Importance of good health and nutrition before and during pregnancy

Historically, pregnancy has been associated with 'blooming maternal health' and is probably the only period across the life course when positive encouragement for weight gain is given by many, at least in the developed world. Good maternal health both pre‐conceptually and during pregnancy has long been recognised as valuable. The micronutrients most commonly at risk of shortfalls are iron, vitamin D and folic acid. Intakes of all these micronutrients are consistently reported to be below national recommendations. The accuracy of these findings has been compromised by the limitations of dietary intake measurements, but a clear trend towards suboptimal intakes is evident. For these reasons, this chapter deliberately focuses on some key micronutrients. Dietary patterns in pregnancy have been studied using factor analyses or similar component analyses to investigate links between maternal diet and foetal growth, and dietary patterns in pregnancy and their associations with socioeconomic status (SES) and lifestyle.