Posts Tagged ‘Important’

During pregnancy, many women are unable to decide whether they should do pregnancy exercises or not. They are not sure whether they should exercise at all or exercise in moderation. They also want to know the benefits pregnancy exercises give to them and their unborn baby. In general, there are innumerable benefits of exercise during pregnancy. Exercise not only keep you fit but also affect the development of your baby. Apart from exercise, you can practice yoga and meditation. Before you start with exercise, it will be better if you consult your doctor to ignore any discomfort in the future.

Generally, all pregnancy women can do pregnancy exercises albeit with moderation. These pregnancy exercises help in many ways as you progress in your pregnancy week by week. However it is always advisable to consult your physician, before you start.

Pregnancy Exercises – Types And Benefits

Some of the pregnancy exercises that you can do are walking, swimming, and yoga. Although, there are other forms of exercises also which can be undertaken, you should not indulge in strenuous workouts. In general, pregnant women are advised to exercise 3-4 times a week.

There are various benefits of undertaking pregnancy exercises. First and foremost it reduces the labor time as well as speeds up the recovery time. It also helps in building up of stamina, which helps during childbirth.

Moreover, pregnancy exercises are good and helpful in shedding the extra flab, once the child is born. They also help to keep stress at bay and decrease the risk of a premature birth by at least 50%. In a nutshell we can say that exercising is good for pregnancy health.

Take Care!

While exercising, it is very important that you remain well hydrated. So take care and drink up plenty of fluids before exercising, take a well balanced diet, and avoid over-exertion. Also the moment you feel sick, stop exercising and take rest.

Pregnancy Back Pain And Exercise

More than 50% of the pregnant women suffer from pregnancy back pain. It is generally due to the physical and hormonal changes in the early stages of pregnancy. Sometimes, back pain might be an indication of some other major problem.

Exercising is the best remedy for pregnancy back pain. Walking, pelvic rocking, mini-crunches with bent knees are some good pregnancy exercises. Pregnancy back pain can also be avoided by frequently changing standing or sitting posture.

Finally along with pregnancy exercises, adequate rest and sleep are also essential and contribute to desirable pregnancy health.

The most important, beneficial exercise you can do while pregnant is the kegal.  This is a contraction of the 5 layers of pelvic floor muscles and fascia that is best described like stopping the flow of urine.  The pelvic floor muscles act as a sling to support a pregnant woman’s uterus and pelvic organs. 

Common pregnancy symptoms such as urinary incontinence and hemorrhoids can be controlled and even prevented by performing pelvic floor exercises throughout your pregnancy.  Kegals also enhance blood flow to the perineum to aid in healing of hemorrhoids and prevent blood pooling in this area after exercise sessions.

While pregnant, progesterone and relaxin hormones relax all smooth muscle in the body, not just the uterus.  This leaves pregnant women vulnerable to smooth muscle issues such as prolapse of the uterus, rectum and bladder.   Pelvic floor muscles are the main structure left to help support these organs and become of key importance.  The pelvic floor muscles are at risk of being stressed from overuse as the uterus grows quickly and therefore strengthening should begin as early as possible to avoid this.   Kegals may also help facilitate labour with the pushing phase during a delivery. 

Many times overlooked as a treatment or prevention for pregnancy related sacroiliac joint and hip joint pain and stress are kegal pelvic floor exercises.   Fascial connections between pelvic floor muscles, sacroiliac ligaments, hip rotator muscles and hamstrings can refer stress and pain into sacroiliac and hip joint when pelvic floor muscles are weak. 

A woman uterus grows from 4ml to 4000ml capacity or less than a teaspoon to 4 litres.  This is a great deal for that pelvic sling to hold up.  This is a 1000x increase, so you better make sure your pelvic floor muscles are 1000x stronger. 

The 3 main types of kegals women can perform are regular 1-2 second contractions, the super kegal which is a 20 second hold maintaining intensity throughout and the elevator kegal that gradually increases in intensity as you pull your pelvic floor muscles up higher in a progressive contraction 3-10x and releasing the contraction slowly.

Therefore kegals can help with sacroiliac and hip joint issues, prolapse of smooth muscle, incontinence, may help facilitate labour and promote recovery and healing in the perineum.

Jacqueline Gradish

BSc, Pre/Post Natal Exercise Specialist

http://jfitpregnancy.blogspot.com

http://jfitmom.blogspot.com

All us of take good care of ourselves during pregnancy, have you given a thought to the importance of care after pregnancy? It is essential for the woman to receive proper care so that she comes out of it healthy, happy and content- ready to take care of the child and her family to the fullest.

Importance Of The Care Given After Pregnancy

You undergo lots of changes in your mental state, your appearance, your feelings and thoughts. There is lots of weight gain and other changes in the body. This can all be taken care of by giving proper care, support, guidance and information to you about after nine months care.

Post pregnancy care includes helping you recover from the pain and discomfort of giving birth, helping you to mentally adjust to the new role as a mother, helping you look good after pregnancy. To achieve all this, a well balanced diet and a well executed exercise regime is necessary.

Who Is Fit To Give You Post Pregnancy Care

The same person or persons who gave you medical care during those nine months are good enough for the care after pregnancy too. If you have gone through a caesarean section, post operative care will be given to you by your doctor. If you have given birth through normal delivery, your physician, mid-wife or obstetrician will help you recover and will care for you in your initial stages after nine months period.

You must decide on your caregiver after considering the following points:

How much does your caregiver listen to your concerns, rather than giving his/her advice?

Is he or she comfortable with your ideas about child-birth and medical care?

Are you comfortable in discussing all your queries and concerns with your caregiver?

Is there a back-up person or alternate arrangement, in case your caregiver is not available on the due date?

If you find the answers to these questions satisfactory, you may go ahead.

Other Dimensions Of Care After Pregnancy:

When we talk about care given after pregnancy, its not only about medical care. You will also need loving care and support of your family, especially your partner. Someone close to you who has this experience, like your mother, sister or a close friend will understand your situation better and her guidance will help you take care of yourself and your baby better. Family members are responsible for the balanced diet you take.

To get back in shape and to gain strength, a regular routine of exercise is also very necessary. You may ask your doctor about it or hire a physical trainer who will help you with the exercises to keep your mind and body in shape. Care after pregnancy must consist of all these aspects, for a fast recovery.

Weight planning is of utter importance to pregnancy. A womans weight is the deciding factor at the time of getting pregnant. A woman who is obese or a woman who is underweight cannot hold on to their pregnancies and result in miscarriages and longer periods of conception. Such women need to gain proper pregnancy weight at the pre pregnancy stage, in order to get pregnant. Women who maintain a proper pregnancy weight throughout their pregnancy, deliver normal babies and do not encounter any complications on delivery.

Importance Of Weight Planning

In cases where proper weight planning is neglected, there are chances of premature babies and underweight babies. Underweight babies are at a greater risk of mortality than babies with normal weight are. Underweight babies suffer many abnormalities like intestinal abnormalities, disorders of bone, premature brain and or other organs of the body and the like. During pregnancy, keep a check on your weight gain. You should never lose weight during the course of your pregnancy. This will have ill effects on the development of the baby in your body.

How You Gain Weight And How Much

Weight is very delicate issues for the women, majority of the women are so conscious of gaining weight that they keep postponing their pregnancy for fear of gaining too much weight. However, there is very little need to be so concerned. Pregnancy weight gain is a normal process and it is just a myth that one puts on some extra weight after the birth of the baby. Under the influence of pre eclampsia some women gain more than 5 pounds a week. You must consult a doctor in such a situation. As the fetus grows inside the body the body gains weight but, if you do not gain weight for 2 weeks of more, especially in the third and fourth trimester, then consult a physician immediately. Let us study some facts below.

Pregnancy weight gain is according to ones weight. Therefore, weight planning is necessary as well. If you are a woman of normal weight, you will gain about 35 to 45 pounds during pregnancy. An under weight woman may gain up to 40 pounds of weight. An overweight woman will gain about 25 pounds during pregnancy. Therefore, in all probability, a healthy woman will gain the maximum weight and an overweight woman will gain the least. It is easy to monitor pregnancy weight by body mass index. An underweight woman will have an index of up to 20, a woman with regular weight will have an index of 27 and an overweight woman will have an index of above 27, there is no upper limit.

End Of A Myth

Besides the weight of the baby, pregnancy weight also contains a few other things. When you do weight planning, you should also consider them. Under normal conditions, the bag contains amniotic fluid, which is 2 pounds. The placenta weighs about 2 pounds. The body provides for extra breast tissue, uterine tissue and blood, which is 2 pounds. In addition, fat accounts for another 7 pounds. Soon after the delivery of the baby, your body looses the weight of the baby plus the weight of placenta and the fluids. If you exercise normally and keep a check on your eating then you can get back to your normal weight sooner than you expect

Therefore, when you think of pregnancy you should get pangs of excitement and not fear. Weight planning should be done by eating healthy and nutritious food. You must eat food rich in vitamins and B complex and minerals. Eat food rich in calcium, iron, B complex, folic acid, vitamin D and E. The baby for its healthy development requires all these. A little bit of meditation will also help your mind to remain stress free.

Pregnancy is a miracle of nature that brings a mother at par with the creator. It is the happiest and a most exciting moment in the life of a woman. Of course the sign of pregnancy causes scary and nervous feelings too since you don’t know what is happening in side your body. It is always better to have knowledge of pregnancy and ways to make it better and healthier. Weekly pregnancy calendar can be fine guide on your journey to motherhood. There are many websites that offer pregnancy calendars for free offloading. They offer a precise knowledge of how the baby grows inside a mother’s womb and developing baby’s weekly milestones.

Weekly Pregnancy Calendar

A weekly pregnancy calendar is a chronological record of the changes a woman and her fetus will undergo during the course of her pregnancy. It describes at length the growth and development of growing baby and expected changes in the mother’s body with advancing pregnancy, on a weekly basis. At the early sign of pregnancy, print out one such web weekly pregnancy calendar and put it on a spot where you can see it daily for monitoring your pregnancy progress.

Importance of a weekly pregnancy calendar

A visit to a doctor after experiencing the early signs of pregnancy will confirm your pregnancy. The doctor will calculate your probable due date of delivery. This date is usually about forty weeks from the first day of your last menstruation. A very small number of babies are actually born on their exact due date. Most are born two weeks earlier or two weeks later than the expected due date. This is where the weekly pregnancy calendar becomes important. It helps in keeping the dates of conception, expected due date, track of baby’s development through various stages of growth per week and monitors mother’s health by telling of body changes you will experience every week.

A full term of pregnancy is separated and divided into three trimesters.

First trimester. First week to twelfth week.

Second trimester. Thirteenth week to twenty- sixth weeks.

Third trimester. Twenty seventh week till the date of baby’s delivery.

As the delivery date draws nearer, there will be more pressure on the pregnancy. In last two weeks the baby takes birthing position and pushes down in the cervical canal resulting in woman experiencing change in balance while walking. During this time a mother provides antibodies to baby for fighting off infections. A mother may experience discomfort and pronounced contractions or false labor. A weekly pregnancy calendar is of utmost importance at this time as it keeps a track of her and her baby’s progressive developments. It helps in explaining when to contact doctor and when to sleep off the discomfort. Breaking of amniotic sac is the time for notifying medical health care provider for it signifies the end of pregnancy.