Vim & Vigor - Fall 2013 - Parrish Medical Center - (Page 32)

If you haven’t been particularly active prior to pregnancy, she recommends walking with a friend. “It’s a good place to start,” she says, “so you have a social outlet as well as the physical.” A Heavy Crown The idea of “eating for two” during pregnancy went out of style a couple of decades ago—along with tentlike maternity wear that the fashionable Kate would never have been caught in. A proper balance of good nutrition and exercise promotes optimal weight gain. But what is optimal, exactly? “There’s not an absolute number. We recommend starting with your BMI [body mass index], using your weight before pregnancy to see where you need to go from there,” Dolan says. The general guidelines recommend a gain of about 25 to 35 pounds if you’re starting at a normal weight with a single pregnancy, or a gain of 11 to 20 pounds if you’re obese at the time of conception, Dolan says. A Royal Pain 32 Fa l l 2 013 photography by getty images Most expectant mothers experience their share of physical challenges, starting with morning sickness in the first trimester (12 weeks) of pregnancy. The Duchess endured a severe rare version known as hyperemesis gravidarum, which led to hospitalization early in her pregnancy. “About 50 to 90 percent of women experience at least some mild nausea and vomiting. Less than 2 percent experience this type of extreme morning sickness,” Dolan says. “If you do get dehydrated and lose too much weight—more than a 5 percent weight loss—you may need to be hospitalized, as was the case with Kate, to get intravenous fluids to rehydrate and get medications to stop the nausea.” This serious form of morning sickness (and most others, thankfully) tends to get better after the first trimester. But what can you do in the meantime to ease your symptoms? Douglas recommends pinpointing and avoiding foods or odors that trigger your nausea, and trying remedies like ginger and papaya, which can have a calming effect. “It’s amazing how the natural world continues to teach us so much about what we can do to manage some of these things,” she says.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Vim & Vigor - Fall 2013 - Parrish Medical Center

Vim & Vigor - Fall 2013 - Parrish Medical Center
Contents
Tasty Tips
Opening Thoughts
Community Calendar
Someone to Guide You
Step It Up
Your Mightiest Muscle
Well, Well, Well
Are You Doing More Harm Than Good?
Is Your Shut-Eye Serving You Well?
Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge
Anatomy of an ER Visit
Next-Gen Surgery
Attack from Within
Virtual Health
Community Health
A Love for Helping People
Cruising with a Chronic Condition
Foundation Focus
Ask the Expert

Vim & Vigor - Fall 2013 - Parrish Medical Center