Enjoying Your Pregnancy

By Author: Gunawan Hari
Total Articles: 115
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By now you will know the truth and your pregnancy will be confirmed. You will be more aware of the changes within your body but your figure and weight will remain the same as always. Your friends may compliment you on your radiance and glowing skin even though you might not have told them yet that you are pregnant. Some women sail through the first trimester (three months) of pregnancy without feeling ill or tired. Others are plagued by fatigue and the dreaded morning sickness. But if you are fit and healthy and eat a good diet, there is no need to feel this way as we shall see. The important thing to bear in mind is that pregnancy is a natural condition - it is not an illness. You do not have to retire from your normal life and put your feet up for nine months or let your partner cocoon you in cotton wool. There is no reason why you should not go on working as usual and lead an active social life for at least seven months as long as you are healthy and strong. Some women even work up to the day they give birth and still feel wonderful. Enjoy your pregnancy and carry on with living - you will find it even more fulfilling that ...
... way.



However, even the fittest, healthiest women sometimes suffer ill effects such as moments of dizziness and feeling faint and giddy. Make sure that you eat regular meals, especially a nutritious breakfast. You may find that you go off certain foods or develop a fad or craving for such unlikely things as oysters (if you can afford them) or more everyday foods like chips or oranges - but in the middle of the night! Of course, not every woman experiences this so don\'t be disappointed if you just eat your normal diet. It is not uncommon to suddenly dislike the taste of alcohol and cigarettes and other unhealthy substances and not want them anyway - perhaps this is your body\'s way of telling you that they are bad for the baby.



The pregnancy hormones will be hard at work within your body and you will notice changes in your skin and hair. Usually the skin becomes dryer than usual but some women develop an oil problem. Either way you will have to adapt your skin routine accordingly. Your hair may be less manageable than usual and will need frequent washing and setting.



By the end of the second month your baby is a recognizable human being with a head, trunk, tiny limbs, nostrils, lips, tongue and little webbed fingers and toes. It has the beginnings of a circulatory system and all its major internal organs - liver, kidneys and heart - are developing. Floating in its amniotic sac, its head is a more recognizable shape but still enormous in relation to its tiny body. If you could feel the fetus at this stage it would be soft, but from the eighth week onwards the cartilage that forms its rudimentary skeleton is beginning to change into bone.



Meanwhile, the placenta is starting to form as the lifeline between you and your baby. It transports oxygen and nourishment to the baby and carries away wastes. It grows from a cluster of cells embedded in the uterine wall. Gradually as it starts functioning it controls the production of pregnancy hormones, too. At no time does your blood flow directly into the baby. It can pass only through the tissues on your side of the placenta into the baby on the other side. A membrane separates your bloodstream from that of the baby and the two never mingle. The placenta will not be fully developed until the twelfth week and then it will act as a filter. Everything you eat, drink or even inhale can pass through the placenta into the baby. Not the foods themselves perhaps but substances within them, such as health-giving nutrients as well as the toxins in cigarette smoke, lead from car exhaust fumes or even chemical additives in food. The placenta is not a barrier to harmful substances as was once thought. Therefore you must make an effort to eat and live sensibly if you have not already done so. Inside you, however, your baby is growing fast and is no bigger than a broad bean or your little toe.