If you experience any of the following symptoms stop exercising and call you doctor right away: – Bleeding from your vagina – Difficult or labored breathing before you exercise – Dizziness – Headache – Chest pains – Muscle weakness – Calf pain or swelling – Preterm labor – Decreased movement of the fetus – Leakage of fluid from your vagina Continue reading When To Stop Exercising and Conditions That May Make Exercise Risky
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Like when you start exercising when you are first pregnant, so you will have to ease yourself into the exercise routine post pregnancy as well. You should only really start exercising when you feel steady again. Most mothers wait until they have had their six week postpartum checkup, but if you are feeling steady enough, they you can start sooner. During pregnancy it is best to avoid sleeping on your belly or on your back. As you grow, sleeping on your belly will put obvious pressure on your belly and may lead to complications down the road. Sleeping on your back not only puts a significant amount of pressure on your low back (which can lead to back pain), but also may put pressure on your intestines, and the blood vessels in the surrounding area. In addition to causing or aggravating back pain, sleeping on your back may lead to such things as hemorrhoids, indigestion, poor breathing and circulation and low blood pressure. Today more than 60 million Americans are medicating themselves with herbal supplements. By assuming that ?natural? remedies are safe, your patients are probably not fully discussing the issue with you, if at all. Research shows that many do not see the need to inform their physicians of their use of alternative medicine including herbal supplements. This is a serious issue, since ?natural? does not always mean ?safe,? Few studies have been conducted testing herbal preparations in pregnancy. Some of these products, including ingredients suspected of causing potential damage to you and your baby. While many of these dietary supplements are safe, there are some very hazardous ones Healthy Eating now that you are Pregnant: Think of nursing as continued motivation to follow the healthy diet you followed during pregnancy. Focus on eating whole grains and cereals, fresh fruits and vegetables, and foods that provide plenty of protein, calcium, and iron (and, as always, an occasional treat is fine). Seeds of health? are planted even before you draw your first breath, and that the nine short months of life in the womb shape your health as long as you live.” These words of Sharon Begley and William Underhill in a Newsweek article Shaped By Life In The Womb eloquently describe the importance of the gestational period on an individual for his or her life-time. Some scientists now believe that the effect of the life in the womb on emotional and physical health may be greater than that of the genes we inherit. The conditions in the uterus, ranging from mother’s hormones to the nutrients supplied through the placenta, may significantly determine how a baby’s liver, heart, kidneys, brain and mind will function during the adulthood. In the Seventies and the Eighties, we learned that if mothers during pregnancy ingested such substances as the alcohol, cocaine, caffeine, and tobacco, they could harm their babies’ physical and mental health, notably, lower the birth weight, height, and head circumference, and impair attention, memory, intelligence, and temperament. Likewise, we have known for a while that if a mother experiences excessive stress or suffers from an emotional trauma, her baby may be born with certain deficiencies which may persist into adulthood and cause more complications. In the Nineties, we are beginning to understand how the stress and mother’s emotional state affects her unborn baby. Take, for example, a stress hormone called Cortisol. When we are under stress, we manufacture cortisol. If you experience occasional stress, cortisol doesn’t create a problem. However, if you remain under stress for a long time, cortisol may be too much for your body to handle. Cortisol can cause high blood pressure problems. A mother’s excessive Cortisol can reach the baby in the womb and raise the baby’s set point for blood pressure forever. This baby, when reach adulthood, is likely to suffer from high blood pressure. Many mothers during pregnancy face extremely stressful cir*****stances. They are confronted with such unhealthy situations as the break-up of their marriage, physical or emotional abuse, open infidelity or simply disinterested and uninvolved partners who prefer staying out to staying home and supporting their pregnant partners. These mothers experience constant stress, shame, loneliness and, sometimes, clinical depression during pregnancy or after giving birth. The babies of these mothers are exposed to a variety of stress hormones, toxins and malnutrition inside the womb. Some of these babies will continue to live in the same or often worse noxious environment. No wonder some will later become hyperactive, underactive, inattentive, or temperamental and exhibit poor self-control. Many of these children are later medicated with Ritalin or antidepressants. Not everyone understands that the problems a child exhibits today may have resulted from events that occurred several years ago. Most of the gynecologists and obstetricians I have talked with are psychologically sensitive and recognize when their patients need psychological support. However, when referred for therapy, many feel embarrassed and hardly ever show up for psychological consultation. Their partners or families may not encourage them to seek help because the problem it is not seen as a medical one. Doctors are understandably reluctant to prescribe psychiatric medications because of pregnancy or breast-feeding considerations. Thus, a woman in such a situation suffers alone and remains isolated from her support system. She is expected to transcend all such adverse cir*****stances, and some do. Others don’t have the emotional strengths to cope. Some have struggled with depression and anxiety all their lives. Moreover, even when they are seemingly coping with the excessive stress, they might still be constantly producing stress hormones and toxins and some will reach the baby in the womb. Maternal stress during pregnancy is also found to cause of asymmetry in coordination of ears, fingers, feet, elbows, etc. As a result, I.Qs of such children are found to be lower. Maternal stress is also linked with imperfections in the developing nervous system which can lead to problems of perception, thinking, and memory. All of us want happy children. Happy children grow out of happy babies. Happy babies are born to happy mothers. Therefore, partners, families and friends of expectant mothers should do their best to make an expectant mother happy and relaxed. If she is depressed, nervous, or tense, encourage her to seek help. |
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