Congratulations On Your Pregnancy
Congratulations, this is a wonderful time to nourish yourself, your growing baby and take positive steps to enjoying a healthy pregnancy and positive birth.
Pregnancy Acupuncture Melbourne
You may not know it, but having acupuncture treatment can be very beneficial for mother and baby during the first trimester and throughout the whole pregnancy. As a newly pregnant mother you may feel various unwanted symptoms, such as exhaustion, anxiety, cramping, nausea and vomiting to name a few.
Acupuncture can support you to relax your mind and body. Becoming newly pregnant is always challenging because it represents a major life transition. So the better you look after yourself now, the better your pregnancy, postpartum and family unit will be.
First Trimester Support
Having supported women through their pregnancies for over sixteen years, here is some useful holistic information I have gathered for you to support you during this special time.
Pregnancy – What to Take
If you struggle with any unwanted signs or symptoms, we can recommend safe and holistic remedies that can support almost any physiological imbalance. Ask Dr Ilana as there will always be something gentle for you like homeopathic tissue salts, Australian Bush Flower essences, a supplement, tea or pregnancy Chinese herbal formula. As a minimum, a practitioner-only pregnancy multivitamin is essential to take along with cod liver oil (read food article below).
Diet
Pregnancy is a time of abundance and enjoying many and varied foods to nourish you and your baby. Enjoy food, good food! Eating all food groups. Aim to have good quality food that is organic, seasonal and free-range and eating all kinds of foods also exposes your baby to this. Having lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, some grain, nuts and seeds and of course healthy fats and protein. READ This article discusses the kinds of foods that are essential for pregnancy.
Highly encourage you to also read this book Real Food for Pregnancy: diet is the foundation of your baby’s health.
- Enjoy high quality salt (Celtic salt food to taste), full-fat products, naturally fat foods, protein, fruits and veg, less sugar and less whole grains.
- A diet full of wholesome fresh food, ideally organic that has not been exposed to artificial fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics or hormones
- Eat regular and warm meals every day
- Avoid cold drinks and cold foods, take it out of the fridge and let it warm to room temperature e.g yoghurt/fruit (Yang, 2010, Endeavour College).
- A variety of foods such as some dairy, eggs, fish, animal products. Fermented wholegrains such as whole-grain breads and sourdough baked, fresh fruit rather than tinned, honey, barley malt or molasses instead of chemical sweeteners
- Eat sufficient green vegetables, they are full of vitamins and minerals for your growing needs, and will help your breast milk supply (which starts being made after conception)
- Beneficial pregnancy foods include amaranth (an ancient and very nutritious grain), seaweeds in small amounts (such as wakame are rich in minerals and calcium), micro-algae (barleygrass or wheatgrass are best during pregnancy) in small doses, almonds, walnuts, chicken liver, bone-marrow soups and stews.
- Beverages – warm, filtered water, chammomile and nettle teas, fresh vegetable juices with ginger. Drinking herbal tea is fine just drink limit each variety of herb to one cup per day.
- It is not recommended that a woman dramatically change her diet during pregnancy, she should safely abstain from such extreme items as intoxicants and highly refined, chemical-laden products (Pitchford, 2002, p.107).
- Fatty acids are important namely DHA & GLA found in fresh salmon, chia seeds, flax, pumpkin, dark-green vegies and the oils too.
Lifestyle
Having a healthy routine with great intentions makes an amazing difference. Self-love and self-care is very important and natural in pregnancy. You are in your own pregnancy bubble and you and your baby’s priority comes first.
- Be selfish – stop over giving your energy out, all your energy is going to your baby so be selfish, say no, rest and look after yourself.
- Create a daily ritual – start the day with meditation and pregnancy yoga, factor in exercise and breaks so you can rest or put your feet up.
- Go To Bed early – free healing and health… always rest is is your own medicine.
- Meditate – calm the mind daily with a guided meditation. Try this one it is my favourite.
- Get regular, moderate exercise (30 minutes), outdoors if possible in sunlight and fresh air
- Take time to rest and rush less – it makes a huge difference as you give so much to your baby give yourself this to regenerate.
- Remove toxins & chemicals – Toxic chemicals are harmful to a developing foetus e.g. heavy and toxic metals – unnatural body washes, creams, underarm deodorants, toxins, x-rays, toxic cleaning products, petrol, ammonia, nail polish remover, hair dye, plastics (avoid heating food in plastic), some refined foods, cleaning products and cigarette smoke. Go for gentle natural products and think twice about dyeing your hair or getting your nails done. Heavy metals in teflon cookware etc.
- Avoid caffeine, coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, recreational drugs they are heating and tend to have a strong laxative and moving effect on the bowel and uterus.
- Keep warm – Keep your abdomen, feet & lower back warm, wear comfortable clothes. Do not sit or lie down in damp and cold places.
- Intimacy is important – Sex is best to be gentle or avoided in the first trimester if you have a history of miscarriage or are worried, at least a moderation of sexual activity – gentle intimacy is ideal.
- Cherish beauty – Look at beautiful things, listen to beautiful music, your baby will enjoy growing with this form of nurture
- Avoid googling if you can, it can cause unnecessary worries!
References
Lyttleton, Jane (2009) Treatment of Infertility with Chinese Medicine. Churchill Livingstone, Sydney, Australia.
Pitchford, Paul (2002) Healing with Wholefoods (3rd Ed.) North Atlantic Books, New York, USA.
Yang, Shulan (2010) Head of Acupuncture, Endeavour College, Melbourne, Australia
Consultations: Pregnancy Acupuncture Melbourne
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