
pregnancy is totally aches and pains free, and I have definitely been experiencing baby kicking my ribs over the past few weeks and did have a scare of what felt like pre-term labor at 26 weeks (in hindsight believe it was dehydration), but overall have thankfully been feeling very well and am sharing some things that have helped me.
Every woman’s body is so unique and different, and every pregnancy
experience will of course be unique, but I am hoping that some of these may help.
are:
- Oakland: Barefoot studio – This was just a few blocks from my work in downtown Oakland and offered daily prenatal yoga classes, which is very rare (most studios offer prenatal 1-2x / week if they offer it at all). And not only do they offer daily classes but they are the most affordable too with unlimited prenatal for ~$65/ month and a first time student special of $40/ month if you are new to the studio.
- Los Angeles: Any classes with Keya Nikoni – she teaches at YogaWorks Playa Vista, Moving Joint in Mar Vista and Red Diamond Yoga in Culver City. Her energy is so grounding and nurturing and you get a great stretch too. She also offers partner workshops and is a doula. I also enjoyed Bridgette’s Monday / Wed. mid-day class at YogaWorks Montana in Santa Monica, which has a nice gentle pace.
Sleeping:
pregnancy (okay probably second to prenatal vitamins & iron pills, but this is really high on the list and I am pretty obsessed with it). My sister, who like me is petite, gifted this to me and mentioned that it is apparently especially great for petite women, and I have absolutely loved it. Sometimes after I get up my husband will crawl into it and he loves it too. I love it so much that I bought a second one to keep at my parent’s house for when I visit, and I even recommended this to a non-pregnant friend
who was having sleeping issues and she loves it too. I started using this towards the end of my first trimester, probably before I needed to, and plan to continue to use it for a while after baby arrives.
propped up by 1-2 pillows. Some doctors/ websites/ yoga teachers don’t recommend back sleeping but I am hearing more
and more that the science is coming around to suggest that it can be okay for some women, and since I feel very in touch with my body and baby (he moves a ton and lets me know when he is unhappy for example I cannot sleep on my right side), I think this has been fine for me and my doctor has been okay with it.
the lower back. Since my pre-pregnancy weight was 105 lbs and I gained 25 lbs throughout my pregnancy, I gained nearly 25% of my original body weight, which is in a good and healthy range and thankfully baby is measuring well, but I did intermittently feel like I needed
a little extra support for my back. Based on Amazon reviews, I tried this Azmed belly belt and it worked very well for me. I did not need to use it daily and would only use it when I felt I needed it, which was more towards my third trimester, esp. during work days when I was sitting more often.
Especially toward the end of my third trimester, I have been finding that I am feeling extra hot / flushed, esp. at night. This is caused by hormones and exacerbated by the California heat waves we had been experiencing, and this little handheld fan has been surprisingly effective to cool me down and I plan to pack this in my hospital bag too for labor.
· Books: My dear friend Nadine who is also having a baby boy recommended this birth partner book for my husband (who will be my acting doula / labor support as I decided not to go w/ a doula), and we actually both read it and found it very helpful to supplement the childbirth prep classes we took.
Iron Pills: If you are vegan or vegetarian, it is really important to get enough iron during pregnancy. Given that blood volume increases during pregnancy, iron is so critical and while it is pretty common from what I learned to have slight anemia during pregnancy, this is likely more common among vegetarians even if you are vigilant about eating high iron foods like spinach, nuts & legumes, dried apricots/ figs, etc. I found out that I was slightly anemic early in my second trimester after some blood tests and started taking iron pills with orange juice (vitamin C helps absorption); in hindsight, I would have started taking these in my first trimester.