I wanted to share with you some of the highlights from the birth of my beautiful daughter, Piper. But more importantly, I want to recommend some strategies, tips and tools that I found to be extremely helpful for falling pregnant and when preparing for child birth.
Part One – My Pre-Pregnancy Guide
Monthly Cycles
In order to fall pregnant, you must learn about your monthly cycles.
If you aren’t sure exactly how your body works, you can’t go past Dr Nat Kringoudis and her amazing quest to educate women. You might think you know about the facts of life, but there is so much more detail that we aren’t taught in school, or in magazines, or by our own mums. The Debunking Ovulation e-course* is a reasonably priced, two-part course delivered online that will teach you how to understand your own body and its cycles. Find what I thought of the course here.
In addition, I highly recommend tracking your cycles using an app. I personally love Kindara, which is a free app allowing you to plot on a graph your temperatures and cervical fluid changes, making pinpointing ovulation really easy. Once you’ve collected a few months worth of data, you will start to be able to see the signs your body gives you in the lead up to ovulation.
For those of you who are interested in learning more about conditions that affect your cycles and fertility, such as PCOS, please see more information here.
Pre-Pregnancy Health
I want to encourage those wanting to fall pregnant not to rush the process. Pregnancy and birth are both very taxing on the body. If possible, you should look at detoxing and making some lifestyle changes before trying to conceive. You might consider spending 6 – 12 months on your health before trying to conceive. My best tips are below:
