exercise

Active Pregnancy — the rationale

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Moving into Motherhood

It’s time to hit the main theme again:  Aer­o­bi­cal­ly fit women are at reduced risk for things that go wrong in preg­nan­cy, improve their tol­er­ance for labor and birth, and recov­er more rapid­ly in the post­par­tum peri­od.

Mov­ing into Moth­er­hood

The arrival of the hol­i­days pro­vides a good rea­son to bring this up, yet again! Preg­nan­cy is a gate­way time in women’s lives…we become more aware of our bod­ies, our sen­sa­tions, our feel­ings, our needs, and how ver­sa­tile and amaz­ing our bod­ies are. We can make peo­ple with our bod­ies! Dur­ing preg­nan­cy, we often take precautions…we eat more care­ful­ly, avoid tox­ins, try to avoid stress. When the hol­i­days arrive, we see indul­gent behav­ior in a dif­fer­ent light.

Yet, even with all this focus on behav­ior, we some­times miss the biggest aid to a healthy preg­nan­cy:  phys­i­cal fit­ness. Research clear­ly demon­strates that fit women do bet­ter, are health­i­er and hap­pi­er. More and more in the U.S. we see dis­or­ders of nor­mal organ func­tion that accom­pa­ny seden­tary preg­nan­cy.

Let’s look at this a lit­tle clos­er (yes, I am going to repeat myself some more, but it is an impor­tant con­cept to spread). We live in a body mod­el that rewards an active lifestyle.

Being sedentary causes things to go wrong

Not mov­ing cre­ates bio­chem­i­cal imbal­ances because the car­dio­vas­cu­lar sys­tem atro­phies and mol­e­cules cre­at­ed in the brain or brought in through the diges­tion may not get where they need to go for a healthy metab­o­lism.

Your car­dio­vas­cu­la­ture is the high­way that brings usable sub­stances to the place they are used. You have to help it grow and devel­op, use it to pump things around and give it a chance to be healthy. Aer­o­bic fit­ness does all these things.

Advice for young women of childbearing age

If you are think­ing of preg­nan­cy, have recent­ly become preg­nant, or work with women of child­bear­ing age, we encour­age you to open avenues of activ­i­ty for your­self or oth­ers in this pop­u­la­tion. You can learn more from our blog dancingthrupregnancy.wordpress.com. You can seek out local pre/postnatal fit­ness experts on this site. Yoga is nice…we use some of it in our work, along oth­er spe­cif­ic exer­cis­es for which there is a direct health ben­e­fit. But, we also see yoga con­verts who come into our pro­gram in mid preg­nan­cy unable to breathe after walk­ing up a flight of stairs. How will they do in labor? Not as well as those who have been doing aer­o­bic dance or an ellip­ti­cal machine 2 or 3 times a week.

The AHA/ACSM guide­lines for the amount of aer­o­bic exer­cise need­ed to improve car­dio­vas­cu­lar sta­tus hold true for preg­nant women just as they do for the rest of the pop­u­la­tion – a min­i­mum of 150 min­utes of mod­er­ate, or 75 min­utes of vig­or­ous, or a com­bi­na­tion of these lev­els of inten­si­ty, per week. If you are not get­ting this lev­el of activ­i­ty, you are putting your health – and that of your off­spring – at risk.

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Value of Postpartum Fitness

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Here are two important facts regarding physical activity following birth:

1. Women who return to vig­or­ous (vig­or­ous, as in jog­ging or aer­o­bic dance) pri­or to six weeks post­par­tum…

  • have less weight to lose
  • expe­ri­ence a more joy­ful state of mind
  • do bet­ter on the Led­er­man Mater­nal Adap­ta­tion scales (how well they adapt to moth­er­hood)

…than women who are seden­tary dur­ing this peri­od (Sampselle, 1999…this is not new infor­ma­tion)

2. Post­par­tum obe­si­ty is a dan­ger­ous short and long term health risk (Led­dy, 2008).

Who should exercise and when, following birth?

Day 1: If you have a vagi­nal birth, begin your “body scan” the first chance you get. With­in the first day, the first chance you get to focus on your­self, take a men­tal trip through your body. See if you can squeeze the kegel mus­cles. Try exhal­ing and suck­ing in your deep abdom­i­nal mus­cles. Note if your shoul­ders need to relax. Take some deep breathes and begin to help your body recov­er.

If you had a cesare­an: Wait a few days to 2 weeks at most to work on this.

After that: As soon as you can, get up and walk around. Start walk­ing in 5 or 10 minute strolls sev­er­al times a day (ask some­one to hold or watch baby so you can allow your body to recov­er a non-preg­nant upright). If you had a cesare­an, hold a pil­low to your abdomen until you have con­trol of your abdom­i­nal mus­cles and stand tall.

How can you get more information on this?

Go to our web­site:

https://dancingthrupregnancy.com/take-a-class/postpartum-exercise/

Find a class. If you had a typ­i­cal birth and your baby has been slow­ly and safe­ly exposed to new peo­ple, by four to six weeks you and baby should be ready for a struc­tured activ­i­ty ses­sion that includes baby. It will also pro­vide focus and adult inter­ac­tion dur­ing the week.

You have to teach your abdomen to be flat.
How do you know if you did too much?

Your lochia, or the bleeding/discharge from the pla­cen­tal site, will increase if you have been too vig­or­ous. If you are healthy and have no ane­mia issues, your lochia will like­ly cease by three to four weeks, six at most.

What are safety issues?

Don’t exer­cise if you have a fever, a warm red spot on your leg that may be painful (or not), or sore nip­ples that need atten­tion. Call your care provider. If you or your baby are sick, it is best not to go into a group set­ting. If your baby is not well or just doesn’t seem right, call your pedi­a­tri­cian.

The most important reason to join a mom-baby fitness program may be that it will help keep you sane.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Birth Mode

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The Sec­ond Stage of Birth is dif­fer­ent from the First Stage. The actu­al expul­sion of the baby requires a change in ener­gy axis. Dur­ing dila­tion (first stage), oxy­tocin is most eas­i­ly released from the pitu­itary gland dur­ing relax­ation (see pre­vi­ous post), but dur­ing tran­si­tion, a change occurs so that the ergotrop­ic response takes over and adren­a­line is key in help­ing oxy­tocin to spike.

What does this mean as far as prepa­ra­tion is con­cerned? While it is impor­tant to learn to relax or main­tain posi­tions such as one does in yoga, the abil­i­ty to sprint, or turn on an aggres­sive action at the end, is crit­i­cal. You need  good aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing. Begin exer­cise with easy breath­ing and move­ment, then prac­tice aer­o­bic endurance and pow­er moves at the end of your work­out! Fin­ish up with cool down and stretch­ing.

The con­trac­tions them­selves change. They remain intense for a longer stretch, but the time between them increas­es. Push­ing involves not only the uterus con­tract­ing, but the pres­sure exert­ed by the trans­verse abdom­i­nal (TrA) mus­cle. Sim­i­lar to squeez­ing a tube of tooth­paste, TrA pres­sure helps press the baby toward the exit — yes, that is the vagi­nal open­ing. If the labor­ing moth­er is not able to apply ade­quate pres­sure, labor assis­tants some­times apply pres­sure man­u­al­ly to the top of the uterus or — if need be — for­ceps or a vac­u­um extrac­tion may be nec­es­sary.

How can a mom best pre­pare so that the TrA can pro­vide the need­ed pres­sure? Strength train­ing the TrA! Like any oth­er motion requir­ing pow­er strength, this mus­cle can be strength­ened to do its job! Here’s how:

pic­ture 1:  sit upright, inhale

pic­ture 2:  exhale, com­press abdomen and curl down

Return to upright and repeat 8 times. Rest. Repeat 8 more times.

What if some­thing goes awry? Cesare­an, or sur­gi­cal birth is an alter­na­tive. Major com­pli­ca­tions before labor include a pla­cen­ta pre­via, infec­tion or unde­liv­er­able breech posi­tion. Dur­ing labor, the most com­mon prob­lem is dys­to­cia — stalled progress through dila­tion (first stage) or push­ing (sec­ond stage). In the push­ing stage, head to large for pelvis is the most com­mon dif­fi­cul­ty.

What hap­pens next? If the birth is nat­ur­al, you will feel a tremen­dous eupho­ria. Bring the baby right up onto your chest for skin-to-skin con­tact. If you have had med­ica­tions, your response may be slight­ly blunt­ed, but you will def­i­nite­ly be over­whelmed by the emo­tions of birth.

Third Stage is expul­sion of the pla­cen­ta, which can no long remain con­nect­ed to the shrink­ing uterus. When it detach­es, the nurs­es or mid­wives will ask you to push and !plop! out it comes. It can be inter­est­ing to see what has nour­ished your baby for so long!

CONGRATULATIONS!  YOU’RE A MOM!

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Labor

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The First Stage of Child­birth is the long, hard labor. It is the slow process that pro­duces dila­tion, or open­ing, of the cervix — the “neck” or out­let at the bot­tom of the uterus. Once the baby’s head can fit through the open cervix, it is time for the Sec­ond Stage, but that is anoth­er top­ic for anoth­er post.

Labor is generally a long, slow process...there is no "enter" button for dilation!

Labor is gen­er­al­ly a long, slow process…there is no “enter” but­ton for dila­tion!

Before the baby can leave the moth­er’s body, s/he must leave the uterus. The open­ing of the cervix to let the baby out of the uterus gen­er­al­ly takes up the most time. For a first time mom it can be 10 or 12 hours…or, yes, a cou­ple of days. Of course, for some moms, this time is dif­fi­cult and for oth­ers it only becomes dif­fi­cult in the last few hours.

But, you know all this, right? What you want to know is:  Why do I have to go through this? And, if I must, how can I make it the least painful?

Why labor is impor­tant. Let’s go to anoth­er ques­tion:  How impor­tant would your off­spring be if it was no big deal to drop one out? If you were walk­ing along the side­walk and you could sim­ply drop a new­born on the pave­ment, would you even stop to pick it up if you could do it again in a few days, when, of course, it will be much more con­ve­nient?

Frankly, preg­nan­cy and labor remind us to pay atten­tion. A new­born can­not sur­vive on its own for at least two years. If we don’t pay atten­tion, it will die.

Okay, now that labor has your atten­tion, what else does it do that is ben­e­fi­cial? It stim­u­lates the baby’s stress response and teach­es the new­born to be alert dur­ing sit­u­a­tions of duress. Each con­trac­tion is pulling the cervix, help­ing it slow­ly open. If you are upright, each con­trac­tion is also alert­ing the baby to the influ­ence of grav­i­ty.

Why is labor painful? So, you need to go through this because it is the bridge from preg­nan­cy to par­ent­hood. Why does it have to be painful?

The first thing to keep in mind about pain is that pain is a com­bi­na­tion of sen­sa­tions and emo­tion, main­ly fear. Fear makes you tense; ten­sion reduces blood flow. Reduced blood flow to the uterus makes the con­trac­tions less effec­tive. In addi­tion, cor­ti­sol is released, mak­ing sen­sa­tions stronger and evok­ing greater fear.

Fear is the emo­tion of fight or flight. Inter­est­ing­ly, the oppo­site response, the relax­ation response, is very effec­tive in pro­mot­ing labor. So, relax. Breathe deeply and slow­ly, focus, move through the cen­ter of your expe­ri­ence. You don’t have to be in fear if you know what is hap­pen­ing and if you are phys­i­cal­ly fit and pre­pared. Both child­birth edu­ca­tion and phys­i­cal fit­ness teach your body to work with dis­com­fort. By includ­ing them in your prepa­ra­tion, you give your­self a tremen­dous advan­tage.

Does this mean you will nev­er feel like you want to stop in the mid­dle of labor? No, but it does mean you can do it. It is finite. The notion that the baby will not do well is also tied to your phys­i­cal fit­ness…babies of fit moth­ers less often expe­ri­ence fetal dis­tress. Your care providers will let you know if there is some fac­tor beyond your con­trol that requires med­ical inter­ven­tion.

Birth is an empow­er­ing event. But, before the baby can be born, it must escape the uterus. It is a clas­sic con­flict and the moth­er’s body is the venue. Give your­self over; go with it. Only women can do this.

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Pregnancy Pathway — Exercise cont’d

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MORE?!! You did­n’t think that was it? Only a few com­ments on evi­dence as to WHY mov­ing around, burn­ing calo­ries, being strong and learn­ing to relax while preg­nant is ben­e­fi­cial? No, of course not. You know there is more to it, like WHAT move­ment is safe and effec­tive dur­ing preg­nan­cy?

So, what is safe? Well, first, unless you have a very few con­di­tions that your health care provider con­sid­ers unsafe, every woman — fit, cur­rent­ly seden­tary, young or a lit­tle old­er — can exer­cise safe­ly in preg­nan­cy. How much of what kind depends on your fit­ness lev­el and exer­cise his­to­ry. Get med­ical screen­ing first.

If you are fit, you can do vigorous exercise

If you are fit, you can do vig­or­ous exer­cise

If you are fit, you just need to learn how to mod­i­fy some move­ments to accom­mo­date your bio­me­chan­ics. As your body changes, stress on the joints and tis­sues means a lit­tle less jump­ing or bal­lis­tic motion will be more com­fort­able and safer. If you are fit, you can con­tin­ue with vig­or­ous exer­cise and it will be of ben­e­fit to you and your baby.

If you are not so fit or are seden­tary, find a cer­ti­fied pre/postnatal instruc­tor and join a group where you will have fun, get some guid­ance and be mon­i­tored for safe­ty. How do you find such a per­son? Try our Find A Class or Train­er page.

What is effec­tive? Don’t spend your time on things that may be nice to do but don’t help you focus and pre­pare for birth, relieve dis­com­forts or have the sta­mi­na for birth and par­ent­ing. There is sub­stan­tial sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence and infor­ma­tion from large sur­veys that these things are help­ful.

Car­dio­vas­cu­lar or aer­o­bic activ­i­ty is the most impor­tant activ­i­ty you can do. Already fit? Keep work­ing out; join a class if you want sup­port or new friends. If you are seden­tary or some­what active, you can improve your fit­ness by doing at least 20 — 30 min­utes of aer­o­bic activ­i­ty 3 times a week. Work at a mod­er­ate pace — some­what hard to hard — so that you can talk, but not sing an aria! If you are more than 26 weeks and have not been doing car­dio, you can walk at a com­fort­able pace. Aer­o­bics is key because it gives you endurance to tol­er­ate labor and pro­motes recov­ery.

Strength and flex­i­bil­i­ty exer­cis­es that do not hurt and are done cor­rect­ly are also safe. There are some spe­cial preg­nan­cy exer­cis­es that actu­al­ly help you pre­pare for birth. Essen­tial exer­cis­es that aid your com­fort, align­ment and birth prepa­ra­tion include:

• Kegels (squeez­ing and relax­ing pelvic floor mus­cles) — squeez­ing strength­ens them and thus sup­ports the con­tents of the abdomen, and learn­ing to release these mus­cles is nec­es­sary for push­ing and birth.

• Abdom­i­nal hiss/compress and C‑Curve® - con­tract­ing the trans­verse abdom­i­nal mus­cles reduces low back dis­com­fort and strength­ens the mus­cle used to push and lat­er to recov­er abdom­i­nal integri­ty after birth.

Squatting

Squat­ting

• Squat­ting — get­ting into this posi­tion strength­ens the entire leg in a deeply flexed posi­tion; start seat­ed and use arms for sup­port, sta­bil­i­ty and safe­ty. Leg strength improves mobil­i­ty and com­fort in preg­nan­cy and post­par­tum; plus, deep flex­ion is a com­po­nent of push­ing in almost all posi­tions.

• Strength­en­ing for bio­me­chan­i­cal safe­ty — strength­en­ing some parts of the body helps pre­vent injury to bone sur­faces, nerves and blood ves­sels with­in joints re-aligned in preg­nan­cy. This can be done using resis­tance rep­e­ti­tions (weights, bands, cal­is­then­tics or pilates) or iso­met­rics (yoga or bal­let). A respon­si­ble class will focus on upper back (row­ing), push-ups, abdom­i­nals, gluteals, ham­strings, and mus­cles of the low­er leg.

• Stretch­ing of areas that tend to get tight — reliev­ing some dis­com­forts through flex­i­bil­i­ty helps you main­tain a full range of motion. Sta­t­ic stretch­es, used in com­bi­na­tion with strength exer­cis­es or fol­low­ing aer­o­bics, is most effec­tive. Stretch­ing pri­or to exer­cise tends to pro­duce more injuries than not stretch­ing. Areas need­ing stretch­ing include the chest, low back, ham­strings and hip flex­ors (psoas).

Mind/Body skills are very impor­tant. There are two activ­i­ties that exer­cis­ers con­stant­ly tell us are a big help in preg­nan­cy, birth and par­ent­ing.

• Cen­ter­ing employs a bal­anced or neu­tral pos­ture, deep breath­ing and mind­ful­ness to help you work in a relaxed way. Ath­letes and dancers call this “the zone.” Start­ing your work­out in asso­ci­a­tion with your body estab­lish­es econ­o­my of motion, some­thing very use­ful in birth and par­ent­ing, and reduces risk of injury.

• Relax­ation is anoth­er key activ­i­ty; it relieves stress, pro­motes labor in the ear­ly stages and helps you enter the zone!

Remem­ber: Birth is a Motor Skill™

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Pregnancy Pathway — Exercise

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How lucky is this? Just a few days ago, yet anoth­er study was released and has been cir­cu­lat­ing on Med­scape and oth­er med­ical sites that indi­cates exer­cise is ben­e­fi­cial in preg­nan­cy, whether the moth­er is a pre­vi­ous exer­cis­er or not. Just in time for this entry!

Behavior Affects Pregnancy Outcome

Behav­ior Affects Preg­nan­cy Out­come

Phys­i­cal exer­tion (we call it “exer­cise” nowa­days) is a nor­mal state for healthy humans. Only in the last cen­tu­ry has the desire to rest or the need to store extra calo­ries as fat become more pos­si­ble to achieve than our need to move about to sur­vive.

Preg­nan­cy is a state in which both of these fac­tors (rest­ing and stor­ing calo­ries) are enhanced through organ­ic changes in body chem­istry, adap­ta­tions that favor fetal sur­vival. The cur­rent seden­tary lifestyle exag­ger­ates these meta­bol­ic changes and results in syn­dromes that increase the risk for a num­ber of meta­bol­ic, car­dio­vas­cu­lar and immuno­log­i­cal dis­or­ders of preg­nan­cy.

When con­front­ed by the idea that it is coun­ter­in­tu­itive to think exer­cise in preg­nan­cy might be safe (let alone ben­e­fi­cial) I am dumb­found­ed. To me, it is coun­ter­in­tu­itive to think that a seden­tary lifestyle in preg­nan­cy might be safe!

Burning Calories in Pregnancy Improves Outcomes!

Burn­ing Calo­ries in Preg­nan­cy Improves Out­comes!

What is the evi­dence that exer­cise in preg­nan­cy is ben­e­fi­cial? Keep in mind that some stud­ies have been exe­cut­ed more expert­ly than oth­ers. But, what is com­pelling is that numer­ous well-respect­ed researchers have sought to test the hypoth­e­sis that exer­cise is not safe, but come away with results that indi­cate the oppo­site!

Here are some of the major find­ings:

• The pla­cen­ta is larg­er and has more trans­port sur­face in exer­cis­ers than seden­tary women

• The fetus­es of (aer­o­bic) exer­cis­ing moth­ers make ben­e­fi­cial car­dio­vas­cu­lar adap­ta­tions

• Women who do aer­o­bic exer­cise are less like­ly to devel­op severe preeclamp­sia or ges­ta­tion­al dia­betes, and the long term health prob­lems that accom­pa­ny these dis­or­ders

• Women who are aer­o­bi­cal­ly fit recov­er from birth 10 times faster than seden­tary women (as mea­sured by time need­ed to metab­o­lize free rad­i­cals pro­duced in labor)

• Women who exer­cise in preg­nan­cy are more like­ly to be phys­i­cal­ly fit in midlife

• Babies of aer­o­bi­cal­ly fit women are at reduced risk for pre­ma­tu­ri­ty and low birth weight
DTP_mover2
So, we have arrived at the take-home mes­sage: MOVE!! Preg­nan­cy works best when you move and burn calo­ries in a mod­er­ate to vig­or­ous fash­ion. But, alter­nate this activ­i­ty with rest and good nutri­tion, and be sure to stay well hydrat­ed.
If you want more specifics and resources on this top­ic, try these:
“Women and Exer­cise” in Var­ney’s Mid­wifery.
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Rant: Health Care Reform/Pregnancy

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Since Health Care Reform is a hot top­ic, let’s look at it from the per­spec­tive of preg­nan­cy and birth.

What revi­sions would most ben­e­fit preg­nant women, their off­spring, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties?

1. Reward healthy behav­iors. A sys­tem that pro­vides reduced pre­mi­ums for health care for women who exer­cise, eat well, do not smoke and are in a nor­mal weight range is evi­dence-based.

Yes! We could pro­vide finan­cial incen­tives for being healthy dur­ing preg­nan­cy. Why? Healthy moms have healthy babies; healthy babies cost the pay­er less mon­ey.

2. Review best prac­tices. Is a 40 or 50% cesare­an rate the best prac­tice?  Accom­pa­ny­ing the rise in cesare­an births is grow­ing infor­ma­tion that babies born by cesare­an are at increased risk for a num­ber of immune dis­or­ders. But the busi­ness mod­el of med­i­cine rewards cesare­an because it both pays the provider more and is defen­sive med­ical prac­tice.

Fetal mon­i­tor­ing to deter­mine if a cesare­an may be nec­es­sary, is wrong 3/4 of the time. In an effort to change this, guide­lines are chang­ing for the use of mon­i­tors dur­ing labor. What is the evi­dence that this change of prac­tice is ben­e­fi­cial? Will it lead to more or less mon­i­tor­ing, which may itself be an inter­ven­tion that can dis­rupt nor­mal labor?

3. Change the busi­ness mod­el for health care. When we make finan­cial incen­tives for care providers, base them on best prac­tice, not on enrich­ing the mid­dle man. Cur­rent­ly the pay­ers (insur­ance com­pa­nies) are mid­dle men, mak­ing mon­ey (i.e., con­duct­ing busi­ness) by charg­ing fees. They ration pay­ments for ser­vices in order to pay their own salaries and over­head. They do not actu­al­ly do any­thing pro­duc­tive. This is why sin­gle pay­er, gov­ern­ment, and health care coop options have been pro­posed. They elim­i­nate most of the cum­ber­some mid­dle lay­er.

Why does insur­ance pay for cesare­ans? Well, they will do it once. After all, the care providers have to prac­tice defen­sive med­i­cine. But, once you have a cesare­an, you become a risk for the insur­ance com­pa­ny (they know what the research says about cesare­ans and off­spring health prob­lems) and may be denied insur­ance. They can no longer afford you.

Because care providers are paid fee for ser­vice and must prac­tice defen­sive med­i­cine, preg­nan­cy and birth have become increas­ing­ly bur­dened with inter­ven­ing pro­ce­dures that do not nec­es­sar­i­ly pro­mote a healthy preg­nan­cy or birth process. How is this play­ing out? Increas­ing­ly, we see women giv­ing birth in what they per­ceive as a more sup­port­ive and health-induc­ing set­ting:  their own homes. Think of it this way:  many women now believe that it is safer to stay home than go to a hos­pi­tal to give birth.

Unless health care becomes about best prac­tices and healthy out­comes — not price, size, and get­ting paid for pass­ing mon­ey back and forth — the U.S. will con­tin­ue to have some of the worst maternal/infant out­comes in the devel­oped world.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Pregnancy

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Time for an entre: Preg­nan­cy!!

Up for dis­cus­sion…

Health Influences in Pregnancy

Health Influ­ences in Preg­nan­cy

Let’s start at the begin­ning…in the first trimester you feel sick and tired, right? Three things:

1) your immune sys­tem is pro-inflam­ma­to­ry (caus­ing nau­sea and fatigue), 2) your body is pro­tect­ing your fetus from some tox­ins (if you eat some­thing not so great for the fetus, you throw up), and 3) you have extreme swings in blood sug­ar lev­els so that after you eat, the lev­el soars and you feel sick.

Num­ber 3 can be fixed with behav­ior, but you may have to wait out 1 & 2. To fix num­ber 3 eat very small meals fre­quent­ly (6 or 8 times a day) and be sure to eat pro­tein, that is, eggs, meat, fish, fowl, cheese, nuts, rice & beans, soy, etc. with each small meal. This sta­bi­lizes blood sug­ar and pre­vents dra­mat­ic ele­va­tions that can cause nau­sea.

In most healthy preg­nan­cies, the immune sys­tem will rebound in the sec­ond trimester so that you feel good; it is pro­tect­ing you again!  But, those wicked tox­ins and infec­tions are still out there in the envi­ron­ment, so the mes­sage is beware bad air (smog, smok­ing, indus­tri­al air pol­lu­tion), high­ly processed foods (lunch­meats, things with names you can’t pro­nounce), any drugs or meds not pre­scribed or okayed by your ob or mid­wife, alco­hol, and dan­ger­ous bac­te­ria, virus­es and oth­er microbes!

Exer­cise wisely…no sky-div­ing or scu­ba div­ing! Eat healthy food and get enough sleep. De-stress through relax­ation and med­i­ta­tive tech­niques. Don’t take risks with your health, but do stay active and start to pre­pare for birth and bring­ing home a baby (or two?).

Third trimester & the immune sys­tem goes on the fritz again — can’t keep this baby in here for­ev­er; must expel! You may feel sick and tired again. BUT, keep your pre­na­tal care appoint­ments, keep mov­ing, get good nutri­tion, rest and stay focused. Before you know it the real work begins, not to men­tion the 18 years of sleep depri­va­tion.

Get­ting from here…

Being Fully Present in Your Pregnancy...

Being Ful­ly Present in Your Preg­nan­cy…

…to here..

Being Fully Present as Mom

Being Ful­ly Present as Mom.

…is a jour­ney like no oth­er. The adap­ta­tions of your body to the demands of preg­nan­cy are amaz­ing. If you pay atten­tion, you will learn more about the mean­ing of exis­tence from this than from any­thing else.

BE HERE NOW!!

Sign up for this Blog (top tool­bar, click blog info and sub­scribe)!! Learn from our more than 30 years of help­ing make healthy moms & healthy babies.

Vis­it our web­site:  www.dancingthrupregnancy.com

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Pregnancy Pathway, Conception — Review & Small Rant!

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REVIEW: Evi­dence is clear - pre-preg­nan­cy mater­nal health sta­tus, includ­ing phys­i­cal fit­ness, healthy nutri­tion and an uncom­pro­mised immune sys­tem affect the health and well-being of both moth­er and off­spring, in both short and long term.

This is the mes­sage sum­ma­ry from our first two areas of dis­cus­sion:  Pre­con­di­tions and Con­cep­tion — the green and sand col­ored sec­tions on the chart below.

pregnancy_pathway

COMING ATTRACTIONS: We are about to move on to the blue sec­tion — Preg­nan­cy!!  So, book­mark this Blog for future ref­er­ence!

Also, you can sub­scribe to this Blog by click­ing on Blog Info in the upper right cor­ner and then click­ing on Sub­scribe in the drop down menu.

But, yes, you guessed it, first we have a small rant!

SMALL RANT: When we note that fit­ness, nutri­tion and a healthy immune sys­tem play sig­nif­i­cant roles in the out­come of preg­nan­cy and the future health of moth­er and child, we are appeal­ing to young peo­ple of child­bear­ing age to be care­ful about your bod­ies. The alliance of egg and sperm shapes the world. With 6.5 Bil­lion egg/sperm com­bi­na­tions (yes, peo­ple) present­ly liv­ing on earth, our resources are stretched. With time, either we get more picky about doing this, or the 3rd rock from the sun (remem­ber that show?) is cooked.

Humor­ous incur­sion: In case you need fur­ther enlight­en­ment on this whole area, there is a great web­site that will help you out. Be pre­pared to be amused and amazed!

The Truth about Eggs and Sperm

Hope­ful­ly, this gets you in the right mood and keeps you smil­ing. After all, once you actu­al­ly are preg­nant, we have more seri­ous mat­ters to dis­cuss.

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