THE BLESSED PERIOD OF PREGNANCY
Your 2nd trimester (12-28 weeks) is very rightly called blessed because all the unpleasant nausea and vomiting starts to disappear. Your appetite improves. And more excitingly, you’ll start to feel the baby move sometime between 20-22 weeks. If this isn’t your first baby, then you’ll feel it anywhere between 18-20 weeks.
Now, I have put down the kind of drugs, diet and exercises that your body will require during this period. Follow it and you and your baby should be perfectly happy.
While folic acid continues to be vital to your diet, you need to ensure that you get enough Iron and Calcium during this trimester.
- Rich in Iron:
Meat, poultry, fish, beans, lentils, spinach, peas, broccoli, dry fruits, apricots, prunes, raisins, figs, dark chocolate
- Rich in Calcium:
Milk, yoghurt, cheese, white bread, almonds, sesame seeds, spinach
Supplements and medication:
- Iron
- Calcium
- Multivitamins if you aren’t getting enough in your diet
- Take your 1st dose of TT around 18-20 weeks
While this diet will keep you healthy, you will also need to go in for some routine checkups without fail during this period.
A few things that are to be thoroughly investigated:
- Anomaly scan around 18-20 weeks
- Routine sugar and urine test and repeat haemoglobin test just to make sure everything is healthy
- Indians are at high risk of Diabetes so do the 75 gms Glucose Tolerance Test. It is compulsory in any case.
As for exercise, continue to walk for 30-45 minutes every day.
I always advice husbands to actively participate in the pregnancy. The best place to begin is with antenatal exercise class for the couple after 20-22 weeks, once your anomaly scan says everything is normal. You’ll be surprised at how doing this will get the fathers more involved hence forth.