Getting ready to have a baby is an exciting time. But it can also be overwhelming. There are so many people who will tell you what you should do; it’s hard to know which advice to take. With a few easy steps, you can have a healthy pregnancy and birth.
1. Diet And Exercise
The most important thing you can do to have a healthy pregnancy and birth is pay attention to your diet. You’ll want to make sure you are eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, drinking milk, and eating a well rounded diet. You should also take a pre-natal vitamin every day to ensure that you are getting enough folic acid (which has been shown to prevent birth defects). Drink plenty of water – at least eight to ten glasses a day. Make sure, too, that you have cut alcohol out of your diet, and are not smoking or doing other drugs. Another component to having a healthy pregnancy and birth is exercise. Daily moderate exercise, such as a thirty-minute walk, can make birth easier and reduce the risk of miscarriage. Another popular choice is pre-natal yoga, which can be done all the way through your pregnancy.
2. Get Smart
There are hundreds of well-written books on pregnancy and birth. Now is the time to choose a few and educate yourself about pregnancy, birth, and caring for a newborn. Some books are more fact based, while others take a more humorous tone. There are even books written to guide dads-to-be through pregnancy and birth. You should also sign up for a class or two. Most doctors will recommend a birthing class (such as Lamaze), as well as a parenting class.
3. Visit Your Doctor
Regular visits to your obstetrician are essential to a healthy pregnancy and birth. Regular prenatal visits can help catch any problems early, and treat them before they become an issue. It is at your prenatal appointments that your doctor will do regular ultrasounds, which will give you the first opportunity to see your child. Go to your appointments prepared with any questions you have. Some women keep a list of questions to bring with them to their regular appointments.
The first step of your pregnancy, after seeing the little positive stick should to have it confirmed. Call immediately to have a pregnancy test done with your local doctor, you may be in luck and get in that same day or have to wait about a week or two. Patience will become your best friend during this time or your worst enemy, waiting can become a very hard thing when you want to know for sure whether you are or aren’t pregnant. More than likely you’ll get a phone call a few days later to confirm it.
Set up an appointment to see your OB/GYN or midwife as soon as possible, chances are you’ll be meeting his/her staff before you ever meet them. This is the first appointment where your doctor/midwife will want to know all your medical history. If you’ve been pregnant, what types of sicknesses run in your family, etc. If you can, try making sure you know all of this ahead of time, maybe even have it all down on paper so when he/she asks you are prepared. During the days or weeks leading up to this meeting you may have concerns, write them down and ask them. Believe it or not doctors are there to help you, and they’ve been asked every question you can possibly think of. Before leaving your doctor may even give you a bag full of goodies all about being pregnant. Read these, they may prove beneficial and not to mention they’ve got coupons. Your doctor will either give you another appointment or have you set one up before leaving. There are some great books out there if you are really worried about what will happen next or how birth is going to be, check them out at your local library.
Make sure that you get your prenatal vitamins, they are very important during pregnancy. If for some reason you can’t take them, talk with your doctor he/she may be able to prescribe a lower dosage or something else. You’ll get your first ultrasound, also known as US around week 20, this is normally when you find out what sex the baby is. However some doctors like to call it safe and give you an ultrasound around 10-12 weeks just to make sure the baby is in the proper location and all is going well. You will also be asked to take an orange drink that you must drink in five minutes. You’ll wait around for an hour to three hours, at which point your blood gets drawn and you can go home. The test determines if you have or have a chance of getting gestational diabetes.
At first your appointments will be about 4 weeks apart until you hit the 36 week and at that point it’ll be two weeks later and a week later after that until the baby is born. By now you should be preparing to have the baby. Yes, I’m sure you’ll have some anxiety towards the end of your pregnancy. You’ve went this far, it’s time you see your reward.
Pregnancy is something that you as a woman should anticipate especially when you reach the reproductive age. How do you know when you reach the reproductive age? Some women start ovulating at age 10 or even earlier. This means that the woman’s body releases eggs which may become fertilized upon contact with the male sperm. However, girls at the age of 10 are still biologically too young to have babies.
Their reproductive systems are still in the process of forming so getting pregnant at this stage is very, very risky. In most cases, women are considered biologically ready for pregnancy when they are between the ages of eighteen through thirty-five. This means during this period the body is strong enough to reproduce without too much trouble. Beyond the age of thirty-five, pregnancy is considered as risky for the mother as it is for the baby. According to some experts there are women by the age of thirty-five that may already be suffering from some age related problems that could affect the baby.
When you are pregnant, your body begins to produce the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG). HCG is produced by the placenta during pregnancy, and is the hormone that a home pregnancy test detects. Your body begins to produce HCG about six days after an egg is fertilized and after the embryo implants in the uterus. Levels of HCG increase rapidly in a pregnant woman’s body and are detectable in urine. By the time you think you may be pregnant (usually after you miss your period), HCG levels are high enough that a home pregnancy test will detect them.
Why Use A Home Pregnancy Test?
Home pregnancy tests are extremely easy to use, readily available in most grocery and drug stores, and are relatively inexpensive. Most tests work the same way (but read and follow the directions on the package) where the woman urinates on the test stick, waits three to five minutes, then reads the symbols in a results area. Each brand of home pregnancy test has its own symbols to show whether or not you are pregnant (lines, plus signs, words, etc.); be sure to read the box to know what symbol you are looking for. If you have a positive test, give your doctor a call. If you have a negative test, you can test again in a few days, or give your doctor a call if you still haven’t started your period.
A pregnancy actually begins long before you ever realize that something is happening to your body; when the egg meets the sperm and the result is fertilization. By the time that you miss a period and take a pregnancy test or head to the doctor, you are already well into the developments that can occur during a full pregnancy term. In fact, throughout the first eight weeks of early pregnancy, your baby will grow to an inch in length and has developed most of his major body organs. This time of early pregnancy, also known as the embryonic stage, is a critical point of your baby’s growth, which can be negatively affected by alcohol use, radiation exposure and infectious diseases. That is why it is a good idea to use caution when you are trying to get pregnant, so that the early pregnancy stage can be as safe for your unborn baby as possible.
While the first sign of early pregnancy is often a missed period, there are some other symptoms that you may experience as well. Most of these signs of early pregnancy are due to the hormone changes that your body undergoes to prepare it for the process that lies ahead. These signs can include fatigue, an increased need to urinate, tenderness in the breasts, a mild aching sensation in your lower abdomen or nausea and/or vomiting, also known as morning sickness. Any or all of the symptoms may indicate early pregnancy, and when combined with a missed period, should be checked out by your doctor. The earlier you know for sure that you are pregnant, the more time you have to take the best care possible of you and your baby.
Pregnant women have it the worst when it comes to taking care of their bodies, even though they certainly get the sweetest reward in the end. Pregnant women have to take the best care of their bodies as they possibly can and their bodies are going through so much at that time as well that it can be rather difficult to keep up with. There are so many things to look out for that you might not otherwise have to deal with, and diabetes and pregnancy can put a woman in a precarious position as far as her health goes, as well as the health of her child.
Many times diabetes and pregnancy can occur at the same time. This is called gestational diabetes and is a condition of diabetes that occurs when a woman becomes pregnant and dissipates after the child is born. This is the type of diabetes in which the body resists the effects that insulin would normally produce on the body, as there are insulin blocking hormones in the body that prevent the body from processing insulin normally.
