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5 Habits to Follow & Avoid During Pregnancy

Keep your pregnancy safe with this guide on good and bad habits.

Medically Inspected by: Maria Caridad Purugganan, MD

Your body will definitely change as you embark on this new chapter, and so should some of your habits. When you make positive and healthy changes to your diet and lifestyle, you and your baby will surely reap the many benefits linked to them.

Here are some of the most ideal pregnancy habits to follow, and other practices you should avoid for the next couple of months (or even years) that can harm you and your baby.

DO: Include unprocessed and healthy food to your diet.
It’s crucial that you follow a healthy diet loaded with vitamins and nutrients to ensure you and your baby’s optimal health. Ideally, you’ll want to eat organically grown and unprocessed food rich in vitamins that can help your baby grow. Some good choices include:
- Vegetables: Carrots, sweet potatoes, spinach, cooked leafy greens, pumpkin, and tomatoes can help raise potassium and vitamin A levels. These nutrients help promote balance of fluids and electrolytes in your body’s cells and ensure baby’s normal growth in the womb.
- Fruits: Increase your potassium levels by eating cantaloupe, oranges, bananas, and prunes. Aside from its effects to your body’s cells, potassium is known to address leg cramps in pregnant women too.
- Protein: Your baby’s organs and tissues can develop better with protein from beans, peas, nuts, seeds, lean beef, lamb, and pork cuts, and seafood like salmon, sardines, and herring.
- Grains: Ready-to-eat or cooked cereals can help raise iron and folic acid levels. The former helps provide much-needed oxygen to your baby, while the latter aids in lowering his or her risk for birth defects.
- Dairy options: Adding fat-free or low-fat yogurt, skim or 1% milk, or soy milk can help deliver nutrients like potassium, calcium, and vitamins A and D, and allow your baby’s bones to grow properly.

On the other end, you’ll want to avoid these items as much as possible:

- Raw meats and seafood: These food items can harbor pathogens like Listeria and Salmonella. Raw and uncooked processed meat can also contain traces of Toxoplosma and E.coli, while undercooked or raw fish can be tainted with norovirus or Vibrio. All of these pathogens place you at risk for viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections.
- Fish containing mercury: Exposing your baby to mercury can put them at risk for developmental problems and cause immune system, nervous system, and kidney problems.
- Smoked fish: It’s possible that they’ll contain traces of Listeria bacteria. This bacteria raises a woman’s risk for miscarriage, stillbirth, or preterm labor, and cause blood or brain infections or even life-long health problems for a baby.
- Unpasteurized dairy products like milk and cheese, raw eggs and cookie dough: Aside from Listeria bacteria, you can be exposed to salmonella when you consume any of these food items. Salmonella can trigger vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, and abdominal pain among pregnant women.
- Store-bought and freshly squeezed or unpasteurized juices: These can contain some amounts of salmonella and E.coli bacteria, which can sadly weaken the immune systems of newborn babies and even cause urinary tract infections (UTI), pneumonia, sepsis, or meningitis.
- Unwashed fruits and vegetables, raw sprouts, and unripe papaya: At any moment, these items can be contaminated with pathogens like Toxoplasma, E. coli, Salmonella, and Listeria that are known to cause infections that can harm you and your baby.
  To know more about the ideal food you should eat during your pregnancy, consult your doctor for more information and guidance.
DON’T: Take over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription medicines without doctor’s clearance.
Pregnant women are advised to consult with their doctors first before taking OTC medicines such as aspirin, ibuprofen, amino acids, and herbal and mineral supplements, especially during the first trimester. This is because some OTC medicines may cause adverse effects for pregnant women.

If you feel sick and you think you need to take OTC or prescription medicine, consult your doctor to know if they’re safe for pregnant women. You can ease your worries once you’re duly informed about medicines that are safe for you and baby.
DO: Exercise when you can.
There’s been a misconception that pregnant women must avoid any form of exercise. However, squeezing in a workout can be beneficial for pregnant women as it’s known to help:

Boost energy levels and sleep quality
Promote better circulation
Lower stress levels
Improve muscles and endurance
Provide relief from back aches and constipation.

While there are multiple workouts to choose from, prenatal yoga remains to be one of the most ideal and helpful, especially when your delivery date is approaching. In a prenatal yoga class, you can perform breathing exercises, gentle stretching, and various yoga postures, and end the session with cool down and relaxation techniques.

If prenatal yoga isn’t your thing, other choices can include walking, light jogging, swimming, squatting, and Kegel exercises. Before you take a deep dive into workout videos or tutorials though, consult your doctor first. Some considerations may need to be made prior to performing exercises, especially among women with risk factors and women who weren’t physically active prior to a pregnancy.

DON’T: Give in to vices like cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption.
Now is definitely the right time to stop vices such as cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption. These bad habits have been linked to many complications both for mother and baby:

Smoking cigarettes: According to studies, pregnant women who smoked or were exposed to cigarette smoke have a higher risk for vaginal bleeding, ectopic pregnancies, premature placental detachment, and premature labor and delivery.
Smoking can also negatively impact delivery of blood flow and oxygen to your baby, and slow down his or her growth. Babies exposed to cigarette smoke are also more likely to have lung- and brain-related issues, eyesight or breathing problems, and birth defects like a cleft palate.
Consuming alcohol: Increased and/or excessive consumption of wine, beer, or hard liquor during your pregnancy can lead to complications like miscarriage, premature labor and delivery, and stillbirth.
Drinking alcohol while you’re pregnant can also increase your baby’s risk for fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). This can lead to health issues like joint deformities, slow physical growth, vision and/or hearing problems, heart defects, learning disorders, poor memory, and difficulties interacting and maintaining relationships with other people, to name a few.

DO: Limit caffeine intake.
According to experts, pregnant women should only consume about 200 mg of caffeine a day, whether it’s from coffee, tea, or other caffeinated beverages.
In general, caffeine may cause negative side effects such as high blood pressure, rapid heartbeat, anxiety, dizziness, and restlessness. However, it has been said that caffeine can remain in a pregnant woman’s bloodstream for a longer period of time compared to other food, raising concerns regarding its potential effects for you and your baby.
Too much caffeine has been linked to health issues like reduced fertility, and increased risk for premature labor and preterm delivery in pregnant women and low birth weight among newborns.

Get Extra Support With Supplements

Apart from following good pregnancy habits, especially towards your diet, why not add supplements containing important nutrients to your regimen?

Multivitamins + Minerals + DHA + EPA (Obimin Plus) can be beneficial if you’re pregnant. It’s a prenatal supplement with both EPA and DHA, and not only assists with maintaining your overall health, but also helps with baby’s optimal growth and development when taken with proper diet and suitable exercise.

Ask your doctor about Multivitamins + Minerals + DHA + EPA (Obimin Plus) today.

ASC Reference No. U136P100721OS

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