WALKING DURING PREGNANCY

Walking is considered as one of the most simplest, effective and easy exercise to keep ourselves fit and healthy. Not much of the efforts are required to walk for sometime daily. Women at the time of pregnancy as well as after pregnancy should walk daily. It will keep them healthy and fit. Walking during pregnancy helps women to improve their endurance and to recover them from pregnancy effects.

WALKING DURING PREGNANCY TIPS:

Walking is very good for one’s body especially during pregnancy. It can regain your spirits and help you feel fresh. It is one remedy for most of the ailments.

There are certain ways, which are recommended for walking during pregnancy:

• One should maintain the right posture when walking. Try to walk straight and try not to lean over someone else when walking. Hold someone’s hand while walking. Relax yourself and walk. This will also help you cure your back pain. Some women also wear a maternity belt when walking. This helps them to maintain their posture.


• Look straight while walking. You should not look here and there while walking. This will help you to avoid walking into someone or something accidentally. It will also help you to cure your problem of backaches.


• Walk at a desired pace. There is no need to run and walk neither walk too slowly. Walking at a normal pace copes with the various exercises you need to do during pregnancy. Do not walk too fast that you lose your breath.


• Always stretch before walking and after walking. As during pregnancy, the muscles tend to stretch preparing the body for the labor pains; therefore, one must stretch oneself before and after walking.

Many hormones are released during pregnancy. They make us feel sore and uncomfortable. Therefore, the chances of getting hurt during pregnancy increases. But if you exercise daily or take a short walk, which is equivalent to exercising, you may get relief.

If you feel bored while walking alone, you can talk to some other friend or relative of yours and can ask them to accompany you for walking during pregnancy. You can also listen to some music while walking which will make you feel comparatively less bored. If two people are walking together, both of them can keep each other motivated. Walking during pregnancy is one of the best methods to keep yourself fit and fine.

Maternity Fashion Tips for Pregnant Women

During the first trimester it is possible to continue wearing clothes proved favorites pre-pregnancy but once a baby bump takes over and the weight goes on many fashion-conscious women find that their redefined shape can prove a challenge.

Just because there is a baby on board is no reason to stop being a style guru — nor is there reason to dive head-first into maternity wear too early. There are likely to be pieces that are already in the wardrobe which can do double-duty before reaching for those maternity smocks and muumuus. Buying standard outfits several sizes larger are also an option provided styles are carefully chosen to suit a pregnant body shape

Fashionable Clothes for Pregnant Women

• Empire-line dresses and tops cinch in the area just below the bustline and provide a flattering silhouette with material grazing over the baby bump. Forget shapeless tent-like dresses — a voluminous tank dress can be gathered up with a ribbon, sash or belt tied under the bust to give definition.


• Evening dresses for pregnant women include maxi dresses and caftans, which prove comfortable, light and easy to wear. However, ensure a narrow cut which skins the figure rather than a diaphanous style. Strapless empire-line dresses look cute on pregnant women but don’t even go there unless they can be kept safely in place.


• With every-growing breasts its time to consider what neckline is the most flattering. Scoop necks, thick-strap vest tops and V-necks are the way to go. According to author Jenny Levin of Harper’s Bazaar Great Style (Aurum Presss 2007), “completely covering up will add pounds, whilst revealing too much will look sloppy.”


• Soft draping fabrics will define the body shape and look pretty when pregnant. Choose skirts and dresses with plenty of swing in them and tops with fabric that falls from on or under the bustline and finish at the hips or beyond.


• As arms put on weight cover them with sleeves, which will also balance out a bulging belly. A 3/4 length will still give a hint of bare skin, and sheer sleeves (short or long) offer both coverage and sex appeal.


• Go for sophisticated, simple single-block colors rather than busy prints and crazy colors.


• Dressing within the same color family from head-to-toe (e.g. different hues of blue or gray) will streamline the figure and make it look taller and leaner. It also means everything goes together and can be reworked with different pieces.


• Avoid wearing baggy jeans with flowing tops. Maternity jeans (probably the most important item in a pregnant woman's wardrobe) should be relatively straight-legged to balance out the volume on the upper part of the body.


• For smart workwear, a suit jacket with a single-button that fastens just below the bust will flatter a pregnant figure. A-line and draped skirts are likely prove the most comfortable.

Miscarriage Prevention

For the past ten years I never needled the abdomen of a pregnant woman for fear of causing miscarriage. This method of behavior stems in part from fear of over-stimulating blood flow to the embryo or placenta. This thinking, as I have recently discovered, is incorrect. It has taken me ten years of study and research to enable me to fully understand what is happening in the uterus after a successful pregnancy and why abdominal acupuncture for the first three months of pregnancy is not only safe but serves significantly to prevent miscarriage.

At the luteal phase or secretory phase of the menstrual cycle the predominant hormone is progesterone. Progesterone is created from the follicle that has ovulated the mature egg. This follicle is now known as the 'yellow body' or corpus lutuem. The corpus luteum, under the influence of luteinizing hormone which emanates from the anterior pituitary in the brain secretes progesterone. This action is done to enable the uterine lining to be amenable to a successful embryo implantation and pregnancy. If pregnancy is not successful, the corpus luteum becomes atretic (dies) and progesterone levels diminish and menstruation starts.

When a woman does successfully become pregnant, the LH which is required to maintain high levels of progesterone (P) no longer comes from the anterior pituitary gland in the brain. It comes in fact, from the developing blastocyst itself. The blastocyst (developing baby), secretes HCG or Human Chorionic Gonadotropin which has a very similar molecular structure to LH. The HCG causes the corpus luteum to continue to secrete P (this is called corpus luteum- rescue), until the placenta is fully formed at which point the placenta itself secretes appropriate amounts of P to help maintain pregnancy.

So, if the developing blastocyst is responsible for secreting HCG to keep itself alive it made sense to me to use very few and well placed needles in the abdomen to gently stimulate blood flow to the blastocyst so that P would continue to be secreted from the corpus luteum.

This, in my opinion is one of the major ways that miscarriage prevention can be achieved with acupuncture. I am the first one to arrive at this idea and have been using it with great success.

After 6 or 7 weeks the placenta is formed and it secretes P. The corpus luteum is no longer necessary. But, one of the major causes of miscarriage is inappropriate blood flow to the placenta. One of the causes of this is due to thrombophilic disorders (The tendency to form blood clots). But clinically what does this mean? Blood carries oxygen, hormones and nutrients to the placenta and excretes dead cells from it.
These dead cells are called 'debris'. By continuing to use abdominal acupuncture, we continue to gently stimulate blood flow to the placenta (reducing the effects of poor hemodynamics which can occur due to thrombophilic disorder or just poor circulation), maintaining its ability to secrete P, estrogen, human placental-lactogen, relaxin and other hormones necessary for the maintenance of a healthy pregnancy.

I am constantly studying Western reproductive medicine and translating my findings into a Chinese medical model which serves to increase a useful knowledge-base to help couples achieve pregnancy. However, achieving pregnancy is only half the battle. The other half is maintaining a healthy pregnancy. The focus of many acupuncturists is to help their patients become pregnant. This too is my first goal, but only my first. My second goal is to maintain a viable pregnancy and this is where my research and studies are now taking me.

I am pleased to say that at this point our successful pregnancy cases are remaining in the 30 to 40 of miscarriages occur within the first trimester.