Need For Prenatal Sessions / Classes
What are Prenatal Classes?
To start with, what do we understand by term Prenatal?: Its dictionary meaning is before birth; during or relating to pregnancy. Prenatal Sessions / Prenatal Classes are generally referred to pregnancy related exercises and activities, under the guidance of a specialist, which helps in having healthy pregnancy which promote a healthy birth. Getting regular prenatal care improves the chances of a healthy pregnancy and normal child birth. Prenatal sessions can help prevent complications and inform women about important steps they can take to protect their infant and ensure a healthy pregnancy.
What is Prenatal Care?
Before talking about Prenatal classes, lets understanding what is Prenatal Care. Prenatal care starts even before you conceive (Preconception). This will help you preparing for the pregnancy well. During this phase you can start preparing your body for pregnancy with the help of gynecologist this may include intake of folic acid, attain healthy weight, seek help for anxiety, quit smoking and alcohol etc.
A Women who suspect they may be pregnant should schedule a visit to their Gynecologist for physical exam, weight checks etc. She may also recommend urine tests, blood tests and imaging tests, such as ultrasound exams depending on the stage of the pregnancy, These visits also include discussions about the mother's health, the infant's health, and any questions about the pregnancy.
During pregnancy it is utmost important to take care of your diet, as what you eat or drink will have direct impact on your infant’s. Normally your gynecologist should be able to advice on your diet. If you want to go an extra mile you can also consult a dietician and follow the diel plan.
Need for Prenatal Sessions / classes
One aspect which is often overlooked during pregnancy is Mothers physical fitness. It is often neglected because of many reasons, not only limited to, mindset, lack of awareness and misconceptions going on for ages regarding exercise during pregnancy. Ever wondered why our mothers or grandmothers never talked about it? Why physical fitness is hyped now? Earlier also people used to give birth. Let’s think about this for a minute. Our parents / grandparents used to be physically very active. They used to take care of all household course (no maids, no washing machine, no dishwashers, no vacuum cleaner etc.), like mopping, cleaning, washing clothes, commute mostly walking, they were very active in day to day activities as well during pregnancy. But our generation, because of sedentary lifestyle, need these extra physical activities during pregnancy, which were part of day to day life of our parents / grandparents.
It is perfectly all right to exercise during pregnancy. Consult your Gynecologist though, as she is aware of your pregnancy condition. This is when Prenatal Classes / Prenatal Sessions come into play
In case you are already doing exercise, you can keep doing light exercise like walking etc. For others, best time to start the pregnancy exercise is when you are 18-20 weeks of your pregnancy, you can get the consent from gynecologist to enroll for Prenatal Activities, like yoga, pregnancy exercise, Lamaze, Pilates etc., as per your liking or as per recommendations from gynecologist.
I will not list out benefits of Prenatal Classes and leave up to you to read more about the topic and based on your requirement body need or recommendations from Gynecologist, you to decide..
Active You - Healthy You
This article is written by Dr. Rashmi Kapoor. Dr. Rashmi has a B.P.T, M.B.A. and is specialized in women health. She is founder of www.activeyou.in. She conducts Prenatal Sessions and is also ergonomics consultant. She can be contacted at drrashmikapoor@gmail.com or +91 7760610982.
