HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

My son’s first East­er cel­e­bra­tions - he was in-utero. Feel­ings of glee­ful an­tic­i­pa­tion were mixed with that of ap­pre­hen­sion, I was over­joyed to join my fam­i­ly and friends in com­mem­o­rat­ing East­er, but anx­ious, as I was break­ing my ‘re­stric­tions of bed rest’ in ven­tur­ing out while be­ing preg­nant, not dur­ing COVID-19, but nine years ago.

Yes, con­fined to bed rest for this pre­cious preg­nan­cy. I re­mem­ber analysing and thought, “Bedrest...It felt like jail.” How­ev­er, a ques­tion posed to me dur­ing that time that placed per­spec­tive on it all was, “Which in­cu­ba­tor, do you pre­fer, your­self or the NICU?” I was placed on “bedrest” be­cause of com­pli­ca­tions with­in the preg­nan­cy and this was ac­tu­al­ly an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be “the best in­cu­ba­tor” pos­si­ble. I even learnt the most valu­able lessons that no text book or the pre­vi­ous years work­ing in the Neona­tal ICU could have taught me about preg­nan­cy.

And that’s what I’m go­ing to share with you to­day…

Nine tips to nine beau­ti­ful months

So, you’ve de­cid­ed to take the plunge in­to par­ent­hood. Hav­ing a ba­by is one of God’s great­est mir­a­cles, but hold on, wait a sec­ond, in fact wait even a month or more, to give your­self the best chance for a healthy preg­nan­cy and a healthy ba­by. As there are sev­er­al im­por­tant fac­tors to con­sid­er be­fore you are bumped in­to the jour­ney of par­ent­hood. You will have many choic­es be­fore you and your part­ner in this ex­cit­ing time and the more you both know, the more em­pow­ered you both be­come!

1. Check both your­selves out!

Since it takes two to do the re­pro­duc­tive tan­go, sched­ule a pre­con­cep­tion check­up for your­self and your part­ner with a qual­i­fied, ex­pe­ri­enced ob­ste­tri­cian. Dur­ing this ses­sion, ex­pect in depth ques­tions on your present health, any med­ica­tions or sup­ple­ments you’re us­ing, your fam­i­lies' health his­to­ries, past preg­nan­cy ex­pe­ri­ences and any oth­er in­for­ma­tion rel­e­vant to a preg­nan­cy.

It is vi­tal to know that cer­tain med­ica­tions and sup­ple­ments are un­safe dur­ing preg­nan­cy and some may need to be switched or even dis­con­tin­ued be­fore try­ing to con­ceive. Why? Be­cause they’re stored in your body’s fat cells and can linger there!

2. Folic acid is a MUST

Even be­fore the tan­go starts, Folic acid is nec­es­sary, at least one month be­fore con­cep­tion is what is rec­om­mend­ed. Ac­cord­ing to Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) - “by tak­ing 400mi­cro­grams(mcg) of folic acid, be­fore con­cep­tion and dur­ing the first trimester, one can great­ly re­duce the risk of hav­ing a ba­by with neur­al tube de­fects.” Would-be dads al­so should get folic acid, zinc and Vi­t­a­min C, nu­tri­ents that are vi­tal for op­ti­mal sperm pro­duc­tion and qual­i­ty.

3. Be pre­pared for the emo­tion­al swings

Some moth­ers say they swear an alien in­vad­ed their brain, heart and tum­my when they’re preg­nant! But that’s per­fect­ly ac­cept­able feel­ings dur­ing the dra­mat­ic mood swings of preg­nan­cy. Be­tween soar­ing hor­mone lev­els and the enor­mous phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al changes one goes through when preg­nant, it’s no won­der you may feel like sob­bing, laugh­ing or even for­get­ting your own name – and some­times all with­in a few min­utes!

Be com­fort­ed that this is nor­mal, who­ev­er said that preg­nan­cy was 24/7 bliss was nev­er preg­nant, so ac­cept that you will be hap­py some­times, stressed out or even sob­bing, but it has noth­ing to with how much you’ll LOVE your ba­by.

4. Eat well, NOT ‘Eat for two’

This is one of the biggest mis­con­cep­tions that re­quires myth-bust­ing.

There is no need to ‘eat for two’ when you’re preg­nant. Lat­est re­search sug­gests that a preg­nant mum­my on­ly re­quires 200-300 ex­tra calo­ries a day, more in the sec­ond and third trimester. In­clude a va­ri­ety of whole grains, fruits and veg­eta­bles every day, and re­duce your un­healthy-fat in­take, while boost­ing those foods rich in iron and cal­ci­um.

5. Does your oral health mat­ter?

Did you know that your den­tal health was im­por­tant to your preg­nan­cy?

In­deed it is, as Gum dis­ease is as­so­ci­at­ed with preterm de­liv­ery, so see a den­tist to make sure you're in good den­tal health be­fore get­ting preg­nant. If you need den­tal treat­ments, X-rays or med­ica­tions, take care of that be­fore you start your tan­go!

6. Stay hy­drat­ed

You will in­stinc­tu­al­ly in­crease your wa­ter in­take once you be­come preg­nant, but that does not mean you should not put in the ex­tra ef­fort too. Wa­ter has so many ben­e­fits, such as help­ing to en­er­gise your mus­cles and im­prov­ing cir­cu­la­tion, so al­ways keep a wa­ter bot­tle handy. That ba­by of yours will be danc­ing on your blad­der ei­ther way, you might as well give him/her a rea­son to!

7. Take a caf­feine detox

While there’s no con­sen­sus on ex­act­ly how much caf­feine is safe dur­ing preg­nan­cy, ex­perts agree that preg­nant women or those try­ing to con­ceive should avoid too much caf­feine, as it’s linked to in­creased risk of mis­car­riage. And what about dur­ing the preg­nan­cy? Max­i­mum con­sump­tion should be no more than 200mg/dy, just about the amount in one cup of cof­fee, de­pend­ing on the brew!

8. “Mom­ne­sia” tru­ly does ex­ist, be ready for the fa­tigue

It’s not clear what leads to the for­get­ful­ness and gen­er­al “mom­ne­sia" of preg­nan­cy brain. One pos­si­ble fac­tor is preg­nan­cy hor­mones. The big shifts in lev­els of oe­stro­gen and prog­es­terone, for ex­am­ple, can pro­duce a wide range of symp­toms dur­ing preg­nan­cy. An­oth­er con­di­tion that af­fects many preg­nant women - fa­tigue - which al­so con­tributes to fog­gy brains and faulty mem­o­ries. Be­ing aware and in­cor­po­rat­ing tech­niques to cope helps con­sid­er­ably. Mind­ful med­i­ta­tions and pre­na­tal yo­ga have shown sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits with “mom­ne­sia”.

9. Cop­ing with ‘bed rest’ re­stric­tions

I did not quite make it to the full nine months of preg­nan­cy, prob­a­bly be­cause my lit­tle one was in an un­ex­pect­ed rush to meet the world.

Sim­i­lar­ly, like bed rest, COVID-19 places sig­nif­i­cant re­stric­tions on a preg­nant moth­er, but all with good rea­son. If you have been placed on bed rest for your preg­nan­cy, keep in mind, it is not a death sen­tence but a nec­es­sary mea­sure for ex­tend­ing your preg­nan­cy to a safe point. Be as­sured that the anx­i­ety and the over­whelm­ing thoughts and feel­ings are ab­solute­ly nor­mal, how­ev­er, cre­at­ing mo­ments of calm with­in chaos is per­ti­nent to your peace of mind - be it: med­i­ta­tion, yo­ga, spend­ing time in na­ture or just qui­et mo­ments in the nurs­ery read­ing to your ba­by.

These nec­es­sary steps to care for your­self be­fore con­cep­tion and dur­ing preg­nan­cy, can make a dif­fer­ence at any point in time, even if you are just a few months from giv­ing birth or now de­cid­ing to be­come a par­ent.

Once the ba­by is de­liv­ered, trust me time will fly by! Till then savour every back ache, every bout of nau­sea, every Brax­ton Hicks con­trac­tion. Start with where you are at and fo­cus on what you can do, com­mit­ting to mak­ing the healthy choic­es for a healthy preg­nan­cy!