Maternity & Kid's Care

Posts Tagged ‘Physical care’

Antenatal care includes both physical and psychological care. The components of antenatal care include proper diet, medical attention, exercise and mental happiness. Physical care refers to the bodily care given to the pregnant woman. The components of physical care mainly consist of nutritional care.

A number of physiological changes occur during pregnancy. One of the important changes is in maternal metabolism. Nutritional requirement increases to meet this need. It is estimated that a healthy mother’s weight increases by 16 to 20 pounds during the entire period of pregnancy. During the last three months of pregnancy the baby puts on nearly ¾th of its total weight at birth. During the time it receives from its mother about 75 percentage of its protein, 93 percentage of its fat, 65 percentages of its calcium and between 70 and 80 percentage of other minerals. To meet these needs good nutritious food in adequate quantities must be given. Also the mother needs food to build reserves to meet the stress of delivery and lactation.

The diet should be mixed and generous. At least half of the protein should come from animal sources such as milk, meat and egg. Many pregnant women have special food cravings during the period of pregnancy. Generally, women have some strange cravings but which is due to deficiency of certain vitamins and minerals.