April Showers Bring May Flowers
Happy spring and almost April! I am so excited for this time of year! I enjoy the sunshine, and I think being a summer baby has something to do with it! If you have any science on that, feel free to share ;).
Nature is coming back to life. Flowers, birds, bees, trees, and gardens are starting and out and about. I won't be giving gardening tips but check out this dietitian and good friend's garden tips at www.ahelpingofhealth.com. However, I will be giving you advice on creating new life in the way of human life. This is a topic I take seriously, and I love to help bring new life into this world by giving nutrition and exercise counseling in this area.
I'm here to help you know things like vitamins, minerals, exercise, and nutrition in pregnancy. What is too little? What is too much? Or food safety during this time. Where do you begin? What can the father do? Is it safe to exercise? I'll be answering some of these today.
Life Tip 1: Never Too Early
It's never too early to start prepping. Unlike in springtime, if you plant too soon, you may have a greenhouse growing in your house if you live in the north due to frost in spring and cannot grow outside right away; with prenatal time though, I believe taking care of your body for pregnancy can't happen soon enough. You can do a few beneficial things for pregnancy and beneficial for your health!
Take a prenatal! At least three months beforehand, however, since 50% of pregnancies are unplanned in this country, I recommend any woman of childbearing age take one. If working with me, you will be able to have one available to you that covers most of my tips on choosing a prenatal. Look for a blog on tips for selecting a prenatal coming soon.
Exercise. Yep, most research shows activity helps your body and even impacts the child's health. Few fun facts for both mom and child:
Women who exercise will have more blood flow to the placenta than those who don't. Means more nutrients and oxygen to your baby.
Exercise helps keep your blood vessels healthy and improves the baby's health, making the child less likely to future cardiovascular disease and obesity!
Proper exercise can help SI Joint pain, decrease overall pain, strengthen the pelvic floor, improve sleep, improve fertility treatment successes and live births (Roa, 2018), reduce morning sickness, less weight gain, fewer gestational diabetes cases, fewer cesareans, and fewer cases of preeclampsia in pregnancy (Newton, 2017).
Can make labor smoother (who doesn't want that) and again the less likely need for cesarean births.
A large Danish study with over 92,671 pregnancies showed no increase of miscarriage among low impact exercises doing the recommended amount or less of exercise (150 min. a week) compared to sedentary women (Madsen, 2007) before 22 weeks and no dose effect of timeline of exercise after 18 weeks. This means you do not need to worry about an increased risk of miscarriage with exercise when doing the recommended amount of 150 min of moderate-strenuous of exercise. In fact there was no increase in risk until 419 minutes (most people I know, unless running ultra’s/tri’s, aren’t reaching 7 hours of exercise a week) of exercise per week and only before 18 weeks. Besides watching fluid intake and heat, when you are cleared to exercise, there is not much in changes until later in pregnancy.
Starting before pregnancy will help you continue to get all these benefits once pregnant! You will be in the habit and this helps when nausea and fatigue hit to keep going.
Note* exercise is safe for women. However, caution with high-risk pregnancies or multiple fetuses. Exercise is stressful on the body and if can be done needs to be done safely. If you weren't exercising before pregnancy or need guidance with a plan or do intense exercises and need to know what is safe, as pregnancy and postpartum corrective exercise specialist, I can help!
Variety of these!
3. Increase the veggies, fruits, choline, and omega-rich foods. These foods will help you get the nutrients you need for your heart health, overall health, and a future or current baby. For brain health, immunity health, and digestive health, make sure to be in the habit of eating these daily. Strive for five servings of veggies and ideally 5-9 veggies and fruit. By the way avocados are amazing, high in folate (prevents deformities), fiber (digestive health) and unsaturated fats (healthy for brain development for the baby).
4. Get labs. Get a baseline of your TSH, iron, and vitamin D. I can't say this enough! More to come soon.
5. Guys count! Yep you heard me right, they make half of the baby, and certain nutrients are essential for the health of the sperm that will one day make a baby. Zinc, CoQ10, and fish oil are a few. Making sure on a quality multi and fish oil can make a difference in a successful pregnancy.
Life Tip 2: Must-Dos When You Get the News
Once you are pregnant, make sure to book an appointment with your OB, ideally at least one in the first trimester. They usually do between 10-12 weeks; if high risk, ask for one sooner.
Yep, keep taking that prenatal. If it is causing any stomach upset, take it right before sleep or at least nauseous part of the day and always with food. You can go to a chewable or powder form; however, please don't grab a flintstone. Make sure it is a quality one, and look for my tips coming soon.
Ask the doctor for those labs above if you have not yet gotten them, and do another TSH lab in the first trimester if there has been a concern in the past or family history.
Move, drink, sleep and eat. Do whatever you can to make sure these happen, give yourself grace, and ask for help. Exercise again has shown to help decrease nausea for at least a few hours after the exercise. Got plans in the afternoon or evening? Have a meeting in the morning? Grab crackers, electrolytes and a walk will help you get through those plans without having to be sick at least for those few hours. 80 oz. is the recommendation of water.
Eating every few hours can help keep nausea at bay. Protein and carbs tend to help nausea and high fat foods can upset the stomach more. Find foods that sound good and have the most nutrients in them!. Some foods that helped my stomach do great are raspberries and watermelon. Crackers, ginger, lemon, and peppermint can be your friend! If tips not working, to prevent dehydration make sure to have a glucose base electrolyte drink!
Life Tip 3: Work With A Dietitian
I am not just saying this because I am one (well, maybe a little ;)) but because I wish I had more than 15 minutes with my doctor or, at the time, WIC dietitian to help me more with individualized care, tips, and accountability. Motivating myself to work out while pregnant did not happen, and I think it is incredibly hard without someone giving tips and accountability. There was not enough time with them to provide me with trimester nutrition advice, supplementing advice, and they were not qualified to provide me with any exercise plans (specialty certified personal trainers can).
Dietitians are qualified to give you individualized medical nutrition therapy, which means they can also help with any conditions pregnant women may encounter, like hyperemesis gravidarum, thyroid disease in pregnancy, anemia, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia, and may even help prevent them! Working with a dietitian will give the best health for the mom's body and the babies before pregnancy, throughout each trimester, and post-pregnancy.
Life Tip 4: Don't Worry
Do your best and don't worry about the rest. Yep, you can tell I am a mom just with that phase and I personally had to work on this when it came around pregnancies. I want to make it clear doing these things is to help make the best scenario possible for a life that is supposed to come into this world; however, know that miscarriages or developmental conditions happen no matter what we do, and worrying is not going to help and can increase stress which we don't want in pregnancy. Know you did all is was possible with the knowledge you have and let God have the rest.
If you have experience miscarriage in the past, I am sorry to hear, I understand the hurt and pain when life did not stay alive in me. With children with health conditions and a history of miscarriages myself, I am passionate about helping others bring life into this world in the best way possible. I won't go into my story more right now, but I will soon in a different blog post. There is so much more I can write about this topic however, a wise person told me we could bring life in all kinds of situations and not just physically. I hope you can be a light and bring life this spring in whatever way you are called to, and if you need help with bringing a human life into this world, I'm your girl to help you be well.
Love-💕 Bea Well
Citations
Madsen M, Jørgensen T, Jensen ML, et al. Leisure time physical exercise during pregnancy and the risk of miscarriage: a study within the Danish National Birth Cohort. BJOG. 2007;114(11):1419-1426. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0528.2007.01496.x
Newton, E. R., & May, L. (2017). Adaptation of maternal-fetal physiology to exercise in pregnancy: The basis of guidelines for physical activity in pregnancy. Clinical Medicine Insights: Women's Health, 10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1179562x17693224
Sanabria-Martínez, G., García-Hermoso, A., Poyatos-León, R., Álvarez-Bueno, C., Sánchez-López, M., & Martínez-Vizcaíno, V. (2015). Effectiveness of physical activity interventions on preventing gestational diabetes mellitus and excessive maternal weight gain: A meta-analysis. BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, 122(9), 1167–1174. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.13429
Santo, E. C., Forbes, P. W., Oken, E., & Belfort, M. B. (2017). Determinants of physical activity frequency and provider advice during pregnancy. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12884-017-1460-z
