Physicians Health

Pregnancy is one of the loveliest periods in every woman’s life. The first signs of pregnancy bring the first feelings of maternity, which whisper in your ears one thing — you should take good care of you and the baby.

A pregnant woman always faces the problem — to continue working or not. Not many women can afford a nine-month full rest to concentrate only on their maternity period. Besides, there are many women, who don’t even want to consider giving up their work and active lifestyle.

But during this period it becomes two times more difficult to manage the work and keep being healthy and productive, especially during the first and third trimester pregnancy.

The harmful working conditions include the following:

• standing for a long time,
• heavy lifting,
• working more than 40 hours per week,
• commuting more than one hour a day,
• stressful environments,
• exposure to high noise levels,
• existence of harmful or toxic substances,
• an unusual level of fatigue,
• radiation,
• temperature extremes.

In all these cases your doctor will forbid you to work, because they increase the risk of poor pregnancy outcomes.

Another thing on which depends whether you should work or not is your present condition and past history of maternity complications. If you have low risk, normal pregnancy and friendly working environment, you can continue your work beginning from the first signs of pregnancy up to the third trimester pregnancy.

The complications that can make you stop work include the following:

• having a history of more than one premature birth,
• having a history of miscarriage,
• being a diabetic patient,
• having high blood pressure,
• expecting twins.

If you feel these points have nothing to do with your pregnancy, then you can continue working. Just be attentive, careful and active — who knows, maybe those maternity months will bring more success into your career, as they did in my case.

So if you are going to combine work and pregnancy, read my next post to learn about the dos and dont’s for pregnant working women.

Photo © simmbarb