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A look behind the scenes! My very personal 2nd pregnancy trimester

Time flies! Whoosh, also the 2nd pregnancy trimester is over. Of course, I would like to give you special insight here. Those of you who are currently in the 1st pregnancy trimester can read my personal impressions here. Today it is about the 2nd trimester and also the question whether it is really the so-called feel-good trimester.

Feel-good trimester (Week 13-27)

In the 2nd pregnancy trimester I actually felt much better. The nausea abruptly subsided, and the exhaustion and tiredness slowly decreased. I was only a bit nauseous in the 13th and 14th week, when I was very exhausted and very active during the day. The body simply shows you that and tells you that you need a little time out. 

My tip: Really listen to your body, it needs more sleep and more rest than outside of pregnancy. But it will get better!

Energy and drive

Over the second trimester, however, I became much fitter again! I really had a lot of energy again to feel full of drive. While at the beginning of the second trimester I couldn’t imagine recording many new MOVE IT MAMA workouts a second time. In fact, I almost would have preferred others to take over at the end 🙂  But suddenly I felt a tremendous urge to do it, just when I saw other programs again that didn’t meet my standards, that exclusively focused on very shallow gymnastics during and after pregnancy. All the more it grabbed me and I have now again rounded up my MOVE IT MAMA team of experts and we are currently working diligently on new workouts and will then shoot them highly pregnant at the beginning of September, this time in the beautiful Robinson Club Puglia.

How does abdominal and pelvic floor breathing help?

In my 2nd pregnancy, the importance of abdominal breathing and good pelvic floor breathing is much more apparent to me this time. If you are not yet aware of it yourself, here are my most important experiences, which by the way are all scientifically proven:

  • correct abdominal and pelvic floor breathing improves your body awareness 
  • you can actively support the birth with correct breathing
  • your baby has more space in the belly 
  • shortness of breath decreases
  • you feel much fitter overall!
  • possible pregnancy incontinence is prevented
  • even if the baby presses on the urethra, you have the urge to urinate under better control 

Here is one of the basic breathing techniques to try:

  • Sit cross-legged for. When you exhale, pull your belly button towards your sternum and your tailbone towards the top of your head. When you inhale, relax again (belly breathing with activation of the inner pelvic floor layer). Then simply turn around: on the inhale pull the belly button towards the sternum and the tailbone towards the top of the head, on the exhale relax.

Do you notice how the body straightens up? This does a lot of good and the baby floats on the pelvic floor like in a balloon filled with water.

My tip: Be mindful of your body and and do the #MAMAWORKSTHEFLOOR exercises from the app regularly at least 1-2 times a week to benefit from proper breathing. I honestly have to discipline myself to do these all the time.

Medial checkups in the 2nd trimester

From the 24th week of pregnancy you could really identify my belly as a baby belly! From then on, there was more and more going on in my belly, sometimes it would bulge funny in one direction or another. Every day I felt the movements of the baby in my belly and it became real for me, even my little Cooper put his hand and ear to my belly to feel and hear his little brother. 🙂 Now it was also soon time for the screening test of gestational diabetes.

After drinking the glass of sugar water, I felt a little woozy – sugar shock? Maybe. An hour later, you’ll have your blood drawn and this will be tested, which is how your doctor can tell if you have any gestational diabetes. In my case, the all-clear! That was in pregnancy week 26.

In the second trimester, ultrasounds are also done to check your baby’s position, heart sounds, and organs such as heart, lungs, stomach, bladder, and kidneys.

I also had blood drawn to determine the baby’s rhesus factor. Because I personally am “rhesus negative”, which means that my body can develop defenses (anti-D antibodies) against the baby. 

The result showed that the little one is “rhesus positive”, so I can’t avoid the anti-D immunoglobulin injection, which I will get once in the 3rd trimester and once right after the birth.

Short explanation: During pregnancy and especially during birth, blood of Rh-positive children can enter the Rh-negative circulation of the mother. The resulting formation of antibodies is called sensitization. The antibodies can penetrate the child’s bloodstream and cause anemia, heart failure, brain damage or even death of the fetus.

However, it is not so much the fetuses that the pregnant women are carrying that are at risk, but rather children in subsequent pregnancies who are also Rh-positive. This is because they are exposed to the defense reaction of the mother’s blood very early in the pregnancy. Read more

Symphysis symptoms

Perhaps you are also one of the almost 50% of mamas who suffer from pain in the pubic bone or symphysis. 

For me it started around the 20th week of pregnancy. In the first pregnancy I also had it after I once intensively rode one of our horses in the 24th week of pregnancy and my body was actually no longer used to sitting on a horse. Of course, this is also something you should not do and only a rider who sits on the horse regularly anyway should continue to get on the horse during pregnancy!

But what is actually a symphysis or rather a painful symphysis loosening? As your body prepares for birth, the hormone relaxin is released. This loosens the ligaments, tendons and cartilage throughout the body and, of course, in the pelvis. The latter is very important to make it easier for the baby to pass through the birth canal during delivery: Between the two halves of the pelvis there is the pubic or so called symphysis, a cartilaginous connection, so it widens by 3-4 millimeters, so it can cause pulling in the pubic bone. 

Symphysis discomfort

What helps against symphysis discomfort?

There are many smaller and bigger helpers against this pain. 

  • Wear a special support belt (e.g. from Belly Bandit)
  • Avoid movements that trigger the pain

I’ve noticed that some very athletic women may also have a bit of themselves to blame by, for example, taking too much weight “on the barbell” or doing too much exercise that is counterproductive. The simple rule here is that if you notice that it hurts, you should refrain from that exercise! That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move them, that would be counterproductive as well.

  • Physiotherapy can also help you with subsequent pregnancies as a prophylaxis
  • Regular activation and mobilization of the pelvic floor layers 

Something that actually helps me especially now and has helped during the 2nd trimester: strengthening the pelvis. A great example here is activating the 2nd pelvic floor layer by pulling the sit bones towards each other and up backwards.

You sit upright on the edge of a chair or on an exercise ball, the top of your head pulls upwards while your tailbone and pubic bone press into the ball in opposite directions. Now inhale with the sit bones facing each other backwards.

Varicose veins and spider veins

At first I was spared, but in the 27th pregnancy week I also clearly had a few spider veins on my left calf. When I visited the gynecologist, she told me that they would certainly not go away. She prescribed me support stockings because that is most likely to help. Spider veins are not pretty, but nothing against real varicose veins and thick water retention, I don’t envy anyone for that! But all this is still nothing unusual during pregnancy. What helps:

  • Drink plenty of fluids
  • Exercise
  • Support stockings
  • Less sitting and standing!

Workouts in the 2nd pregnancy trimester

Because I feel much fitter in the second trimester, I really enjoyed full-body strengthening exercises with and without weights. And I observed myself that I was using smaller and smaller dumbbells as the 2nd pregnancy trimester progressed. At the beginning I sometimes even used a barbell, at the end now light dumbbells and meanwhile I prefer more often pure own weight for exercises.

And I have to admit that my team of experts has developed really great workouts just #MAMASWHOLEBODYSHAPEUP does the whole body so incredibly good!!!!

In cardio, I notice that sometimes jumps don’t feel as good anymore. Or certain lunges don’t do the symphysis any good. I then simply replace such exercises with other low-impact exercises. If you have a good feeling for your body, your body will tell you quite consciously whether some exercises are still good for you or not. Of course, you get a guideline with our specially made workouts for the 2nd trimester of pregnancy from the MOVE IT MAMA app.

My tip: listen to your body, but also carefully test how far you can go. An athletic mom will tend to make the mistake of going too far – so be careful – while an unathletic one will tend to do too little – so take a chance -…That’s my experience with our users 🙂

The major mama-goal

What I particularly enjoy is the big goal of having the birth in front of my eyes. Perhaps similar to an athlete who prepares for a competition and heads towards it with a goal in mind. This is how I prepare myself as a pregnant woman for the birth. Be it with stretching exercises to open the hips, pelvic floor exercises to actively support the birth and conscious relaxation through breathing. Or through cardio, to have the necessary condition and strengthening exercises especially for the back and torso to have an upright posture and thus not only prevent back pain and the like can but also thereby also give the baby more space.

It’s fun!! And every day I discover something new again, how the body reacts to certain foods, exercises or the environment. It’s a bit like a voyage of discovery!

pregnancy

Maybe you are in your first, second, third or x-th pregnancy in the 2nd trimester and I could give you today a few useful tips and info from me personally. I look forward to continue to take you on my pregnancy journey! 

By the way: on our Instagram channel @moveitmama_official I share weekly with you my personal current mama-to-be experiences. Feel free to share with me your very own personal experiences, impressions and lessons learned. 

 

Keep it Moving,

Your Birte 

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