Your healthy pregnancy diet

Eating a healthy, balanced diet during pregnancy protects you and your growing baby. While you should be taking prenatal vitamins for insurance, choosing the right foods will help you get the complex mix of nutrients that pregnant women need. Aim for foods rich in these important nutrients:

Calcium

Benefits for baby: Strengthens bones and teeth. (Your growing child takes the calcium he needs from your body, so to keep your bones and teeth healthy, you need enough calcium to make up for that amount.)

Your benefits: Protects bone density. It may also help prevent high blood pressure during pregnancy.

Recommended dietary allowance during pregnancy (RDA): 1,000 milligrams (mg); do not exceed 2500 mg

Best food sources:

Yogurt, plain, low-fat, 1 cup -- 415 mg
Yogurt, low-fat fruit flavored, 1 cup -- 345 mg
Milk, plain or flavored, 1 cup -- about 300 mg
Orange juice, calcium-added, 1 cup -- 300 mg
Cheddar cheese, 85 g -- 204 mg
Tofu, firm, prepared with calcium sulfate and magnesium chloride, 1/4 block -- 163 mg
Cottage cheese, 2% milk fat, 1 cup -- 156 mg

Choline

Benefits for baby: Helps prevent spinal cord and brain problems called neural tube defects and improves brain development.

Your benefits: Strengthens bones and may help prevent high blood pressure.

RDA during pregnancy: 450 mg; do not exceed 3500 mg

Best food sources:

Egg, 1 cooked -- 272 mg
Pork tenderloin, 85 g cooked -- 103 mg
Atlantic cod, 85 g cooked -- 84 mg
Ground beef, 85 g cooked -- 83 mg
Salmon, 85 g cooked -- 65 mg
Chicken, 85 g cooked -- 65 mg
Broccoli or cauliflower, 1 1/4 cup cooked -- 40 mg

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)

DHA is one of the omega-3 fatty acids.

Benefits for baby: Helps stimulate brain and vision development.

Your benefits: May reduce your risk of future heart disease.

RDA during pregnancy: 300 mg.

Best food sources:

Coho salmon, farmed, 85 g cooked -- 740 mg
Blue crab, 85 g cooked -- 196 mg
Canned light tuna, drained, 85 g -- 190 mg
Catfish, 85 g cooked -- 116 mg
Fortified eggs -- 85 mg to 200 mg

Folic acid

Benefits for baby: Helps protect against birth defects of the spinal cord during the first 30 days of pregnancy, helps prevent early miscarriages and premature births.

Your benefits: Prevents anemia.

RDA During Pregnancy: 600 micrograms (mcg).

Best food sources

Lentils, 1 cup cooked -- 358 mcg
Spinach, 1 cup cooked -- 263 mcg
White enriched rice, 1 cup cooked -- 195 mcg
Enriched spaghetti, 1 cup cooked -- 172 mcg
Broccoli, 1 cup cooked -- 168 mcg
Orange juice, 1 cup -- 110 mcg
Enriched bread, 2 slices -- 34 mcg

Iodine

Benefits for baby: essential for the development of the brain and nervous system; important for preventing growth retardation, serious mental disorders and deafness; important in the prevention of miscarriages and stillbirths.

Your benefits: Important for a healthy thyroid.

RDA during pregnancy: 250 micrograms, but no more than 1100 micrograms.

Best food sources:

Cod, 85 grams -- 99 mcg
Yogurt, plain, ¾ cup -- 58 mcg
Cottage cheese, 1 cup -- 65 mcg
Baked potato with peel 60 mcg
Cow's milk, 1 cup -- 56 mcg
Fish Sticks, 2 -- 35 mcg
Baked turkey breast, 85 g -- 34 mcg
Navy beans, ½ cup cooked -- 32 mcg

Iron

Benefits for the baby: Helps prevent preterm labor.

Your benefits: Prevents anemia in pregnant women.

RDA during pregnancy: 27 mg; do not exceed 45 mg

Best food sources:

Whole Grain Total Cereal, 3/4 cup -- 22 mg
Cheerios, 1 cup -- 10 mg
Enriched rice, 1 cup cooked -- 8 mg
Canned white beans, 1 cup -- 8 mg
Beef, 85 g cooked -- 3 mg
Lamb, 85 g cooked -- 2 mg
White meat chicken, 85 g. cooked -- 1 mg

Potassium

Your Benefits: Helps control blood pressure and maintain proper fluid balance; essential for normal heart rate and energy.

RDA during pregnancy: 4700 mg.

Best food sources:

White beans, 1 cup canned -- 1,189 mg
Winter squash, 1 cup -- 896 mg
Spinach, 1 cup cooked -- 839 mg
Lentils, 1 cup cooked -- 731 mg
Sweet potato, 1 medium cooked -- 694 mg
Yogurt, fat-free, 1 cup -- 579 mg
Orange juice, 1 cup -- 496 mg
Broccoli, 1 cup cooked -- 457 mg
Cantaloupe, 1 cup -- 431 mg
Raisins, 1 cup -- 250 mg

Riboflavin

Your benefits: Necessary for energy production; helps your body use protein from food.

RDA during pregnancy: 1.4 mg.

Best food sources:

Raisin bran cereal, 1 cup -- 1.7 mg
Yogurt, plain, 1 cup -- 0.5 mg
Mushrooms, 1 cup cooked -- 0.5 mg
1% milk, 1 cup -- 0.5 mg
Frosted Mini Wheats cereal, 1 cup -- 0.5 mg
Cottage cheese, low-fat, 1 cup -- 0.4 mg

Vitamin B6

Your benefits: Helps produce proteins for new cells, stimulates the immune system, and helps form red blood cells.

RDA during pregnancy: 1.9 mg.

Best food sources:

Product 19 cereal, 1 cup -- 2 mg
Garbanzo beans, canned, 1 cup -- 1.1 mg
Baked potato with flesh and skin, 1 medium -- 0.6 mg
Beef, top sirloin, 85 g cooked -- 0.5 mg
Chicken breast, 85 g cooked -- 0.5 mg
Pork tenderloin, 85 g cooked -- 0.4 mg
Halibut, 85 g cooked -- 0.3 mg

Vitamin B12

Your benefits: Helps produce red blood cells and helps your body use fats and carbohydrates for energy.

RDA during pregnancy: 2.6 mcg.

Best food sources:

Salmon, 85 g cooked -- 5 mcg
Rainbow trout, 85 g cooked -- 4 mcg
Light tuna, canned and drained, 85 g -- 3 mcg
Beef, 85 g cooked -- 2 mcg
Wheat Chex cereal, 1 cup -- 1 mcg

Vitamin C

Your benefits: Facilitates the absorption of iron from plant foods; builds strong bones and teeth; strengthens the immune system; keeps blood vessels strong and red blood cells healthy.

RDA during pregnancy: 85 mg; no more than 2000 mg

Best food sources: