Preparing for pregnancy
Natural fertility support
Getting ready for the bump and the baby
Preparing for pregnancy includes all the good things about Preparing to Conceive, but with an emphasis on having a healthy pregnancy and a happy healthy full term baby.
From the very moment you conceive through to being born, your baby is responding to the environment in your womb. and adapting its genetic ‘blueprint’. accordingly.
So you can see how important it is that you provide the best possible ‘information’ for him or her in the form of nutrients, balanced hormones etc and keep your stress hormones low.
Eating well and establishing good sleep and exercise routines can help you be super-ready for 9 months of pregnancy and the trials of labour with enough energy to spare for those first demanding weeks of motherhood.
Some lifestyle adjustments can help you avoid premature birth or longer term health issues for both you and your baby, weight being top of the list.
This pre-pregnancy period is a really great time to establish habits that will see you and your baby in good stead for the rest of your lives.
Editing your pre-pregnancy weight
In the run-up to pregnancy you really should aim to get your BMI as near to the normal range as possible. Being overweight can affect your chances of conceiving easily and having a problem free full term pregnancy..
A BMI (Body Mass Index) over 25 can put you in a risk group for pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes. You are also more likely to have a pre-term or post term baby and potentially have a difficult labour or require a cesarian section.
If you need to lose weight, a three month pre-pregnancy period is the ideal time to address it, slowly and without starving yourself. You need to be eating intelligently and healthily so you get pregnant easily and provide nourishment for your baby through the next nine months.
Once you are pregnant you shouldn’t really try to lose weight without expert guidance and overweight women are recommended to eat the same 1600 calories a day as normal weight women.
Studies have shown that losing as little as 5% of your body weight can significantly increase your chance of getting pregnant.
If you are under-weight – i.e. your BMI is less than 18.5 you might find it takes you longer than average to conceive. Like over weight women too, you are in a risk group for premature birth and a low birth weight baby.
Whether you are over or under weight, it’s really important that you eat a nutritious and well balanced idet that will provide all the building blocks for growing your baby.
I am not an expert in weight loss or weight gain diets – you should talk to your doctor about that -, but I do guide people in the traditional Chinese approach to eating, which is an almost effortless way of eating a nourishing diet and which most people find easy to work with.
Getting fit for pregnancy
Developing an exercise routine before you become pregnant is likely to have a really positive effect on your experience of pregnancy and on you and your baby’s health for ever.
It doesn’t have to be vigorous. Indeed there are studies that show that exercising to the point of exhaustion can have a negative effect on fertility. Though this will probably revert to normal if you change to a more moderate routine, .
Moderate pre-pregnancy exercise is associated with positive pregnancy outcomes including fewer pregnancy pains, helping reduce stress levels (see below) improving metabolism and keeping blood sugar stable.
You should aim for about 30 minutes of gentle exercise, such as walking, or as much as you can manage. If you’re not used to exercise don’t suddenly go for broke -you need to build up slowly.
I am not a personal trainer or an exercise guru, but I do teach my patients how to do some of the traditional Chinese exercise routines.
These slow and beautiful exercises combine loosening and strengthening joints and muscles with breathing techniques and a meditative mind set. Qi gong also fosters physical flexibility and a kind of spiritual acceptance.
All of these effects can be really helpful over the 9 months of pregnancy and especially during labour. Getting used to breathing techniques provide a natural basis for the breathing you will learn in your pre-natal classes
Here’s a link to an exercise infographic from RCOG (Royal College of Obs & Gyn)
Eating for pregnancy
Much of your baby’s essential development occurs in the first few weeks after conception so it’s best to be well nourished before you become pregnant.
Whether your own nutrient levels are adequate or not, your baby will take what it needs from you. Amongst other things, he or she needs iron to build blood, calcium to build bone and folic acid and vitamin B12 for neural tube development and DNA reproduction..
Your baby’s developing brain also requires iron, DHA (from fish oil) and iodine, so making sure your diet provides enough in those early days is important.
In the West, intake of DHA (from fish oil) iron, iodine, calcium, folic acid and vitamin D are quite often low.
If your iron levels are low you lay yourself (and your baby) open to iron deficiency anemia, if your calcium levels are low your baby will effectively draw calcium from your own bones to develop theirs, laying you open to osteoporosis later in life.
So a nutritious diet is important for both you and your baby. If you have always eaten well, according to the NHS apart from recommended 400 mg of folic acid for safety’s sake, you probably don’t need a pregnancy supplement. If you’re worried, visit a reputable website such as Tommy’s or talk to your doctor..
I’m not a dietitian so don’t work with specialist diets. Rather, I use the Chinese dietary approach to help people devise healthy, nutritionally sound eating plans that work with their lifestyle. If a Chinese diagnosis shows that you have an energetic imbalance, the energetics of food can be used to help sort it out.
Stress management
Life can be really quite stressful. We might say, casually, that we’re a bit stressed out, but just accept it as inevitable.
Beyond a certain point, of course, it really isn’t very good for us. It can drain our energy, interfere with sleep and our immune system, give us headaches and palpitations and upset our digestive systems. As if that weren’t enough, it can also interfere with easy conception.
Ongoing research has also learned just how bad it can be for your developing baby. Stress raises your cortisol levels. This can interfere with blood flow to the fetus, which reduces the supply of both oxygen and nutrients to the fetus and can be associated with pre-term birth and low birth weight.
Learning stress management techniques in the pre-pregnancy period is a great gift both to yourself and your future baby.
Meditation, visualisation, breathing and sensory techniques, and qi gong or yoga,are all things you can incorporate into your everyday life.
Acupuncture is also really amazing for stress reduction.
Starting a stress management habit before you conceive, will pay dividends in pregnancy and help you cope with any complications or worries.
Please get in touch if you’d like to find out if I can help you with any of these issues.
