Hi, I'm Dr. David Hill, and today we're going to be talking about how to put on weight on an unborn child. We're really talking about fetal development here and there are a lot of things that go into healthy fetal development. Hopefully if you're pregnant, you've been working closely with your obstetrician or someone in that person's office, maybe a, a midwife for example to help you get through this pregnancy in as healthy a manner as possible. Really the baby's health depends on your health. Now, there are some conditions that will limit a baby's weight gain and if the person is helping you with your pregnancy, has been following the pregnancy along, hopefully you already know if one of those conditions is present. Probably the most common is maternal high blood pressure. Sometimes this presents us a condition we called preeclampsia. But if mom high blood pressure is a problem, it can really limit the baby's growth by restricting blood flow to the uterus. Now, there are other conditions that may also affect the uterus and the placenta and if you have one of those, hopefully you know it. If you smoke cigarettes, for God's sake, stop at least for the duration of your pregnancy. Cigarettes constrict blood vessels and they do impact the growth of fetuses. They also can increase the risk of that fetus will, after birth, go on have asthma or the lower birth rate. So, you really want to get rid of the cigarettes, if you at all possibly can. Now, you want to eat enough for yourself. You need a healthy diet. Your baby can't grow if you don't grow. In this day and age where we worry so much about maternal obesity and overweight, the average woman tends to get a little bit more than her OB-GYN had advised her to do. But, there are some women out there whose appetites are great or who are really concern with dieting or just feel too busy to eat and they may not be gaining enough weight. So, do consult your obstetrician or your midwife and find out whether your weight gain is appropriate for your stage of pregnancy. Now, the vast majority of weight gain for babies or for fetuses occurs in the last three or four weeks of the pregnancy, from what we would consider just basically is thirty six weeks to term which is forty weeks. So, that's a real good time to make sure you've got a good healthy diet. It's a time you're probably starting to feel kind of draggy, you're carrying this baby around. It's getting hard, you're probably getting tired of the pregnancy, but you're almost to the go. You've almost got a healthy term baby and you want to make sure that you're following those good habits all the way out to the end. Talking about how to help a fetus gain weight in the womb, I'm Dr. David Hill.
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