Unless your practitioner gives you specific restrictions or instructions, you should keep active during pregnancy. This may be as simple as walking every day to get your heart rate moving, or it may be a complete fitness program designed to be safe during pregnancy. But you also need to do so safely.

Exercise and fitness are activities you can control. They are important in pregnancy, just as they are during every other time of life. We all feel better when we’re active, and this alone can make your pregnancy more enjoyable. Exercise will likely improve your mood and help you enjoy the weeks as they fly by. It also may help you be better prepared for the rigors of labor and improve your ability to reach inside of yourself when that little bit extra is called for. Here are some guidelines for safe exercise:

• Keep your heart rate moderate. Try to keep your peak pulse rate below 140. Above this level your body may begin to divert blood away from the uterus and your baby. This is probably not significant until the third trimester, but it’s still a good rule to follow. You can get a heart rate monitor at any sporting goods store or just use this rule of thumb: you should be able to carry on a conversation while you exercise.
• Stay hydrated. Always drink lots of fluids when you work out. Dehydration can cause dizziness, a tendency to faint, a drop in blood pressure, increased heart rate, and pre-term contractions.
• Don’t strain your back. Avoid any lifting using your lower back. Whether it’s a twenty-pound weight or a piece of paper you’re picking up, you should always lift with your knees instead of your back. That’s important because your lower back is already stressed due to your growing midsection. Also, placental hormones cause relaxation of the ligaments, which is good for labor but also makes it easier to pull or strain body parts.
• Avoid jarring exercises. This is most relevant in the later months, but step classes or jogging may have too much impact. Spin classes, fast walking, and supervised weight training are all safe in pregnancy. Possibly the best exercise for a pregnant woman is a swimming or pool training class, since the strain on your ligaments and back is virtually eliminated.

Common sense is one of the best gauges as to what you can do while pregnant. Certainly, walking, swimming, jogging (in the first few months), light weightlifting, and yoga are all great for you and your baby.

Please grab hundreds of Pregnancy Secrets and tips at The Pregnancy Secrets

Worldcopyright Marc Hofkens and Cosblad Publications NV. You can use and publish this article on the condition that you don’t change anything and you add this resource box at any time.

http://www.the-pregnancy-secrets.com

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Accurate dating of pregnancy is one of the most important steps in your prenatal care. Every decision you make and many tests that are run are directly related to or interpreted from where you are in your pregnancy. Using the first day of your last menstrual period as the starting point is the standard convention for dating pregnancies

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Vitamin C has enjoyed great fame in recent history. It’s useful for preventing scurvy, a dreaded disease in the past. It’s also an anti-oxidant and has been known to help prevent and reduce the duration of the common cold. But can it really help enhance male fertility? Research has shown that yes, it can.

It is important to note that even if a man produces high counts of sperm, they must be able to reach the egg. Part of this journey relies on the female’s cervical fluid, which must be hospitable to the sperm. But part of it relies on the man.

Agglutination is the process by which sperm clumps together. When sperm cells are clumped together, they cannot swim properly and have a hard time making it to the egg. A man with a vitamin C deficiency is more likely to have sperm agglutination, and taking vitamin C can prevent it. This allows the healthy sperm to swim to the egg.

Deficiency in vitamin C has also been shown to contribute to low sperm count and reduced sperm motility. Like sperm agglutination, reduced motility prevents sperm from moving properly. Sperm may simply swim in circles instead of through the semen and cervical fluid to the waiting egg.

Vitamin C has also been shown to reduce the occurrence of abnormal or defective sperm. This has been proven especially true in smokers. Of course quitting smoking is the best thing for a couple trying to conceive.

Low levels of vitamin C have led to less structural strength within the male sex organs. When vitamin C levels are replenished the tubes and organs needed for optimal fertility in the man are healthier and function more efficiently.

As you can see, vitamin C is vitally important for a man to be fertile. In addition to its specific benefits towards fertility, the vitamin is essential for overall health. It is found in many fruits and vegetables. However experts have found surprisingly low levels of vitamin C in sources where it has been thought to be abundant - such as oranges. They suggest that depleted soil may lead to this.

Since it is better to take vitamin C in a whole form, rather than by isolating it, you may want to try a multi-vitamin containing vitamin C. This ensures a more balanced delivery of the vitamin, along with other vitamins and minerals essential to your fertility. Be sure to get plenty of foods rich in vitamin C as this is the best source - just use your vitamin as an assurance that you are truly getting what you need.

Ensuring that you get a generous amount of vitamin C in your diet will help improve your sperm quality and perhaps your sperm count. It will also improve the health of your reproductive organs and give you better health overall. Be sure that you are getting the amount of vitamin C you need everyday and enjoy greater fertility.

Kristen Hart is passionate about helping families solve fertility problems naturally. She has a website at http://www.getting-pregnant.com devoted to giving families helpful information. Stop by Getting-Pregnant.com today and sign up for an email series full of information on natural fertility boosters.

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