5 Tips for a mindful pregnancy

Congratulations you’re pregnant! The early days and weeks of pregnancy are often peppered with that phrase and for most people it is a wonderful thing to tell family, friends, neighbours and co workers. However, as your pregnancy continues it’s not uncommon for folks to give you some unsolicited advice, or maybe your trips to your care provider seems less and less personal. Perhaps you’re friends are more than willing to share their birth stories and their approaches to infant care, or maybe you’re wading through numerous books on pregnancy, labour and life with a newborn. After a while this can all seem quite overwhelming, which can amp up that nasty stress hormone cortisol. This can leave you feeling exhausted and the baby hasn’t even come earthside yet! Here are some tips that might help you recover your zen and enjoy the last few months of your pregnancy.

Practice Self compassion

Self compassion is the ability to forgive yourself fully and completely. This means that once you say “I forgive myself for (insert the oopsie here)” then that’s it, you shouldn’t return to that incident again or relive it. It can be harder for some than others. I encourage you to check in with yourself every time you have thoughts that pass judgement on yourself or a negative feeling towards yourself or your situation at that moment. Once you’ve realized that these thoughts are not helpful, acknowledge them, and let them go. It may be more effective to write these thoughts down, but I urge you to build on that by finding a limiting belief in your feeling or thought and finally apply self compassion and release it. Your self compassion could be written out or said out loud, either way it can be a powerful thing.

Here’s what I mean by applying self compassion in a real life situation. For example lets say that you’re feeling angry about your recent exercise class because instead of feeling good and strong you feel frustrated and tired because of your changing body and growing belly. This could be stated as such: “I felt frustrated because my regular exercise class is getting more and more difficult for me and my growing belly.” Now lets try and find the limiting beliefs in that statement. Regular exercise classes can be difficult as your move through your pregnancy and its important to stop and listen to your body. Its okay to give yourself permission to move a little slowly through your workout, but if it overall feels good to work out then by all means continue. Finally the last limiting belief is historically society has frowned upon women participating in strenuous exercise during the last months of pregnancy. Therefore your limiting beliefs around exercise and pregnancy is about not fully accepting changes within your body and historical societal norms. Now that you’ve pulled out those beliefs you can apply self compassion to the statements simply using something like this… “I forgive myself for judging myself as not a capable as that is not true, I am changing and becoming anew”.

Connect with baby

Human connection is at the core of our worldly experience. Your relationship with your child and your growing family can and should happen before the birth of your child. According to Dr. Thomas Vardy spending time connecting to your baby in utero has positive outcomes for both you and your baby including but not limited to a positive birth experience. It may also instill the bond between parent and child as well create confidence in both parent and child in terms of getting their needs met. Mothers, who have a stronger connection with their child are able to be in tune with their child’s needs as well as express their needs more freely with their partners and other family members. Babies with a strong connection to their mother will cue clearly for their basic needs such as feeding, sleepiness, nurturing and cleanliness. How to bond with your baby before they are in your arms is really up to you and what you’re comfortable with. Saying good morning and good night to the baby each day is a wonderful start. Include siblings in this ritual by snuggling up together to read the baby a bedtime story. Taking time to play games with the baby by gently pressing on the belly and waiting for a response, then repeat it in a different spot. Hug your belly with love and pride, babies can sense your emotions. If all that feels a little strange to you, simply sit quietly with yourself and whisper “I love you” to yourself - your baby can feel that too.

Set a daily intention

When fears or information overload take hold, which can happen at any time during pregnancy, take a moment to repeat a quick but effective intention. Do this as many times as you need to during the day. Repeating a daily intention resets your brain and can be a very powerful focusing and calming tool not that can to be used throughout the pregnancy, in labour and in your parenting journey. There are a few key components that can make intentions successful; 1. Choose an intention that really speaks to you; 2. Visualize the outcome (usually a feeling) of the intention while repeating it; and 3. Be consistent - the more you say your intention with conviction and focus the more you believe it and ultimately change your brain patterns.

Intentions should be ideally be one sentence and as stated above should connect with you and your ideal outcome. For example, if you want to change a limiting belief such as “I am not strong enough to carry a pregnancy” you’ll want to state “My body is amazing, it is growing a life within it”. I suggest saying your intention first thing in the morning and then adding it into other daily routines, such as right before you eat lunch, on your way home from work, waiting for the dog to pee, or before bed.

Meditation

Meditation can help train your brain for a more relaxed pregnancy, but it takes practice - you won’t be a zen master after your first 5 minutes of meditating. Meditation can free your mind from the inner drama that occurs due to all the internal and external information being thrown your way every day. When you’re feeling stressed or anxious you don’t have the mental energy to push past those harder feelings, which can put your rational and decision making part of your brain on standby mode. Pregnancy can cause a lot of unwanted stress as the decisions placed on you are numerous (breastfeeding vs bottle feeding; hospital birth vs home birth; midwife vs OBGYN; family support vs doula support; etc). Meditation calms the emotional part of the brain allowing you the literal headspace to make sound and timely decisions that empower you.

Meditation does not have to take place on a fancy cushion - only if you want it to. Meditation can occur sitting in a chair, on the couch, anywhere you feel safe and comfortable, it can also be done with soft music playing or silence, whatever feels natural to you. I suggest starting with 5 min, seated, softening your gaze towards the floor and breathing. When thoughts come up, acknowledge them and let them drift away. You may be shocked by how many thoughts enter your mind in 5 minutes, but with time and practice these seem to fade as well. Check out some meditation apps that are available now or guided meditation playlists on spotify.

Practice Gratitude

Showing gratitude can boost your outlook on life, create positive connections with yourself and others, increase self confidence, and best of all its contagious, which is great for all those around your, including the little bundle you’re keeping safe inside of you for the next several months! It can also cultivate feelings of contentment and kindness towards yourself and others. The simplest way to practice gratitude to say one thing you’re grateful for every morning or evening. Another way to practice gratitude to keep a small journal of things that have made you feel grateful. This is a nice method, because in challenging times (say a long labour) your support team can bring your journal with you to the birth and read some of the things to you. It may bring you back into focus as those of things you have experienced and are truly grateful for.

Doing all 5 every day throughout your pregnancy may be ideal, but I don’t think its necessary. If only 1 or 2 pop out for you then by all means do those and then again maybe having a nightly bath is your way of being mindful. The take away is to create an environment that allows you to calmly grow and expand in body, mind, and spirit.