The physical burden of pregnancy, unfortunately follows high risk for more injuries for a new mom. Weakened musculoskeletal system, lack of rest and sometimes even nutrition, focusing on your new born and trying to cater to baby’s needs and depriving self from much needed recovery time are some contributing factors. Let’s look at 4 common injuries for a new mom:
Thumb sprain/ pain
Repetitively picking your little one up, can sprain your thumbs. What’s a sprain? Sprains occur when we over stretch our ligaments, since ligaments are non-contractile therefore, fiber will start tearing under excessive stress. That’s what we call a sprain. Once you sustain a sprain, your brain recognizes the injury and tells the surrounding muscles to tighten up in order to protect the area from a secondary injury. Some local massage followed by stretching, and changing the way you pick your baby up will aid in resolving your symptoms.
Shoulder and neck pain
Especially if you are Co-sleeping, hugging your little one, you are putting excessive stress on your shoulders by staying in stiff positions and feeding into bad sleeping postures. Not to mention how much stress, repetitive lifting and carrying your baby puts on your shoulders. As the day goes on, due to fatigue, and stress of multi tasking, starts being more challenging and instead of actively using our muscles, we start depending on our static stability more. Now, what is static stability? There are two types of stability in our body. Static stability is provided by static structures such as bones and ligaments. Dynamic stability is provided by moving structures such as muscles. Once muscles fatigue, we shift our dependence onto static structures. Determination in getting work done motivates our body to focus on the end result not on how we are hurting ourselves. All my super mommas know what I am talking about!
When it comes to comes to neck and back problems, they always come hand in hand. Our spine is formed of 33 bones which are all interconnected with many ligaments and muscles. If you have neck pain, it will trickle down to your back and vice versa. An over-stretched and weakened core during pregnancy, puts a new mom at a high risk to experience some sort of a back problem such as sciatica, bulging disc or simply stiffness and pain. Especially for breast feeding mom, one of the hardships of breastfeeding is the slouched posture we are put in. The result: neck and back pain. Once we start losing our natural curvatures setting off our pain receptors screaming, “I’m beyond my extensibility and I will break if you keep pushing me in that direction.” what’s the solution? Keep good posture. If you can, prefer supported sitting to unsupported siting. Benefit from a lumbar roll while in supported siting. Once you are done with breastfeeding, or at the end of the day, do couple of stretches and exercises to restore good posture.
Milk production is a supply demand mechanism meaning, more often your breasts are emptied either by nursing or pumping, more milk your body will produce. Meeting that demand takes time since your body will not go from producing an ounce to 3 ounces over night so be patient.
2- Mothers milk tea has lot of good ingredients. Drink 3 to 5 cups a day as the instructions say. Many stores such as whole foods, target or walmart has it or you can order it online. You can also get the ingredients of mothers milk tea separately which I found to be more helpful for me.
3- I got FenuGreek which is one of the ingredients in Mother’s milk tea. You can find it in wholefoods store or order online. Mine came as capsules and I took three capsules a day with meals. Fenugreek really helped me boost my milk supply.
Once of the most discussed topic of pregnancy is whether or not you can drink while pregnant. I think most people agree on the harms of excessive drinking, however the amount remains unsettling for many. But what is excessive? Is one cup a day excessive? Is one cup a month okay? Should you not risk anything and not drink at all?
In this case, 1+2 is not equal 2. In many cultures, pregnant women are encouraged to eat more since there is a baby growing inside of them. 1+1= 2 right? So many people believe when you are pregnant, you need to be eating twice as much since you need to gain weight and also supply for your baby.
Many people gave me a positive perspective on being sick; my hormones were working, and my body was doing what it supposed to do so it was a good thing. Around 3.5 months, when the nausea stopped and I was pretty much back to feeling normal; I did not feel pregnant at all. First, you tell yourself not to be crazy, and you are ok. At the time, one of family friends had to go for a surgical abortion at 3 months because her baby’s heart stopped. You can imagine then I started fearing what if something happened to my baby? Early in the pregnancy, my plan was to not get ultrasound at every doctor visit. Once I entered second trimester, I could not wait for the ultrasound just to see my baby. When we went for our 4 months follow up visit, I was relieved to know he was ok.
Feeling the first kick or move is very exciting for both parents. I did not start feeling him kick or move until 4.5 months. It is different for every mother. Also feeling your baby move has to do with the position of your baby in relationship to the placenta. If your baby is lying on top the placenta then your baby is directly under your belly, making the barrier between you two less. If placenta is between your stomach and the baby, it will be harder for you to feel all the punching and the kicking that may be going on.
The period between the nausea stopping and baby starting to kick, maybe a little unnerving but do not worry. I was not thrilled at all regarding ongoing sickness during my first trimester, however when the nausea stopped and fatigue subsided, I started feeling not pregnant. Do not worry and panic! Your little one is probably safe and just hanging out which will be confirmed at your next follow up visit.
I do not know why it is called morning sickness since you feel queasy all day long. In my case, I did not have too bad of a sickness when I compare myself to others where women could not get out of bed, could not eat anything, lost weight and even had to get an IV put in due to risk of malnutrition. I never threw up, nausea would cause me to gag, I would go to the bathroom just incase and It would stop. I guess I was lucky.
My favorite recipe was:
Babyhood: A to Z 
