Better Food for Pregnancy: Nutrition Guide Plus Over 125 Recipes for Healthy Pregnancy and Breastfeeding. Daina Kalnins & Joanne Saab, $27.95

Pregnancy is not a time for guesswork about nutrition. Expecting women have specific nutritional needs and will find it useful to have a sensible guide to this vital information.

Better Food for Pregnancy is that guide. Written by experts on staff at the renowned Hospital for Sick Children, this book is comprehensive and authoritative. The first half of the book addresses:

• nutritional needs before conception and during each trimester
• how a mother's diet affects growth of the fetus
• healthy weight gains through each trimester
• nutritional supplements including vitamins, minerals, and herbs
• effects of particular foods, such as coffee, un-pasteurized cheeses & alcohol
• increased nutrient requirements needed during lactation

The second half of the book features 125 recipes ideally suited to expectant mothers. Each recipe has a complete nutrient analysis plus there are handy meal plans and Snacks on the Go that help prevent nausea and vomiting. Every page of the nutrition section is packed with tips, sidebars, recommendations, and common-sense guidelines presented in easy-to-use tables and charts.

Eating for Two: the Complete Guide to Nutrition During Pregnancy and Beyond. Annabel Karmel, $27.00

With great advice and over 90 recipes, EATING FOR TWO will give you the tools you need to create the best possible diet for you and your growing baby. From foods that promote conception and ways to avoid morning sickness, to the best eating habits to combat sleeplessness, heartburn, and other pregnancy-related complaints, Annabel Karmel leads you through pregnancy and beyond.

Expect the Best: Your Guide to Healthy Eating Before, During & After Pregnancy. Elizabeth Ward, $18.95

Expect the Best shows you how a healthy lifestyle from preconception to post-delivery will help you and your baby to flourish. The book offers practical, easy-to-follow tips for healthy eating and activity, including 50 delicious, nutritious recipes for the entire family.

Feed the Belly: the Pregnant Mom’s Healthy Eating Guide. Frances Largeman-Roth, $16.99

From pre-conception to morning sickness and beyond, Feed the Belly offers nutritional guidelines and easy recipes for a healthy — and tasty — pregnancy.

Feeding the Bump: Nutrition & Recipes for Pregnancy. Lisa Neal, $21.95

Feeding the Bump is an essential resource that offers trimester-by-trimester advice on nutrition, shopping, cooking and eating as well as over 100 delicious recipes ideas for meals and snacks.

Feed Yourself, Feed Your Family: a Blueprint for a Lifetime of Healthy Meals. La Leche League International, $24.00

From pregnancy to breastfeeding through weaning and beyond, this comprehensive nutrition and recipe guide will help nourish the entire family.

Full Belly: Good Eats for a Healthy Pregnancy. Tara Matazara Desmond & Shirley fan, $23.00

As a trained chef, Tara Mataraza Desmond knows how to cook-and eat. But when she became pregnant, all bets were off, and seemingly all food was suspect. Deli meat, raw milk cheese, and alcohol were out, but what is in? Lists of "verboten" foods were easy to find, but healthful, doable meals that would appeal to a pregnant woman's finicky appetite and also feed her baby in the best way were not. Relying on prenatal vitamins didn't sound very satisfying for this ambitious cook, who is most at ease in front of the stove. So with registered dietitian Shirley Fan, Desmond put together delicious, healthy recipes with the baby bump in mind.

Healthy Eating During Pregnancy: Your Guide to Eating Well and Staying Fit. Laura Riley & Stacey Nelson, $17.99

Sometimes eating well during pregnancy can be hard — some days you fell too nauseous to eat, others you feel ravenous or want to give in to every craving. Healthy Eating During Pregnancy offers great advice and information for a healthy diet before, during and after your pregnancy. Over 200 recipes focus on different needs — recipes for high iron, calcium and fibre intake; small mini-meals for the days your stomach feels too small or the heartburn is too intense; on-the-go foods and satisfying sweets. The book also offers current information on diabetes and pregnancy, morning sickness, allergies and nutrition basics.

The 100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy: the Surprising Unbiased Truth about Foods You Should be Eating During Pregnancy but Probably Aren't. Jonny Bowden & Allison Tannis, $27.95

Backed up by the latest nutritional research, this guide uncovers a number of surprising and food choices that expectant moms should be eating. However, many women find the nutritional guidelines and menu plans they get from their doctor to be a complex, confusing, and oftentimes uninspiring list of things to eat for the next nine months. Jonny Bowden and Allison Tannis make pregnancy nutrition easy with the top 100 foods expectant moms need to eat during their pregnancy.

Real Food for Mother and Baby: The Fertility Diet, Eating for Two, and Baby's First Foods. Nina Planck, $18.50

Food activist Nina Planck has never been one to blindly accept common wisdom, so when she became pregnant, she decided to look at the nutritional advice recommended for pregnancy. What she found was surprising: advice that is occasionally inaccurate and often impossible. In Real Food for Mother and Baby Nina explains why commonly held ideas about pregnancy and infant nutrition are misguided and how real food is good for growing minds and bodies. The general rules aren't surprising but some of the details might be.

Filled with reassuring advice for parents who want to grow their children on a diet of whole and natural foods, Real Food for Mother and Baby is a must-have.

What to Eat Before, During and After Pregnancy. Judith Brown, $20.95

What you should know about eating right to ensure a healthy pregnancy as well as lifelong benefits for you and your baby by maternal nutrition expert Judith Brown.

What to Eat When You’re Pregnant and Vegetarian: the Complete Guide to Healthy Eating. Rana Conway, $17.99

This no-nonsense book is a handy and compact guide to healthy eating for vegetarians who are expecting. This definitive approach provides expert guidance on how to eat and drink in a way that will keep you healthy, your baby safe, and provide the ideal fuel for growth and development.