Conditions · Pregnancy
Pregnancy nutrition, built around you.
Targets built around your trimester, not a one-size 'eating for two'.
“Eating for two” is not how pregnancy nutrition actually works, and treating it that way is one of the more persistent pieces of bad advice out there. Energy needs shift by trimester, not by a flat extra plate at every meal, and what is genuinely useful changes with the weeks: iron and folate targets matter differently in the first trimester than the third.
Plait's pregnancy plan is built around your trimester and adjusts from there, including for the specific situations that change the numbers rather than just the label.
What Plait tracks.
- Weight, iron, folate and energy, tracked as the weeks move rather than fixed at one number for nine months
- Meals chosen around your plan and everything you have told the app you avoid
Questions that change real numbers.
App behaviour, not a quiz for its own sake: each answer below moves an actual target in your plan.
Expecting twins? The plan adds 300 kcal a day to account for it.
Gestational diabetes come up? The plan holds a carbohydrate floor of 175g a day instead of cutting carbs, which is the safer approach for pregnancy.
What the guidance is built on.
Plait's pregnancy targets are checked against the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' nutrition guidance, the Institute of Medicine's 2009 weight-gain recommendations, and current FDA and EPA advice on fish during pregnancy.
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Nutrition During Pregnancy.
- Institute of Medicine. Weight Gain During Pregnancy, 2009.
- U.S. FDA and EPA. Advice About Eating Fish (pregnancy and breastfeeding).
- USPSTF. Folic Acid Supplementation to Prevent Neural Tube Defects. JAMA, 2023.
Naming these bodies is not an endorsement by them of Plait. See the full, dated citation list on our science page.
Related reading.
The Personalisation Gap: Why Average Nutrition Advice Fails Women
Most nutrition apps take your age, height and weight and return the plan they return everyone. Why that gap is the actual problem, and what closing it looks like.
Nutrition for Two: What Actually Changes in Pregnancy and Breastfeeding
'Eating for two' is not how pregnancy nutrition works. What genuinely changes by trimester and through breastfeeding, and how Plait tracks it.
Living with more than one?
You are not asked to pick which one counts. The plan works around the whole picture.
Plait provides nutrition guidance and is not a substitute for medical care.