The Expectant Father. Armin A. Brott
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and disappears by fourteen to fifteen weeks. Until then, here are a few things you can do to help your partner cope:
• Give her some good news. It turns out morning sickness may actually be a good thing. Women who don’t have nausea or vomit are three times more likely to miscarry than those who do have those symptoms, according to researcher Gideon Koren. And women over thirty-five (whose risk of miscarriage is higher) benefited the most. In addition, women with morning sickness are less likely to deliver too early, have very low-birth-weight babies, or have babies with birth defects. Oh, and those babies do have higher IQs. Knowing this probably won’t make your partner feel any better, but it might give her something to smile about as she’s leaning over the toilet bowl.
• Encourage her to drink a lot of fluids (although some women with morning sickness have trouble tolerating milk). You might also want to keep a large water bottle next to the bed. She should avoid caffeine, which tends to be dehydrating, and she might want to start the day with a small amount of nonacidic juice, such as apple or grape, or flat soda; the sweet flavor will probably encourage her to drink a little more than she might otherwise.
• Be sensitive to the sights and smells that make her queasy—and keep them away from her. Fatty or spicy foods are frequent offenders.
• Encourage her to eat a lot of small meals throughout the day—every two or three hours, if possible—and to eat before she starts feeling nauseated. Low blood sugar can make the nausea worse. A high-protein, high-carbohydrate diet may help. And basic, bland foods like rice and yogurt are particularly good because they’re less likely to cause nausea than greasy foods.
• Go for a walk. Some women find that exercise reduces nausea.
• Make sure she takes her prenatal vitamins—with food—if her doctor says to do so. He may also suggest that she take some additional vitamin B and K. For some women, the prenatal vitamins may actually be making the morning sickness worse. OB Lissa Rankin often switches her patients to a chewable vitamin. If that doesn’t work, she takes them off the vitamins altogether for a few months. “It’s more important to stay hydrated and take in some nutrients than to take a vitamin,” she says.
• Put some pretzels, crackers, or rice cakes by the bed—she’ll need something to start and end the day with, and these are low in fat and calories and easy to digest.
• Explore alternative treatments. Acupressure bands that press on the inside of the wrist have reduced symptoms in some women, and so has eating or drinking ginger or taking vitamin B6 supplements. In addition, some research indicates that sniffing peppermint oil and isopropyl alcohol (the stuff they rub on your arm before giving you a shot) can shorten the duration of symptoms. But be sure to check with her practitioner before she starts sniffing or eating or pressing on anything.
• Be aware that she needs plenty of rest and encourage her to get it.
Irrational Fears
At some point after the initial excitement passes, a surprising number of men find themselves experiencing an irrational fear that the child their partner is carrying is not theirs. Psychologist Jerrold Lee Shapiro interviewed more than two hundred men whose partners were pregnant, and found that 60 percent “acknowledged fleeting thoughts, fantasies, or nagging doubts that they might not really be the biological father of the child.” The majority of these men don’t actually believe their partners are having affairs. Rather, Shapiro writes, these feelings are symptoms of a common type of insecurity: the fear many men have that they simply aren’t capable of doing anything as incredible as creating life, and that someone more potent must have done the job. Most guys get over these feelings pretty quickly.
Dads whose baby was conceived using donor sperm and aren’t biologically connected have their own kind of irrational fears. A lot of guys worry that they won’t be able to bond with their baby or that sperm samples have been switched and that they’ll end up with a child of a different race. Actually, the issue isn’t so much race as physical similarity. Most IVF couples don’t feel the need to make the circumstances of the pregnancy public. And, like any other dads, they hope their children will look like them—at least enough so that they won’t have to deal with the inevitable “Gee, the baby doesn’t look anything like you” comments. They may choose to tell the kids the true story of their birth later on. But that’s a topic we’ll tackle in the sequel to this book, The New Father: A Dad’s Guide to the First Year.
STAYING INVOLVED
Exercise
If your partner was already working out regularly before the pregnancy, she probably won’t need any extra encouragement to exercise. And if her doctor approves, she can continue her regular fitness routine, and do pretty much any kind of working out she wants to (see “Workout No-Nos” on page 34 for some exceptions). Be aware, though, that some health clubs—out of fear of getting sued—may ask a pregnant woman to provide a letter from her doctor. If your partner wasn’t physically active before pregnancy, this isn’t the time for her to take up rock climbing or start training for a marathon. That doesn’t mean, however, that she should spend the entire pregnancy on the sofa. Getting exercise is critical (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—CDC—recommends thirty minutes per day of moderate exercise). It will help improve her circulation and keep her energy level high.
Exercising during pregnancy may also help your partner keep her weight gain steady and reasonable, help her sleep better, improve her mood, and reduce some of the normal pregnancy-related discomforts. Plus, it will improve her strength and endurance, both of which will come in very handy during labor and delivery. Researchers James Clapp and Elizabeth Noble found that women who exercise during the pregnancy have shorter labors and give birth to healthier babies. Others, including Bradley Price, have found that exercise may even lessen the chance that your partner will deliver prematurely, have complications during labor, or need a Cesarean section.
Finally, there’s Canadian neuroscientist Dave Ellemberg, who found that compared to couch-potato expectant moms, pregnant women who did twenty minutes of moderate exercise (leading to slight shortness of breath by the end) three times per week had babies with “more mature cerebral activation.” Translation: their brains developed more quickly. Ellemberg believes that those babies could “acquire speech more rapidly” and reach developmental milestones sooner.
But because pregnancy can make even the buffest woman feel a little run down, she may not always feel like working out. One way to help motivate her to get the exercise she needs is to work out with her. (See below for a list of good activities you can do together.) The most important thing is to start easy and not push her if you see she’s feeling tired or winded. If your budget doesn’t permit joining a gym or a health club, you can always buy pregnancy workout DVDs or even download pregnancy exercise apps to your phone.
Workout No-Nos
• High-impact sports. I’ve spoken with dozens of OB/GYNs over the years and have yet to find one who seriously believes that it’s possible to induce a miscarriage by ordinary falling—especially in the first trimester. Severe, sudden impacts such as car crashes can sometimes cause a miscarriage, though. Same with sudden starts and stops, such as might occur on a roller coaster. That said, it’s a good idea to limit or avoid high-contact sports, like boxing, hockey, or roller derby.
• Any sport that might cause her to take a hard fall. This includes horseback riding, in-line skating, ice skating, and, starting in about the seventh month, bicycling. For a nonpregnant person, taking a tumble doing one of these sports could be dangerous. For someone who’s having balance issues, the risks are even greater.
• Downhill skiing. Unless you’re an expert, don’t, and even then take it easy. My wife skied when she was seven months pregnant but avoided the most challenging runs, where she’d have risked a serious fall. Unless your partner’s doctor prohibits it, cross-country skiing should be fine.
• Scuba diving. The fetus can’t decompress