Deciding to get pregnant is an exciting time in life; you have made the decision you are ready to bring forth new life! Even though you are mentally ready, is your body? It is easy to get caught up in the daydreams of pregnancy and what your baby will be like, but have you thought about what important steps can be done to improve your chances of a healthy pregnancy and baby? Are you prepared for conception, and what comes after?
Why should anyone prepare for pregnancy? The body will be carrying extra weight, close to double the blood volume, and will require a lot more energy from all parts of the body to grow a baby and sustain pregnancy. So what can you do to get your body baby ready? Let us share with you these simple steps for healthy pregnancy preparation…
1. Learn How to Eat Better: Nourish!
Begin to eat better. You can learn how to do this by learning how to eat a Natural Fertility Diet. What you eat will not only be fuel for your body, but it will help form your baby. Choosing a wide variety of healthy organic whole foods is going to be best.
Here are some simple guidelines to eating for a healthy baby ready body:
- Eat a lot of organic vegetables and fruits
- Eat organic, grass-fed, whole fat, raw dairy
- Try to eat mostly cold-water fish
- Choose meat that is Free Range and/or Grass Fed and Organic
- Eat only grains in their whole, natural form
- Eat high fiber foods with each meal
- Avoid non-fermented soy foods
- Avoid refined sugars or fruit juices
- Drink lots of clean water
2. Cleanse and Detoxify
Over time the human body accumulates environmental toxins from car exhaust, chemical pollution, plastics, food, and more. While the body may be able to remove some of these, many toxins may be stored in the liver, kidneys, and fat cells. During pregnancy and breastfeeding, the body will use fat stores to sustain baby, which means these toxins may go directly to baby. This is why important to try to cleanse the body of toxins prior to conception and breastfeeding.
Changing the way you eat is the first step in cleansing the body of these toxins. Second is Fertility Cleansing. Fertility Cleansing prior to conception may aid the body in quickly flushing toxins from the body through the use of supportive herbs. This special type of cleanse focuses on liver and fat cell detoxification, while also supporting uterine health in preparation for implantation. Learn more here… The third step in cleansing brings us to exercise.
3. Exercise
Exercise promotes two avenues of natural detoxification: Sweat and circulation. On top of the cleansing benefits of regular exercise, pregnancy and labor require a strength unlike other times in your life. To get your body into shape for pregnancy, women who are trying to conceive need to exercise regularly at a moderate level, for 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week, with 2, 30-minute strength training sessions. Some days could include 1-2 sessions of yoga for an hour.
Great ways to get your body toned and ready for a baby:
- Brisk walking, 5 times a week, for 30 minutes to 1 hour
- 2-3, 1-hour sessions of Fertility Yoga
- Dancing
- Nia, 2-3 times a week
- Zumba, 2-3 times a week
- Aerobics, 2-3 times a week
- Leisurely bike riding
- Light jogging
- Swimming
4. Take a Whole Food Prenatal Vitamin
There are a variety of vital nutrients that may be missing from the diet. Experts agree that women who are trying to conceive should be preparing for pregnancy by taking a multivitamin. Not all multivitamins are equal though. We find that the nutrients in your prenatal should come from whole foods. For the body, the nutrients in a prenatal vitamin made from whole foods are easier to breakdown, assimilate and utilize.
Across the world, nutritional deficiencies such as lack of folic acid are still a number one cause of preventable developmental defects in babies. A whole food prenatal vitamin is going to ensure you are getting required nutrients for pregnancy. This doesn’t mean you don’t need to eat well though. A prenatal vitamin bridges the gaps in nutrition to make sure you are achieving complete nutritional levels required for pregnancy.
5. Work to Eliminate Bad Habits
Alcohol, smoking cigarettes, and drinking caffeine have all been shown to lower fertility and are going to have to be stopped during pregnancy, plus they are just plain unhealthy habits. It’s not like all of you don’t know this already, but still, it really would be best to work to cut these out before trying for a baby. This will make it easier on you once you are pregnant. Plus eliminating these now may even boost your chances of conception. Studies show that all of these may cause hormonal imbalance, poor stress response, and may even delay ovulation. So ditch those bad habits as soon as you can. You will be happy you did!
6. See Your Gynecologist
Get a full pelvic and breast exam before trying for a baby. This will help to identify and take care of any potential issues. It is best to know if there are any issues before getting pregnant, that way they can be taken care of prior to pregnancy. It is more difficult to treat reproductive health issues in pregnancy, and issues like infections or STDs may be harmful to an otherwise healthy pregnancy.
7. Create Calm by Reducing Stress
Humans easily get caught up in the ever-quickening pace of life. Have you taken time today to create a space in which to lower your heart rate, take a deep breath and check-in with your stress levels? If not, that is something that may greatly benefit the health of your body each day. Physical, mental and emotional stressors may all negatively impact health. Stress management practices should be part of preparing the body for pregnancy. Elevated stress levels have been shown to contribute to hormonal imbalance through endocrine system disruption.
Pregnancy can also be stressful on the body. Having a stress management practice prior to pregnancy will allow for easier check in with how the body is feeling throughout pregnancy. A woman who has already created this habit prior to pregnancy, will be able to more easily continue stress management techniques during pregnancy.
Consciously make time each day to practice lowering stress. Great ways to reduce stress include meditations, exercise, prayer, journal, yoga, getting out in nature, counseling, and getting together with friends.
