Exercise During Pregnancy..

Exercise is always healthy and is important during your pregnancy. You need to maintain or even boost your fitness levels, after all you are going to be carrying around extra weight and staying in shape will help you to get your body back to normal after the birth.

You should, of course, follow medical advice and don't overdo it. Here are a few tips.

- Keep your pulse rate under 140. You can check this by taking your pulse, or, another easy way to make sure you aren't overdoing it is to make sure you can talk without taking breathes. If you need to breath more frequently than usual then you need to ease up.

- Don't get overheated. Exercise less strenuously in hot weather and take plenty of fluids on board.

- Stretch carefully. Your hormones will make your body feel more flexible as some of your ligaments will be looser, but don't stretch too far. Gentle exercise will benefit you, too strenuous and it could harm you and baby.

- Avoid exercises that cause you to round your back. This includes lifts. Rounding your back could put pressure on your uterus and thus limit the amount of blood and oxygen reaching baby.

- If you feel tired or dizzy you are overdoing it and need to take a rest. It is important to exercise but you should not try to force yourself to attain the levels of exercise you reached before you were pregnant.

- You are supposed to eat more and gain weight during your pregnancy. On no account start worrying about your looks and try to limit the increase in weight by dieting. If you are tempted to do so seek medical help immediately.