Pregnancy brings about a lot of changes in a woman’s body. It entails a lot of birth pains both literally and figuratively. As your body works double time to support your unborn child’s needs, you may feel more prone to stress and fatigue than ever before.
Fatigue is fairly common during pregnancy. In fact, most women complain of fatigue during their first trimester and right before they give birth. Primary causes of fatigue are the body’s growing demands for nutrition and hyperactive hormones like progesterone.
Lack and difficulty of sleeping can also cause fatigue along with stress and hormonal changes and added body weight, which help your body prepare for birth. Backache, frequent urination, abdominal cramps, and heartburn make the fatigue even worse. Therefore, having a goodnight sleep is important to fight fatigue and stress.
Aside from the usual night sleeps, catnaps are proven to be very effective in boosting your body’s energy levels and at the same time an opportunity to relax those tired muscles and back. Getting 15-20 minutes of sleep is enough to reenergize your whole body during the day. Remember, you need a well-rested body when you give birth.
You can also create a relaxing bedtime routine in order to help you sleep better. Activities such as reading, meditating, and listening to soft music are some of the nightly activities you might want to try.
Child birth is a very exhausting thing to go through-that’s why it’s called “labor” so eating a well-balanced and healthy food together with lots of fluids as you need 300 extra calories every day is necessary. Make sure to stack up on protein, vitamins, and fiber supplements diet to keep your body healthy, free from stress and fatigue and at the same time ready for the stress of giving birth.
Additionally, don’t forget to flex those muscles, even short afternoon walks are enough to make you feel better. Exercising is highly recommended for pregnant women as it really helps the body once you give birth.
Bringing a baby in this world is one of the joys and fulfillment of being a woman. All the fatigue and stress will go away once you see your little bundle of joy. So don’t sweat the small stuff and take your pregnancy in a stride because once you give birth, you’ll forget all the birth pains.