Daniel Yee, Atlanta: Before Jennifer Lepine became pregnant, she heard other soon-to-be mothers say she should ''eat for two.''

Also Read: Are You Eating For Two?

But that conflicted with what her doctor told her: Consume only 300 extra calories a day and gain no more than 35 pounds (16 kilograms). The slightly overweight suburban Atlanta woman decided to ignore her friends and watched what she ate after she became pregnant with her first child.

The 5-foot-2 (1.57-meter), 145-pound (66-kilogram) Lepine gained 35 pounds (16 kilograms) before her son Bryson was born last year. It took her four months to drop the extra weight through healthy eating and exercise.

An influential U.S. medical panel is considering changes to the medical guidelines for how much weight a woman should gain during pregnancy. It is acting on the insistence of doctors who say pregnant women are gaining too much weight and the current recommendations do not factor in the country's obesity epidemic.

Carrying too much weight while pregnant increases the risk of complications for mother and baby, including birth defects, labour and delivery problems, fetal death and delivery of large babies, according to the March of Dimes. A revision is long overdue, said Dr. Raul Artal of the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.