Dear Sacred Mama,
As you walk this magical path of pregnancy, your body is doing the most miraculous work. Although most of it is not visible from the outside, your body and your spirit is working hard to grow your baby, and it deserves intentional care and compassion. All of your baby’s organs, their mind, soul and spirit are being built from just a few tiny cells, your decrease in energy during this time is not without sacred purpose. Pregnancy is a time of profound change, not just in your body, but in your heart and mind as well. My goal as your midwife is to walk beside you, to offer guidance that helps you trust your body’s deep wisdom, and to empower yourself to have a healthy, joyful, and connected pregnancy.
This guide is a collection of my wisdom and information for nurturing yourself and your little one. This is not a list of rules, I trust you to know what is best for your body and baby, you may view it as a list of loving invitations for how you may choose to care for yourself and your baby.
Part 1: Nourishing Your Body, Building Your Baby
I like to think of food not as something to worry about, but as a way to love yourself and build your baby. Every meal, every snack, is a collection of building blocks you are sending to them. The food you eat is broken down into tiny bits of information that get sent to your baby to help them grow. This isn’t about “eating for two” anymore, it is about choosing quality foods that are rich in nutrients, color and resemble real whole foods.
Optimal nutrients for a healthy pregnancy:
- Folate (The Brain and Spine Builder): This is so important, especially in the early weeks. It helps build your baby’s brain and spinal cord. You’ll find it in leafy greens like spinach, in lentils and beans, and in your prenatal vitamin.
- Iron (The Life-Force Mineral): Your blood volume is expanding so much right now! Iron helps carry oxygen to every part of your body and, most importantly, across the placenta to your baby. Find it in lean red meats, poultry, fish, and plant sources like lentils and pumpkin seeds. A little tip: when you eat an iron-rich plant food, pair it with something high in Vitamin C, like a squeeze of lemon or some bell peppers, to help your body absorb it. Avoid eating at the same time as calcium.
- Calcium (The Bone Builder): You are building a whole new skeleton inside of you! Calcium is key. Enjoy yogurt, pasteurized cheeses, and leafy greens. If you don’t get enough from your food, your body will lovingly borrow it from your own bones, so it’s important to keep your stores up. A healthy intake of calcium also helps to ensure a strong and healthy amniotic sac for baby.
- Protein (The Master Builder): Every tiny organ, every muscle, every fingernail… it’s all made from protein. Aim to have a source of protein with every meal and snack. Think of a hard-boiled egg, a handful of almonds, a bowl of lentil soup and animal proteins like dairy, a piece of chicken, red-meat or fish.
- DHA (The Brain Food): This healthy fat is a primary building block for your baby’s brain and eyes. You can find it in low-mercury fatty fish like salmon. I highly recommend a good quality prenatal vitamin that includes DHA.
When it comes to food, we understand that every day can’t be a perfect day of eating, remember that your body and baby are very wise! We know how to turn food into nutrients, so on a less than perfect day say to yourself, as the wise elder midwife Whapio would say, “eat what you love and bless it!”
A good prenatal vitamin will also have most of these nutrients, but a prenatal vitamin is NOT a replacement for a healthy and nutrient dense diet.
Water is also an important nutrient, on average we are made up of 60% water, we can survive without food a lot longer than we can without water. Carry a bottle with you everywhere, and aim to drink 80-100oz of water daily. It helps with most common pregnancy complaints from swelling, headaches to energy levels.
Part 2: Your Prenatal Lifestyle – Creating your Inner Sanctuary
How we nourish ourselves in pregnancy is much more than diet and exercise. Optimal nourishment also includes mental, emotional, and spiritual nourishment as well. Being able to state your needs, honor your body’s changes and connect with your baby are also important for achieving a healthy and vibrant pregnancy.
The Sacred Act of Rest:
Growing a baby is as demanding as running a marathon. You must give yourself permission to rest deeply and without guilt.
- Listen to Your Body: If you are tired, sleep. It’s that simple. An afternoon nap is not a luxury; it’s a necessity.
- Find Your Comfortable Spot: As your belly grows, you’ll find that sleeping on your left side is most comfortable. Surround yourself with pillows… between your knees, under your belly, behind your back. Create a nest for yourself.
Mental and Spiritual Health:
You and your baby are connected on more than just a physical level. Throughout your pregnancy your baby’s nervous system, emotions and spirit are being developed and are deeply connected with your own. What you feel your baby feels, that means your own emotional awareness and spiritual health is important to their development. Pregnancy can bring up a lot, sometimes the things we’ve held onto and kept inside have a way of coming up to the surface. It is important to allow yourself to feel in a safe space, try not to suppress what wants to come to the surface. It’s not the traumas itself that will cause challenging birth experiences, but the resistance to the feelings they bring up. We need to feel to heal. Increasing your capacity to hold all of kinds of sensations, even uncomfortable ones, without checking out will increase your capacity for an easy birth/pregnancy. Some things that can be helpful to nurture your own emotional and spiritual health during pregnancy can be:
- Mindfulness and Breath work: When you feel overwhelmed, stop and take three slow, deep breaths. Breathe in calm, and breathe out tension. This is a practice you can take with you right into labor. When challenging or difficult emotions or sensations come up try to remain present, engage your senses noticing the surfaces you’re sitting on, the smell in the air or the color or something nearby, ground yourself in the present.
- Connect with Nature: A short walk outside, feeling the sun on your face, can shift your entire perspective. As human beings we are a part of nature and giving birth is one of the most natural things we can do, daily connections in nature can help you remember this.
- Share Your Feelings: Talk with your partner, a friend, or me. You don’t have to carry your worries alone. Things held inside persist, and what persists can often show up in labor or birth when you are most vulnerable. When you choose to talk about things that are bothering your or that you fear then they are able to move through you rather than linger.
- Spiritual Practice: Birth is spiritual, it is not something that we can control, but our modern obsession with attempting to control it can cause increased suffering. What is your relationship with the unknown? For many people answering this question is where they can meet themselves spiritually. That may look different for everyone, but I think a spiritual practice can be very helpful for the times when you may have to meet the unknown. In many ways Pregnancy and Birth are states of spirituality because they are states of mystery and the unknown. I invite you to consider the spiritual magnificence of your pregnancy and of yourself. When we release trying to control what we think should happen, we create more space for seeing the beauty in what is meant to happen.
Part 3: Movement for Pregnancy – Connecting with Your Body
Exercise should not be a chore, it should be something you enjoy and a way to celebrate and nourish your amazing body. Your body knows how to give birth and exercise is not about being “fit” pregnancy isn’t a crossfit competition. Exercise is about moving mindfully its about supporting optimal blood flow and mental health. The hormones of pregnancy will provide you with all the “fitness” that you need to birth your baby, but moving is about connecting it’s flowing and rhythmic body and breath connection. What is most important is birth is not about how strong you can push, that is naturally ingrained in your body’s ability and design to birth, what is most important is how you can connect with your body, how you can support your own body’s movement and how you can surrender and relax deeper into yourself. Exercise can help with this by boosting endorphins, improving confidence and healthy blood flow and muscle nourishment. Movement can also ease aches, boost your energy, and prevent many common complaints of pregnancy like increased weight gain, swelling and tightness.
Gentle, Powerful Ways to Move:
- Walking: The simplest and one of the most profound ways to improve in pregnancy. It helps your baby settle into a good position and keeps your body strong and supple. It can also be a great way to practice mindfulness and connection with baby.
- Swimming: Oh, the relief of being in the water! It’s a wonderful way to feel weightless and move your body without any strain on your joints.
- Strength Training: Focus on movements that support your pregnancy. Squats are fantastic for preparing your pelvis for birth. Strengthening your back will help you carry your growing belly by creating more room in your pelvis.
- Your Pelvic Floor: This is the hammock of muscles that supports your baby. Learning to both contract (Kegels) and, just as importantly, relax these muscles is one of the best skills you can learn in preparation for birth. Diaphragmatic breathing is an excellent way to practice contracting and releasing your pelvic floor muscles.
Above all, listen to your body. If something doesn’t feel right in your body, honor that communication between yourself and your body and baby. Movement should be enjoyable and mildly increase your heart rate without exhaustion.
Part 4: Prenatal Yoga – The Union of You and Your Baby
Yoga is a series of poses that are designed to connect your mind body and spirit as one. Practicing Yoga in pregnancy can be a powerful way to also connect with your baby and your body together. The flexibility and strength that comes from practicing Yoga is a bonus, but the goal of Yoga is to achieve a state of stillness that prepares the body to enter into a deep state of calmness that allows for medication and spiritual connection to occur. In this state is where the body can access states of higher self-awareness and self-healing. Yoga can be a daily spiritual practice and simple ritual for connecting with self and baby. Using your breath intentionally it can be a practice of surrender and strength, which is exactly what birth asks of us.
The Gifts of a Yoga Practice:
- Making Space: The poses we do in prenatal yoga are all designed to create space in your body and also your mind—space in your pelvis for your baby to navigate, and space in your ribcage for you to breathe deeply, while also increasing your mental and emotional capacity to move through points of mental tension and discomfort with greater ease and flexibility.
- The Power of Your Breath: You will learn breathing techniques that will become your most powerful tool for coping with the intensity of labor. Your breath will be your anchor.
- Trusting Your Body: Yoga teaches you to listen to your body’s whispers. This deep connection to your intuition is a skill that will serve you for the rest of your life as a parent.
A Few Favorite Poses:
- Cat-Cow: On your hands and knees, gently arching and rounding your spine. This is like a lullaby for your back and helps your baby find a good position. It also creates more length in the spine and increases the flow of your energy upwards towards your higher self and downwards to your baby.
- Goddess Squat: A wide, open squat that builds strength in your legs and opens your pelvis beautifully. A beautiful pose to feel the powerful surge of birth energy and visualization for bringing your baby earthside.
- Child’s Pose: A pose of surrender. As your belly grows, you can take your knees wide and rest your head on a pillow. It is a moment of deep rest and release. Bringing your energy inwards, creating space for deep connection with baby and pregnancy.
As your midwife, I am also a yoga teacher, and through pregnancy I can offer you tips for connecting mind and body. I also host a 6-week Prenatal Yoga Series that fosters opportunity for community with other like-minded women pursuing natural birth and experiencing sacred pregnancy.
Sacred mama, this journey is yours. Embrace it. Trust your body. Trust your intuition. I am here to support you every step of the way.
With love,
Your Sacred Birth Midwife