Vermeer, Woman in Blue, courtesy of Mark Harden's Artchive

May 2001 - Now that I am expecting again, I figure it's about time I did a pregnancy page!  This is an incomplete collection of thoughts that I will probably add to in the coming months...

(Note:  most linked pages will appear in a new window so you can view them while continuing to read this page.)

Becoming pregnant - we have found that being in tune with the mother's fertility signs helps make trying to conceive much easier.  The resource we used was The New No-Pill, No-Risk Birth Control, also known as Natural Family Planning or NFP.  An outstanding, up-to-date resource is the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility.  The Couple to Couple League offers classes and a home study course in NFP.

Morning sickness - this is a good sign, as far as I am concerned.  Every one of my miscarriages was preceded by a complete lack of morning sickness, so for me, morning sickness means a healthy pregnancy and baby.  I strongly disagree with the notion that morning sickness is an undesirable, unnecessary part of pregnancy, or that it is always caused by a mother's fear or negative expectations.  For me, it is purely a biochemical/ hormonal thing.  When I have morning sickness, there is an odd taste in my mouth that is hard to describe.  It is mildly chemical, almost metallic.  I will have nausea for one to three days, then none for a day or more, then it'll come on again.  I've always wondered if the nausea happens as the hormone levels increase, then subsides as my body accustoms itself to the new levels.  My guess is that in me anyway, pregnancy hormone levels increase in a stepwise fashion, rising, then hitting a plateau, then rising again.

What helps me to cope with the nausea is eating small frequent meals, snacking on dry or salty foods such as pretzels, or taking sips of ice water.  I also have hubby change our toddler's poopy diapers, and when I'm really nauseous, he'll do the dishes for me so I don't have to deal with all those yucky food bits!  :-b   Exercise is a temporary help, too - I feel better when I am working out, but then the nausea usually comes back afterward.   And finally, it fades as we enter 2nd trimester, and after that, I'm fine till it's 3rd trimester, when it's heartburn time.

Also in first trimester, I will get very sleepy during the day, so if I can, I obey my body's signals and take a nap.  I figure that during those times, my body is wanting to channel the energy into growing baby/uterus, so I respect that.

Safe eating - hopefully you know that it's important to have good folic acid intake even before you become pregnant;  this is to help prevent neural tube defects.  One good way to do this is to start taking a daily prenatal vitamin/mineral supplement about three months before you conceive, which you then continue to take throughout pregnancy and while breastfeeding.  During first trimester, try to eat as healthy as you can, working around any nausea.  The book Eating Expectantly has really helped me in this regard - it has tasty recipes and menu ideas for each trimester, including for those times when you are nauseated and don't feel like eating anything.  

For second and third trimester, I prefer to follow the Bradley®/Brewer prenatal diet.  That is because, for me anyway, the Eating Expectantly diet becomes too low-protein as baby grows and my blood volume increases (I don't feel too good on 60 g or less of daily protein).  To learn more about the Bradley®/Brewer diet, you can go through the Bradley® childbirth preparation course, and/or check out Dr. Tom Brewer's site.  These teach a research-proven prenatal diet rich in protein, clear fluids and adequate salt.  This diet has been shown to protect expectant moms from developing preeclampsia and other health problems.  It also provides mom and baby with the nutritional building blocks needed for strong, healthy, birth-ready bodies.  If you or your family has a history of food allergy, however, then you would be well-advised to rotate your protein foods and certain allergenic grains such as corn and wheat, to help protect your unborn baby from being sensitized to any of these foods.   You may need to continue the rotary diet after birth if you will be breastfeeding baby, because allergenic proteins can pass to baby through mother's milk.

As for how much weight to gain -- safe weight gain varies from one mom to another.  Mothers who were underweight at the start of pregnancy may need to gain more than those who were average or overweight.  If you are eating healthy, with little or no sweets (empty calories), your body and baby should gain just the weight they need.

Safe fitness - I have a page of prenatal and postpartum exercise video reviews you might want to check out.  Your and baby's health permitting, safe prenatal fitness can include walking, swimming or low-impact aerobics.

What about Kegels - those pelvic-floor strengthening exercises that pregnant women are told to practice daily in preparation for birth?  While I still feel that most women can benefit from doing them, I have learned that for a few women, Kegels may actually make a preexisting problem worse.

Bedrest - when I was pregnant with our third baby, I had to go on bedrest for a month.  Bedrest can be a challenge, especially if you have little ones to care for.  And although you are restricted to bed or couch, you still have to make sure you are eating well for your growing baby, and yourself, too.  The book Eating Expectantly has a good chapter on ways to meet your dietary needs while on bedrest. 

For more information and support, here are just a few of many good online resources:  Pregnancy Bedrest Tips, Bedrest During Multiple Pregnancy, Sidelines National Support Network, and Pregnancy Bedrest.com.  And here's a page with great tips for dads:  A Guy's Perspective.

Lower back pain - as I write this section (October 2001), we have five weeks to go until our "due date", give or take a week or so.  This is the fourth time I have been this far along, and my belly is its most stretched-out yet.  So my lower back is its unhappiest yet!  But there are some simple, drug-free measures I have learned that help to take the pain away temporarily, so at least I can get relief part of the time.  I would like to share them with you, along with some good links.

This first trick comes from our midwife.  Take an old (or new, if you're desperate ;-) pair of maternity pantyhose and cut off the legs, so that all you have left is the upper part.  This can be worn all day as a softly supportive "girdle".  It gently helps hold the belly as well as takes some of the strain off of the lower back, and I have found it very much preferable to an elastic maternity belt, which concentrates all the support in one narrow area and, for me, was painful to wear, unless I adjusted it to be so loose that it did no good. 

I found the pantyhose trick far more helpful in late second trimester than now, when I am so much bigger that the "girdle" has gotten stretched to near-uselessness.  But I still wear one (actually I have about four now, so they can be rotated/laundered as needed.  Laundering helps spring them back into shape so that when I put a new one on, it holds for awhile anyway).  Lately, I have found a "girdle" very handy for tucking one of those soft, flat, cloth-covered ice packs into the back part, right at my lower back.  Aaahhh... relief!  The cold sensation can also be helpful for persuading a posterior baby to turn to anterior, according to our midwife.  And as some of you moms may know, posterior position often causes mom to have a backache not only during labor, but before it.  It's probably best not to keep the cold on your back for more than 20 minutes at a time - check with your birth attendant and see what they say.

Late October 2001 - It is now less than two weeks till our due date, and my belly is more huge than ever.  In spite of this, I am pretty comfortable most of the time, thanks to an enhancement to the above "belly girdle", thought up by my husband and based on yet another suggestion from our midwife involving the use of Ace®-style bandages for belly support.  What I do at the start of each day or by midday at least, is put on the pantyhose "girdle", then over that I wrap two reusable, self-adhering elastic bandages, each three inches wide, around my belly and lower back.  I wrap the bandages in an overlapping way from the base of my belly up to about mid-belly, drawing in my ab muscles till the wrap is complete, then relaxing.  This provides firm yet gentle support, while the pantyhose layer provides peace of mind (the bandage feels weird to me - not sure how they manage to make it adhere to itself, but I don't want any gluey stuff right next to my ab skin when baby's right underneath).  I have found that the self-adhering type of bandage is not as uncomfortably binding as the traditional Ace®-style bandage that must be fastened with clips (too, I found those sharp clips tended to poke through the bandage and into my skin - not good!)  Also, this arrangement stays in place pretty well, with very little downward shifting, throughout the day.  The brand I have is Coach®, by Johnson & Johnson.  We found these bandages at Wal-Mart.  They look sort of like the traditional wide elastic bandages, except without the clips.  They seem to lose their elasticity after a week or two of steady use, so I would suggest buying more than two just in case.  Note that even this style of bandage can be wrapped too tightly - if the bandage seems uncomfortable or overtight, either rewrap or remove.  I do remove bandage and "girdle" at bedtime - it seems best to have the belly totally "free" for some of the time, especially if it's being supported by the mattress anyway (while lying on one's side).

If this is your first or second pregnancy, you probably won't need to "bind your belly" at all - your abs are, most likely, much more toned than mine are!  ;0) And finally, a note to those with latex allergy:  these bandages do contain latex, unfortunately.

Another thing I have found immensely helpful for relief of lower back pain (and maintaining what little ab tone I have!) is to faithfully do the lower-body toning exercises on my pregnancy workout videos.  My favorites are the ones by Kathy Smith and especially Madeleine Lewis.  Thanks to them, I have finally learned how to do pelvic rocks "right", so as to relieve lower back discomfort and obtain toning benefits at the same time.

It's also a good idea to maintain the best posture you can, to avoid slouching, and to sit in a chair with a small pillow at your lower back, to help keep it straight.

Another helpful trick has been to sleep back-to-back with my husband.  He leans on my back, firmly but not heavily, and the warmth and pressure help all that lower back tension melt away.  I also highly recommend lower back rubs, with mom in whatever position is most comfortable.  For me, this is usually on all fours;  other positions could include mom lying on her side, or straddling a chair and leaning over chair back, or kneeling against a low stool or beanbag chair, or simply standing, perhaps facing her partner with her arms draped over partner's shoulders.  Try to really relax during the back rub so you can get the maximum benefit of it.

I mentioned above that baby in posterior position can cause mother to have lower back pain or pressure, prior to as well as during labor.  For a number of reasons, it's generally a good idea to try to help baby to turn to anterior before labor starts.  Here is an excellent page that can help you turn your posterior baby: Optimum Foetal Positioning.  It would probably be a good idea to discuss the Foetal Positioning page with your birth attendant before trying any of the moves described.

Birth preparation - you may wish to refer to my birth pages for a start.  There you'll find lots of articles, birth stories, links and book recommendations.  These pages may not be what you expect, as I focus on naturally painless birth, something that most moms and doctors scoff at or feel downright threatened by.  I decided to speak to this because I was tired of being seen as weird or deluded, or made to feel guilty, for maintaining that our babies' unmedicated births were not painful for me (though they were pretty strenuous).  Yes, there are indeed women who, without drugs or gimmicks, naturally give birth painlessly, easily, even pleasurably.  Don't believe the myth that unmedicated birth always has to be agonizing and difficult.  Though your baby's birth might not be a piece of cake for you (then again, it might!), there are a number of sensible things you can do to help it be easier, more comfortable and smooth-flowing, not to mention safe, without resorting to risky drugs or medical over-management.

To cast off any fear you may have about giving birth, there are several proactive steps you can take.  First, learn how your body works during labor and birth.  For this I recommend the book Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, which has excellent descriptions and cross-sectional drawings.  Also, embrace the truth that you are capable and strong, and have all that you need within you to give birth.  For help and support in this area, I encourage you to visit websites devoted to planned unassisted birth, such as Bornfree and Bob's Unassisted Homebirth Site for Fathers.  In my opinion, these sites can be immensely helpful to all expectant moms and dads, whether or not they choose to birth without assistance.  It is so empowering to read that parents can and do catch their own babies, simply and joyously.  Knowing this takes a lot of the culture-induced scariness and mystery out of birth.

It's also very important to learn ways to give birth comfortably and safely, per your and your baby's physiology.  The best books that I have found for this are Active Birth, The Birth Book, and Back Labor No More.  And finally, it's helpful to educate yourself in the different US birth paradigms:  technocratic, holistic, or somewhere in between.  These are explored in the fascinating book Birth as an American Rite of Passage.  To read the text of one chapter, go here.

Is an epidural really the way to go?  The following links are included not to scare you, but to inform you beyond what your doctor or the hospital staff may be willing to admit:

Risks of Epidural Anesthesia During Childbirth by Lewis E. Mehl-Medrona, M.D., Ph.D.
Drugs in Labor: Are They Really Necessary... or Even Safe? by Joanne Dozor and Shannon Baruth

See also the must-read page The Devil Cytotec (archived page;  may be slow to load).

Finally, for your reading enjoyment, here are the stories of four powerful, unhindered births.  All are homebirths;  one is out in the woods and two are unassisted.  Read on to see what normal birth is like, safe from the obtrusive, mechanized meddling of standard hospital practice...