During your first trimester, your body changes and your baby grows so that fatigue becomes a very early symptom of pregnancy. Being pregnant puts a strain on your entire body and the end result is often pregnancy exhaustion.
When you are pregnant, your body cries out for rest. This fatigue is possibly caused by hormonal changes – in particular, a dramatic rise in progesterone – making you feel sleepy and less energetic.
During this time, you are building the placenta that feeds and nourishes your baby until birth.
When your body is crying out for rest, don’t fight it but try to adjust your life accordingly. Here are some ways to help you combat prenatal exhaustion:
- Reduce your list of daily activities down to the bare essentials.
- Stock up the fridge with ready made meals for those days when you don’t feel like cooking.
- Turn down social invitations and cut out unnecessary commitments.
- If you are working, find somewhere quiet when you can go and rest for half an hour or close your office door and put your head down and rest.
- Make the most of weekends to get plenty of rest and sleep.
- When you get home from work, lie down for 20 minutes so that you have more energy for the evening.
- Heed your body’s signals and start going to be bed earlier than usual each night.
- The quality of your sleep can affect how you feel. Do whatever it takes to make your sleep more restful whether it is extra pillows, darker curtains or even earplugs. If you suffer from insomnia, then read for a while until you feel sleepy again.
- Try to do more difficult tasks when you have the most energy and leave those easier ones for when you are tired.
- Give yourself more time to do things and cut down on the multi-tasking for now as you will just get frustrated.
- If friends or family offer help or assistance, take advantage of this.
- If you are a stay-at-home mom with older children, then arrange to leave your children with someone else from time to time so that you can catch up on some sleep.
- Your diet is very important at this time. You will need about 300 extra calories per day so follow a healthy diet of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and skim milk and lean meats to help you feel more energetic. Snack on healthy foods like fruit and yoghurt.
- Junk food will sap you of energy and make you feel even more tired.
- Cut back on the caffeine and drink up to 8 glasses of water per day.
- Moderate exercise every day will actually make you feel better, keep your muscles limbered and give you a better night’s sleep. Walking and/or swimming are excellent exercise.
- Stop for a break several times during the day in order to stretch and breathe deeply.
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