Pregnancy condition, 10 symptoms and few valuable tips
By Dr. Kanchan Harjwani | March 25, 2016
Pregnancy is the most exciting period as well as a challenging period of the female's life. During pregnancy condition it is very vital to follow certain methods for the wellbeing of the mother as well as the baby.
These days chances of getting pregnant naturally is less as compared to ancient days. It may be due to alterations in the lifestyle factors such as increased stress, decreased physical activity, change in diet pattern, late age pregnancy and many more.
Factors affecting pregnancy
- Age factor: Once you reach the age of 30, your chances of conceiving are difficult, and it decreases with age and in 40s chances are very less or may lead to complicated pregnancy.
- Irregular Menstrual cycles: Even though it may not necessarily affect the fertility, it will make impossible to ‘guesstimate’. It will be not possible to calculate ovulation period and proper time of intercourse.
- Time period: If you have tried for more than one year to get pregnant by the natural way and still not succeeded you can consult your gynecologist.
- Medical conditions: Any other long time illness like thyroid, PCOS may affect fertility.
Tips for planning pregnancy
1. Visit your doctor: Yes! It is very essential to get regular health checkup to rule out and treat any health issue which may affect your conceiving ability or which may cause complicated pregnancy.
2. Quit alcohol and smoking: Smoking and Alcohol will leads to infertility. Moreover, they will affect growth of baby (teratogenic effect), and also leads to premature birth and miscarriages.
3. Avoid caffeine and aerated sodas: The caffeine can cross the placenta barrier and reach the baby. Excessive caffeine will affect the fetal development. And soda contains a content called “Saccharine” which may leads to birth defects in the baby.
4. Healthy eating habits: During this period you are two people. You need to have balanced diet to nourish both of you. The pregnancy diet must include plenty of fruits, green leafy vegetables, whole grains, and protein every day.
5. Healthy weight: Extra weight can give rise to gestational diabetes and preeclampsia (high blood pressure) so it's better tolose weight before you plan. The obesity may also affect hormonal balance and will decrease the chances of getting pregnant.
Getting pregnant:
It is depended on ovulation and having intercourse at the appropriate time. With the average menstrual cycle of 28 to 30 day, ovulation usually takes place between 11th day and 21st day of your menstrual cycle.
The easiest way to become pregnant is to have intercourse every other day (or maximum days) of your menstrual cycle starting from day 10 to day 20. Sperm can live for 2 to 5 days in the woman’s body so it is not necessary to have sex every day. However, to increase the chances of conceiving, fresh healthy sperm every other day may prove beneficial.
Symptoms of pregnancy:
Early pregnancy symptoms may vary from woman to woman, however, one of the most important symptom is missed period.
Understanding the signs and symptoms is very essential because each sign may not necessarily have only caused as because of pregnancy. Most probably you experience the symptoms within a week of conception.
1. Spotting: Implantation bleeding can be one of the earliest symptoms of pregnancy for some women. After six to twelve days of conception, the embryo attaches itself to uterine walls. Some women will experience spotting or even cramps. Some women even do not notice this spot bleeding or cramps, but not necessarily all women will have this symptom.
2. Missed bleeding: This is the commonest and important symptom which leads to a pregnancy test and then confirmation of the pregnancy. When you conceive your next period should be missed but even though after conceiving you may get bleeding but that won’t be similar to your regular menstrual cycle.
3. Breast tenderness: It is again one of the signs which are seen after one to two weeks of conception. Women may feel some tenderness in the breast.
4. Fatigue easily: It starts from the first week of conception, women may feel tired very easily with little exertion.
5. Morning sickness: It starts from second to the fourth month of conception and may be continued till the end of pregnancy. This is because of hormonal changes in the body due to pregnancy. The nausea in pregnancy is referred as ‘morning sickenss’.
6. Backache: In early days of pregnancy women may experience lower back pain. It occurs due to weight gain, hormonal changes and change in the body posture.
7. Headache: Due to increase in the blood volume, stress and surge of hormones you may experience pain during first and third trimester.
8. Frequent urination: This is again one of the common symptom faced by all women. You may go very frequent for urination especially in the third trimester. Although it starts from six to eight weeks of conception.
9. Specific food craving or food aversions: Many females have different cravings for food. Not only pickles or ice creams but it may differ from person to person, this craving remains throughout.
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