Our porkchop leader has moved to New Zealand that’s why the blog has had no new posts for a couple of months. But starting from today, I, the “Skinny Porkchop”, will take up the job to post on our blog until our porkchop leader is back toHong Kong! Our running exercise has temporary stopped when we lost our leader and an active member like me… The reason is I am no more a skinny porkchop but a pregnant one! My belly is as big as a watermelon now, but, I am trying to keep “a healthy pregnant skinny” 😛 ( if there is such a thing!). Hopefully I can get my good figure back by continuing my running and fitness dancing classes after giving birth.
It seems there are particularly a larger portion of pregnant women this year of the Dragon. Chinese people think that the year of the Dragon is the luckiest year among the twelve years of the animal zodiac. Of the 12 animals, the dragon is the only imaginary animal in the legend which represents the Emperor. Mothers believe that babies born in this year will be clever, have courage and bring luck to the family.
Aside from cultural beliefs, having a pre-marital or pre-pregnancy check-up is essential before planning to have a baby. If you and your husband/wife are healthy with nohereditary disease or any genetic disorder, you can expect to have a healthy baby. You may consider to adopt a Chinese lifestyle which may help you to enhance fertility. TCM emphasizes the general well being of a person and making sure body organs function in harmony to create a suitable environment for pregnancy. Traditionally, TCM fertility approaches mainly focused on replenishing and consolidating essence in men, while women focused on regulating menstruation. In TCM, the kidneys rule reproduction. Essence stored in the kidneys provides the material basis for genital development and maturation of sexual instinct. Therefore, abundance or depletion of kidney essence affects sexual function directly. While our sexual energy is derived mainly from inherited kidney essence, it is supplemented by the acquired essence obtained from ingested foods and fluids that have been processed by the spleen and stomach.
Being calm and having a peaceful mind is very important in pregnancy. Anxiety and anger may affect how your liver to regulates the blood and chi. Apart from that, you need to pay attention to your weight because too fat or too thin affects the yin yang balance. A healthy weight can help restore menstrual cycles and egg production to increase the chances of pregnancy. Last but not least, have a healthy diet now if you are ready to get pregnant. You should keep away from icy drinks and raw foods. In TCM, it is thought that women who are not falling pregnant may have a kidney yang or yang qi deficiency, and, they are likely to have cold limbs. If the uterus is invaded by cold evils, it would not facilitate sperm collection and allow conception. Therefore, women should keep the uterus in a warm environment and to achieve this cold drinks are avoided and warming and replenishing foods are encouraged. You also will not see ice water at the bedside of a Chinese woman who has recently delivered a baby. Definitely quit smoking if you have such habit. Taking more food with variety of vitamins and rich protein can support the growth of reproductive cells. Well that’s it for today…Pregnant Prokchop signing off!
http://www.shen-nong.com/eng/exam/specialties_womeninfertility_enhance.html