Taking care of yourself, staying healthy, and paying extra attention to your wellness is so important during pregnancy. Moreover, it is even more important to your little growing bun in the oven.
But life can be a little different when you’re pregnant, which means that what you do to take care of yourself and your baby has to change to suit your changing body.
From exercising and eating well to finding support and making friends, here are some wonderful ways tech can help you take good care of yourself during these next nine months.
1. Take Prenatal Vitamins
When you’re pregnant your body needs more vitamins and nutrients. That’s why prenatal vitamins are key. They’re not the same as regular multivitamins and usually include more iron, folic acid, and calcium for your growing baby.
Pregnancy brain can make it difficult to remember certain things, and that’s where a pill reminder and medication tracker app like Medisafe comes into the picture. Using Medisafe, you can add your prenatal medications and how often you need to take them. Furthermore, you can even set up daily reminders, refill reminders, and treatment trackers.
Download: Medisafe for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
2. Create a Birth Plan
Having a birth plan is a helpful guideline so everyone knows what your wishes are when it comes to labor and delivery. Fortunately, it’s now easier than ever to create an online personalized birth plan that you can download and print out.
MyBirthPlan gives you the option to fill out your birth plan online and save your progress as you go along. The plan includes your labor preferences, personal and medical information, as well as your plan for the unexpected.
Earth Mama’s free birth plan is a little more comprehensive as it covers literally everything from your desired birth environment, pain relief options, newborn procedures, and your ideal hospital stay. Simply fill out all the information, and your Earth Mama plan is emailed straight to you.
3. Practice Kegel Exercises
The Kegel Trainer mobile app makes it easy and effortless to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles during pregnancy. The app offers workout plans designed to suit your needs, whether you’re doing kegels because you’re pregnant or recovering from birth.
Most people who perform kegel exercises prefer to do so discreetly, which makes this app even better! The Kegel Trainer app provides Minimal Mode and Book Mode, which can help you remain ultra-discrete while you’re doing your training.
Download: Kegel Trainer for Android (Free, in-app purchases available)
4. Do Pregnancy-Safe Workouts
Studio Bloom can help you stay on top of your prenatal workout routine, which is essential if you want to reduce all the nasty symptoms of pregnancy—but also to prepare your body for labor.
Getting started is as easy as picking a program or class. You can do this based on your trimester, fitness level, or coach. What’s more, you can choose from a range of pregnancy-safe exercise types like yoga, barre, mobility, and strength workouts to boost your muscle gains.
Download: Studio Bloom for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
5. Try to Sleep More
It’s common for moms-to-be to feel exhausted during pregnancy, but the problem is that it’s often even more common to struggle to sleep and stay asleep. So how can you sleep better? The Somnox smart sleep device could be the solution for you.
This unique, bean-shaped sleep companion’s sole purpose is to help you fall asleep using a selection of smart features. It can mimic and guide your breathing and soothe you to sleep with calming sounds, music, bedtime stories, and meditations. Plus, it is built to be the perfect shape for cuddling.
6. Eat Well
For an online smoothie subscription that is organic, dairy-free, gluten-free, and sugar-free, there’s Bumpin Blends. Bumpin Blends’ smoothie cubes are easy, fast, nutritious, and delicious—which is the perfect option when you want to eat well during pregnancy, but you’re having a hard time cooking or preparing meals.
Even better: While you’re building your Bumpin Blends smoothie box, you can add your specific pregnancy symptoms like nausea, heartburn, bloating, or headaches. From there, the smoothie cubes are specifically tailored to include ingredients to soothe these symptoms.
The pineapple ginger smoothie cubes, for instance, are ideal for nausea—while the green mango smoothie cubes are perfect for headaches.
7. Chat with a Parenting Support Group
Tinyhood is an online platform that offers an impressive selection of online classes for parents on topics such as breastfeeding, baby care, CPR and safety, and childbirth and pregnancy.
In addition, Tinyhood In Session is where you can find a virtual community of other parents to connect with. Here, you can sign up for weekly small group sessions with others who are also expecting.
8. Turn to Meditation
Prenatal meditation can improve your mood, decrease anxiety and stress and help you cope with your changing body. Relax and meditate peacefully from the comfort of your own home using these free guided meditation classes on YouTube.
The Pregnancy and Postpartum TV YouTube channel offers a variety of exercises for mothers-to-be to stay active, from yoga and strength workouts to exercises to do after a c-section. Besides that, there are several guided meditation sessions—including a meditation practice specifically for your first trimester and even an hour-long meditation to help you sleep.
Otherwise, there is a short and sweet, beginner-friendly guided prenatal meditation practice from YogaCandi to teach you how to calm your mind and body.
9. Make Pregnant Friends
Even though you likely have supportive friends already, do they genuinely know what you’re going through? Having mom friends means you’ll have someone who can relate to you as you go through your prenatal journey.
Try downloading the Meetup mobile app if you’re having trouble meeting bump buddies naturally. Using Meetup, you can easily find family and pregnancy-related groups, events, and activities nearby.
You can explore your options on the Meetup app based on the category, time, date, and whether it is an online or in-person event. Once you’ve found an event or group you’re interested in, you can check out the details like who is going, and then join and RSVP.
Download: Meetup for iOS | Android (Free, subscription available)
Wellness Tips to Use During Your Nine-Month Pregnancy Journey
Taking care of yourself, be it mentally, physically, or emotionally is vital if you want to have a healthy pregnancy. But besides the obvious points like steering clear of alcohol, cigarettes, and sushi, what else do you need to keep in mind?
From staying active to taking prenatal vitamins, be sure to take note of these tips and the tech you can use to help you maintain your wellness during pregnancy.
