20 weeks / Body Temperature Regulation

Today I am about 20 weeks and 3 days pregnant, I am right at the halfway point! Last week she was moving like crazy, I was even able to see the kicks through my skin! Pretty cool! I was a lot more active last week than this week, I was running and even trying to do some speed work, however I think I over did it just a little. Over the weekend I had a lot of aches and pain in my calves and my hip. I think the most logical explanation for this is that my joints just aren't used to the extra body weight. during the first trimester I only put on about 5 pounds, but I'm still early in the second trimester and I've already put on about 10, so that's a lot of weight coming on really fast and so there hasn't been much time for my body to adapt. So this week I decided to take it easier, I haven't done any running, just weight lifting, yoga and elliptical. Today I am planning to take a step class which is high impact but I feel good today so I think it'll be fine. Next week I plan to start easing back into running. I am signed up for a race at the end of February and will probably also do one in March so I need my body to hold itself together! 
While I'm on the topic of exercise I'd like to mention some more adaptations to exercise and pregnancy. Two  adaptations to exercise in a trained person is that they will sweat sooner, and they will sweat more, when I say more I mean more than they did prior to habitual training, or more than an untrained person. So who's going to need to drink more water during exercise, the trained athlete or the person just starting an exercise routine?  The trained athlete would need to replenish water more because they are losing more through sweat. Why is this important? Sweating is our body's way of maintaining a cooler core body temperature, if we sweat sooner and more then our body is more efficient at cooling itself.  (Side note for competitive athletes: Training in a hotter environment furthers this adaptation, although you have to take it easier as your body gets used to the heat you will be better off when you compete in a cooler environment because your body will be more efficient at dissipating heat).  Now let's look at pregnant women. Some people worry about the pregnant woman overheating during exercise and in turn causing damage to the unborn baby.  I'm not arguing that this is not a concern at all, I'm just going to give you some information that should make that concern less prominent.   This information again, comes from the book "Exercising Through your Pregnancy" by James F. Clapp III. M.D. In his studies of pregnant women he found that "Starting very early in pregnancy, these women's resting body temperature fell dramatically and continued to fall progressively throughout the remainder of pregnancy." Therefore getting rid of excess heat, as during exercise, would probably not be a problem for these women. It seemed that "their ability to get rid of heat had improved so much due to adaptations during pregnancy that the women had to increase their heat production to stay warm when they weren't active!" I can say that has definitely been my experience, it surprised me because everyone always talks about being so hot when pregnant but since I've been pregnant during these cold months, unless I'm active, I am just freezing all the time.  So what does all this mean? 

1. Pregnancy lowers the body's set point for sweating, meaning you sweat sooner. Increased skin blood flow creates the pregnancy "glow", the skin is already warm so the sweat evaporates immediately.
2. Pregnant women breathe 40 - 50 percent more air which improves her ventilation but also increases her ability to get rid of heat through the air she exhales.
3. Increase in blood volume and body weight/mass improves a pregnant woman's ability to deal with extra heat. Increased blood volume maintains skin blood flow, and the weight gain "buffers any increase in heat production by progressively increasing the amount of tissue to heat by 5 - 10 percent in early pregnancy and by 20 - 25 percent near term." Meaning that "at term a pregnant woman can generate about 20 percent more heat without raising her body temperature because there is about 20 percent more tissue to keep warm."

So when looking at these adaptations to exercise and pregnancy separately you can see how they are important but I think you can also see why it might be best to already have that adaptation in place prior to pregnancy by developing an exercise habit before you become pregnant and then of course carefully maintaining it during your pregnancy. 

Expecting a Girl!

Well we had the sonogram, and at first the sonographer was saying that the baby wasn't cooperating, she was staying too low or facing the wrong way or something but eventually I guess the sonographer got a good look and decided that our baby was a girl! Needless to say we were very excited!  It was a lot of fun watching the baby move on the ultrasound, she moves a lot, which is crazy because I couldn't feel any of it! The cutest thing was when the sonographer focused on her face (looks like an X-Ray so you see the bony structures) and you could see that her thumb was in her mouth and you could see her tiny jaw move while she was sucking on it, too cute!!! We got to take home a DVD of the ultrasound, although we have yet to play it for anyone else, I'm sure our parents would like to see it. 
Well my belly officially has the pregnant look, everyone told me it would just happen all of a sudden and everyone was right, I practically woke up one morning with a more definite pregnant belly. I guess I need to get some pictures on this blog. 
I'd like to make an amendment to a previous blog, the one titled "Focus on Protein," I believe I wrote that it was good to consume something around 70 or 75 grams of protein per day while pregnant. Well I talked to my nurse midwife about this and she said that was way too much and not to go over 40 or 45 grams. The main reason being that excessive protein could result in a larger baby which would make a natural delivery more difficult. The Bradley Method for labor and delivery suggests a large amount of protein, and apparently "Bradley Babies" are usually larger-than-normal babies. Not that this is bad for the baby necessarily, it's just harder for the mother to push the baby out....I guess. So anyway I just wanted you to be aware of that. It's not as if I started counting my protein intake I was just trying to eat more protein sources, and it did help curb my crazy appetite but maybe it wasn't so much the additional protein that helped me as it was just the additional calories. Who knows? I just know that I'm healthy, I feel good and I'm gaining appropriate amounts of weight for pregnancy, about 9 or 10 lbs so far. 
I was more tired last week, and I don't know that I got as many "good" workouts in, I know I lifted weights at least twice, took yoga twice and ran at least 3 miles twice. When I write them like that it sounds like a lot of good workouts, I just don't think I was as focused and I know on one of those runs I ended up doing a lot of walking because I was just tired and couldn't get a good rhythm.  Maybe I'll have more energy this week, and I plan to blog some more about the interactive effects of exercise and pregnancy on a woman's body.

Is it a Boy or a Girl???

18 weeks and 1 day today! My baby's arms and legs should be more proportional and neurons are now connected between the brain and muscles allowing the baby better control of it's extremities, thus why I have been feeling more kicks lately. Tiny kicks. A protective substance called vernix caseosa (vernix is the Latin word for varnish; caseosa is cheese) is developing over the baby's skin to create a barrier between it and the amniotic fluid. This keeps the skin from wrinkling. Interesting....

I've been doing more running again the past few weeks as my energy seems to have returned. Today I lifted weights and then went to prenatal yoga.

I have officially switched from my OB Doctor over to the Nurse Midwives. My OB/GYN office is unique in that it not only has Doctors but also 4 nurse midwives. These women are nurse practitioners who have also received extra training in obstetrical care and midwifery. The big difference I see between them and the Doctors is that they do not perform surgeries.  These midwives do not do homebirths, they deliver at St. Luke's only, which is good because Michael and I both agreed that Methodist did not seem as natural birth friendly as St. Luke's. 

Tomorrow we go in for the baby's anatomical scan, so we will hopefully find out the gender!!! I'm so excited to find out, I know it's probably great to be surprised but honestly I can't handle the suspense of not knowing! I think knowing the gender will help me get a better understanding of who the baby is before it's born and help me to bond with it. We both think it's a girl but that's probably just because we both really hope for a girl. I've even been referring to it as "her" and "she" so it's gonna take some mental adjusting if She turns out to be a He!

Preparing for a Natural Birth

I am 16 weeks and 1 day today! My baby is still tiny only about 4 or 5 inches long, I still can't feel it moving although I'm sure it's taking advantage of all of it's space right now, stretching and listening to all of Mommy's crazy music! It's skin is thin and mostly see-through, and it's body should be starting to accumulate some fat. The baby's eyes are finally positioned in the front of it's face and although the eyelids are still sealed it's eyes can start to move side to side and maybe begin to pick up some light. 


I had planned to blog more about pregnancy and exercise however today I'd rather talk about something else that I've been learning a lot about. I've known for a while that I wanted to deliver my baby naturally, to just let my body go through the delivery process the way it was designed to do, as every other woman's body is designed to do. This should be an easy decision for any woman to make but I feel like growing up we're brain washed to believe that giving birth is a scary, painful thing to do instead of something natural. What I'm learning is that it can be difficult to find a Doctor who is willing to work with a woman who wants a natural birth with absolutely no medical interventions. Why? Because OB Doctors work in hospitals and hospitals are driven to do things a certain way, for example if a woman's labor isn't progressing fast enough give her Pitocin, Pitocin makes contractions stronger making it impossible for a woman to relax, if the woman can't relax her labor can't progress, the woman's in pain and finally decides it's time for an Epidural, this makes it harder to push the baby out, this could then lead to an unwanted C-Section. One intervention leads to another. Obviously this isn't how it always happens but I have heard stories similar to this from multiple friends. So what am I doing to prevent this from happening to me? LOTS OF RESEARCH!!! It's important to understand how these drugs affect your body and your baby's body, otherwise why would you feel the need to avoid them. Personally the biggest problem I have with these drugs is that they would do to me is take away my ability to fully experience and appreciate the birth process. This is something that is very important to me.
It also helps to be physically fit and healthy because labor is hard work. 
Michael and I are reading a book together called "Natural Birth the Bradley Way" by Susan McCutcheon. I've found this book to be very helpful and informative. After I read the chapter that explains how labor works, I was even more relaxed and confident in my plans to go natural. The book also teaches you lots of methods to help you relax through a contraction, it explains that relaxing through contractions allows your body to do what it's trying to do (dilate the cervix) whereas tensing can slow the process down.
Michael and I have also toured the hospitals we had to choose from for delivery and we have chosen the one that is more natural birth friendly. Believe me after our tours its was painfully obvious which hospital felt like a machine versus the one that would give me the best chance of achieving a natural birth. We are also looking into switching from my OB Doctor to the midwives, we met with one of them yesterday just to ask questions, and we definitely liked her more than my Doctor. I would love to deliver in a Birth Center or even do a home birth however with the way our insurance works it's way more expensive to do it that way than to deliver in the hospital, plus since this is my first pregnancy we would probably be more comfortable being in the hospital  just in case there are complications during the delivery. 
So that's my natural birth soapbox, I tried to keep it toned down as I do feel strongly about this and can get pretty intense when I talk about it. Plus there is a lot more information and detail that I could go into about why I feel so strongly, but I also don't want to overwhelm you with information. 
The possibility that complications could occur is always there in any pregnancy, I can't control that but what I can do is prepare myself as much as possible for the natural birth and then like I said before let God handle the rest. I guess this pregnancy is teaching me a lot about patience and trusting God. 

Prenatal Yoga

Destination Maternity offers free prenatal yoga classes pretty much every day of the week! They're good classes too, the instructor is very caring and knowledgeable. I took yoga today, it's work but it's very relaxing. I still have pretty good muscle tone on my stomach, my arms get tired the fastest especially when holding the plank poses! 

Last weekend Michael and I took partner yoga, that is only offered once or twice a month and only on Saturdays. We both enjoyed that, there was only one other couple in there so it was like a private session! Partner yoga is different because we work together and help each other balance through the poses. 

How does the body adapt to pregnancy? What about Exercise?

Alright here is the blog entry you've all been waiting for! This whole time I've been talking about exercising while pregnant and telling you that it's good but isn't it time for me to start to prove it? I think so! Now this may take a few entries but I'm going to get started. The bulk of my information comes from a book called "Exercising Through Your Pregnancy" by James F. Clapp. Clapp has run many studies on pregnant women who continued weight bearing exercise throughout their pregnancies and compared them to women who did not. This book has a lot of great, detailed, scientific information and I would recommend it to anyone who is even remotely interested! 

Let's start by looking at the heart and circulatory system's adaptations to pregnancy. During pregnancy the circulatory system must change to support the mother's body but also that of the developing baby. When the fertilized egg implants in the uterus the outer rim of cells that will form the placenta release a hormone that causes a the woman's blood vessels to relax. This means that the elasticity and volume of the entire circulatory system (heart, arteries, veins) increases. This is what we refer to as "underfill" because now there is not enough blood in the circulation to fill it up, and thus blood pressure falls. This is the cause of a lot of early pregnancy symptoms such as feeling light headed, nausea, and fatigue. The body responds to this underfill by releasing hormones that cause the kidneys to retain more salt and water, thus the volume of plasma expands correcting the underfill problem. Finally blood volume, stroke volume, and cardiac output increases, which as I said before was necessary so that the mother's body can now support not just herself but also the developing baby. 
Now for the adaptations to exercise, quoting directly from Clapp's book, "Many classic studies... have clearly demonstrated that regular, vigorous exercise training increases blood volume, the size of the heart chambers, the volume of blood pumped with each beat, and the maximum cardiac output that can be achieved."  It also increases the bodies ability to dissipate heat, thereby helping to prevent overheating, and it also helps the body become more efficient at delivering oxygen and nutrients to tissues. Hmmm I'm seeing a pattern here, some of these adaptions to exercise are similar to the adaptations that a woman's body goes through when she becomes pregnant! "Therefore as you  might have already guessed, the changes produced by regular weight-bearing exercise actually complement those induced by pregnancy. Indeed the circulatory status of a normal pregnant woman at rest has many similarities with that of a trained nonpregnant woman during exercise." So, when a fit woman maintains her regular exercise routine during pregnancy, I be those cardiovascular adaptations to pregnancy are combined with their preexisting adaptations to training! That's the part that makes me the most excited! It makes me think that maybe if I keep up my exercise routine during pregnancy that I should be even stronger after I have the baby! Pregnancy could actually help me be a better athlete! That's exciting! I'm not planning on breaking my 5k record (23 min 45 sec) during my pregnancy but what about after! I'm not gonna lie, going running now is way more work than it ever has been, my heart rate stays real high even though I'm only running like an 11 minute/mile pace and some days I'm just totally out of breath and can't seem to find a rhythm. But I think this is normal simply because of how hard my body is having to work just to keep me alive. Even if I don't come back a stronger athlete than I was prior to being pregnant, exercising will still have been worth it because not only is it benefiting me but it's also good for my baby! I'll save that discussion for another blog entry!

14 weeks and 2 days

The biggest milestone this week for my baby is that now it can hear! I think that's pretty exciting, not as exciting as being able to feel it would be but it's exciting to think about my baby reaching that major development milestone! It's arms and legs are lone enough for it to extend now and it's neck is still lengthening. The baby practices breathing movements and swallowing. Can't wait for me next ultrasound!!!