The Pregnant Mind, Body & Soul
Nurturing Practices for the Mother-to-Be
Congratulations! You are going to be an amazing mother! Pregnancy is a beautiful time in a woman’s life. It is really a privilege and divine responsibility to hold a child in our womb for nine months. During that time, we are our baby’s sole provider, decision maker, and influencer. The connection between mother and her baby in the womb is hard to articulate in words. That’s fitting because the connection and communication are not driven by words, but through her actions, thoughts, and ultimately, energy.
The nine months of pregnancy can be a busy and stressful time of your life, but it is at this time that nurturing yourself is of the utmost importance. In fact, you can say it’s your motherly duty to make sure you take care of yourself — mind, body and soul— because in turn, you are taking care of your baby—mind, body, and soul.
Here are three simple but powerful practices you can integrate during your pregnancy—no matter what week you are in—so you can be the best mommy-to-be that you can be.
Mind
Becoming a mom for the first time (or again) can be scary and stressful and thinking about it constantly does not help. It is vital to your health, as well as your baby’s, that you do not inflict constant stress upon yourself. A very helpful exercise to practice throughout your pregnancy to relieve the chatter in your brain is meditation. Meditation has been an integral part of cultures for centuries and although it may be an unfamiliar word to you, you probably have practiced it in one form or another already. Once you become familiar with what style of meditation works for you, you can practice it comfortably anytime, anywhere.
One simple way to meditate is to sit in a chair with your feet flat on the floor. Support your back with a pillow if need be. Close your eyes. Slowly and deeply breathe in and breathe out. Focus on your breath and imagine that as you breathe in, the air travels to all of your cells from head to toe and to your baby’s cells providing the nourishment that you both need. Then, when you breathe out, you release all the negativity and wastes that those cells were holding onto. While breathing, also imagine your feet forming a strong connection to the ground and maybe even growing roots into the ground. This is a powerful technique especially when you feel spacey or too “in your head.” Meditating can be hard at first because we’re not used to not thinking. Try this method and don’t beat yourself up if you can’t turn off your brain completely. You and your baby will both be thankful that you are getting the quiet time into your schedule at all.
Body
Your body needs fuel to help you get through your day-to-day activities and on top of that, your baby needs nourishment while he or she grows. Eating is a loaded activity when you are pregnant. It can be confusing to navigate what your doctor wants with what you are craving with what you are actually keeping down. First, listen to your body and second, practice “quality – not quantity.” More food isn’t necessarily better. In fact, studies show that you only need to eat an average of 300 extra calories per day to have a healthy pregnancy.
Eating food of high nutritional quality is essential to you and your baby’s health. The nutrients you consume become the building blocks for your baby’s body; the higher quality food that you feed yourself, the better food that he or she will get. Strive to eat as much unprocessed, whole food as possible. Those are your fruits, vegetables (especially your dark leafy greens for natural, highly absorbable folate), high quality animal protein and/or vegetable protein, whole grains, and lots of water. Minimize sweets, overly salty food, processed foods with preservatives, and artificial anything— including trans fats, artificial sugar, and artificial colors. Remember that the choices you are making are forming the foundation of your baby’s health, which he or she will have for the rest of his life.
Soul
The soul is not the first thing you may think of nurturing when you are pregnant. But the nourishment and care for your soul is equally as important as taking care of your mind and body. Taking care of your soul is taking care of who you are innately. As a woman, we wear many hats—more so now than ever in our hectic world. We are wives, sisters, daughters, friends, colleagues, neighbors, aunts, cousins, etc. (I’m sure you can think of more).
While pregnant, adding the “Mom” hat is forefront on your mind. Clearly, being the best mom you can be is important, but it is also important for you to stay in touch with who you are. To maintain your identity in the midst of doctor appointments, Lamaze classes, work, and household duties is hard. This will be essential to your sanity and happiness. If you enjoy photography, cooking, or volunteering, do it. It will feed your soul. Just as you would want your child to maintain their sense of identity in times of change in their life, you should want the same for yourself. So what can you do? While pregnant, how can you honor who you are intrinsically while simultaneously honoring the presence of this whole new soul growing in you?
Remember that you are teaching your baby lessons, values and mindset principles even before you lay your eyes on his or her beautiful body. How you treat, feed and feel about yourself play a role in how your baby is growing and feeling and doing good things for yourself will be good for them.