"It's not just healthy eating for pregnancy," says Dr. Ricciotti. "Women also recognize that their whole life is about to change and they'll have a different level of responsibility. This makes them want to understand more about healthy living and to get more organized and efficient and learn to cook and equip their kitchens."

To start, for those who don't have a lot of experience cooking, the best first piece of equipment is a couple of good cookbooks. Janicek uses a variety of cookbooks, including Weight Watchers, even though he and his wife aren't dieting, simply because of their emphasis on healthy, low-fat dinners. He also frequently uses the Internet for healthy meal ideas and to search for recipes with a specific ingredient. The Internet is also a great resource for beginning cooks to search for help on cooking techniques and tips.

The first step to a healthy pantry is to toss out the old and bring in the new. Nutritionist Joy Bauer, author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Total Nutrition (Alpha, 4th ed., 2005), says we tend to eat a lot of artificially sweetened foods, and that's not the healthiest choice. In addition, pre-packaged snack foods, such as granola bars, cookies and crackers, are often loaded with unhealthy hydrogenated oils and may be high in calories, too.

Bauer suggests making healthy replacements by paying more attention to food labels. The trend is toward healthier alternatives, often found in the organic foods section, but sometimes they are found right next to the less healthy brands.

"There are a couple of things that a pregnant woman wants to be cognizant of for an optimum diet," says Bauer. "One is foods that contain saturated fat, because during pregnancy you're at greater risk of your cholesterol going up. The other is portion control, because prepared foods are often packaged to look like one portion, when they actually contain two or more."

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