How To Survive A Winter Pregnancy?

Staying SAFE During A Winter Pregnancy

1. Practice Precautions. If the weather outside is frightful, maybe you should snuggle up with a good book.
2. Winterize Your Car. Be sure your tires are safe with needed tread.
3. Delegate Certain Chores.
4. Get Your Flu Shot.
5. Don’t Forget To Drink Water.
6. Deal With Your Dry Skin.
7. Keep Active.

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Is it OK to be in cold weather while pregnant?

Can very hot or very cold weather affect my pregnancy? – According to one recent study, pregnant women who have been exposed to extreme weather conditions are at risk of producing low-birth-weight babies even after completing 37-plus weeks in the womb.

1. The study revealed that women exposed to extremely cold weather in the second or third trimester of their pregnancy or extremely hot weather in their third trimester had an 18 to 31 percent chance of having a low-birth-weight baby compared to women subjected to mild weather conditions.
2. In addition, women who were exposed to extreme hot or cold conditions throughout their pregnancies were 2.5 times more likely to have low-birth-weight babies.

One possible reason behind this is that extreme temperatures reduce the blood flow to the uterus, thus impacting fetal growth. Hence, pregnant women should exercise caution and avoid exposure to severe weather conditions during pregnancy.
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How can I keep my body warm in winter during pregnancy?

Stay cosy – Keeping cosy starts with a well-stocked winter wardrobe. You don’t need to blow the bank. We’ve got plenty of inventive, low-cost ideas to see you through the season as snug as a bug in a cardigan. See our winter pregnancy fashion article here, but in summary:

Layers are a good idea as many mums-to-be say they fluctuate between being too hot or too cold. Look out for long stretchy vests to cover your bump. Wear with existing jumpers, cardies and shirts or blouses. Use a scarf as a way to keep your neck and bump covered with non-maternity coats and cardies. Borrow from friends and find second hand ‘steals’ at an NCT Nearly New Sale,

Keeping cosy also involves warming hot drinks, warm baths and toasty homes (if that’s possible for you at the moment). Here are our tips on these:

Think about decaffeinated tea and coffee. Pregnant women are advised to limit caffeine to no more than 200mg a day (NHS Choices, 2018a), Hot chocolate, herbal teas or warm lemon drinks are good alternatives. You might have enjoyed taking a hot bath before your pregnancy. But now you’re pregnant it’s important to avoid making the bath too hot. Keep the water below 35°C as raising your core body temperature could be harmful for the baby (NHS Choices, 2018b), Keep the thermostat at a temperature that keeps you comfortable. But remember it’s also important to stay hydrated, especially if you’re loaded with layers with the heating on. You’ll need to drink at least 1.6 litres of water a day (Tommy’s, 2017),

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Does cold affect baby in womb?

– A cold during pregnancy is the same as any other cold. The common cold is not likely to not harm the mother or fetus. People may catch a cold or flu from being around others who are sick. The CDC provide guidance on how to avoid catching the flu. It is important to know the difference between a cold and the flu.
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Which fruit is good for pregnancy in winter?

5 diet tips to follow in winters during pregnancy Image Source : FREEPIK Pregnancy diet tips Winters have started and since our health gets a little more sensitive during this season it is very important for us to take the necessary precautions. Also, during this year when the COVID-19 pandemic is going on, building immunity should be one of the primary concerns especially for pregnant women.

If you are expecting a baby, you need to be extra cautious in winters and the coronavirus outbreak to keep the infections and viruses at a bay. Good nutrition and a balanced diet full of milk, fruits, cereals and more play a key role in order to stay healthy during pregnancy. Experts suggest that healthy new born babies have a relatively lower risk of having health problems to that of the babies who are born underweight.

Therefore, here we are with a few tips on the types of foods to prefer during winters for pregnant women. Take a look: Have variety Make sure to have different foods from various food groups like dairy, legumes, fruits etc in your daily diet. Try having 300 calories per day especially when you are in your last trimester.

• Eat fruits and vegetables Fruits with vitamin C like orange, apple, banana and more help in building immunity.
• Also, vegetable greens including spinach, lettuce, cauliflower and more are healthy during winters.
• Consume proper amount of iodine Lack of iodine in your diet may impact your baby’s mental growth.

Therefore, have goods which possess good quantity of iodine like eggs, seafood, salt etc. Keep yourself hydrated Even during winters it is very necesaary for you to stay hydrated. So, drink good amount of water, you can also have fresh juices of fruits and vegetables, lemon water, buttermilk etc.

• Include calcium and fibre As calcium is strong for bones, it is very important to have foods which are rich in the nutrient like milk.
• Have 3 to 4 servings of milk products in your daily diet.
• Meanwhile, talking about fibre, it is very important for pregnant women as they feel constipated during this time.

Have grains, pulses, cereals regularly as these are rich sources of fibre regularly. : 5 diet tips to follow in winters during pregnancy
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What temperatures should you avoid when pregnant?

By American Heart Association News Please note: This article was published more than two years ago, so some information may be outdated. If you have questions about your health, always contact a health care professional. (Dougal Waters/DigitalVision, Getty Images) Hot summer weather impacts some people more than others, and pregnant women are among those most likely to become overheated. Barely more than a week into summer and as heat waves blanket Europe and the eastern United States, what are the risks for expectant mothers? “It’s not unexpected to see pregnant women come to the hospital on a hot summer day,” said Dr.

Elizabeth Suzanne Langen, an assistant professor in the University of Michigan’s Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology in Ann Arbor. “When you’re pregnant, your body is already working hard to keep you and your baby healthy, so adding the hard work of keeping cool can push you over the edge.” Symptoms of overheating include warm skin, headache, dizziness, muscle cramps and nausea, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

Pregnant women who have a body temperature above 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit are at greater risk for heat stroke, heat exhaustion and dehydration. Dehydration is one of the causes of Braxton Hicks or so-called practice contractions, and it also can increase the incidence of dizzy spells and fainting, said Dr.

Alisse Hauspurg, an OB-GYN specialist and assistant professor at the Magee-Womens Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh. “If a pregnant woman gets dizzy and falls, that can cause more significant complications, including early labor or placental abruption, which might necessitate early delivery,” Hauspurg said.

That doesn’t mean pregnant women should avoid the outdoors, she said. Exercising is OK when precautions are taken. “If women are going to exercise outside for long periods of time, we recommend that they stay well hydrated, wear loose-fitting clothing and avoid high heat and humidity,” Hauspurg said.

“Staying hydrated is one of the most important things.” However, dehydration is not the only risk associated with overheating: High fever or hot tub use in the first trimester has been associated with changes in the structure of the fetal heart and neural tube defects, which can result in conditions such as spina bifida.

Indeed, a study published early this year in the Journal of the American Heart Association suggested higher temperatures from global climate change may increase the number of infants born with heart defects between 2025 and 2035, with the greatest increase predicted in the Midwest.

It’s not clear exactly how overheating impacts fetal development, but animal studies suggest it may cause cell death or interfere with certain proteins involved in fetal development during the first trimester. “Having a temperature of 101 or higher and flu-like symptoms isn’t necessarily dangerous for you or your fetus, but you should be seeing your doctor,” Langen said.

“Pregnant women get sicker a lot faster, so we tend to be a little more aggressive about treating fevers in pregnancy than we would a normal healthy person.” Pregnant women who feel they are overheating should take the same steps other people should: move to a cooler place, sip water, loosen clothing, apply wet cloths to the skin and sit in cool bathtub water.

Those who experience vomiting, worsening symptoms or symptoms that last longer than one hour should seek immediate medical treatment. “It’s important to pay attention to your body signals,” Langen said. While she expects to see overheating pregnant women in the emergency room again this summer, Langen said for the vast majority of them, the risk is low.

“Most pregnant women are young and healthy people,” she said. “We give them some fluids, help them to cool off and send them home. Usually, everything turns out OK.” If you have questions or comments about this story, please email,
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Is it better to be pregnant in the summer or winter?

It almost seems like a mystical correlation. Babies conceived at certain times of the year appear healthier than those conceived during other times. Now, scientists have shown that the bizarre phenomenon is actually true—and they think they may know why it happens.

The work is “a really long-overdue analysis,” says economist Douglas Almond of Columbia University, who was not involved in the study. “This is maybe not quite a smoking gun,” he says, “but it’s much stronger than the previous evidence.” As early as the 1930s, researchers noticed that children born in winter were more prone to health problems later in life: slower growth, mental illness, and even early death.

Among the proposed explanations were diseases, harsh temperatures, and higher pollution levels associated with winter, when those expectant mothers and near-term fetuses might be most vulnerable. But recently, as economists looked at demographics, the picture got more complicated.

Mothers who are nonwhite, unmarried, or lack a college education are more likely to have children with health and developmental problems. They are also more likely to conceive in the first half of the year. That made it hard to tease out the socioeconomic effects from the seasonal ones. Economists Janet Currie and Hannes Schwandt of Princeton University took a new approach to resolving this long-standing question, using data from the vital statistics offices in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania about births between 1994 and 2006.

To control for socioeconomic status, their study looked only at siblings born to the same mother. And lo and behold, seasonal patterns persist, they report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May is the most unfavorable time to get pregnant, the study finds.

Babies conceived this month (and thus delivered in winter) were 13% more likely to be born premature, and their gestation time was almost a week below the average, Currie and Schwandt report. Because low birth weight and prematurity have been linked to diverse health problems—weaker immune systems, poorer vision and hearing, and slower cognitive development—this variation could help explain differences later in life.

The study found that for conceptions between January and May, gestation length declined by about a week before shooting back up to average length in June. In terms of birth weight, summer was the best time to conceive. The team found that mothers who conceived from June through August gained more weight during their pregnancies and gave birth to infants who were, on average, about 8 grams heavier than in other months.

• The researchers then looked to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data and found that the annual dip in gestation length closely aligns with the time when the most patients visited the doctor for flulike symptoms.
• In 2009, when the H1N1 pandemic struck about 2 months earlier than a typical flu season, the dip in gestation time came earlier, too, and was more dramatic.

Currie and Schwandt suggest that flu could cause mothers to deliver early. “I think it really gives support to the idea that pregnant women should be vaccinated for flu,” Currie says. A few days’ difference in gestation length is small but significant, notes Hyagriv Simhan, a maternal and fetal doctor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in Pennsylvania who was not involved in the work.

Although babies born less than a month premature don’t usually face significant health costs, he says that the difference is meaningful when averaged over a large population. Simhan, whose own research has suggested a link between influenza and early delivery, says that flu is a likely factor in newborn health, but not the only one.

For example, he notes, vitamin D levels that dip at important points in fetal development could also be important.
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Is it harder to stay warm when pregnant?

Winter Worry: Baby, it’s cold outside! The Cool News: Pregnancy naturally ups your internal thermostat. And that means you’re more likely to remain warm even when it’s downright chilly. Jennifer Baldwin, of Rancho Santa Margarita, California, says that her winter pregnancy with son Luke, now 4 months, was much more comfortable than her previous summer pregnancy.

• The cold weather was a huge plus,” she says.
• Especially at the very end, when you’re so big, it’s nice not to feel overheated.” The cooler weather also helped her sleep better, which was much needed since she was busy running after her toddler, Julia, 3.
• With Julia, even with air-conditioning, I felt so hot all the time.

But when I was pregnant in the winter, I could bundle under the covers and just get comfy. I slept so well.”
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Can cold causes miscarriage?

Colds and viruses during pregnancy – Pregnant women are at a higher risk of complications from the flu, such as pneumonia (NHS Choices, 2016), Viral infections, including seasonal flu, can cause harm to a mother and baby during pregnancy (RCOG, 2015),
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Can cold cause birth defects?

6.6 | Summary – We observed that report of a cold or flu accompanied by fever during early pregnancy was associated with 8 of the 30 categories of birth defects that we studied. Six of these birth defects have been found to be associated with maternal fever in previous studies and two of them have not been previously studied for this risk factor.

We also addressed a gap present in most of the previous studies regarding whether or not illness without fever is associated with birth defects, observing that cold or flu without fever was not associated with any of the 30 categories of birth defects that we studied. This suggests that it may be fever that contributes to the excess risk of birth defect among mothers who have illnesses with fever.

However, it is possible that fever serves as a marker for more severe infections. Future research is needed to determine the role of fever, and whether use of antipyretic medication attenuates the associations we have observed. Women who are planning to become pregnant or have recently become pregnant should take measures to prevent themselves from developing an infection, particularly infections that may lead to a fever.
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What is the most important fruit during pregnancy?

Citrus – Citrus fruits like lemons and oranges are chock full of vitamin C. Vitamin C is responsible for helping your baby’s bones grow properly. Citrus can also help with a woman’s digestion and deter morning sickness during pregnancy.
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What should I eat at night when hungry during pregnancy?

What Foods To Eat During Pregnancy To Sleep Tight Breast milk is best for your baby. Health Canada, the Canadian Paediatric Society, and the Dietitians of Canada recommend that you exclusively breastfeed your baby for the first 6 months and that you continue to breastfeed for up to 2 years or longer along with complementary foods.

The last few weeks of your pregnancy are an exciting time, but try not to lose sleep over it. The right nutrition can help you get a good night’s sleep. Here are some healthy eating tips: Eat light dinners. Big dinners might make you drowsy and can play havoc with digestion (try sleeping while your stomach is doing an impression of a thunderstorm!).

Instead, try eating your biggest meal before mid-afternoon, and eat a light evening meal. Eat an evening snack. Choose a light grain-and-dairy snack, such as crackers with low-fat cheese and fruit, or low-fat yogurt with toast and apple butter. Wait an hour before lying down.

These healthy pregnancy foods will digest quickly so you (and your stomach) can rest. If you love spicy food, go for it, but only for breakfast or lunch. A spicy dinner might make you toss and turn into the wee hours of the morning. It is common for women to experience heartburn during pregnancy. That uncomfortable burning feeling is caused by stomach acid moving backwards up the esophagus.

Heartburn may become more frequent during pregnancy due to hormonal fluctuations in combination with the pressure of the baby on your digestive system. Be sure to check with your doctor or pharmacist before using an antacid. Here are some things you can try to clear it up on your own:

Don’t drink any beverages with your meal. Instead, drink fluids in between each meal.Instead of eating large meals, try to eat smaller, more frequent meals, and try to eat slowly.Remain upright after eating a meal, as laying down after you eat can trigger heartburn.Avoid fried food.Avoid caffeinated or carbonated beverages.

Check with your doctor or pharmacist before using an antacid.

Whole grains, such as whole-wheat or multigrain breadsFruits and vegetables, including berries, apples, pears, carrots, and spinachLow-fat, nutrient-rich proteins, such as lean meats and poultry, low-fat yogurt, or water-packed tuna fishUnsaturated fats, such as olive oil, canola oil, or sunflower oil

Raw fish (especially shellfish, oysters, and clams)Undercooked meat, poultry, seafoodHot dogs and deli meats (for example, non-dried deli-meats, pâté, refrigerated smoked seafood and fish)Raw or lightly cooked eggs (homemade Caesar vinaigrette, runny eggs)Unpasteurized milk products, soft and semi-soft cheeses like Brie or CamembertUnpasteurized juices, unpasteurized apple ciderRaw sprouts (especially alfalfa sprout)

Government of Canada. Healthy Eating and Pregnancy.2014. : What Foods To Eat During Pregnancy To Sleep Tight
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Which fruits should not be eaten in winter?

4. Summer Fruits – Whether it’s a strawberry in summer or melon in winter, fruits are no longer as seasonal as they used to be. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s safe to consume them. During winter, try to avoid fruits like tomatoes, strawberries, peaches, and blueberries as they aren’t seasonal and have probably been preserved for long durations before reaching your kitchen table.
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What is the best time to eat apple during pregnancy?

02 /6 Morning hours – As per studies, you should eat an apple in the morning hours. This is because apples are rich in dietary fiber, pectin, which is found in its peel. Since most people have digestive issues due to improper sleep or late eating habits, apples right in the morning, after waking up is a good idea.
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