potentially harm your baby. So, don’t have too much liver or take too many supplements containing vitamin A.

Most fish are fine to eat. In fact, ideally you should be aiming to eat two portions of oily fish (FRESH tuna, mackerel, sardines and trout). However, you should be careful with foods that may contain high levels of mercury, such as TINNED tuna, shark, swordfish and marlin.

Avoid raw shellfish as these can sometimes contain harmful bacteria and viruses that can cause food poisoning.

Ideally you should not drink alcohol whilst you are pregnant. However, if you do want to drink, the most you should have should be one or two units of alcohol, perhaps once or twice a week.

One unit of alcohol is the same as:

• half a pint of standard strength beer, lager or cider
• half a glass of wine
• one pub measure of a spirit

Limit the amount of caffeine you drink every day, but you don't need to stop it completely. If you have more than 300mg a day, then you raise your chances of having a low birth weight baby or even miscarriage of your pregnancy.

300mg of caffeine is roughly the same as:

• 3 mugs of instant coffee
• 4 cups of instant coffee
• 3 cups of brewed coffee
• 6 cups of tea
• 8 cans of cola
• 4 cans of energy drinks
• 8 (50g) bars of plain chocolate or 16 similar sized milk chocolate bars

Folic Acid

You should be taking 400 micrograms of folic acid every day from the time of conceiving your baby until at least the 12th week of pregnancy to lower the chances of your baby being born with spina bifida and other neural tube defects. Folate is the natural form of folic acid and it is found in foods such as:

• Green vegetables
• Brown rice
• Fortified bread
• Breakfast cereals