Baby Lessons Part I

Last week Giles and I attended our first NHS lesson on how to get through this pregnancy and birth malarkey. The session was a 1.5 hour session, focussed on 'Physio' and was to cover pregnancy physio, birth positions and getting back to normal post-pushing baby out. We arrived and found a seat in the boiling hot (not ideal for a bunch of preggos!) classroom with the other 15 or so women and their partners. It was the first situation that I've been in with loads of pregnant women and I found myself eyeing up all of their bumps, wondering how pregnant they were and making comparisons with mine! 

The session started with the Physio session asking us the following question: "Who is not in any pain at the moment?". Now, naive as it may seem, I thought that almost all of the women would be putting their hands up - and so I eagerly stuck my hand in the air. I was the only one!!! This led to me be asked to declare my secrets to the group! The next hour was a bit of a moaning session - we went through all the symptoms, aches and pains that the women were experiencing and talked about techniques to help - we had pelvic pain, muscle pain, ankle pain, chest pain, bum pain, thumb pain - the list goes on! 

It made me realise how incredibly lucky that I have been throughout this pregnancy - I've loved it! No sickness and almost no ailments, aches or pains! As for my secrets... the only things that I can think of are: 

• Walking: I currently walk 4 miles a day (2 miles each way to work). Even though I'm getting much slower... I am sure this must still be good for keeping the swollen ankles, stretch marks and cellulite at bay!
• Sleep: I've always needed a good 8 hours sleep... and I've kept this up throughout pregnancy. I've been going to be earlier and earlier in the third trimester - now asleep by 9.30/10 most nights! Pack it in now before the baby is here!
• Not reading too much: I have been so overwhelmed by the amount of books, articles, forums on what you should/shouldn't do during pregnancy/labour/child raising that I've decided to try and avoid reading stuff, apart from the essential literature provided by my midwife! I want to be able to make up my own mind about what to do and how to behave, so that I can feel guilt free about my choice during pregnancy and beyond.

So they are my top tips. In reality, I just think I've been one of the lucky ones! It probably means I'm doomed to have an excruciating labour or something - hopefully not!

The last bit of the session gave us some tips for birth positions. We came away with some leaflets with rather funny pencil sketches of recommended positions - and a scary leaflet on how to avoid "tearing"... Oh god!