Milk: It does a pregnant body good. Calcium is critical for keeping your bones and teeth healthy and strong. Calcium is also required for muscle contraction; blood vessel expansion and contraction; secretion of hormones and enzymes; and transmitting impulses throughout your nervous system.

When you're pregnant, it's very important to get 1,000 milligrams of calcium each day. The average woman gets only 700 milligrams of calcium a day — not enough. If you don't get enough calcium, your body steals it from your bones. Over time, that loss can lead to osteoporosis.

During your second and third trimesters, and if you're breastfeeding, your body actually absorbs more calcium from your food than it usually does when you're not pregnant. But still, if you don't take in enough calcium from food and supplements, your baby's needs will come out of your bones.

The prenatal vitamin you're taking likely contains calcium. But check the label. It might not offer as much calcium as you think. You need to make up the rest in your diet. The best sources of calcium are low-fat dairy products, such as milk, cheese and yogurt. Many beverages and foods are fortified with calcium, such as orange juice and breakfast cereals. There's no need to worry about getting too much calcium. Your body can absorb only around 600 milligrams of calcium at a time.

If you're buying a separate calcium supplement, don't take one that contains bone meal or dolomite. They might also contain arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic substances.

Here's what our Mommy M.D.s — doctors who are also mothers — do to get enough calcium in pregnancy.

"I'm really good about drinking milk every day," says Sadaf T. Bhutta, M.D., a mom of a daughter and triplets and an assistant professor and the fellowship director of pediatric radiology at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Arkansas Children's Hospital, both in Little Rock. "I drink one glass each day with breakfast, and I eat yogurt frequently. So I was confident I would get enough calcium in my diet during my pregnancy."

"When I was pregnant, I was living on a farm," says Stacey Marie Kerr, M.D., a mother of two grown daughters, a grandmother of two, author of "Homebirth in the Hospital: Integrating Natural Childbirth with Modern Medicine" and a family physician in Santa Rosa, California. "I remember one day, my husband went down the road and got a gallon of ice-cold whole milk that had been milked from the cow just that morning. I chugged about half of that gallon. I will never forget the feeling of that milk going down and knowing that this is what my body needs — badly."

"I don't normally like ice cream, but I ate a lot of it when I was pregnant," says Lezli Braswell, M.D., a mom of one daughter and two sons and a family medicine physician in Columbus, Georgia. "I like milk, but I don't normally drink a lot of it. When I was pregnant, I had a taste for ice cream and milk. I'd like to say it was so that I could get more calcium, and that was a nice side benefit, but the truth is I just craved milk and ice cream during all three of my pregnancies."

"During my pregnancy, I snacked a lot on low-fat dairy foods like cheese and yogurt. That was very helpful to get extra calcium," says Stephanie Ring, M.D., a mom of two sons and an OB-GYN at Red Rocks OB-GYN in Lakewood, Colorado.

"I've never been able to tolerate dairy products very well, because I'm a little lactose intolerant," says Rallie McAllister, M.D., MPH, mom of three, co-author of "The Mommy MD Guide to Your Baby's First Year," nationally recognized health expert, and family physician in Lexington, Kentucky. "Plus when it comes to taking calcium in the form of those gigantic horse pills, I'm a wimp! Fortunately, I found a brand of liquid calcium at my health food store. A couple of tablespoons a day gave me all the calcium I needed without upsetting my stomach."

Jennifer Bright is a mom of four sons, co-founder and CEO of family- and veteran- owned custom publisher Momosa Publishing, co-founder of the Mommy MD Guides team of 150+ mommy M.D.s, and co-author of "The Mommy MD Guide to the Toddler Years." She lives in Hellertown, Pennsylvania. To find out more about Jennifer Bright and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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