5 Mistakes Women Make Before Pregnancy

Are you thinking of getting pregnant?

Are you avoiding pregnancy and having kids because you’re worried about leaking urine afterwards, any tears during your birthing experience?

Well, that could be prevented. So I am Dr. Devyn Kangas. I’m a pelvic health physical therapist in Cape Coral, and I’m here to help.

Tip #1: Not Maintaining Your Nutritional Needs

There are five mistakes that people make before they decide to get pregnant, the first being not managing their nutritional needs before actually getting pregnant.

So being pregnant is not the time that you should be making any diet modifications.

This is because your system’s vulnerable. You shouldn’t be going on a diet.

You need those calories when you’re pregnant.

So if you’re looking to lose weight or trim certain areas, that should be happening before you even decide to get pregnant.

That’ll affect your period afterward, too, the time period after birth.

Tip #2: Avoiding Mental Health Treatment

The second mistake that people make is avoiding mental health treatment and intervention and not having any mental health baseline provided or treating anything that’s ongoing before you get pregnant, because there’s so many hormonal changes that happen when you’re pregnant, that they should be addressed, especially before postpartum to avoid postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, and postpartum OCD.

Tip #3: Ignoring Pains That Have Always Been There

The third mistake that people make before getting pregnant is ignoring pains that they’ve had all of their life.

That chronic pain can be treated, and it should be treated before you get pregnant to prevent it from getting worse or even causing injuries during the birthing experience.

Tip #4: Ignoring Physical Needs

Fourth mistake is ignoring our physical needs, meaning staying fit and staying active and staying healthy.

Being pregnant, you are going to be told by any of your healthcare professionals that you should maintain the level of activity that you have before you are pregnant.

So if you are sedentary now and you decide to get pregnant, then you are going to be stuck in a sedentary lifestyle.

Now is the time to make that change and make new habits for you and your future family.

Tip #5: Waiting to See a Pelvic Health Physical Therapist

Mistake number five is waiting to see a pelvic health physical therapist until there’s an issue.

If you wait for an issue, it gets worse, especially with pregnancy and especially with childbirth.

So see a pelvic floor PT now.

Figure out if you have any baseline issues going on with your pelvic floor that you may not even recognize that you have, or treat things that are going on now, because any amount of urine leakage is not normal, any amount of constipation is not normal, any amount of pain with sex is not normal.

So please see a pelvic PT now.