Velisha Thompson of the City of Johannesburg writes:
February is that month of the year where we celebrate Pregnancy Awareness Month and pregnant women take priority in our lives as they carry our precious little babies.
Pregnant women also have many roles and responsibilities to take care of their own health as well as the health of their unborn child. This month we will be focusing on your responsibilities as a pregnant woman.
As a pregnant woman, there are many expectations from you. A pregnant woman is expected to attend the antenatal clinic at 12 weeks so that tests can be done and repeated at due times.
The role of antenatal care during your pregnancy is as follows:
- To improve your maternal health
- Improve the health and survival of your baby.
- Provide you with important information such as:
- Warning signs during pregnancy and how to respond to them
- Reduce bad habits such as drinking alcohol and smoking by adopting new habits such as physical and breathing exercise which will come to great use during labour and meditation to reduce stress levels which is good for your blood pressure
- Nutritional advice: Eat food which contains protein, fruit and vegetables that contain vitamins and iron which are good for you and your babies health in small frequent amounts as they are easy to digest and make you feel uncomfortable.
- Contraception
- How will you go about feeding your baby
- Immunisations
- HIV/Aids testing and if you are positive, it will be important to start taking ARVs as directed by the health worker.
It is your responsibility to look after your clinic’s records and produce them when visiting the clinic.
You need to organise transport at an early stage in case you go into labour. You are also expected to know where your nearest clinic or hospital is for delivery. Should bleeding start, or you have a mucous discharge or your waters break or go into labour (labour pains), you should go immediately to a delivery clinic or hospital. Please do not waste any time as you may experience problems if you delay.
Make sure you keep a delivery bag ready at seven months of pregnancy.
After your baby is born, you are expected to visit your clinic with your baby on the third day and not at six weeks, for immunisation and family planning.
Remember it takes an emotionally, physically and psychologically ready parent to raise a happy child.
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