1.) Foods

During pregnancy do not eat unpasteurized foods (cheeses and dairy products).  Do not eat raw fish or meats.  Reheat deli or processed meat before you eat them.

2.) Flu Shots

The CDC recommends pregnant women should get a flu shot. During pregnancy, a woman’s immune system is weakened and she becomes more susceptible to viruses and infections.

3.) Exercise

Exercise is alright for most healthy pregnant  women. Check with your health care provider before starting any exercise during your pregnancy.  For most healthy, pregnant women walking 30 minutes daily should be fine.  If your doctor has cleared you for exercise:
*keep your heartbeat under 140 beats per minute and no high impact exercising
*Swimming, walking, even jogging can be fine.  Yoga and pilates are also fine. You may have to modify some of your poses as the pregnancy progresses.

4.) Alcohol
No amount of alcohol has been proven to be safe in pregnancy (this includes wine).

5.) Seat Belts
Always wear seat belts during pregnancy.

6.) Folic Acid
The MOST important time to take folic acid (usually in prenatal vitamins) is in the first 3 weeks of pregnancy. If you are planning a pregnancy; start taking a prenatal vitamin with folic acid before you are pregnant to get the most benefit.

7.) Pets
Tell your doctor if you have you have a cat(s) and assign someone else to clean the litter box. If you do have cats your health care provider may want to test you for toxoplasma, which is carried in cat feces and can harm a pregnancy.

8.) Blood Type
If you have a negative blood type you will more than likely need a shot of Rhogam during your pregnancy, including if your miscarry or terminate a pregnancy.

9.) Strep
Know your Group B Strep status. Around the 35th to the 37th week of pregnancy your health care provider will probably test you for Group B Strep.  This test detects if you are a carrier for Group B Strep.  If you are you will more than likely get antibiotics in labor.

10.) Sex
Sex is fine during most pregnancies as long as you are comfortable unless your healthcare provider tells you otherwise.

There are many more things that are important to know during pregnancy.  Please contact your health care provider for any questions or concerns that you may have.

Would love to hear your 10 Things You Think every Pregnant Woman Should Know!

Over the past few days, I’ve been getting a lot of those, “Not too much longer” comments. I feel funny telling people that I still have 4 weeks left (really 3 1/2 since I have a scheduled repeat c-section). One lady said she had just asked another girl my size yesterday and the girl only had 2 days left! How do you react to that?!!!

My husband said that I should just start saying, “What are you talking about? I’m only halfway there.” Now that would probably shut them up pretty quickly. I might try the multiples angle too. Well, I do have four in there. It’s quads. But I’m kind of scared to even joke about that

I’m really not sure if I’ll make it another three weeks, so I really need to pack my bag in advance this time…and soon, just in case.

Week 33
By Jennifer
BabyBlogAddict.com

Yes, that’s an MC Hammer “Can’t Touch This” t-shirt. My son took this picture of me or should I say, my belly, the other day.

I bought the shirt from discobelly on etsy. I have to admit that it took longer than it was supposed to to get it, but I finally got it.

I’m starting to think that this shot was calling for a buddha belly shirt like this one from Jellybean Apparel instead

Week 22
By Jennifer
BabyBlogAddict.com

Editor’s note: “My Pregnancy Journal” posts will be first hand accounts of what’s going on in my pregnancy. I’m currently 22 weeks pregnant with our second child.

During my first pregnancy, my husband had to hear me talk about all the baby’s movements–kicking, flipping and punching. But every time I called him over to feel it, it stopped cold.

Until one afternoon…at a movie.

The key that time was that he was already sitting next to me. When the baby kicked, I grabbed his hand and moved it to my belly. Not only was a nice, swift kick delivered into the palm of his hand, but seconds later he saw another kick through my shirt. His face lit up like a kid in a candy store when he felt it.

This (my second) pregnancy is no different. I’m 22 weeks now and I’ve called him over several times only to have the baby stop moving. I was hoping to reenact last pregnancy’s movie movement when we went on a movie date this past weekend. So when I felt the baby start to move around, I knew this would be his chance to feel baby #2′s movement for the first time, and he finally did.

My husband says, “There’s something very strange and exciting about feeling–and seeing–the movement for the first time. It once again reinforces the fact that there’s something living in there.”

The baby also benefits. One study found that when an expectant mother works out, her fetus reaps cardiac benefits in the form of lower fetal heart rates.

Babies delivered by elective, repeat cesarean section delivery are nearly twice as likely to be admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) than those born vaginally after the mother has previously had a c-section, the study finds.

When one mother discovered, at 24 weeks pregnant, that she had a malignant brain tumor, she was faced with an unthinkable choice: treat her cancer and lose the baby, or wait until the baby could live on her own and risk her own life.

In a stunning act of devotion to her baby, she chose to delay treatment until she knew the baby was strong enough to live outside the womb. A recent Los Angeles Times essay recounts her harrowing tale.

Doctors told the mother, a young Indian woman in her 20s, that if she didn’t treat the aggressive tumor immediately, she would likely die. But the fetus would probably not survive treatment. She decided to delay treatment and slipped into a coma within days.

More…

Many people were stranded at home with no electricity for days or even weeks after Ike slammed Southeast Texas on Sept. 13, and several obstetrical practices associated with The Woman’s Hospital of Texas say they’re expecting a mini-baby boom.

Dr. Rakhi Dimino, an obstetrician/gynecologist with Houston Women’s Care Associates, spent several days after Ike at home with her husband with no electricity and is set to give birth to her first child June 10. She told the Houston Chronicle she was doing “what everybody else in Houston was doing.”

“You can only do so much when there’s no television, nothing open and there’s nowhere to go,” said Dimino, 33.

Dr. John Irwin, the chief of surgery service at Woman’s Hospital who routinely delivers 15 to 20 babies a month, said he has 26 deliveries scheduled in June.

More…

“We managed to write chapter one. Chapter two, we will have a child a parent can take home and raise as a cloned child,” Zavos said.

His hope is that the birth of the first human clone is just a few years away.

Researchers from the University of Denver and Texas A&M University studied 218 couples for eight years and found that even though childless couples also show diminished marital bliss over time, those with children had an accelerated decline — particularly during adjustment to parenthood right after the birth.