9 Essential Health Tips for a Joyful Pregnancy

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Pregnancy is to be joyful, but if you want to make it happen, you need to get your head around the science. A pregnancy will only be successful if you understand the basics and get them right throughout each of the three trimesters.

Fortunately, this article is here to help. We run through some of the top tips that will help ensure that both you and your child remain healthy for the full nine months until you come to term. Here’s everything you need to know.

1. Use Prenatal Vitamins Every Day

You’ll want to start by using prenatal vitamins every day. Prenatal vitamins mean vitamins that you take before giving birth. You want to ensure that you’re getting:

At least 800mg of folic acid
27 mg of iron
Up to 1000 IU of vitamin D daily

If you don’t get enough of these vital nutrients, then your baby may be harmed.

These days, you can find all sorts of brands offering vitamins and minerals to expectant mothers. These contain the right balance of nutrients you need, so you don’t need to buy everything separately.

2. Eat The Rainbow

At the same time, it’s a good idea to eat the rainbow. Most health professionals recommend eating between five and nine servings of fruit and vegetables every day. However, you can eat more than this if you feel it would benefit your health and the health of your child.

If you can tilt your diet towards the most valuable foods, like greens, beans, and colorful vegetables, then you may see an even greater benefit for your health. Also, when you eat a range of different foods, it can have knock-on effects for your child’s development, including improved educational attainment in the future.

3. Prioritize Healthy Fats

With that said, it’s also worth prioritizing healthy fats. Don’t assume that you necessarily need to go on a low-fat diet if you’re eating the best sources of fats. For example, many mothers like to eat nuts, seeds, and avocados. These are generally low in toxic heavy metals like mercury and avoid some of the problems with sardines and salmon in the modern world.

If you want to supplement with omega-3s like DHA, consider getting them from algae-based sources. These usually contain significantly less heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, and lead.

4. Stay Hydrated

As common as the advice to stay hydrated is, it’s particularly helpful throughout pregnancy. When you are dehydrated, it can trigger early contractions and lead to reduced amniotic fluid, which is not good for your baby. Therefore, try to add more cucumber, mint, and lemon to your diet, and make sure that you’re drinking water every three to four hours. If you want to drink herbal teas like raspberry leaf or clove, that’s also fine. Just make sure you don’t consume too much caffeine if it is a diuretic for you.

5. Check Your Airways

Another thing you’ll want to do during your pregnancy is to check your airways. Reading ENT health tips during pregnancy can help a great deal.

You can experience ear, nose, and throat problems during pregnancy because of hormonal shifts. Increases in estrogen and progesterone cause swelling of the mucous membranes and changes in fluid balance in this part of the body, which may lead to things like sinus pressure and nasal congestion. You may also have an increase in the incidence of nosebleeds that pass once you’ve given birth. The good news is that your ENT can provide you with advice and medications to reduce symptoms and make your pregnancy more pleasant overall.

6. Limit Caffeine

Another piece of solid advice is to limit your caffeine to around 200mg per day. If you go above 300mg per day, it has been associated with lower birth weight and sometimes miscarriage.

Researchers aren’t sure why caffeine affects growing fetuses so much. However, it could be because of the additional stimulation they receive and the effects that it has on their nervous system. 200 milligrams of caffeine is roughly the same as two large cups of coffee per day. So, if you want to be on the safe side, limit yourself to one or two cups in the morning and then leave it at that.

7. Move Your Body

As a pregnant mother, you also want to move your body as much as possible while staying safe. Most doctors and professionals recommend around 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days. They’ve found that this leads to a lower risk of pregnancy-specific issues, such as caesarean delivery, pre-eclampsia, and gestational diabetes.

However, before engaging in any activity, make sure you have your doctor’s go-ahead first. Get them to tell you that you are able to do the exercise and that there are no medical conditions that might get in the way.

It’s worth noting that weight gain is natural during pregnancy. Expect to gain around 25-30 pounds. If you are more overweight, the weight gain will likely be smaller.

8. Get Sufficient Rest

Getting sufficient rest is also critical during pregnancy. Most medical professionals recommend getting up to nine hours per night simply because of the fact that there is a new fetus growing inside you. If you can train yourself to sleep on your left side during the first 20 weeks of your pregnancy, that’s even better. Research shows that this improves blood flow to the placenta and can help with your baby’s development early on.

9. Say No To Alcohol

Lastly, you want to say no to alcohol at all during your pregnancy. Research shows that no amount is safe.

You also want to avoid recreational drugs and smoking, as these can lead to additional risks like low birth weight and preterm birth. Sudden infant death syndrome also becomes more likely when the concentration of illicit substances or medications is too high in the body.

So there you have it, some essential health tips for your pregnancy. Which of these do you think you’re going to implement?

*This article is based on personal suggestions and/or experiences and is for informational purposes only. This should not be used as professional advice. Please consult a professional where applicable.