Don’t stock up yet on anything that requires knowledge of the baby’s future size, or your wife’s future size. That includes diapers, baby clothes, maternity clothes or bras for her, and shoes for either your wife or the baby. Nobody knows now how much weight she is going to gain during pregnancy, or how it’s going to be distributed. Nobody knows how big your baby will be when he or she is born, either. That’s dicey to predict even with an ultrasound late in the pregnancy. Your wife’s breasts probably are going to get bigger (they might have started to already), but it’s hard to predict how much bigger. Her feet might get bigger, or they might not. She’ll probably need some bigger clothes at some point, but how much bigger she’ll get varies from woman to woman and pregnancy to pregnancy.
If she’s not taking prenatal vitamins yet, she should start. Those are another thing not to stock up on until she’s tried them. Not all women tolerate all prenatal vitamins equally well. Some prenatal vitamins make some women nauseous. A vitamin that doesn’t stay down doesn’t do her or the baby much good. Get a small bottle of them, see how they sit with her, and then, if she does OK with them, you can stock up.
If she doesn’t have an OB or midwife yet, she needs to find one now.
If she’s taking any medications or dietary supplements, she needs to discuss them with a doctor ASAP. This includes herbal remedies and vitamins. Just because something is natural or a vitamin doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe during pregnancy, or that it’s safe in unlimited amounts in pregnancy. For example, too much preformed vitamin A (as found in animal products, beta carotene from things like carrots is safe) during pregnancy can cause birth defects. Some people think you’ll have to quit taking any medications during pregnancy. This is not true, although there are some medications that are not safe in pregnancy. She should not quit taking any prescribed medication without talking to a doctor first. This is especially true for medications for potentially life-threatening conditions like high blood pressure or asthma. If you or anyone in your family takes Propecia, she shouldn’t even touch the Propecia tablets while she’s pregnant.
If you want a CVS or amniocentesis, you’ll need to schedule that. If your hospital is like mine, you’ll have to schedule it a few weeks in advance. If you would consider aborting if the test found an abnormality, the clock is ticking on that. Abortions get more expensive, harder to get, and, from what I’ve heard, more painful for the woman the farther along she is. If that’s a possibility, you’ll want prenatal testing as early as you can get it. If you want to discuss a big, important, controversial topic now, what prenatal testing you want and what you’d do if it found a problem would be a good one to discuss.
You might need to avoid certain restaurants or types of restaurants when you’re eating out with her. Diners and restaurants that serve brunch are not popular with a lot of pregnant women, because they smell like bacon and/or coffee. Bacon and coffee are two smells that make many pregnant women nauseous, though lots of different smells can do it. Food and smell aversions are really random- she might develop an aversion to something she has always loved. If she complains that the smell of a place you’re in is bothering her, you probably want to get her out of there as soon as possible, unless you want to be cleaning up vomit.
If she’s prone to motion sickness, pregnancy nausea will probably make this worse.
She shouldn’t be doing much if any gardening. There are a couple of reasons for this. One is that some chemicals used in gardening are bad for pregnant women, or it’s not known whether or not they are OK. For example, Roundup can cause birth defects, so she shouldn’t be using it. The other reason is that outdoor cats poop in gardens, and their poo can carry toxoplasmosis, which can cause birth defects. Somebody else should be doing any gardening she’s been doing.
If you have cats, she should not be cleaning or scooping their litter boxes. Someone else should be doing this job. If she absolutely has to do anything with the litter boxes, she should wear gloves and a face mask while she does, and wash her hands thoroughly afterward. You don’t have to get rid of your cats, but she should take some precautions around their poo.
Pregnancy hormones might make her more emotional. This isn’t just a cliche- it really does happen.
If she drinks a lot of caffeine, she should cut back. Amounts over 200 mg per day (which is 1-2 cups of coffee or 5 12-ounce glasses of Diet Pepsi) are associated with an increased risk of miscarriage. This probably has affected my mood even more than the actual pregnancy hormones, and not for the better.
She’s going to have to pee more often than usual, maybe a lot more often than usual.
She’s not going to want to travel after about 32 weeks of pregnancy. She may not want to travel much even before that. She might not want you to travel in the last month or two of her pregnancy, or you might not want to travel and take a chance on missing the baby’s birth. The baby’s birth generally cannot be postponed until you get back from a trip, and most OBs won’t induce labor for scheduling reasons like that. Different airlines have different policies on how many weeks pregnant you can be and still fly, and there are different policies for international and domestic travel. This is worth checking before buying any tickets. After she has the baby, it’s not a great idea to travel with the baby before he or she is about 2 months old, since the baby won’t have had a lot of immunizations and will be vulnerable to catching things from other travelers.
