Tips for a Healthy Pregnancy

Being pregnant is a wonderful experience, you can enjoy every moment if you take good care of yourself. The health of the baby depends upon the health of a woman who is expecting. Doing regular exercise and taking a proper diet reduces complications of pregnancy, it helps to give birth to a healthy baby successfully.

Effective Tips for a Healthy Pregnancy

Following are the effective tips that help to keep you and your child healthy:

1. Include essential nutrients to your diet

You already know the importance of a good diet. A balanced diet reduce the risk of pregnancy complications, it helps to reduce fatigue, morning sickness and even anemia.  To balance mood swings, which is common problem of a pregnant women, intake of good nutrition is very important. A highly nutritional diet is directly linked to a higher possibility of a normal birth weight, improving the development of fetal brain as well as reducing much other risk of birth defects. A well balanced diet must contain vitamin C, protein, fruits, veggies, calcium, iron rich foods, adequate fat and whole grains. Eat a variety of foods from each of these food groups daily.

2. Avoid these foods

Prefer only pasteurized cheese, milk or juice to prevent parasitic infection or Listeriosis and to protect your baby from harmful bacteria. Avoid refrigerated foods, undercooked poultry, meat and seafood. Smoked seafood is also unhealthy. Consult your doctor which food to avoid during pregnancy.

3. Focus on prenatal vitamins

Besides eating nutritious foods, prenatal vitamin supplements are equally important for keeping your baby healthy. Often pregnant ladies don’t get time to plan three nutrient filled meals, for extra nutrition, a vitamin supplement helps a lot in the development of the fetus. It is important to take folic acid supplements which is a B vitamin, Folic acid supplements taken prior to pregnancy and for the starting 12 weeks of pregnancy reduces the risk of neural tube defect in a child by up to 75%. There are prenatal vitamins that contain one milligram of folic acid which can be used as a source of this acid. Before taking a prenatal supplement it’s important to talk to your doctor.

4. Do exercise during your pregnancy

During pregnancy moderate exercise is encouraged, every day doing exercise for 30 minutes helps to lessen stress, improves circulation and strengthens muscles. Start your exercise regime after talking to your doctor; it’s very important if you are having any complications. For pregnant women, exercise classes are designed such as yoga. It relaxes your body and mind as well as improves posture and alignment. Kegel and squatting exercises should be performed daily. Kegel exercise tightens the vaginal and perineal muscles, this exercise helps to tone the muscles and increase control in the perineal area and it helps a lot at the time of baby’s birth.

5. Give out bad habits

Healthy lifestyle makes a good impact on health of the growing fetus. You must give out bad habits such as drinking alcohol and smoking. These habits are directly linked to severe complications. During pregnancy drinking alcohol creates many problems in the developing baby. Alcohol enters into the fetal bloodstream in the same amount as in mother which results in fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). It causes several defects in the infants; they can be mentally deficient with multiple deformities, underweight as well as a high rate of mortality.

During pregnancy, alcohol consumption can also leads to complications that involves abnormal growth, low birth weight, miscarriage, developmental problems in childhood, premature labor and delivery.

Smoking during pregnancy is risky; it affects blood flow and delivery of oxygen to the baby which affects the growth. The most common cause of low birth-weight babies is cigarette smoking as well as certain illness in the first three weeks. It also causes vaginal bleeding, ectopic pregnancy, premature placental detachment and premature labor and delivery.

6. Prevention is better than cure

The best way to avoid any kind of illness is prevention. Taking plenty of rest, eating a healthy diet, washing hands thoroughly, using hand sanitizers are the key to good health. Go for a seasonal flu shot, it is suggested for women who are in their second or third trimester. Seasonal flu virus and swine flu are hazardous to a pregnant woman. There are certain illnesses during pregnancy that need proper medical care such as genital herpes, asthma. Women who are pregnant and suffering from asthma have a great risk of developing preeclampsia which may cause birth defects in the baby or premature delivery. An effective treatment can control asthma during pregnancy.

Conclusion

For maintaining the health of you and your baby talk to your doctor about the treatments that are safe. Medications or supplements such as ibuprofen and aspirin that are usually used to treat common cold, flu and pains are not recommended during pregnancy.