Pregnancy is a perfectly glowing, vibrant, healthy time in a woman’s life…. right?

Not always.  It can be these things for some women, it certainly has the potential for being one of the most life-changing events you will ever have.  But for some women, and with increasing frequency, pregnancy can be a difficult time.  Difficult physically, emotionally, and in many other ways.

If you’re pregnant, you may experience any of the following, and what’s important to know is that, while these are common and sometimes normal, they don’t always need to be so bad.  We are in a strange era of prenatal health care where women are often told ‘this is part of pregnancy… grin and bear it’.  That’s not always necessary with the following:

Why do we get these symptoms?

The simple answer is hormone changes.  This accounts for a lot, and in fact, many women find that the issues they deal with the most during pregnancy are similar (but perhaps stronger) to the type of PMS they typically experience.  For example, if you are prone to slight water retention each month with your cycle, then you might just be more prone to swollen ankles in your pregnancy.  If you’re planning ahead to become pregnant, one of the best things you can do is deal with hormone imbalances ahead of time.

However, there are more than just hormones at play here.

Your general health, the way you eat, how much exercise you get, the quality and quantity of your sleep, stress burden, and medical history will all have a bearing on what happens to your body during pregnancy.  Take, for example, anemia.  A natural response when you become pregnant is something called ‘hemodilution’ which is a relative decrease in your body’s hemoglobin because of the blood supply that has been redirected to the fetus growing in your womb.  This usually results in a temporary state of anemia, and most women do better when they supplement with iron, or eat more red meat if that’s an option.  For a woman with a previous history of anemia, and limited storage of iron, this problem may be exacerbated even more when she becomes pregnant.  As a result, you may be more fatigued than you might otherwise be, you may experience a racing heart or light-headedness, or you might even feel as though you have anxiety.  This, among all the symptoms above, can be remedied to some degree.

Naturopathic Medicine is particularly well-suited to prenatal care.

Because naturopaths are trained to treat with safe and effective methods to affect the balance of health, they are well-suited to treating the common ailments of pregnancy, and minimizing the difficulties you may experience.