Diet
If you are pregnant, you may be having a difficult time with eating. You may be off your regular eating and exercise routine and find yourself eating more. During the early months, you may find that you have aversions to particular foods and maybe the idea of food makes you nauseous, especially specific foods. If you are feeling nauseous, you may want to try to start your day with some breads and crackers just to get something in your stomach. For me, personally, I had morning sickness with all three of my kids. The only problem was that it was not just "morning" sickness. It could and did happen morning, afternoon, and evening. The best thing that I could find for this problem was just trying to keep something in my stomach. I ate a lot of crackers. I am a teacher, The pregnant lady is eating breakfast.and I just had to snack on crackers throughout the day just to keep the stomach under control. I also found that I could not stand the smell of turkey, which was a food that I usually ate daily. You will also notice that your sense of smell is enhanced during pregnancy, and certain smells can make you nauseous. For me, the smell of vanilla candles made me sick to my stomach, and it actually took me a while to get over that. It still brings me back sometime to that nauseous feeling even today. These food and smell aversions will happen; nearly every mother can tell you about hers.
Be sure to get enough to eat. You should be consuming around 300 additional calories per day. With this said, keep this in mind. This is not a doubling of your food intake. It is about 1/4 more than what you usually eat. However, if you normally exercise daily when you are not pregnant, but now that you are pregnant, you are not exercising, this makes a difference. If you are not exercising, you are not burning as many calories, so you may not need to eat as much as you think. When you are at the doctor's office, you will be weighed. Keep careful track of your weight. Some women gain a lot of weight during pregnancy, and if you are okay with this, then fine. I know from experience though, that it is very hard to get rid of that weight after having a baby. Doctors really like for you to gain about 25 - 30 pounds over the course of the pregnancy.
The foods you eat are important. You need to make sure you get plenty of protein. Eat plenty of veggies, fruit, yogurt, and whole grains. Try to avoid the junk food. Avoid caffeinated drinks like soda, coffee, and hot cocoa. Remember everything you eat is going to your baby. You want your baby to be as healthy as possible.
Vitamins
It is important that you get a prescription for prenatal vitamins. Your need for folic acid, calcium, and iron will increase. They are important for proper fetal growth. Do not take any vitamins without the consent of your doctor. It is dangerous for you and your baby to overdose on particular vitamins.
Exercise
Exercising while pregnant is important to keep you hThe pregnant lady is exercising.ealthy and feeling good. If you spend all day sitting around, you are going to feel the pregnancy more and are more likely to gain more weight and become increasingly uncomfortable. You should consult your doctor about an appropriate amount of exercise, because all women are different and their pregnancies are different. With some health conditions, you may not be able to do much exercising. Walking is great exercise and can be done every day. This is something you can do with your partner. Contact exercise is not something you should be doing. Stretching is also a good idea. Any way that you can keep your body moving will help you both during the pregnancy and then after the pregnancy trying to get back to yourself.
Sleeping
Sleeping is definitely an issue during pregnancy. At the beginning of my pregnancies, I found myself very tired in the afternoons. Of course I was working, so I didn't have the opportunity to to take a nap, but if you do have the opportunity, take one. It will help you tremendously. Sleeping at night is not ideal during pregnancy. First, you will find that you have to urinate frequently. As your pregnancy goes on, you will also find it increasingly difficult to sleep due to having the shape and size of a basketball attached to your stomach. Doctors advise you to sleep on your side facing left, because this is the best position for the health of the baby. Well, if you don't normally sleep on your left side, this is a challenge, and you may find yourself having a hard time both falling asleep and staying asleep. I guess I should say that you should get used to this. I think that between the discomfort sleeping and having to urinate often that this is nature's way of getting you used to not sleeping at night, since when your baby comes home, your baby will get up every three hours or so for feeding. One other thing you may have difficulty with is leg cramps. There were a few occasions when I woke up in the middle of the night with leg cramps so bad that my leg was paralyzed with the cramp and my husband had to help rub it out. Doctors have several suggestions for this problem. First, you should exercise and stretch your legs before going to sleep. Second, you should try to put your feet up as much as possible during the day. Third, be sure to drink enough fluid through the day, at least 8 glasses. Finally, you need to make sure that you are getting enough calcium and magnesium.
Avoiding Cigarettes and Alcohol
None of us are living under a rock and can claim that we do not know the negative health effects of smoking. I implore you, please do not smoke while you are pregnant. I understand that it is your legal right and you can do to your body as you choose, but you are harming your baby if you smoke. The nicotine, carbon monoxide and other poisons you are inhaling go directly into your bloodstream and to your baby, so your baby is smoking too. Here are some of the facts.
* Smoking during pregnancy will lower the amount of oxygen your baby has available.
* Smoking will increase your baby's heart rate.
This is a cigarette.
* Smoking while pregnant will increase the chances of stillbirth and miscarriage.
* Smoking while pregnant will increase the chan ce that your baby is born with low birth weight or premature.
* Smoking will increase your baby's chance of developing lung problems.
* There is no safe level of smoking. It all hurts your baby.
Secondhand smoke is also dangerous to your baby. This smoke actually contains more harmful substances than the smoke that the inhaler of the cigarette takes in. If you are expos ed to secondhand smoke, you are increasing your baby's risk of developing heart disease, emphysema, allergies, asthma, lung cancer, and other health problems. This also leads to your baby being at higher risk of SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. If someone in your family smokes, get away from them or have them leave. There is no excuse for endangering the health of your baby.
Alcohol:
Did you know that alcohol is actually the leading known preventable cause of mental as well as physical birth defects in the United States? Well, if you didn't know, now you do. When a woman drinks alcohol while she is pregnant, she is risking giving her baby mental and physical disabilities that he will pay for for the rest of his life. As mThese are two bottles of beer.any as 40,000 babies are born each year in the United States with some type of alcohol related damage.
Fetal alchohol syndrome is preventable. It has a number of symptoms, including distinctive facial features, such as small eyes, very thin upper lip, and upturned nose, heart defects, slow physical growth, vision or hearing difficulties, small head circumference and small brain size, poor coordination, learning disabilities, mental retardation, hyperactivity, poor impulse control, nervousness, anxiety, and more. It is not safe for you to drink while you are pregnant, and this includes any type of alcohol. Don't do it. Your child will pay for it for the rest of his life and you will pay for it in guilt because you were responsible for it.
