Most pregnant women need roughly 70 to 100 grams of protein per day, though the exact amount depends on your body weight, how far along you are, and whether you’re carrying multiples. That’s significantly more than the 46 grams recommended for non-pregnant women. Protein needs stay relatively low in the first trimester and climb sharply in the third, when your baby is growing fastest.
How Needs Change by Trimester
Your protein requirements don’t jump overnight. They follow the pace of fetal growth. In the first trimester, you need only about 1 extra gram per day beyond your usual intake. By the second trimester, that additional need rises to about 9 grams per day. In the third trimester, you need an extra 28 to 31 grams daily on top of what a non-pregnant woman requires.
For most women, this works out to roughly 60 grams per day in early pregnancy, climbing to 80 to 100 grams per day by the final months. The French dietary authority frames it differently but arrives at a similar place: about 0.82 grams per kilogram of body weight per day early on, rising to 1 gram per kilogram by the end of pregnancy.
Newer research suggests even these official targets may be too conservative. A study using amino acid oxidation methods found that the average requirement was 1.22 grams per kilogram per day in early pregnancy and 1.52 grams per kilogram per day in late pregnancy. For a 150-pound (68 kg) woman, that translates to about 83 grams in early pregnancy and 103 grams in the third trimester.
Why Protein Matters So Much During Pregnancy
Protein supplies the amino acids your body uses to build nearly everything your baby needs: brain tissue, muscle, bone, skin, and organs. It also builds the placenta itself, which is the organ responsible for transporting nutrients from your bloodstream to your baby. Specialized transport proteins in the placenta shuttle amino acids across to the fetus. In animal studies, when one of these key transporters was knocked out, the offspring were severely underweight and showed signs of intrauterine growth restriction. Only 28% survived past two weeks.
For your own body, protein supports the expansion of blood volume, the growth of uterine tissue, and the production of antibodies that keep your immune system functioning. It also helps maintain muscle mass during a time when your body is redirecting a huge share of its resources toward the baby.
Signs You’re Not Getting Enough
Mild protein shortfalls during pregnancy are unlikely to cause dramatic symptoms right away, but persistent undereating can show up in several ways. Unusual fatigue, frequent illness, and slow wound healing can all point to inadequate intake. Hair that becomes brittle or starts falling out is another signal, because your body deprioritizes hair growth when protein is scarce and redirects amino acids to more critical systems.
Swelling in the hands and legs, muscle weakness, and unexplained changes in weight (either gain or loss) are more advanced signs. In pregnancy specifically, chronically low protein intake is associated with lower birth weight babies and poorer growth outcomes. If you notice several of these symptoms together, it’s worth looking at your overall diet rather than assuming they’re just normal pregnancy discomforts.
Twin and Multiple Pregnancies
If you’re carrying twins, your protein target is higher. Brigham and Women’s Hospital recommends 100 grams of protein per day for twin, triplet, and higher-order pregnancies. This reflects the simple math of building two or more babies, two or more sets of membranes, and a larger placenta. Many women carrying multiples find they need to be more intentional about including protein at every meal and snack to consistently hit that number.
Too Much Protein Can Be a Problem
More is not always better. The World Health Organization has specifically warned that high-protein supplementation during pregnancy does not appear beneficial and may actually increase the risk of having a smaller-than-expected baby. The mechanism isn’t fully understood, but the evidence is clear enough that WHO recommends against high-protein supplements for pregnant women. Balanced intake, where protein makes up a normal proportion of your total calories rather than dominating the diet, produces the best outcomes.
A reasonable upper boundary is keeping protein at or below 25% of your total daily calories. For someone eating 2,200 calories per day, that’s about 137 grams. Most women will land well below that ceiling with a varied diet.
Best Food Sources
Animal proteins are the most concentrated and complete sources, meaning they contain all nine essential amino acids in a single food. A 3-ounce serving of lean ground beef provides about 19 grams. One large egg has 6 grams. A cup of milk (any fat level) delivers 8 grams. Greek yogurt, chicken, fish, and cheese are other reliable options, with mozzarella cheese providing about 7 grams per ounce.
Plant-based sources can absolutely meet your needs, but they require more planning. Soy milk comes closest to cow’s milk at 7 grams per cup, while almond, rice, and coconut milk beverages provide little to no protein. Quinoa is one of the few plant foods with a complete amino acid profile. Lentils, chickpeas, black beans, tofu, and tempeh are all strong options, but you’ll generally need to combine different plant proteins throughout the day to cover all essential amino acids.
Special Considerations for Vegan Pregnancies
A large Danish study found that vegan mothers averaged only 10.4% of their daily calories from protein, which put about half of them below the recommended minimum of 10 to 20%. The issue isn’t just hitting a gram target. Animal proteins come packaged with nutrients that are harder to get from plants alone, including highly absorbable (heme) iron, vitamin B12, and DHA, all of which play direct roles in fetal brain and nervous system development.
Plant proteins are also less bioavailable on average, meaning your body absorbs and uses a smaller percentage of what you eat. Some nutrition experts suggest that plant-based eaters aim for 10 to 20% more total protein to compensate for this difference. If you’re following a vegan diet during pregnancy, paying close attention to protein variety and supplementing B12 and DHA becomes especially important.
Spreading Protein Throughout the Day
Your body can only use so much protein at once for tissue building. Eating 90 grams at dinner and almost none at breakfast is less effective than distributing your intake across meals and snacks. A practical approach is to include a protein source at every eating occasion. That might look like eggs or yogurt at breakfast (12 to 18 grams), a bean-based soup or chicken salad at lunch (20 to 25 grams), a handful of nuts or cheese as an afternoon snack (7 to 10 grams), and a serving of fish or meat at dinner (20 to 25 grams). Even a glass of milk before bed adds another 8 grams and helps ensure a steady supply of amino acids overnight, when a significant amount of fetal growth occurs.
If morning sickness makes large meals difficult in the first trimester, smaller protein-rich snacks, like a hard-boiled egg, a spoonful of nut butter, or a few bites of cheese, can help you maintain adequate intake without overwhelming your stomach.