A Mini Booklet on Pregnancy Journey to Childbirth

Its painful, its tiresome, it makes you uncomfortable but it is a blessing if you are able to conceive and bring an infant to this world, then you are God’s favorite and strongest species – A Woman. You are given the charge of carrying on the human race. You become a mom, but before that you are a Mom-to-be. I call you Pre-Mom.

Motherhood is a boon but the road to motherhood i.e. Pre-Mom’s journey is a bumpy road and you have to travel all alone. Supporters stand at the starting and ending point of your journey, but they cannot share these nine months period’s discomfort, stress and pain. You (body and mind) supplement and complement each other throughout this period.

Different discomforts arising during pregnancy makes it uneasy one. One of the major discomfort is sleep deprivation. Sound sleep is a boon for all human beings. We are totally dependent on the eight sleep hours to work efficiently during sixteen wake hours. Sleep does a big job for us. It recreates, regenerates, renews, revives and rejuvenates cells in our body to make it healthy productive and disease free. The adjectives used for sleep are countless. It is highly difficult to find a benefit which sound sleep is not giving to a human body. Sleep is basically a magic potion that can help in smooth pregnancy period and an easy child birth, provided there are no other pregnancy related complications.

Sleep ditches Pre-Moms 

The problem arises when sleeping time reduces in the pregnant ladies’ night or even day. Magic potion does decrease. On the contrary this is needed the most in pregnancy when both (mother and foetus) beings gets benefits from good sound sleep. Alas! Sleep plays a truant particularly in last trimester. Causes are many like stress, body discomfort, body itching, cramps specially in legs, digestive issues, hormone fluctuations, etc. which are purely pregnancy induced factors. Believe me, these problems vanishes as soon as Pre-Moms become Moms. 🙂

The primary concern here remains how to give comfortable and stress free, smooth pregnancy trip to a pre mom. The question remains do they have to endure it like some punishment for conceiving and bearing a child ?  🙁 No, Not at all.

Lets find some tips and ideas to ensure wellness for Pre-Moms.

Certain helping tips- avail them:

1. For stress :

Try to relax more whenever free, take deep breathe, it will fill your body with oxygen to rejuvenate you. If depressed, talk to your husband, friends, relatives or a professional counselor, pour your heart out, all your fears, emotional disturbances (which increase in Pre Moms because of hormones fluctuations). Sharing stress will give you much relief. But never listen to weird experiences of non-medico people that will further stuff your brain with myths, superstitions, illogical fears.

For any doubt, even your weirdest worries talk to obstetrician. Don’t be reluctant to ask her any questions. Always chose a compassionate and cooperative obstetrician, who will listen to you and give you satisfactory and scientific answers to calm you brain. 🙂 Baby will feel calmer as well. Listen to your favorite music, the melody is a proven stress relieving therapy. Let your baby enjoy music in tummy as well.

2. For digestion issues:

Pre-moms do have appetite issues (both increased or reduced) that leads to bloating, acidity, indigestion, heaviness, constipation, etc. Eat small frequent meals, add fruits, salads soups and juices in your diet. Do fulfill your cravings keeping them in healthy limits.

3. For body discomfort

Your increasing belly and weight makes you feel uneasy and your gait gets unbalanced. Pre-Moms even tends to fall more often. Reason being centre of gravity has changed. Be careful and walk slowly. Back ache, body cramps particularly leg syndrome because of excess release of Relaxin hormones in third trimester which results in laxity of ligaments and muscles.

A helping hands is nearby:

Go for antenatal exercises, meditation, yoga , low intensity aerobics and swimming (i.e. hydrotherapy). Antenatal exercises starts from fourth month (second trimester onwards). A Pre-mom needs to strengthen her core muscles (back and abdominal muscles). It’ll help you relieve your back pain. It will even improve the strength of pelvic floor muscles which will further facilitate a normal child birth. Then breathing exercises are added to improve lungs functioning which will subside the breathlessness issues. Pelvic floor exercises which includes kegel which will help reduce the urge to urinate frequently. Posture correction exercises helps to maintain good posture making your gait better, ease your neck and back pain. These sessions are helpful to prepare your body for normal and easy delivery provided you do not have any pregnancy related complication.

These all exercises with modified sleeping position helps the body to relax and attain comfort. Daily exercise routine increases the release of stress reducing hormones (Cortisol ,Norepinephrine and Adrenaline), Now pre-moms , with all this you will get better sleep and easy pregnancy tour. And this tour will become your favorite memory.

Other relaxation techniques which are meditation, simple mild yoga for stretching, mild aerobics to improve blood circulation and swimming ( i.e. hydro therapy) which is doing mild exercise in water ( assisted and resisted) which reduces the risk of injury to joints and muscles.

Childbirth made easy :

Your antenatal therapist will assist you during labour to ease your dilation and help you remain distressed, improve your stamina for delivery. She will even help you to coordinate during contractions and pushing the baby out.

That will lead to relatively pain free and happy delivery ( Now you can change your status from pre mom to new mom on Facebook).

Post delivery help:

After delivery Antenatal therapist will help you do certain exercises to keep you relaxed, easing discomfort of breastfeeding if any and give you better sound sleep even for small intervals. New moms will be able to regain previous body shape and strengthened muscles in little time

Getting personal with Pre-Moms:

My own journey of pregnancy was a difficult one because no such help was there at that time. Still, family support was a great aid. Mom and Mom-in-Law were by my side with solutions all the time. Orange for acidity and full meal at night for lesser bloating and better sleep were the instructions given by them. Leg muscle pull was a regular problem during sleep.

For that my mom’s tip of stretching the greater toe always worked. I even suffered acute sharp pain on right side of chest which my obstetrician called peculiar pregnancy pain. Only Volini gel gave me some relief. My blocked nose and leg itching was a big culprit which were pregnancy induced. Had to take inhalers and ointments application to go through that tough phase. But constant support of husband, love of both parents and in-laws’ family and a very compassionate caring, helping, motivating obstetrician made me a winner all the way. Kindly do not follow any advises from my personal experiences, till your doctor says so 😊

Hope you get a rather happy and smooth Pregnancy ride.

Feel blessed, Stay positive, ask for help—- You are a winner. All the best Pre-Moms!

Cautions:

All these exercises and solutions should be followed with permission of your obstetrician under a trained antenatal therapist. They both will provide comfort to you in coordination with each other.

Happy Pregnancy!

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About Mona Bhatia

A teacher by qualification, a mother by profession, a home maker by passion and a learner by nature. She loves to pour her heart on the paper. An avid reader since childhood, blogging and writing helps me de-stress. Motherhood has helped me unfold several facets in my personality, mostly good 😉, which I hope to share with all of you through this platform.

• Pregnancy Ride made smooth - April 27, 2018

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