Blog & Updates on Vancouver Prenatal Classes
“You’re Glowing”: What Causes the Fabled Glow of Pregnancy?
Along with all the well-known annoyances and discomforts of pregnancy, such as nausea, heartburn, swollen ankles, and having to pee every ten minutes, some people are also blessed with a few of pregnancy’s more pleasant side effects. One of these is a radiant, shiny look, mostly known as “The Glow of Pregnancy”.
OEDEMA
Oedema (or edema) is swelling that can occur in your extremities during pregnancy, most often in the ankles. Some people just get mildly swollen ankles, and some people get extremely puffy ankles and feet, sometimes even calves and knees, so that shoes, or even socks or pants, don’t fit. Oedema can also occur in the fingers, hands, wrists, and face. Often it gets worse towards the end of pregnancy, and some people experience it in all these places at once.
The Waters
A common image in futuristic movies is someone floating in a tank of water in order to heal from injuries, illness, or cryogenic stasis. This idea of submersion in an enclosed aquatic tub that is restorative and salubrious is extremely evocative of the womb. Our babies float in exactly such a substance in our bodies, fully submerged, growing and gestating, until they are ready to emerge. This is amniotic fluid, “the waters” that surround and support our baby.
Location, Location, Location: Choosing Baby’s Place of Birth
“Have you considered having a home birth?” My midwife had asked me in one of our first appointments. I promptly responded no, but the question spurred a few thoughts: “I’m a nurse. How could I even consider that?” “That can’t be safe.”
Weighing In on Pregnancy Weight Gain
How much weight should you gain when you’re pregnant?
While a cursory glance at the internet may appear to provide a consistent answer, a deeper search risks poking a hornet’s nest of dissonant opinions. There are many ways of thinking about this question. And they fly in wildly different directions.
Placenta Trivia
When you are pregnant, you not only grow a baby, you also grow a placenta!
Even though the placenta has been sometimes characterised as a waste-organ, an icky footnote, or unmentionable by-product of birth (the “after birth”), it is actually an important, unique, and fascinating organ.
Ask Childbearing: Why would someone choose to give birth at home?
Why would someone choose to give birth at home? I understand that homebirth is as safe as hospital birth, but are there any specific benefits?
Moms Helping Their Female Partners Through Pregnancy
All of the points discussed by Cameron Phillips directed at soon-to-be Dad’s on how to support your partner through pregnancy are true if you are a woman (or woman identified person). Though harder to admit as a lesbian, even the ‘embrace your inner cave man’ resonated with me. I remember many times feeling and behaving in a very protective way around my partner while she was pregnant.
So, all of you ladies who love ladies who are starting families, the advice to the Dad’s should be taken to heart as well.
I would like to add a few additional points of advice on how to support your pregnant partner, relevant to both men and women.
10 Things Future Dads Should Know About Pregnancy
Pregnancy is a HUGE deal for your wife.
While you may from time to time forget your wife is pregnant, your wife does not. She is changing physically, mentally and hormonally. Dads need to be involved as possible—go to medical appointments, rub cream on her belly, talk to the baby, ask her questions regularly about how she’s feeling. When you are exhausted, try to remember that she is probably even more so. And when the enthusiasm is waning, fake it.
The Benefits of Yoga During Pregnancy
Pregnancy is a time when women can switch focus from the busy-ness of life to take more time to care for ourselves -- our bodies and our minds. Life will change significantly when the baby arrives and yoga can provide women with a solid foundation on which to nurture their bodies and minds, and create a pathway to a healthy pregnancy, delivery, and recovery.
Yoga provides many, many benefits, but central to pregnant women, its benefits include: increased muscle tone, improved flexibility, greater physical comfort, and enhanced mental and emotional stability – all helping to create an overall sense of wellness and peace.