OBJECTIVES: Approximately half of pregnant women in the United States gain weight above the recommended levels during pregnancy, increasing the risk of adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. Traditional dietary interventions to combat excess gestational weight gain (GWG) have yielded conflicting results. Novel, non-diet approaches such as mindful eating (ME) and intuitive eating (IE) have been associated with improved weight outcomes among non-pregnant, adult women. The objective of this systematic review of the literature was to examine the body of evidence on the relationship between mindfulness/ME or IE and weight gain during pregnancy. METHODS: A search of 14 databases, including EBSCO host and MEDLINE, was conducted with the following search terms: mindfulness, ME, IE, and GWG. There were no restrictions on publication dates or study design. Studies were excluded if the main outcome variable was not GWG or they were not published in English language. Among the 90 articles identified, 50 were reviewed after duplicates were removed. After screening by abstract and full text, 28 were remaining of which seven articles were found eligible and included in the review. Data collection and analysis were consistent with Cochrane's standard methodological procedures. RESULTS: Seven articles comprising five observational and two intervention studies were included in the systematic review. There were no significant differences in rates of excess GWG between control and intervention groups of the ME intervention studies, which comprised only overweight or obese women. The interventions, however, started rather late in pregnancy. Findings from the observational studies demonstrated that mindfulness and IE scores or sub-scores may be inversely related to GWG particularly in the first trimester of pregnancy. A major limitation was that majority of the observational studies did not classify GWG by pre-pregnancy weight status according to the recommendations by the Institute of Medicine. CONCLUSIONS: Additional research is needed on the effect of ME interventions on GWG. Correlational studies suggest that mothers who start their pregnancies using ME or IE strategies may gain less weight. However, more studies are needed to assess how these strategies change over the course of pregnancy. FUNDING SOURCES: None.