Pregnancy and breastfeeding nutrition drinks: what the October 2026 notices mean

This article is general information, not medical advice. It is not a review of a brand, and it does not tell you to buy or avoid a particular drink. Talk to your doctor before you rely on a pack, a notice or a webpage to decide what you eat in pregnancy or while breastfeeding.

Two news reports in October 2026 describe notices from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India about claims on nutrition drinks. The companies are not named on this page. The reports are linked below so a reader can see who they name. What follows is the wording the reports use, then the regulation and the pregnancy plate those claims sit next to.

The wider pregnancy page on this site is still a draft outline: Pregnancy diet, trimester by trimester. Family sayings about a fair baby, ghee and papaya are in Pregnancy food myths in India. A separate draft, about sucrose and fructose in foods for infants up to six months, is No added sucrose or fructose in infant foods.

What the reports say was flagged

NDTV Food describes two notices.

On a nutrition drink sold with pregnancy and lactation wording, the report says the authority examined a complaint, the label, advertisements and an e-commerce listing. It says the claim "healthy birth weight" on the label, and the phrase "for baby's healthy birth weight" in an advertisement, were found potentially misleading and in violation of the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018. The report's account of the authority's view is that "healthy birth weight" could give the impression that the food itself provides health benefits, which is not permitted. The same report says the phrases "for pregnancy and lactation", "with protein for birth weight" and "DHA for brain development - no added sugar", used as part of the product name on the e-commerce platform, were contrary to the requirements in the notice.

On a second nutrition drink, sold with women's bone wording, the report says these claims were allegedly misleading or not in line with the rules: "nutrition for strong bones", "clinically proven to help improve bone strength in 6 months", "improves bone health", and "healthy muscles", the last of these as a use of the word "healthy". It says the "no added sugar" claim was flagged as misleading in view of maltodextrin in the product. It says the nutritional information table was not in the prescribed format. It says a claim that the product provides 100 percent of the recommended dietary allowance of calcium, vitamin D and K2 was non-compliant. The manufacturer, the report says, was directed to respond within the stipulated period, and licensing authorities and e-commerce platforms were asked to act under food-safety law.

Livemint, updated 18 October 2026, describes notices to two companies. For the pregnancy drink it uses the words "happy birth weight", not "healthy birth weight". For the other drink it names "improves bone health", "healthy muscles" and "no added sugar". It says one company replied that its two products comply with applicable requirements and that it will share scientific and regulatory evidence with the authorities. The other company had not commented when that story was written. Livemint also describes a separate notice about a product intended as a dietary supplement for a medical condition, including prior approval and a vegetarian or non-vegetarian mark. That product is not a pregnancy drink. This page does not cover it.

The two reports do not use the same birth-weight words. This page has not seen the notices, the labels or the listings. It does not decide which wording was on the pack. It does not treat a company's statement that its products comply as a finding, and it does not treat a notice as a final penalty.

How claim rules are read on a manufacturer's brief is a different page: Protein, immunity and "100%" claims.

What the claim rules actually say

The compendium of the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, 2018, opened for this draft, is a compilation. The gazette text prevails if they differ.

Regulation 4 says claims must be truthful, unambiguous, meaningful and not misleading, and must not state, suggest or imply that a balanced and varied diet cannot provide appropriate quantities of nutrients.

Regulation 8(3) says foods shall not be described as "healthy" or be represented in a manner that implies that a food in and of itself will impart health. Claims about a "healthy diet" have to refer to the pattern of eating in the current ICMR dietary guidelines, and the label has to relate the food to that pattern. A food described as part of a healthy or balanced diet shall not be based on a selective look at one aspect of the food.

Regulation 10(1) says no claim shall refer to the suitability of a food for the prevention, alleviation, treatment or cure of a disease, disorder or particular physiological condition unless specifically permitted under another regulation under the Food Safety and Standards Act. Regulation 10(4) says foods for special dietary uses, or foods for special medical purposes, shall not carry a claim unless specifically permitted. Regulation 7 says a health claim has two parts: the physiological role or an accepted diet-health relationship, and information on the composition of the product that is relevant to that role. Where the benefit is attributed directly to the product, the same regulation asks for statistically significant results from well-designed human studies. This page does not know what evidence was sent with any reply to the notices.

Schedule I of that compendium allows a "source" claim for docosahexaenoic acid only when the product contains at least 40 mg of DHA per 100 g and per 100 kcal. That is a content condition for the word "source". It is not a sentence about brain development, and it is not a pregnancy claim.

A "100 percent of RDA" line is a different kind of statement. The compendium's Schedule I sets "source" and "high" conditions for vitamins and minerals as percentages of RDA per 100 g or 100 ml. This page did not find, in the clauses read, a permission to print "100 percent" of the RDA for calcium, vitamin D and vitamin K2 as a claim of its own. The newspaper says that line was found non-compliant. The numerical test is for the notice and the label, not for this page to reconstruct.

How to read "no added sugar"

Regulation 6 says a claim that sugars have not been added may be made only if all of these are true:

• No sugars of any type have been added. The examples named are sucrose, glucose, honey, molasses, corn syrup, and others of that kind.
• The food contains no ingredients that contain sugars as an ingredient. The examples named are jams, jellies, sweetened chocolate and sweetened fruit pieces.
• The food contains no ingredients containing sugars that substitute for added sugars. The examples named are non-reconstituted concentrated fruit juice and dried fruit paste.
• The sugars content of the food itself has not been increased above what the ingredients contribute, by some other means. The example named is the use of enzymes to hydrolyse starches and release sugars.

If sugars are naturally present, the same regulation says the label also carries "CONTAINS NATURALLY OCCURRING SUGARS".

The definition in that compendium says "sugars" means all monosaccharides (glucose, fructose and others) and disaccharides (maltose, sucrose, lactose and others). Maltodextrin is not in that list. The NDTV report still says the authority treated a "no added sugar" claim as misleading because maltodextrin was in the drink. This page does not upgrade the newspaper's sentence into a ruling that maltodextrin is a sugar, and it does not treat the missing word as permission to ignore it. The practical step is the ingredient list. If you cannot tell what an ingredient is, ask your doctor or skip the pack. Do not decide from the front of the pack.

A "free of sugars" content claim, in the amended Schedule I row of the same compendium, is a different test: not more than 0.5 g of sugars per 100 g for solids or per 100 ml for liquids. "No added sugar" and "sugar free" are not the same words.

What a pregnancy plate actually lists

Guideline 2 of the Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024, says extra nutritious food and care are required in pregnancy and lactation. It says special attention goes to iron, folic acid, vitamin B12, iodine and long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. It says iron and folic acid supplements must be taken. It says iodine is met through iodised salt. It says vitamin B12 can come from yoghurt or curd, eggs and flesh foods, and that vegetarians can get long-chain omega-3 fats from green leafy vegetables, seeds and nuts, while fatty fish is named as a source for people who eat it. It says inadequate diets, and high-fat, high-sugar, high-salt diets, can affect the growth of the fetus. It does not name a drink as the way to meet any of that.

The same chapter says a pregnant woman of normal weight for height should have an additional 350 kcal of energy a day from the second to the third trimester. It says an additional 8 g of protein is required in the second trimester and 18 g in the third. The ICMR-NIN brief note of 2020 prints the same additional 350 kcal. Its protein table is split into an estimated average requirement and a recommended dietary allowance: plus 7.6 g and plus 17.6 g as the average requirement in the second and third trimesters, and plus 9.5 g and plus 22.0 g as the RDA. The guidelines' 8 g and 18 g are not the same pair of numbers. This page leaves both as printed. The brief note also says that for a cereal-based diet of low-quality protein, the protein requirement is 1 g per kg per day, and that the RDA of 0.83 g per kg is the figure for quality protein. A sedentary woman's energy requirement in that note, at a reference weight of 55 kg, is 1,660 kcal a day before the pregnancy addition. Energy in pregnancy, the note says, should be adjusted for actual body weight, observed weight gain and activity.

Table 1.6 of the guidelines gives raw food quantities for a pregnant woman at a reference weight of 55 kg plus 10 kg:

The table's own totals for that row are about 2,020 kcal and 72 g of crude protein from those foods. Crude protein on a plate is not the same figure as the RDA for protein. A footnote on the My Plate says to prefer fresh fruits and avoid juices. Sugar, where the guidelines allow it, is restricted to 25 to 30 g a day, and cereals are reduced if sugar is taken so the calories still fit. Added sugar is also described as less than 5 percent of daily energy.

Figure 2.2 in the same chapter is a suggestive chart for a normal pregnancy. It lists cereals and millets at 240 g, pulses at 80 g, nuts and oilseeds at 40 g with cooking oils and fats at 20 ml, vegetables including roots and tubers at 300 g, green leafy vegetables at 150 g, fruits at 150 g, and dairy at 400 ml. It says the chart is only suggestive, and that cereals and pulses move with body weight, calorie need and activity. Those cereal, pulse and fat figures are not the Table 1.6 figures. This page does not blend them into one shopping list. Fruit, green leafy vegetables and milk or curd are the lines that match.

The chapter says highly processed foods, and foods that are high in fat, sugar and salt, should be avoided. It says vitamin C-rich fruit such as guava and orange, eaten with a meal, is there to help iron absorption from plant foods. It says green leafy vegetables, legumes and nuts are sources of folic acid. It says milk is the best source of biologically available calcium in that discussion, and a poor source of iron, and that sunlight is how the diet's vitamin D is met. None of those sentences is a claim that a flavoured drink does the same job.

Weight gain in the same chapter: if BMI at conception is in the normal band the book uses, 18.5 to 23 kg/m², the aim it prints is at least 10 to 12 kg. Underweight women are told to increase intake, with weight gain watched at a health facility. Women who are overweight (BMI 23 to 27.5) or obese (BMI above 27.5) are told to aim for a smaller gain; the sentence sets that at not more than 5 to 9 kg. Added sugars are to be avoided for overweight pregnant women, and refined cereals and oil reduced. Those are the book's bands. They are not a target for a particular pregnancy. Your doctor sets that.

Supplements are the doctor's, not the pack's

The guidelines say even a balanced diet cannot supply every nutrient in pregnancy. The example they give is additional iron and folic acid for red-blood-cell formation, and iodised salt for iodine. An iron box in the same chapter says iron and folic acid supplementation of 60 mg elemental iron and 0.5 mg folic acid is recommended from the 12th week of pregnancy through the first six months of lactation. A points-to-remember list says the recommended iron-folic acid and calcium supplements must be taken after the 12th week and continued in lactation, that one iron-folic acid tablet a day is the prevention dose it is describing, and that a folic acid supplement of 500 µg (0.5 mg) is advised in the first 12 weeks. The calcium line in that list does not print a milligram. This page does not add one.

The same pages say to take micronutrient supplements as the doctor advises, and that pregnant and lactating women should not take drugs indiscriminately. A nutrition drink is not an iron-folic acid tablet and not a calcium prescription. Do not start, stop or swap a supplement because a label mentions bones, birth weight or DHA.

Lactation, and what a drink cannot stand in for

For the first six months of lactation the guidelines add 600 kcal and 13.6 g of protein a day. For the next six months they add 520 kcal and 10.6 g of protein. The 2020 brief note matches the energy additions. Its protein table again splits the figures: the 13.6 g and 10.6 g match the estimated average requirement, and the recommended dietary allowances printed there are plus 16.9 g and plus 13.2 g. Lactating women are also advised to take daily iron and folic acid. Table 1.6 lists, for lactation, fruits at 150 g, green leafy vegetables at 150 g, other vegetables at 200 g, roots and tubers at 100 g, nuts at 40 g and milk or curd at 400 ml, with cereals and pulses higher than in the pregnancy row.

Guideline 3 is about the baby, not about a maternal drink. Breast milk within an hour of birth. Exclusive breastfeeding for six months. No honey, glucose, water or dilute formula in those months. Breastfeeding continued to two years and beyond. Colostrum is not discarded. A pack that says "lactation" does not change that. If breastfeeding is not possible, that conversation is with your doctor. It is not a reason to treat a sweetened powder as infant food.

The guidelines also say there is no need to avoid a food because of a wrong belief or taboo, and that excess caffeine from tea and coffee should be minimized in pregnancy because it adversely affects fetal growth. Tea is to be kept away from meals and from iron-folic acid tablets because it binds iron. That is a timing point. It is not a ban on every drink, and it is not a reason to replace tea with a nutrition drink that makes a birth-weight claim.

A varied plate, iodised salt, and the iron-folic acid and calcium supplements your doctor has actually prescribed, are the pregnancy and lactation pattern these Indian guidelines describe. A powder that promises birth weight, brain development or "healthy" muscles is a claim under the advertising rules. It is not the plate.

This article is general information, not medical advice.

Sources

• NDTV Food, notices on nutrition-drink claims
• Livemint, updated 18 October 2026
• FSSAI compendium, Advertising and Claims Regulations, 2018, file dated 4 October 2022
• ICMR-NIN, Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024
• ICMR-NIN, brief note on nutrient requirements, RDA and EAR, 2020