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Nutrition in Pregnancy: During pregnancy, you supply all the nutrients for your developing baby, who will weigh an average of seven pounds at birth. The baby's life-support system, consisting of the placenta, uterus, amniotic fluid and membranes, and maternal blood supply, also grows during pregnancy, developing as necessary to meet increasing needs. Your body also prepares for birth and the subsequent nourishment of the baby through breastfeeding. All these added demands require that you nourish yourself adequately; otherwise, your pregnancy may deplete you and deprive your baby of important nutrients.

Your eating habits before and during pregnancy affect your baby's health as much as or more than any other factor. It is never too late in pregnancy to improve your eating habits. Your baby's requirements for iron, protein, and calcium are greatest in the last eight to twelve weeks of pregnancy, which means you should be eating high-protein, high-calcium, and iron-rich foods. Your physician or nurse-midwife can give you important information and guidance on nutrition in pregnancy.

Exercise in Pregnancy: Staying physically active is an important way to maintain emotional and physical health in pregnancy. Most pregnant women are able to engage in a level of exercise equivalent to what they were accustomed to prior to pregnancy. However, certain contact sports or risky sport activities are not appropriate for safety reasons. Specific questions about exercise in pregnancy should be addressed to your maternity care providers.

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome If you are pregnant, you are wise to give up drinking alcoholic beverages, and the earlier the better. It is now recognized that alcohol has potent toxic effects on developing tissues. Alcohol easily crosses into the placenta, and is known to be particularly toxic to brain cells. While the effects of alcohol on the developing fetus can be quite subtle, exposure in pregnancy is known to increase the infant's risk for future learning disabilities and behavioral problems, as well as for mental and physical retardation and certain birth defects. Babies born of alcoholic mothers are at risk for fetal alcoholic syndrome, which is a cluster of disabilities that includes mental and physical retardation, tremors, and peculiar facial characteristics. Fetal alcohol effect is the term given to the more subtle effects of any level of alcohol exposure in the womb.

Smoking in Pregnancy: Smoking while you are pregnant can affect your unborn child and the pregnancy itself. Oxygen and blood flow to the baby is reduced, and the fetus is exposed to chemicals which can increase the risk of birth defects, learning disabilities, and even childhood cancers. Smoking in pregnancy is linked with future childhood behavior problems and slower progress in school. Smoking in pregnancy also increases the risk of miscarriage, tubal pregnancy, stillbirth, premature labor and delivery, and low birth weight. More recent studies show an increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in babies whose mothers smoked in pregnancy.

Fetal Ultrasound: Few pregnant women these days go through pregnancy without having an ultrasound, which uses soundwaves to "see" inside the uterus. The echoes in the soundwaves do not hurt the fetus, and can help show the skeleton and organs of the fetus, the umbilical cord, the placenta, and the amniotic fluid. As parents, you see your baby's face, fingers, toes, his or her heart beating, and the body wriggling. Through ultrasound, your doctor or nurse-midwife is able to gain extensive information about the fetus and its environment, and understand more about the health of your baby.


Breast Feeding: Human breast milk is the ideal food for infants. For the first 4-6 months, it is the only food a baby needs. Breast milk supplies important nutrients such as essential fatty acids for proper digestion, lactose for growth of brain cells and the correct balance of amino acids. Additionally, breast milk offers other important health benefits such as antibodies that protect the baby against certain diseases. There is much your health care providers can do to help you increase your chances of successful breastfeeding. Find out all you can about this important health topic!

An Episiotomy is a surgical incision of the perineal body or vaginal opening made at the time of a vaginal delivery. The use of episiotomy, once a standard practice, has become less routine in recent years. Delivering a baby without an episiotomy and avoiding the use of stitches is actually somewhat of an art, and requires special techniques. Recent studies have found little benefit to routine episiotomy, and some inherent risks. In fact, approximately one half of all women who have no episiotomy will have no tear at all, and will need no stitches. When an episiotomy is not performed and a tear does occur, the tear is usually similar to a very small or medium-sized episiotomy and is fairly simple to repair. Cutting an episiotomy can reduce the time it takes to push a baby out, and so an incision is sometimes performed for this reason.

Vaginal Birth after Caesarean Section (VBAC): Until recent years, women who had previous caesarean births were expected to have surgical deliveries for all subsequent pregnancies. Today, however, as more experience with the safety and medical advantages of Vaginal Birth after Caesarean Section (or VBAC's) is accumulated, more and more women who have had previous cesarean sections are encouraged to attempt a vaginal birth. An obvious benefit is the shorter recovery period and inpatient stay following the baby's delivery. Not all women, however, are candidates for a VBAC. Your physician or certified nurse-midwife can discuss the VBAC option with you.