The Importance of Your own Understanding

In this 25th week of pregnancy my baby should weigh about a pound and a half and be about nine inches long, but of course how would we know for sure? Even ultrasound scans are not always accurate.  This brings me to another issue that I've been hearing/reading about lately, and that is this idea that the baby's due date should dictate exactly when labor will begin. This isn't an issue that I would consider myself an expert on but I just want to point out some things that I think people need to think about.  I was talking to a friend who's wife is pregnant and she's due early March however the Doctor says the baby is already weighing 7 lbs and because we don't want her to give birth to an 11 lb baby we will probably be inducing her 2 or 3 weeks before her due date.  I asked him if they would induce her with Pitocin, he didn't know how they would induce her but he also had never heard of Pitocin, didn't know what it was or what effects it has on the body. So I explained to him how it worked and then I suggested to him "don't you think if the baby was ready to be born your wife would go into labor on her own?"  What really bugs me about this is that it was obvious that he and I assume his wife also, had not done any research of their own. They have completely given their pregnancy and birth experience over to their Doctor.  I'm not saying we should not listen to our Doctors but when we are educated about a subject then we are able to ask better questions, even a simple question like "well how do you plan to induce me?"  But if you don't already know that there are multiple ways to induce labor then you probably aren't going to think to ask that question.
Another similar story that my Bradley instructor shared last Thursday was about a pregnant woman who was also told that her baby was already weighing something like 8 or 9 lbs therefore the baby was ready to be born therefore we should induce labor now. So they did and long story short, this unnatural labor process led to a C-Section and as it turned out the baby only weighed 6 lbs. The Doctor was wrong? (Sorry if I didn't get that story exactly right but I think I made my point). C-Section for a 6 lb baby in a woman who was not even high-risk, that's UNNECESSARY.  Yes there are some cases where inducing labor is necessary, maybe the placenta has stopped functioning properly or other rare cases like that. C-Section can save lives, it saved my life when I was born, but we have to admit that lots of unnecessary ones are performed in our hospitals. I've also said before that sometimes the use of drugs in labor and delivery can cause a C-Section to become necessary when it otherwise would not have been. 
I think it's important for women and men to know the facts, do the research so that you have some control over what happens during your pregnancy. Yes it's short but it's also an important experience.  

24 weeks Exactly

Already 24 weeks, pregnancy has flown by thus far, we'll see how I feel during that final month! I don't have a lot of updates with the pregnancy itself this time. We have decided to reveal her name soon, not sure when exactly. The original plan was to wait until she was born to tell people her name but I'm just too excited to keep that secret longer, it's just another detail I'd like to share with people! I started decorating the letters of her name that will be hung in the nursery, of course I will not share pictures of them yet. 

I have still been lifting weights and running however this week I am taking a break from running as my right foot is still having some pain. I've had this pain for several months and actually started going to the Doctor for it right before getting pregnant. By the time the specialist was able to see me I was already pregnant and since he couldn't take X-Rays he couldn't diagnose the problem so I will most likely go back after I have the baby. I've had foot and ankle problems for a long time so it was about time I did something about it. For the most part as long as I ice and do constant ankle strengthening I'm good, but the feet are a whole different issue.  Anyway I am taking a short break from running because I am signed up to run the Diploma Dash in two weeks and I'd like to be fresh for it, not that I plan on breaking my PR but I'd still like to be able to jog it.

22 Weeks/Good Machines for Weight Lifting

Around this time my baby should weigh about 1 pound and she should be about 8 inches long. I just read that also around this time she is going to start gaining some serious weight and that it should actually double over the next 4 weeks. I definitely feel the weight difference when I exercise; yesterday during a run around the neighborhood I ended up going back home just to change my shoes because my calves were getting unbearably tight. Changing my shoes made a huge difference, the calf pain was gone immediately and I was able to maintain a more steady pace while running. Basically I just switched from my minimalist shoes back to my thicker ones with more support. Going swimming sounds great but I don't have access to a pool and I don't know that it's worth joining a gym just for that purpose since I currently work at a gym. 

Today I did some weight lifting, although I was lacking motivation for it. I've been focusing a lot on keeping my joints strong. For most exercises I prefer free weights however there are 4 machines that I think are great for helping stabilize the knees and hips. Knee extensions, which I do one leg at a time so that the stronger leg can't cheat for the weaker one, Knee curls, again one leg at a time. Those machines are not very "functional" because they isolate that one muscle group and in life we are never just using one muscle group at a time we use multiple ones. But I'm thinking that as I'm gaining weight and my body is releasing the hormone relaxin it's even more important to make sure that my joints are stable. Relaxin is the hormone that causes the joints in a pregnant woman to become more loose. This is helpful during the birth process however it can make the exercising pregnant woman more prone to injury, for example through overstretching. I also like the Hip Abduction and Adduction machines, great for strengthening not only the hips but again the muscles that stabilize the medial and lateral portion of the knees. I'm also a big fan of the Chin up and Tricep dip assisting machine, for those of us that are not strong enough (yet) to lift our own body weight. So anyway I did those today plus barbell squats and have been pretty consistently doing those machines once a week, although I think 2 to 3 times a week would be best. 

Placental Function and Adaptations to Exercise

The Placenta is an organ that develops during pregnancy, it functions to maintain the transport of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the mother and the baby. It basically serves as the baby's lung. It is highly vascularized; small blood vessels carrying the baby's blood run through the placenta which is full of the mother's blood. Nutrients and oxygen from the mother's blood and transferred to the baby's blood, and waste products (including CO2) are transferred from the baby's blood to the mother's blood so that her body can get rid of it. Although not relevant to the discussion of exercise, it is important to note that the mother and the baby's blood never actually mix, the baby has it's own blood separate and individually unique from the mother's. 
The following information also comes from my book "Exercising Through your Pregnancy." Dr. James F. Clapp found that regular exercise has some positive effects on the growth and function of the placenta that help to protect the fetus from oxygen deprivation. "The placentas of women who exercise regularly throughout early and mid-pregnancy grow faster and function better that those of women who are healthy but don't exercise regularly. This means that at any rate of uterine blood flow, more oxygen and nutrients can get across to the baby of a woman who exercises than to the baby of one who does not. This probably is not important under most circumstances,  because unless there is a problem or a large decrease in flow (as during hemorrhage or strenuous exercise), both placentas will supply the baby adequately." 

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!