Nourishing food, made gentle

While you're pregnant

• Greek yoghurt with berries and a spoon of honey — protein, calcium, quick.
• Oat porridge with banana and peanut butter; steady energy, kind to nausea.
• Wholegrain toast with mashed avocado and egg.
• Lentil or bean soup — iron plus fibre, and it freezes.
• Dates and a handful of almonds when you need something sweet.
• Cooked leafy greens with a squeeze of lemon (the vitamin C helps you absorb the iron).
• Salmon or sardines twice a week; ginger or peppermint tea for a rocky stomach.

Worth avoiding

• Raw or undercooked meat, fish and eggs (unless the eggs are stamped safe where you live).
• Unpasteurised milk and soft mould-ripened cheeses.
• High-mercury fish — shark, swordfish, marlin, king mackerel.
• Alcohol; keep caffeine to around 200mg a day (roughly two mugs of tea or one coffee).
• Always ask your own midwife or doctor — guidance differs by country.

When morning sickness comes

It rarely keeps to the morning, and it is not a sign you are doing anything wrong. Your body is working quietly and hard. Be soft with yourself, and eat whatever stays down.

• Eat before you rise: a few saltine or plain crackers by the bed, nibbled slowly before your feet touch the floor.
• Cool, watery fruit is often the kindest — melon, grapes, orange segments, chilled apple slices, frozen berries.
• Plain or Greek yoghurt, cold and mild, gives you protein without heavy smells.
• Small and often beats three big meals; an empty stomach nearly always makes the sickness louder.
• Sip slowly between meals rather than with them — water, cold milk, or ice chips if nothing else stays.
• Ginger and peppermint soothe many mamas: ginger tea, a ginger biscuit, or a peppermint sweet.
• Cold food carries less smell than hot food. Let someone else cook, and open a window.
• Lemon is a quiet helper — a slice in water, or simply the scent of the peel.
• Dry, plain, beige things are your friends: crackers, toast, rice, plain pasta, dry cereal.
• Rest after eating, upright rather than flat, and forgive yourself for the days when only one thing sounds bearable.
• Take your prenatal vitamin with food or at night; vitamin B6 helps many women — ask your midwife first.

Please call your midwife or doctor if

• You cannot keep any fluid down for 24 hours, or your wee is very dark and scarce.
• You are losing weight, feeling faint, or your heart is racing.
• You are vomiting many times a day and it is stealing your life — this may be hyperemesis, and there is safe treatment for it.
• The sickness is making you feel low or hopeless. That matters just as much as the nausea itself.

After the birth

• Overnight oats made the night before — eat cold, one-handed.
• Boiled eggs in the fridge, ready to grab.
• A big pot of chicken, lentil or vegetable soup; portion and freeze.
• Cheese, oatcakes, hummus and cut vegetables in a box at eye level.
• Smoothie: banana, spinach, oats, yoghurt, milk. Thirty seconds.
• Slow cooker or tray-bake dinners — one dish, no watching.
• Iron-rich meals if you lost blood at birth: red meat, lentils, spinach, fortified cereal.
• Water beside every feeding spot. Feeding makes you very thirsty.

Treats that still love you back

• Lactation-friendly oat cookies: oats, banana, peanut butter, dark chocolate chips.
• Frozen banana slices dipped in dark chocolate.
• Dates stuffed with almond butter.
• Yoghurt bark: yoghurt spread on a tray with berries, frozen and broken up.
• Warm milk with cinnamon and honey at night.
• Two squares of good dark chocolate with your tea. This counts as self-care.