Eating right
This point can never be underestimated as we truly are what we eat. A pregnant woman, especially in the delicate perinatal period should provide the right nutrition not just for her baby but also for herself. What we eat goes a long way in deciding our fitness, stability and especially overall health.
For most pregnant women, they believe that they have to eat for two. That is a wrong misconception and should not be indulged in at all. Yes, a pregnant woman would need to consume some extra calories, usually, about 300 more but a drastic increase is not required or even healthy. Unhealthy eating negatively affects the mood in the long term and should be avoided as much as possible.
Some foods are highly recommended to be taken perinatally or even while preparing for pregnancy and this should help with avoiding postpartum depression. Some of them include vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta carotene-rich foods e.g. Potato, Wheat germ, and Carrots respectively. Generally, a Mediterranean diet which consists of folate and vitamin b12 is essential.
Avoiding stress
This is an aspect that most of us are guilty of. Either as pregnant or non-pregnant women, we would normally find ourselves in tricky, stressful and sometimes uncontrollable situations and get overly nervous and stressed over it. Just because one is pregnant does not mean life would not stop taking its unexpected turns. The important thing is to realize the delicate situation you are in and prepare yourself to be strong. Also, other factors that could contribute to stress include;
Pregnancy discomforts: waking up most morning with nausea, vomiting, lower back pains, and general feelings of weakness, especially during the perinatal period would certainly stress out anyone. The best advice is to meet with your gynecologist so that you both can come with a plan that would make you more comfortable and feel better.
Changing hormones: usually this cannot be helped. During pregnancy, there is a surge of some particular hormones. These hormones are released to help with the maintenance of pregnancy. They usually perform their job and then some. It is not uncommon for a pregnant woman to have mood swings during the period of pregnancy. The best way to deal with this is to spend as much time as possible in a happy mood so the mood change is not able to affect you so much. Getting enough rest, spending more time with your partner, going for a walk and getting regular physical activity has also been observed to be helpful.
Expectations: both realistic and unrealistic expectation about the gestation period itself, childbirth and even postnatal are sure to keep you in a knot and unnecessarily worried. It is advised to keep your expectations in check and prepare yourself as adequately as possible, without overthinking and complicating things.
The ideal thing is to work out the best time to take your leave from your job, whether you have an employer or are self-employed. It would also be proper to ensure you can manage your job responsibilities adequately without being overly stressed.
Understandably, a lot of us are not in on getting help and assistance but this period is that time where you need as much as possible. From your partner to your relatives and even trusted acquaintances, taking their help and reducing your general workload would also decrease the amount of stress you expose yourself to and positively affect your mental health.
In essence, avoiding stress as much as possible before and during pregnancy would ensure you stay mentally fit even after pregnancy. Estrogen is normally produced during pregnancy and while it battles depression, it is not usually enough. The decrease in stress releases serotonin hormone, the feel-good hormone which is vital for normal mental health.
Avoiding alcohol during pregnancy
The most recent guideline by the UK Department of Health, states that no level of alcohol is safe to drink during pregnancy. The former guideline which stated that drinkers could consume not more than one or two units of alcohol as that level would minimize the risks to the growing baby has been changed.
Non-pregnant women are advised not to drink over 14 units in 3 days as the emphasis is now on preferably having alcohol free days. This is equivalent to a bottle and a half of wine drunk within a week. This new guideline suggests that it is better to not to save up units or spread drinking but instead drink all at a go.
Whatever the case may be, preparing for pregnancy and trying to achieve the best from it should involve adequate preparations. Even before pregnancy, we should preferably stop drinking alcohol altogether to give the best environment for the baby. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, alcohol consumption during pregnancy can be associated with psychosocial effects including depression.
Avoiding smoking
We might have already heard of the detrimental effect nicotine has on the growing baby. It can potentially damage the baby’s lungs and this baby is more likely to die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). For the mother, however, the effect is more substantial as she is prone to more health complications, placing her firmly at risk of postpartum depression as health problems are one of its risk factors.
It is advised by the Centre for Disease Control to quit smoking before or during pregnancy to ensure the proper health of the child and mother.
Exercising enough
Being fit should not be forgotten during pregnancy. It is very easy to let yourself go but exercising appropriately provides a better state of mind. The best form of exercise during pregnancy is brisk walking, swimming or any low impact aerobic exercise. The benefits to these are remarkable; exercise increases serotonin level and as earlier mentioned, this hormone normalizes mental health as depression is linked to low levels of serotonin.
Healing yourself
This section does not just involve what we do with your body but also has to do with your mind. It is possible to have undergone a lot of trauma before or even during pregnancy and it is essential to allow yourself to heal. Applying all the above-mentioned tips but still having some residual emotional and physical baggage is not ideal in any sense. You need to be able to understand, accept and love your past if you plan to move on to the future. It is important to leave the past in the past with no regrets while focusing on the future and its endless opportunities. Without healing yourself, you expose yourself to the risk of depression which could increase with pregnancy and its surge of hormones, mood swings and potential mental imbalance.
In summary, postpartum complications including postpartum depression are conditions that we can avoid by practising the right lifestyle even before pregnancy. It is important to understand that we need to get our body and minds ready for pregnancy even before planning for the conception of the baby. It is possible that trauma or some personal trials we have gone or are going through could impede and affect us in the long-run, therefore, we need to solve them as properly and appropriately as required.
While most people view postpartum depression as normal and look to treat it only, it is ideal to start by preventing it. The belief that eating the baby’s placenta helps to solve postpartum depression is one of the more popular beliefs these days. Even though there is no medical backing for this belief, a lot of people have testified to it working for them. So, even if you resort to eating the placenta or other treatment options you can be sure it would work fine because you have already taken other precautions even before childbirth.