Some pregnancy books I like:
[ul]
[li]The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy by Vicki Iovine[/li][li]The Panic-Free Pregnancy by Michael Broder[/li][li]Expecting 411 by Michele Hakakha and Ari Brown[/li][/ul]
Pregnancy and baby books can often be found used, on Amazon or at used book stores.
Costco has prenatal vitamins, as do most grocery stores and drug stores. You might have to try some different prenatal vitamins- some women find some prenatal vitamins nauseating. If you can (obviously, you can’t do this at Costco), get a small bottle of them at first. Then stock up when you find one you can tolerate. That way, you haven’t wasted a lot of money on vitamins that make you sick. Vitamins that don’t stay down aren’t doing you much if any good.
There are some foods you’ll want to avoid during pregnancy:
[ul]
[li]Fish that are high in mercury. Swordfish, shark, tilefish, mackerel, orange roughy, and some kinds of tuna fall into this category. There are other fish you’ll want to have only occasionally, since they have moderate mercury. Here’s a list of fish and their mercury content.[/li][li]Raw milk and raw milk cheeses. The problem here is listeria, which can get through the placenta and affect the baby. I only buy cheeses that say on the label that they are pasteurized, though raw milk cheeses are not terribly common in the US. Any cheese that is melted is not a problem.[/li][li]Cold cuts, refrigerated smoked fish, uncooked hot dogs, and refrigerated pates. These can also have listeria. These things are OK if you heat them up, since the heat kills the listeria.[/li][li]Animal products that are high in vitamin A, or vitamins with a lot of vitamin A other than beta-carotene. Too much vitamin A can cause birth defects. As a precaution, I started avoiding liver when I was 10 (ok, ok, that’s really because I hate liver). Beta carotene is fine, and this is the form of vitamin A that is in most prenatal vitamins.[/li][li]Stuff that is likely to cause food poisoning. Other forms of food poisoning (like salmonella) aren’t likely to affect the baby, but pregnancy suppresses your immune system somewhat, so you are more susceptible to food poisoning. And food poisoning sucks, pregnant or not. This category includes stuff like raw meat, fish, or shellfish, raw eggs, and things like that.[/li][/ul]
Until recently, they used to tell pregnant women to avoid peanuts or other common food allergens (and some older pregnancy books will have stuff about this), for fear of causing the baby to have food allergies. Current scientific opinion says this is bunk. If you want peanuts or peanut butter, go ahead and have them, unless you are allergic to them, of course.
You’ll want to limit caffeine consumption. You don’t have to give it up entirely, but there are studies showing that consuming more than 200 mg of caffeine in a day does increase your risk of miscarriage. That’s about 2 regular-sized cups of coffee or 5 12-oz glasses of Diet Pepsi.
You want to OK any supplements or herbal medicines with your OB before you take them. Just because it’s a vitamin or because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s safe in pregnancy. Vitamin A from animal sources is natural, and it can cause birth defects.
Check with a doctor before you stop taking any prescription drugs other than birth control. Any doctor who prescribes anything for you should, of course, know that you are pregnant.
There is NO food that you absolutely must eat to have a healthy pregnancy and baby. Period. Any food you can name, there is a culture somewhere or at some time in history that managed to have healthy babies without eating that food. You don’t have to eat stuff you don’t like. Food aversions are fairly common (I had an aversion to beef in my first trimester). No food does you any good nutritionally if it doesn’t stay down.
Morning sickness is common. What I did to deal with it is get some candied ginger from Trader Joe’s, which helped some with the nausea. I also went to a restaurant supply store and got a big sleeve of 32-oz paper cups (party supply stores would probably also have these). I keep one with me at all times. Then, if I have to vomit (which I did), I have something to vomit into that doesn’t have to be cleaned afterward (you can throw away any used cups, ideally in an outdoor trash can). I found the 32-oz cups were always big enough to hold any vomit, and the top was big enough that missing wasn’t a problem. Vomiting all over yourself or the furniture is gross, and you don’t always get much warning when it’s coming (or at least I didn’t).
If you have European ancestry, you and your boyfriend will probably want to be screened to see if you are a carrier for cystic fibrosis. If you or your boyfriend have black ancestry, you should both be screened for sickle cell anemia too. If either of you has Jewish ancestry, you should screen for Tay-Sachs. Your OB will probably know how to go about this (and you may even get a routine screening at your first appointment).
You will need to decide fairly soon whether you want to get a CVS to test for chromosomal abnormalities. Being 34, you’re slightly more at risk for them than women in their 20s would be. If there are any genetic problems in either of your families, of course you’re at higher risk of your baby having those problems. You get a CVS between 11 and 12 weeks of pregnancy, and you will need to schedule it in advance. If you decide to get an amniocentesis instead, that’s a little later, but you will also need to schedule that in advance.
(this phase was frustrating, but still…far more good than bad).
