'Pregorexia': Extreme dieting while pregnant

CNN ^ | Kelly Wallace

[Morgana]

(CNN) -- Mom-to-be Maggie Baumann knew she most definitely would not be "eating for two." She couldn't.

During her first pregnancy, she was extremely preoccupied with just how many calories she consumed and stuck to a very strict exercise routine.

"Getting on the scale at the doctor's office was very triggering for me," said Baumann of Newport Beach, California, who is now an eating disorders specialist and trauma therapist who devotes some of her practice to pregnant women and moms suffering from eating disorders.

She gained 32 pounds during her first pregnancy, which is very much in line with the 25 to 35 pounds doctors say, on average, a woman who is expecting should gain.

But, during her second pregnancy, she was not going to let "that" happen again, she said in an interview.

'Pregorexia'

"I was just like, I am not doing that again, I am not getting that big. I am not getting that out of control," said Baumann, who first went public about her experience in a blog in 2009 and is now co-writing a chapter on pregnancy and eating disorders in a book to be published in 2014. Tracey Gold's new show How yoga helped an anorexic recover Catherine makes 1st post-baby appearance Conventional wisdom on pregnancy wrong?

She didn't realize it at the time but she was one of a number of women with an extreme obsession with weight during pregnancy, battling what has become known as "pregorexia."

Pregorexia is not a formally recognized medical diagnosis. It is a term coined by the media, public and doctors in recent years to describe the eating disorder behaviors experienced by women while pregnant, which could include intense dieting and exercise, but also binging and purging.

[Texan5]

The women in my family are small boned and slender, as I am. Most of us are naturalists who do not eat processed food or take drugs, and all work on family ranches or in the small shops they own. Barring accident or other mishap, life well into the 90’s is common...

One size does not fit all...

[utahagen]

I'd bet the pregnant women who want to do Weight Watchers are not all as nutty as you'd think. Given that WW encourages people to eat a balanced variety of healthy foods and tells members not to cut calories drastically, a pregnant woman who followed Weight Watchers would be much healthier, as would her baby, than some of the “pregorexic” women described in this article.

(Of course, I don't think pregnant women should go to WW or diet at all.)

[Mygirlsmom]

LOL - right there with ya! My twinnies will be 20 soon, and I've never quite recovered.

When I was expecting my first, another lady I worked with was pregnant at the same time. She bragged on how she was living on coffee and cigarettes, and how she was losing weight during the pregnancy.

On my last day of work, we heard she had been admitted to the hospital with pre-term labor. Her baby did not make it. I can't help but think that not feeding him properly in utero had something to do with it.