My Midwives
The first trimester gets a bad rap – often pregnancy symptoms feel overwhelming – tiredness nausea, sometimes vomiting, feeling vague, emotional, and lightheaded. There is also a feeling of mild anxiety for many parents about things like whether the pregnancy will be ok, to what life will be like with a baby – are we ready?
It’s ok to feel overwhelmed, but trying to also sit and reflect in what a great thing your body is doing and has done is also pretty amazing. It is also helpful to have a health professional (or 2!) explain things and offer solutions. Dr Google is not the friend of the newly pregnant person! We can make anything mean anything when doing online research.
Recommendations:
- Book care early and preferably with someone who is on call for you… hint….Midwives are great at this!
- Get a handle on the symptoms. If you are nauseous, try a diet, simple things like small meals, rest, vitamins and complementary therapies and seek health professional advice to try medications, For the fatigue issue go to bed early, take some leave from work, fit in some nanna naps and focus on diet and fluids.
- Don’t sweat every symptom – if you see a few spots of blood, just call your care provider if you feel you need to. Likewise, a few cramps are the same, you cannot change things so it is important not to stress as this will only increase negative hormones. Patience will be needed to parent and often this is the first little reminder of this.
- If you want to tell people – tell them! Again, refer above – you cannot change the outcome and if there is a problem with the pregnancy, support can be very helpful.
- Check dates, check what checks you need and importantly consider the first-trimester screening you might want. Screening used to be scans and bloods and to some extent it still is – however many more genetic checks are possible. Reviewing these will provide an idea of some of these. Costs will vary. Those who know of inherited disorders within their families should talk to their partner, preferably before or in early pregnancy to determine whether a blood test (screening) or amniocentesis (diagnostic) is preferred.
