Featuring Dr. Heather Jenkins, MD, CCFP
Duration: 1 minute, 39 seconds

Many women feel good in the first part of the pregnancy but unfortunately, lots of ladies also feel pretty nauseated, and often very tired.

Absolutely, everybody will advise women, in as much as it's possible, we want you to eat a wide variety of healthy foods with an emphasis on fruit and vegetables and also protein, but you know, people tend to choose smaller quantities of that because it makes them feel less queasy. So you are not having a large steak, you are having smaller parts of things through the day.

You know there’s tons of resources as well that women look to, to help them with their food aversions, because there's clearly food items that women don’t want to eat at all. Sometimes people really don't like vegetables or if they ever see any milk products, they are just done.

So, there are resources around that try to work with women and what appeals to them. Sometimes people feel like actually eating sort of more salty foods or crunchy foods or, stay down a bit better so people try to tailor their diet to sort of food textures that don’t disturb them too much.

Overall, this problem of feeling queasy and tired in the first part of your pregnancy is really common, and the goal I think is to take care of yourself and take care of your diet, and in doing that you are going to help your developing pregnancy for sure.

So if you are looking for resources about how best to do that, particularly if you have any specialized dietary needs or requirements, you can always ask your healthcare provider, your physician, midwife and if they think you need extra attention or expertise around that, certainly there are lots of qualified dietitians or nutritionists around that can help you in that as well.

Presenter: Dr. Heather Jenkins, Family Doctor, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Family Doctor