Those not inter\u00adested in preg\u00adnancy-related mus\u00adings should skip this post\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u2019m recov\u00ader\u00ading well from the birth, and my feet are finally back to their nor\u00admal size. So I thought I\u2019d bore every\u00adone who has\u00adn\u2019t been, or isn\u2019t likely to become, preg\u00adnant mut\u00adter\u00ading about vari\u00adous preg\u00adnancy-related ail\u00adments and how I tried to cope. Not that I\u2019m com\u00adplain\u00ading about hav\u00ading been preg\u00adnant, of course, since hav\u00ading a baby makes it all worth\u00adwhile, but some of the symp\u00adtoms are less than pleasant.<\/p>\n
Unlike when I was preg\u00adnant with my first child, I had no morn\u00ading sick\u00adness. One or two days of feel\u00ading vaguely queasy, but that was it! So much for the old wives\u2019 tale about hav\u00ading more morn\u00ading sick\u00adness with girls than boys; I had 5 months with my son and had to take dic\u00adlectin to stop los\u00ading weight and not one day with my daughter.<\/p>\n
To make up for that, in the third tri\u00admester I had reflux. At first diet kept it under con\u00adtrol, then I took Gav\u00adis\u00adcon, by the end of the preg\u00adnancy I was on Zantac 75 every day and still hav\u00ading to watch what I ate and sleep with my head propped up on mul\u00adtiple pil\u00adlows. For\u00adtu\u00adnately Zantac is com\u00adpletely safe (at least in late preg\u00adnancy). The reflux dis\u00adap\u00adpeared imme\u00addi\u00adately after the birth.<\/p>\n
As in the first preg\u00adnancy, I had edema. At least this time it was\u00adn\u2019t related to pre-eclamp\u00adsia. I man\u00adaged to keep the swell\u00ading more or less under con\u00adtrol with pren\u00adat\u00adal mas\u00adsage and keep\u00ading my feet up when pos\u00adsible until about week 36 when things went hay\u00adwire. First the feet, then the ankles, swelled up, no mat\u00adter how much I res\u00adted. By the time I had the baby, the swell\u00ading had reached my back, and was mak\u00ading walk\u00ading dif\u00adfi\u00adcult. I tried the vari\u00adous sug\u00adges\u00adtions I found on the web (tak\u00ading flax\u00adseed, soak\u00ading the feet, drink\u00ading lots of water), but none of them worked. It took almost two weeks after the baby was born to lose all that flu\u00adid again.<\/p>\n
And, of course, the big belly. I tend to stick straight out in front when I\u2019m preg\u00adnant ( pho\u00adto\u00adgraph\u00adic evid\u00adence<\/a>), and giv\u00aden the size<\/a> of this baby (9.5 lb) I stuck out an awful lot. Since I\u2019ve been doing Pil\u00adates<\/a> for a couple of years, my back and stom\u00adach muscles are much stronger than before and I had no more than a couple of twinges of lower back pain. I did find that wrap\u00adping a strong cloth around the belly to sup\u00adport it helped, as did rest\u00ading (a lot!). I also had to be care\u00adful walk\u00ading down stairs since my centre of grav\u00adity shif\u00adted so much and I had a tend\u00adency to tip for\u00adward. The Pil\u00adates stu\u00addio<\/a> I attend (up till about week 35, when I got too tired and could\u00adn\u2019t do more than half my sim\u00adpli\u00adfied pro\u00adgram) helped a lot with my pos\u00adture, help\u00ading me fig\u00adure out how to stand and sit to min\u00adim\u00adize the strain on vari\u00adous muscles and avoid over-com\u00adpens\u00adat\u00ading. I\u2019d recom\u00admend doing Pil\u00adates to any\u00adone think\u00ading of get\u00adting pregnant.<\/p>\n Those were my major con\u00adcerns; I had a very healthy preg\u00adnancy in all and these issues were minor com\u00adpared to what a lot of oth\u00ader women go through. Now the baby is here, and all of this will shortly be for\u00adgot\u00adten in the dim mists of sleep-depriva\u00adtion. Nature is some\u00adtimes kind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Those not inter\u00adested in preg\u00adnancy-related mus\u00adings should skip this post\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}