Best and Nutritious Breakfast Ideas for Pregnant Women!
Healthy Breakfast Ideas for Pregnancy
Navigating nutrition during pregnancy can feel daunting and perplexing. With numerous generalized suggestions on what you should or shouldn’t eat, coupled with challenges like morning sickness (or let’s be honest, all-day sickness), bloating, and a shrinking stomach as your baby grows, knowing what to eat can become even more challenging.
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Your Pregnancy Nutrition Plays a Vital Role in Your Baby’s Health
What you eat during pregnancy is of the utmost importance. We are really just beginning to comprehend how important a mother’s prenatal diet truly is. What you eat and your activity levels can actually directly set your baby up for a long healthy life, or do the opposite.
What we eat while baby is in utero can turn certain genes on or off. Getting enough of the right nutrients can actually defer your child away from many diseases and disorders later in life.
Learn more at:
Pregnancy Nutrition and Diet Step-by-Step
You might have been a dedicated follower of this blog throughout your pregnancy and already know this, but it’s more likely that you found us through a Google or Pinterest search.
I’m the creator of the prenatal nutrition and fitness program known as the Perfect Pregnancy Plan. You see, about 1 1/2 years ago I took a course and got certified in Nutrition and Lifestyle During Pregnancy and what I learned blew my mind.
I became a Certified Personal Fitness Trainer over a decade ago so I knew the benefits of nutrition and exercise in our daily lives. I knew the secrets to having a fit bump only pregnancy.
But I had no idea about everything we’ve discovered through epigenetics about how your diet and exercise during pregnancy directly affects your child’s genetic expression!
That what we eat while pregnant, which nutrients, the amounts, and when can change how our baby’s genes are expressed, directly affecting their predisposition to a multitude of diseases, their metabolism, and their cognitive abilities.
So I continued studying everything we now know in 2020 about nutrition during pregnancy to grow the healthiest baby possible and put it all into an online course for moms.
Because as mothers we all deserve to have that information at our fingertips in an easy to understand and apply format.
This information isn’t compiled anywhere before now like this.
Breaking down every macronutrient you need to increase, what it does for your baby’s development, and how to source it… even tricks to increase the mineral absorption of your foods.
Giving you guidelines of how much protein you need, how much of each macronutrient, and great printables to help along the way.
AND protein shakes (the ones in this post specifically) are a vital componant in the Perfect Pregnancy Plan diet to grow a more healthy baby.
I’m super passionate about this subject so could keep going but if you want to learn more about the Perfect Pregnancy Plan you can check it out here. You can see what other moms are saying about it right here.
Why are These Perfect Breakfasts for Pregnant Women?
During pregnancy, the requirements for certain nutrients is drastically increased!
- Your need for protein goes up 10-15%. Meaning you should be eating about 70-100 grams of protein per day while pregnant.
- When pregnant, you need 1.5X more iron than you typically do.
- Over half of pregnant women do not get enough magnesium! Many of these recipes are sources of magnesium. (Green leafy vegetables, avocados, chia seeds, and mint are all great sources of magnesium.)
- It has recently been found that choline is as important to fetal growth as folate is! Eggs are the best source of choline around.
These recipes are perfect for pregnancy because they are loaded with choline, iron, magnesium, protein, and lots of other nutrients that are going to help you grow a strong healthy baby!
Some Healthy Sources to Increase Your Protein for Pregnancy are:
- Steak
- Eggs
- Chicken with the skin on
- Full-fat cottage cheese
- Greek Yogurt without added sugar
- Pregnancy-safe Protein Powder
- Pork
- Ground meats
- Beans
- Chickpeas
- Lentils
- Peas
Some Healthy Iron Rich Foods for Pregnancy
- Organ meats like liver
- Red meats
- Pork
- Chicken
- Shellfish
- Spinach
- Legumes
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Quinoa
- Dark Chocolate
**Organ meats are the highest in iron levels by far! If that is too much for you to stomach try supplementing with a high-quality liver supplement! All the benefits of eating that grass-fed liver with none of the yuck.**
Some Healthy Sources of Magnesium to Eat for Your Pregnancy
- Dark Chocolate
- Almonds
- Cashews
- Brazil Nuts
- Legumes
- Avocados
- Seeds
- Green Leafy Vegetables
- Some fatty fish like salmon and halibut
- Bananas
Want to get in your dark chocolate fix every single day? It might sound too good to be true but there is a perfect recipe book that teaches you all about how to eat chocolate in a healthy way every single day! With delicious sugar-free recipes perfect to satisfy every pregnant mom craving!
I highly recommend “Daily Doses of Chocolate” for pregnant mamas!
The Best Sources for Choline for Pregnant Women
- Liver (a high-quality liver supplement works just as well!)
- Eggs
- Wheat germ
- Shrimp
- Scallops
- Beef
- Brussel Sprouts
- Broccoli
- Peanuts
- Chicken Breast
- Navy Beans
A Second Reason These are Great Breakfast Ideas for Pregnancy
Not only are each of these breakfast ideas rich in the nutrients you need to be consuming more of now that you’re pregnant, but they are also all easy batch meals!
Meaning you can easily make them in a large quantity once and have breakfast or snacks ready for the rest of the week!
Meal prep can be very important during pregnancy, especially if you’re working or if this is not your first child.
When you are busy, rushed, and tired (yup, that basically sums up the rest of your life as a mom) it is easy to make poor choices with your diet out of convenience.
- Make these cooked breakfasts in large batches and store for the week in BPA free Bento boxes to grab and go!
- Make the smoothies in batches by setting up a week’s worth of BPA free freezer bags and filling each one with the same ingredients! Then in the morning, you can just add them all to your Magic Bullet with your milk of choice, blend, and go! (Store in the freezer or fridge.)
Meal planning is a great way to stay healthy while pregnant and postpartum!
Start up with healing postpartum freezer meals now so that you are set for those busy days after birth! These meals not only help you build up a healthy milk supply postpartum but also and great for nourishment while still pregnant! Check out healing postpartum freezer meals now!
7 Ideal Breakfast Meals for Pregnancy
1. Steak and Egg Burrito
Steak and Egg Burrito from Onion Rings and Things
This is a perfect pregnancy breakfast because it is filling! It is also loaded with protein, choline, and iron. All three are essential nutrients that you need a lot of to grow a healthy baby.
You can use a whole wheat tortilla so that you aren’t getting empty calories from a white tortilla, or you can use a lettuce or cabbage wrap to make it low carb and keep your blood sugars even more stable.
2. Low-Carb Steak Breakfast Hash
Low Carb Steak Breakfast Hash from Simply so Healthy
Another perfect pregnancy breakfast. People who eat a protein-rich breakfast tend to have a more stable metabolism and eat less throughout the day.
This meal is loaded with all different colors of veggies, meaning lots of different vitamins to load up you and your growing baby on!
3. Low Carb Steak and Egg Bowl
Low Carb Steak and Egg Bowl from Recipe for Perfection
Eating low carb during pregnancy can be a good thing. Not a strict Keto diet, but lower carbohydrates is just fine and perhaps even ideal for keeping your blood sugars and energy levels stable. This meal helps you get in your choline (from the eggs), iron (from the steak), and healthy fats (from the avocado).
All vital nutrients essential to growing a healthy baby. Each of those foods is an ideal source for the nutrients listed. Plus eating a breakfast high in protein may help to ease morning sickness as well!
4. Tomato Spinach Egg Muffins
Tomato Spinach Egg Muffins from Evolving Table
These easy little bites can be made in bulk and stored for a ready-made pregnancy breakfast or snack all week! Spinach is a wonderful vegetable to include in your pregnancy diet as it is rich in many vitamins and minerals necessary in pregnancy!
Adding spinach into your omelet or egg muffins packs a ton of nutrients into a tiny leaf. I’m not gunna lie though, I’m pregnant and I could easily eat 3 of these for breakfast!
5. Low Carb Chocolate and Greens Smoothie
Low Carb Chocolate and Greens Smoothie from Vigor it Out
Smoothies are an excellent way to kickstart your day, especially during pregnancy when bloating can occur easily. During the first trimester, hormonal changes can lead to early bloating sensations.
Then as baby gets bigger your stomach literally gets squished smaller and smaller. This recipe is actually one of the over 80 recipes you get with the Perfect Pregnancy Plan!
Smoothies pack a ton of nutrients into one glass! They don’t overfill you and digest quickly. Perfect for pregnancy if you ask me! This recipe is loaded with healthy fat to keep you full and nourish baby’s growing brain, high in protein, and low in carbs!
6. Triple Berry Superfood Smoothie
Triple Berry Detox Smoothie from Jen Elizbeth’s Journals
This smoothie is loaded with antioxidants, fiber, and vitamins! You can add a scoop of your favorite pregnancy-safe protein powders too to really make it a complete meal! (Check out the best protein powders for pregnant moms!)
Every pregnant mama should be eating chia seeds every day! It is one of the top 5 foods to grow a healthy baby!
7. Strawberry Smoothie Bowl
My Favorite Smoothie Bowl from Blondielocks
Smoothie bowls bring smoothies to a whole new level. They are comprised of the same idea, lots of nutrients blended up together but now in one small bowl! It is basically a denser smoothie with beautiful healthy toppings.
While you could skimp on the toppings to save some time, I really suggest adding these ones in! This is loaded up with almond slivers, chia seeds, and hemp hearts! Talk about tossing on a lot of delicious crunchy nutrition! This is a pregnant mama must try breakfast!
Wrapping up Breakfast Ideas for Pregnant Women
I hope you loved these 7 delicious and nutritious breakfast ideas for your pregnancy! And if you want even more delicious prenatal recipes that help grow a healthy baby check out the PPP nutrition program for pregnant mamas.
Which was your favorite? What nutritional struggles are you having with your pregnancy? Food cravings or aversions? Maybe not knowing how to meal prep? Craving sugars?
Let me know what kind of meals and nutrition ideas you need for your pregnancy in the comments below and I’ll make a post to help you and all the other moms sharing your struggle out!
