Pregnant: 22 useful things I’m doing to get the most out of the journey

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Right now, I’m almost 22 weeks pregnant with my first baby, and wanted to share some of the things I’ve been doing, learning , reading, eating, obsessing over etc, with the intention that some of this might be useful for you too no matter what stage of your pregnancy you’re in.

A lot of the things on here focus on what I’m doing right now, have done, or will be doing later on in my pregnancy that are mostly related to self care, and feeling as good as possible. So, in no particular hierarchy of greatness, here’s what I’m doing to get the most out of my pregnancy.

1.Reading the book Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful by Gurmukh

I read this book as part of my pregnancy yoga teacher training before I became pregnant, and cannot recommend it enough. If there’s a book out there on empowering women in pregnancy and birth, this is definitely it.

Prior to reading this, I just figured you did what you were told when it came to giving birth, and unless you were loaded, you went to hospital. This book alone opened me up to a whole new empowering way of not only seeing myself whilst pregnant, but my views on pregnancy and birth as a whole. It’s such a beautiful and important book, I honestly think anyone who is pregnant should read it. Find out more here: Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful by Gurmukh (Affiliate Link)

2. Taking prenatal tablets with ginger

I have no idea if this was a coincidence or not, but I had next to no morning sickness (just two days of it) in my first trimester and have read that ginger can help ease morning sickness, so maybe the prenatal vitamins with added ginger helped.

3. Packing in extra vitamins with brightly coloured fruit/veg smoothies

My boyfriend bought a really good smoothie maker discounted on Amazon one day so we could make fresh baby food when the time comes. It’s probably backfired a bit because I just want to put everything in the blender now and push liquidised fruit and veg on everyone.

Every day I’ve been making a different fruit and veg smoothie so I end up getting between five to eight portions of fruit and veg a day. Bonus! Rather than following new smoothie recipes each day, I tend to just mix fruit and veg of similar-ish colours. I’ll share some examples below. I then use coconut water as a base so they’re not really thick — it tastes better than just using water and a lot less sugary than fruit juice.

Green smoothie

• Handful of spinach,
• 1-2 kiwi fruits
• 1 Apple
• 1 Pear
• Coconut water

Orange smoothie

• 1 Carrot
• 1 Orange
• Fresh ginger
• 1 banana
• Coconut water

Purple smoothie

• 1 beetroot
• Handful of blueberries
• Handful of spinach
• 1 apple

4. Boosting sleep quality with Yoga Nidra meditations

In my first trimester, I couldn’t get through the day without having to take a 30 minute nap at about 3pm every day. Luckily I don’t often teach at this time, so was able to indulge in a daily yoga nidra practice followed by a short sleep which was pretty blissful.

If you’re not familiar with yoga nidra, whether you’re pregnant or not, it’s one of the few meditations out there where the results are really instant. I remember going into such a deep state of blissful relaxation during my first ever yoga nidra about five years ago. I’ve been doing them ever since and also qualified to teach it.

The beauty of yoga nidra is that it can be practised by anyone and is one of the best things to help you get an amazing night’s sleep if you struggle drifting off in the night.

If you want to know more about this magical practice, you can check out Richard Miller’s Yoga Nidra book here (Affiliate Link), and/or just head to YouTube or Spotify and try out one of the many free yoga nidra guided meditations that are available. I also recorded one a few months back which you can listen to here.

5. Reading Rumi to the baby

I can’t remember where I first read this, but if you read the same thing daily to your unborn baby, they will remember when they’re born which I thought was really lovely. In the study, kids books were read, but I’ve been reading a Rumi poem I love called Only Breath.

6. Embracing pregnancy affirmations and intentions

I’m big on writing out intentions and goals, and without realising, had written out a year before what I wanted my pregnancy to be like. Reading this back now whilst pregnant I was really amazed by how true it had become (so far anyway). Whether it’s just a coincidence or not, it might be worth trying. I’ve recently done the same thing for my birth.

During my pregnancy yoga teacher training, I also observed a yoga class where the teacher brought in pregnancy affirmation cards for everyone which was a nice touch. I got one too and and use it now I am pregnant. It’s

My baby knows how and when it will be born.

7. Watching positive birth videos

The midwife on my pregnancy yoga teacher training actually showed us her YouTube video of her giving birth which was really inspiring as it was probably the first ever relatively calm and empowering birth video I’ve ever seen. Hollywood, the media, and even sex education at school have a lot to answer for!

I’ve only ever been shown highly medicalised births with women in brightly lit rooms in hospitals crying out in pain, so watching videos of water births at home and birthing centres has been really helpful for me to at least give me a different perspective of what else is possible.

8. Floating in epsom salts

I tried floatation therapy ages ago at Floatworks in London and also went into a floatation tank in my first trimester whilst on holiday in Slovenia, and it’s honestly one of the most luxuriously relaxing experiences — especially when pregnant because it almost feels like you’re in a womb floating yourself.

I ended up buying a bag of Epsom salts (Affiliate Link) to put in the bath at home — not the same as a floatation tank, but it’s still incredibly relaxing, and the magnesium is supposed to be really good for you.

Just make sure you get medical clearance from your GP or medical provider before going in a floatation tank or using Epsom salts.

9. Doing pregnancy yoga

I teach pregnancy yoga, and practise daily, so I might be a bit biased, but I couldn’t imagine not doing this. While I think exercise in general is incredibly important, pregnancy yoga is holistic in that it doesn’t just focus on toning your body — it’s an applied philosophy that will help you to connect back to and feel in tune with your body again, whilst also preparing you for birth. Breathing techniques, meditation, soundwork, mantras and physical movement might all be elements that make up a pregnancy yoga session.

If you’re London based, feel free to get in touch or find out about private pregnancy yoga sessions over at my yoga website Clare Hudson Yoga

10. Swimming for strength and relaxation

I’ve always enjoyed swimming, but now I’m pregnant, I’ve been going a few times a week. My body naturally just wants to be in water at the moment. I’ve bought myself a small float and alternate between front crawl, breaststroke (underwater and above), backstroke, and then exercises with the float.

Here are the two strengthening exercises I do with a float:

• Working the legs and bum — I hold the float out in front and alternate between kicking my legs front crawl style and breaststroke legs which really works the inner thighs.
• Working arms and shoulders — This one takes ages, but it really works my upper body strength. I place the float between my legs and just swim with breaststroke arms, keeping my head above the water.

11. Using Bio Oil twice a day

I’m not sure how necessary this is, but I’ve got into the habit of applying Bio Oil on my belly, hips, lower back and thighs twice a day to help prevent stretch marks. I’m going through A LOT of it so be warned if you start this one!

12. Doing pelvic floor work for birth

I’ve been doing the following two exercises daily from the first trimester to help strengthen pelvic floor muscles. Both of these, you can do pretty much anywhere, so you don’t have to be in the middle of an exercise or yoga routine to do them.

• Lift up through the pelvic floor gently, as if you’re stopping the flow of pee if you were doing this on the toilet (don’t do this on the toilet!) and hold for 10 seconds. Relax and repeat the process 10 more times. I then do two to three more rounds throughout the day.
• Pulse with the pelvic floor 10 times — gently squeeze and let go at a fairly quick pace. Throughout the day I do a further three to four rounds of 10.

The purpose? To help strengthen this area for giving birth, reduce recovery time afterwards, and to decrease the chances of tearing. In the third trimester, I will also be using something called an EPI-NO to hopefully further decrease my chances of tearing. I’ve written more about this further down in this article.

13. Teaching baby in the womb

Being big on learning and personal development in all areas, I naturally wanted to see what I could do to start the process of teaching  and interacting with the baby in the womb.

An Amazon search lead me to this book: Prenatal Classroom. I’m still a bit early in my pregnancy to feel really strong kicks and my placenta is in an anterior position which might make it harder to feel the baby. However, there are exercises in here you can do with your unborn child such as gently pressing on the area where you feel a kick and then eventually training the baby to kick when you press a certain area of the abdomen.

There’s also a lesson where you can use a small drum to create a simple rhythm daily to teach the baby that there are external sounds beyond your heartbeat.

14. Taking weekly pregnancy photos

I’ve been taking pictures since about the sixth week of my pregnancy. If there’s anything I’ve learnt here — that’s every woman is different! I started to get really nervous before the 20 week scan because I was comparing myself to how I thought I should look at 20 weeks, but it really is different for everyone and depends on soooo many factors: the position of your uterus, how muscular you are, whether this is your first pregnancy or not…

Our 20 week scan showed a perfectly healthy baby with average measurements for everything. The size of a woman’s belly has nothing to do with the size of her baby! Here’s last weeks shot at 21 weeks pregnant.

15. Being conscious of which sounds the baby responds to

I was teaching yoga recently at the lovely Cock and Bull Festival and watched the artist Jally Kebra Susso and felt my baby really move in time to a lot of the higher parts of the music. I’d felt movements before this, but this was the first time I felt the baby really respond to sound as if he/she was really enjoying it. The only other sound he/she seems to love is the sound of thunderstorms on Alexa.

16. Trying to embrace humour for inappropriate comments

For the most part, when I started to tell everyone I was pregnant after my 12 week scan, I was overwhelmed by how much love I felt and how happy everyone was for us. However, along with this, there were some pretty cliched inappropriate comments too (which may form the inspiration for a humorous Youtube video featuring all the things people say to you when you’re pregnant that are just wrong. Now’s not the time to repeat them but I’ve had my share of some of the classics.

Not sure I have any witty remarks yet (suggestions welcome) but I did find reasons to laugh  in the end…And I have this for when my bump gets bigger and  strangers want to touch my belly without asking. Yes, apparently this happens!

Things I’ll be doing later in my pregnancy

17. Using the machine that’s supposed to stop you tearing during labour — Epi No

My friend told me about this, and although you don’t use it until your third trimester, I will absolutely be using this if it will help to prevent tearing. Not sure if you can get it outside of the UK, but you can find out more here: EPI-NO

18. Getting myself some almond oil for perineal massage

Rather than splashing out on really expensive oils, apparently sweet almond oil also does the job and it’s great as a base for regular massage oil too.

19.Creating a birth plan…X3

I know it’s really important to let go and go with the flow, but equally, it brings me comfort to think about this. I haven’t yet decided what my preference is, but I know that I’d love to have a water birth either at home or in the birthing centre of my local hospital.  Also, I plan to write out the kind of language I’d like people to use and the fact that we’d like to discover the sex of the baby ourselves rather than being told. I’ll also be writing out Plan B and C in case we have to have an alternative. I can’t plan everything, but hopefully thinking about it will make me more prepared.

20. Exploring lucid dreaming whilst pregnant

I love lucid dreaming and did a course in it a few years ago. However, it takes me a bit of time to really do the techniques properly in order to have one. If you’ve never heard of lucid dreaming, it’s where you become conscious of the fact you’re dreaming, and is honestly one of the best things I’ve done. I would absolutely love to have a lucid dream whilst pregnant and have a feeling that it should be easier to induce one as my dreams have become way more vivid and memorable anyway.

If you’re interested, the Wake up and Back to Bed technique (WBTB) is what works best for me, and this website World of lucid Dreaming has pretty much all you need to know about it.

21. Doing a Hypnobirthing course

During my pregnancy yoga teacher training, we had a hypnobirthing teacher give a lecturer on hypnobirthing and I was fascinated and really inspired, thinking that when I get pregnant, this will definitely be something I do. I plan to book onto one of the KGH Hypnobirthing courses for the autumn a few months before my due date on 21st December.

22. Keeping a record of all the places I’ve been with the baby in my womb

I’ve been keeping little mementos like our scan pictures, and taking photographs weekly to see when I started to develop a bump, but I’m also taking note of what I’m doing during these nine months and how I’m feeling. The baby’s first gig, for example was the Rolling Stones, and its first holiday in the womb was Slovenia.

And finally, do you have anything else you’d like to add? What have you been finding useful during your pregnancy? What didn’t you find useful?  I’d love to hear your thoughts below.