10 Pregnancy secrets every woman should know either before getting pregnant or during her pregnancy
Here are 10 pregnancy secrets that I would love to share with any woman who is pregnant or considering pregnancy. During my 25 years of medical practice as a family doctor delivering over 3700 babies, many of my patients told me they wished they had known those 10 pregnancy secrets.
Pregnancy Secret number 1: It is very easy to gain too much weight even if you feel like you are always nauseous and not eating much. Truth be told, when you are pregnant your body keeps all the nutrients you provide it to make sure you and your baby are getting enough. Hence if you eat an 800 calories piece of cake “because you are pregnant and you can” your body will keep most of the 800 calories in case you do not get to eat later. Some of my patients were saying “that is not a problem, we take a walk after dinner so we will walk it off.” The bad news is that to burn 800 calories, you would need to walk 8 hours at a regular pace!
The average recommended weight gain during pregnancy is 25 to 30 pounds. This recommendation varies a lot if you are overweight, underweight, have medical conditions, etc etc
Again, many pregnant women get carried away and start “eating for two” the second they find out they are pregnant. The problem is that for the first half of the pregnancy, the mother to be should be gaining 5 pounds in the first five months.
Pregnancy secrets to know
So many of my patients grinned when seeing the numbers on the scale. The “baby weight” is not always easy to lose after the birth. Let us also realize that many Hollywood celebrities come back a couple of months after giving birth with such a flat stomach that one can only wonder if liposuction or plastic surgery is involved.
I even had a couple of patients literally crying when seeing the weight they gained. Maybe there were fatigue or hormonal factors involved?
One of my patients summed it up pretty good when realizing she had gained more weight than she wanted by saying, ” I thought all the refrigerators were opened to me!” and we laughed.
Well, I thought this article was going to be a single article about the 10 pregnancy secrets but I only covered one pregnancy secret, so…
TO BE CONTINUED!
Nathalie Fiset, M.D. , C.H.
founder of www.hypno-baby.com
