Pregnancy is a period of great physiological stress for the woman as she is nurturing a growing fetus in her body. Nutritional requirements of the woman increases tremendously during this period as she not only has to nourish herself, but also the growing fetus. Other factors associated with an increase in nutrient needs, besides this are:
- various physiological, biochemical and hormonal changes occurring in the maternal body
- to maintain her body reserves to meet the needs of pregnancy as well as to enter the period of lactation with adequate nutritional stores.
There is development of placenta, enlargement of maternal tissues namely the breast and uterine tissue, increase in maternal circulating blood volume, formation of amniotic fluid, storage reserves and mineralization of the skeletal and bone structure of the fetus.The development of of fetus and maternal organs takes place at varying rates over the full term of pregnancy.
When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child. ~Sophia Loren, Women and Beauty