Tips for the 2nd Trimester
Now that you have entered your 2nd trimester, you may be noticing a little uptick in your energy & less nausea (hopefully). If so this is a great time to get your nutrition & exercise routine back on track.
Here are some tips to help you through your 2nd trimester:
If nausea & food aversions have subsided try to add in more nutrient dense foods into your diet. Continue drinking lots of water.
Start modifying your exercise routine for how your body is feeling that day. This may mean focusing more on those deep stabilizing muscles, decreasing ROM or modifying high impact activities. OR-you may feel just fine doing what your doing & that is ok!
Connect with your core & pelvic floor. Make sure you know how to actively engage and relax your pelvic floor & that it is in coordination with your core. Work on engaging it during activities throughout the day (picking up your kids, standing up from a chair, etc).
This is also a common time for women to experience urinary incontinence. Try practicing what’s called a “knack” which is an anticipatory pelvic floor contraction (aka kegel) before you cough or sneeze. Also incorporate your PF contractions into your exercise routine so you make sure your system is working as efficiently as possible.
This may be when you start to experience round ligament pain. This results from the growing uterus putting tension & stretch on the round ligaments on either side of the pelvis. This is mostly felt on 1 side but can be felt on both. Described as deep, sharp, sudden stabbing pain. If the ligaments are starting to scream at you try moving a little slower, especially during transitional movements, hug a pillow if needing to cough/sneeze to help brace, and try logrolling in bed to prevent twisting of the torso. If you continue to have pain you can always look into a maternity support belt. @baobeimaternity has a great one!
Prenatal massage- if there is one way to reward your body for all the hard work it’s doing, this is it. If you have already looked into this, you may have noticed that several massage therapists do not perform massage on women in their 1st trimester, due to high risk of miscarriage (not from massage but in general). But now that you are past that (& it is not contraindicated by your OB/midwife), I highly encourage you to schedule a prenatal massage 1x/month or at least once each trimester. Let this be a treat to yourself, you deserve it!
