What to expect during pregnancy

Let’s be honest having a pregnant partner isn't much fun for men, most of us feel helpless most of the time and in reality we are not much use other than to fetch and carry. In the coming 40 weeks, your partner is going to experience some huge physical and emotional changes.

In the early stages she many feel exhausted this is due to changing oestrogen and the emotional impact of being pregnant. The middle of the pregnancy is often the easiest but she will still be experiencing physical and emotional changes. In the latter months they maybe completely exhausted as the baby grows. During a normal pregnancy a woman may find it difficult to get comfortable and therefore find it hard to sleep, may suffer a from a whole range of irritating discomforts, indigestion, back pain, cravings, swollen ankles, needing to go to the toilet a lot, to mention just a few symptoms, if there are complications the problems can be worse.

All of this may leave you feeling glad that men don’t have babies, but also helpless as how to improve things for your partner. Don’t worry there are so many things that expectant dad's can do to help and the main one is to do as you are asked it saves so much time and arguments in the long run if you just agree and do what ever it is no matter how bizarre you feel the request may be.

If you want to help then take on as many of the household chores as you can or lets rephrase that as many as your partner feels that you do to a level that she find acceptable. Being an expectant dad can be very tiring in more ways than one but the best advice I was ever given was to count to ten before I saying anything to a pregnant woman as the barrage of venom that your once fun loving happy partner can now dish out in her hormone fuelled state is simply just best avoided. Some of you may be lucky and you see no real change in the personality of your partner you need to be very grateful. But for the rest of you take comfort from the fact that there are many men going through the same things as you and try to bear in mind that it is only nine months and hopefully at the end of it you wonderful partner will remerge. For more on foetal development try www.lavenmedia.co.uk/foetaldevelopment.html