Protein requirements of healthy pregnant women during early and late gestation are higher than current recommendations.

Background: Adequate maternal dietary protein intake is necessary for healthy pregnancy. However, current protein intake recommendations for healthy pregnant women are based on factorial calculations of nitrogen balance data derived from nonpregnant adults. Thus, an estimate of protein requirements based on pregnancy-specific data is needed.

Healthy pregnant women in Canada are consuming more dietary protein at 16- and 36-week gestation than currently recommended by the Dietary Reference Intakes, primarily from dairy food sources.

Adequate dietary protein intake throughout pregnancy is essential to ensure healthy fetal development. Insufficient and excessive maternal dietary protein intakes are both associated with intrauterine growth restriction, resulting in low birth weight infants. The aim of this study was to analyze the dietary protein intake patterns of healthy pregnant women in Vancouver, British Columbia, during early and late gestation.