The Headspace Guide To A Mindful Pregnancy by Andy Puddicombe

Author:Andy Puddicombe [Puddicombe, Andy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781444722253
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2015-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

THE FIRST TRIMESTER

The first three months of pregnancy can be an exciting time – especially if having a baby has been a long-held dream. That said, it’s still hard to get a handle on the fact that you are going to be parents when there are usually no visible, outward signs, and often no real sense of an inner connection. This is unknown territory and so there may be a lot of trepidation and fear. In many respects, the mind is still trying to catch up with the physical event that is well under way.

When I wrote earlier that the aim of this book is to help you stay sane, I was thinking particularly about the first trimester: the hormonal tidal wave that affects mood and cognition; the knock-out fatigue that can make 5pm feel like bedtime; the nausea that can leave you throwing up four or five times a day; and the quite inexplicable food cravings and aversions. If you’ve found yourself slathering peanut butter and pickle on a slice of bread, feeling ill over the smell of your morning coffee or sitting in a restaurant telling your partner, ‘I need chicken soup. I. JUST. NEED. CHICKEN. SOUP!’ you’ll know what I’m talking about. Not to mention the other changes, which can really go either way: glowing complexion or acne and eczema; hair like silk or moulting like a cat; improved digestion or more flatulent than your partner; sky-high sex drive or zero libido. Due to the major fluctuation in hormones, the initial twelve weeks are without doubt the rockiest passage, and unless you’re someone who has always wanted kids, and are immediately plugged in, it can be a really tough time.

On that point of hormones, I feel women have had a bad rap for centuries, mainly because men have misunderstood what physiologically happens with their partners during pregnancy. For far too long, erratic, emotional behaviour has been dismissed as ‘crazy’ or ‘unhinged’, and this conditioning has even led to women feeling almost apologetic. ‘Oh, don’t mind me – it’s just my hormones.’ After all, the word ‘hysterical’ comes from the Latin word hystericus, meaning ‘of the womb’ – and one suspects a man came up with it because the original definition was ‘a neurotic condition peculiar to women, thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus’. I really don’t think that man’s understanding has advanced a great deal since that was written, but if there was one aspect of pregnancy crying out for more compassion, it is this one. There is good reason why your hormones are out of whack: when pregnant, there is an unavoidable surge in hormones because they are needed to support the womb. Without these spikes, the embryo couldn’t thrive. So yes, you may well feel emotionally out of control at times, and succumb to your hormones, but you can change your perception of why it’s happening – and it’s all happening in support of the baby. I hope this brings new context to this much-misunderstood side effect of pregnancy.

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