How to Embrace a Healthy Winter Pregnancy
Here are five practical ways to embrace a healthy winter pregnancy so you can stay cozy and enjoy preparing for baby’s arrival.
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Every season brings along its own beauty, but summer and winter pregnancies offer up a few more challenges with the elements.
My oldest daughter gave birth to my first grandchild during the month of December. If you find yourself pregnant during the cold and frosty months, you will be faced with seasonal hazards such as freezing temps and icy walkways, but you can still make the most of every precious second of your pregnancy.
Here are five tips I shared with my pregnant daughter:
Always check with your health care provider before taking any medical advice during your pregnancy.
CanCan Mom, Cheryl L. Butler
- Drink Up For a Healthy Winter Pregnancy
- Get Your Flu Shot
- Stay In and Get Organized
- Get Walking
- Relax and Get Ready
Take Good Care of Yourself and Your Baby
Tip 1: Drink Up For a Healthy Winter Pregnancy
During the winter, you are dealing with dry winter air—perhaps working in a building that has cranked the heat up, so it’s very possible to become overheated or dehydrated. Dehydration can cause problems ranging from lightheadedness to preterm labor, so stay ahead by drinking water all day.
Experts recommend six to eight glasses of water daily and more if you are active or facing extreme temperatures.
Getting plenty of water is essential during pregnancy. It helps carry nutrients through your body to your baby, helps maintain healthy levels of amniotic fluid, and can even help prevent bladder infections, constipation, and swelling, which are common complaints during pregnancy.
Later in pregnancy, dehydration may cause contractions.
To know if you’re drinking enough, check your urine—it should be a light yellow color. If you’re peeing less than usual or if your urine is very dark yellow, then you might be dehydrated and should increase your fluid intake.”
I credit the healthy habit of drinking water faithfully throughout all my pregnancies as the reason I’ve maintained my eight glasses daily for over two decades. I drank water routinely (and still do) even when I wasn’t feeling thirsty, and it really helped keep me feeling fresh and on top of my game.
Tip 2: Get Your Flu Shot
I openly admit I was never one to get a flu shot before I had kids. I suppose I felt because I was a young, hard-working career gal that I had too many other things to tend to rather than taking time out of my busy work schedule to see my doctor for a preventive shot when I had never really experienced the flu.
Well, that all changed during my second pregnancy. I had a toddler and was now pregnant while working full-time. My resistance was much lower than it had ever been. When flu season hit, I went down—and hard!
My OB/GYN had highly recommended getting a flu shot, but I didn’t listen. After that awful experience of being so sick, I vowed I would always get my flu shot from then on out.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends that pregnant women get their flu shots during any trimester of their pregnancy to protect themselves and their newborn babies from the flu.
They state that flu is more likely to cause severe illness in pregnant women than in healthy women who are not pregnant. Changes in the immune system, heart, and lungs during pregnancy make pregnant women (and women who have given birth during the past two weeks) more prone to severe illness from flu, including illness resulting in hospitalization.
In addition, studies have shown that vaccinating a pregnant woman also can protect a baby after birth from flu. For more information, you can visit the CDC’s Pregnant Women and Influenza.
Tip 3: Stay In and Get Organized
My seven pregnancies were all a little different, with one exception—my urge to nest!
When I entered my last trimester, particularly well into my eighth month, I always had an incredible desire to clean and organize my entire house. This included emptying every cupboard, drawer, closet, and shelf and straightening, purging, dusting, and reorganizing nearly everything in my path. (Yes, even the garage and shed!)
I had read about women nesting as they were about to give birth, but I had a whole new appreciation for this once it happened to me. In fact, I went into labor with my first baby as I was polishing all the wood in our entryway—my water broke, and I left for the hospital smelling like Lemon Pledge!
A winter pregnancy is a great time to get your home in order because when it’s snowy and icy outside, you can putter inside your cozy home getting organized before the baby arrives.
You can also take some time to cook and bake so you can have some heartwarming, comfort food to nourish you now and in those first weeks home from the hospital if you double the batch and freeze a few things.
Tip 4: Get Walking
It’s certainly not as easy to get out and grab some exercise in the great outdoors when you’re sporting a large belly and have to navigate icy sidewalks or snowy pathways, but don’t let the winter months keep you from taking some healthy strolls throughout your pregnancy.
Be sure to check with your physician or midwife first, but once you get their blessing, you can incorporate a walking regimen into your pregnancy despite the weather outside.
“I recommend walking to most of my patients who are pregnant,” says Tanya Ghatan, M.D., an OB-GYN at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It’s an easy entry for women who’ve never exercised and gives athletic women a way to stay active without the high impact of other activities they’ve participated in.”
If you have a treadmill, you can hop on that a few times a week. You can take advantage of walking to a large department or grocery store that you might not normally visit. You can get your steps in and have fun exploring simultaneously.
I’ve long been a power walker, so a brisk walk was always my exercise of choice when I was pregnant. I delivered a 10 1/2 lb baby boy in February, only gaining about 25 lbs. I believe that’s because I walked every day throughout my pregnancy.
During those frigid winter months, I enjoyed a terrific set of walking DVDs by fitness expert Leslie Sansone. I could walk several miles in my living room, and her walking program was a total blast.
A few other popular DVD workouts are “The Complete Fit & Healthy Pregnancy Workout with Gabrielle Reece,” “Tracey Mallett’s 3 in 1 Pregnancy System,” and “Denise Austin: Fit & Firm Pregnancy.” You can also check your library or Netflix for additional titles that will help you put a spring in your winter step.
Tip 5: Relax and Get Ready
During the winter that I was pregnant and had my fifth child, it happened to be one of the snowiest winters we had had in a long time. I was very pregnant and juggling four small children, as well as working part-time as a writer at our local paper.
The last month of my pregnancy was a true winter wonderland, so rather than trying to keep up with some of the usual activities that took me out and about, I decided to go with it and focus on enjoying time in my home.
I concentrated on making sure the nursery was ready and even hand-painted a dresser for my son. I worked on my other children’s scrapbooks, indulged in reading a stack of magazines I had been saving for weeks, soaked in warm bubble baths, and even hired a babysitter to come watch my four other kids so I could retreat to my bedroom and sneak in a nap or have quiet time to myself.
Those last few weeks of my winter pregnancy were a gift to myself, and it really did keep me relaxed and ready to take on my then-baby number 5.
See Also: How to Make the End of Your Pregnancy Meaningful
What are you doing to enjoy a winter pregnancy? For all kinds of mom-centered creative ideas, visit me on Instagram at CanCanMomCB or on Pinterest at theCanCanMom. If you have questions or suggestions, email me at cheryl@cancanmom.com or leave a comment in the box below.
