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You are here: Home / MOTHERHOOD / My third trimester saviours: Part I

My third trimester saviours: Part I

August 11, 2014 by Molly 4 Comments

Third Trimester

This post started life as one, but after realising just how many things are making my life easier at the moment I’m splitting it into two. Here’s the first instalment – if you’re approaching the third trimester I hope you might find it useful.

I’m now 33 weeks pregnant – hello third trimester! In many ways this pregnancy has flown by. I’ve been so busy I’ve not had time to Google “XX weeks pregnant” each week or sit and ponder in lavender soaked baths every night, like last time.

But in other ways, it’s gone slowly. I feel good at the moment – apart from the puffy feet – and I’m kind of (dare I say it) enjoying being pregnant. My bump hasn’t reached the ARGH I CAN’T MOVE stage yet and I still seem to have quite a bit of energy. Long may this last.

Anyway, as with the first and second trimesters, there are a few things making my life far easier and helping me forget that I can’t eat my favourite cheese or drink wine. (WARNING: there follows a photo of me in my bra. Sorry about that.)

Maternity underwear

Bravado Maternity bra

When I was pregnant with Frog I didn’t bother with maternity underwear. I had two bras in a bigger size and just struggled along for nine months, viewing anything else as a waste of money. I don’t know how I did it. The thought of pushing my ever increasing bust into an underwired, uncomfortable bra makes me wince.

This time I invested in a couple of maternity / nursing bras early on (both Emma Jane ones from Asos) and ditched the underwired bras from 14 weeks. I’m now living in my two original purchases, plus this lovely purple confetti Bravado bra in the picture above (that I was sent for review) and a couple of second skin Amoralia bras. All of these bras are nursing bras too, meaning that I’ll hopefully get some wear out of them beyond pregnancy. When you think that I may end up wearing them for around 2 years that makes it easier to justify the cost.

I’ve also recently bought a few pairs of maternity knickers that go under the bump and, again, I don’t know how I survived in comfort before! Each pair is soft, fits nicely and means I don’t have to do that annoying roll-down thing that I’ve had to start doing with regular pants. There are enough things to make you uncomfortable when you’re pregnant – pants shouldn’t be one of them.

Loungewear

33 week pregnancy bump

When it’s not so hot I just want to be naked, I’ve lived in my new H&M maternity joggers for the past couple of weeks. Plus, the H&M leggings (above) have made another appearance in my regular choice of outfits. I’m also loving the maternity / nursing pyjamas from Next that I won on eBay (new – still with the tags on!) and my old faithful yoga pants from pre-pregnancy. Clothes like these were made for the third trimester, I swear.

Veggie smoothies

Vegetable smoothies

I was sent a pack of Vegesentials to review recently and loved them so much I’ve bought more. You can get them from Waitrose and, for me, they’re worth the cash. They come in a few different flavours but my favourites are the celery, apple and kale and the carrot, mango and parsnip. I’m far too lazy and time poor (and I don’t have the equipment anyway) to whip up a fresh veg smoothie every morning, so these make a good alternative. Pregnancy seems to make me more conscious than ever of the need to get my five a day, and these certainly help.

Pregnancy Yoga

The best thing I’ve done during this pregnancy has been to spend some money on a couple of brilliant antenatal exercise classes. I do an aquanatal class every week and a pregnancy yoga class and, as I get closer to my due date, the pregnancy yoga is coming into its own. We learn breathing techniques, useful postures and movements for labour and pregnancy in general, and it’s an hour of total down time. I leave feeling like I’m floating on a cloud. If you can get to a class near you I can’t recommend it enough.

If you can’t get to a class then check out the Tara Lee series of DVD’s. I have a couple that I do at home in between my proper classes and find her style really soothing. It’s the next best thing to going to a class.

 

That’s it for now – I’ll post tomorrow with more of third trimester saviours. In the meantime, is there anything you’d add to my list so far?

Filed Under: MOTHERHOOD, Pregnancy Tagged With: Pregnancy, pregnancy essentials, pregnancy pampering, pregnancy yoga, third trimester

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Comments

  1. Milly says

    August 11, 2014 at 8:46 pm

    Got to agree with you on pregnancy yoga, is definitely my saviour. If I can’t make class, will do a youtube vid.

    With hindsight wish I’d bought more maternity clothes. Definitely a first-time, avoid the cost, mum to be. Next time I’m stocking up on more leggings etc yours look super comfy + stylish!

    Reply
  2. Kate says

    August 11, 2014 at 7:43 pm

    They all look so comfy, I almost wish I WAS pregnant to be able to partake of them myself!!
    The under bump knickers reminded me of my struggle to find comfortable Pregnant Pants – I eventually settled on some supersoft high legged lace numbers from M&S in a bigger size……I found/find that after c-section (and I’ve had 3) the last thing I wanted was anything that sat on or near my scar (even now that it is nearly 5 years healed) so these were a godsend to me!

    Reply
    • Molly says

      August 11, 2014 at 8:06 pm

      Great tip – I can imagine having anything near the scar would be hugely uncomfortable. I’m all for going commando but I guess that might be a step too far?!

      Reply
      • Kate says

        August 13, 2014 at 10:37 am

        Not later on, but it in the rather….erm….”messy” aftermath of Birth, when sanitary towels the size of a small country are required, going commando is probably not advisable!!

        Reply

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Hello and welcome! I'm Molly Forbes - podcaster, presenter and blogger with a passion for positivity, confidence and body image chat. Regularly writing and vlogging about empowering female issues from a motherhood angle, I also cover lifestyle and fashion topics for like-minded mums who want to rediscover themselves after having children. Thanks for stopping by! Read More…

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Hello. How are you? . I’ve noticed something th Hello. How are you? 
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I’ve noticed something this lockdown that feels different to first time... the sense of people being more disconnected than ever, more divided, more isolated. 
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Maybe it’s because we’re all on our last nerve now - the loss, sacrifice and stress is amplified that bit more. 
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And we’re so deep in it, often confined in our thoughts at home, our only connection with the outside world via a screen, that it becomes harder to appreciate our differences in circumstances. 
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We forget that we are all just humans muddling through a global pandemic, trying to come out of it alive, with our minds intact and hopefully our jobs too. 
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We’re angry, sad, frustrated, scared. And in the absence of those regular social connections we need a place to direct those feelings. The social media platforms and comments sections on news sites have never been so busy. 
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Except it’s not just faceless people on the internet that we’re upset with anymore. It’s our neighbours, family and friends. 
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Dr Vivek Murthy wrote about the importance of social connections and community in his book Together, pointing out that loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 
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We are sociable creatures. We need community not just to thrive but to survive. 
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So check in with your friends today. Maybe even send them a voice note. Don’t assume you know how they’re doing based on their latest Facebook post. We need to get through this together, not apart ❤️
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✨Art from @emilycoxhead gorgeous book You Are In ✨Art from @emilycoxhead gorgeous book You Are Incredible Just As You Are✨
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A reminder that loving every bit of ourselves isn’t just about embracing all the parts on the outside, but also about accepting - and maybe even celebrating - the bits on the inside too. 
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I’ll go first: I am a worrier and have a tendency to think deeply on things. If we’ve ever had a disagreement - be it an exchange on Twitter in 2018 or a row in the playground in 1992 you bet I’ve stored that away in my brain ready to ruminate on in the depths of a night when I can’t sleep. 
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But in the spirit of loving every bit of ourselves I say that rather than looking at these parts of ourselves as “flaws”, we choose instead to view them with loving kindness and a heavy dose of self-compassion. 
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I worry because I am sensitive, and I care. This sometimes means I’m more vulnerable to allowing others’ opinions of me have too much power... but it also means I feel remorse when I make mistakes and try my very best to learn from them. 
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And this also means I work hard in everything I do because I genuinely care about doing a good job. Meanwhile, my tendency to think deeply on stuff means I’m able to see the nuance in things and appreciate other perspectives, because as I grasp for an answer I often find two things can be true at the same time. 
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These are not traits I would view as “pathetic” or “needy” or “indecisive” in my kids and I would never tell them to “just get over it”, so I’m trying to remember this for myself too.
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[Image description: A double page spread from Emily Coxhead’s book You Are Incredible. It’s a yellow page with a red heart and white writing which reads “Here’s to loving every bit of you.”]
Let’s talk joyful movement and.... PRIVILEGE! A Let’s talk joyful movement and.... PRIVILEGE! A nice juicy subject for a Thursday evening 😅
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I absolutely love to see the narrative shift (albeit ever so slightly) to the intrinsic benefits of movement. The focus on intuitive movement and moving our bodies for how it makes us FEEL over how it makes us LOOK brings me huge happiness. 
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BUT... even when we take movement away from a diet culture context, I still think there’s often a lack of acknowledgment of the many barriers preventing people engaging in movement in the first place (hot tip: it’s not “just cos they’re lazy” 🙄). 
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When it comes to my own family - here are some of the privileges we live with which make movement easier for us: 
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✨ We live in an area with access to lots of safe green spaces to play and walk.
✨ We can afford to pay for a gym membership, and extra curricular activities for the kids like gymnastics, Street Dance and swimming.
✨ We have access to the technology needed to take part in online classes over lockdown.
✨ We are non-disabled so experience no physical access issues preventing us from joining in with these activities. 
✨ Our work schedule allows us to get out together during daylight hours. 
✨ None of us lives with a mental health condition which might make getting outside / engaging in movement really hard or even impossible.
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Kids access to movement is not equal so if we really care about encouraging more children to move then, as a nation, we need to level the playing field (pun intended). 
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Some accounts which often discuss movement and privilege: @thephitcoach @amysnellingpt @theaishanash ❤️
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[Image description: Molly and her two daughters standing on top of a hill smiling, with their arms in the air.]
It’s pretty well accepted that certain “fad di It’s pretty well accepted that certain “fad diets” are not the one. But if our definition of diet culture stops there, and we fail to see how diet culture IS fatphobic in its very nature - and that it absolutely depends on a collective cultural fear and vilification of fatness then we’ll never get anywhere with tearing it down.
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Dressing up fatphobia as “health concern”, or “tough love” or “helping people” is just a fluffy way of saying you don’t acknowledge the huge complexity around health, or the many factors that impact weight, or the research showing the harmful (and unhealthy) impact of weight stigma, or the evidence into the long term effectiveness of diets and intentional weight loss. 
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And essentially, those who assert that health only looks one way, and that people have a moral responsibility to prove their health via the shape of their body and not be a “drain on society”, are saying that only people with their version of a “healthy body” are worthy of respect, equality, dignity.
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Children pick up on these messages and learn from an early age that “fat = bad”, and to see some bodies as better, and more deserving of love and respect than others. This could be why we’re seeing a rising number of pre-teens with eating disorders and mental health issues associated with poor body image. 
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Yes we need to lose the fad diets. But we also need to lose the deeper prejudices and anti-fat biases that make them profitable in the first place, otherwise they’ll just continue to show up in different ways, coming in ever more aggressive and insidious ways for our kids.
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You might have missed this in the news over Christ You might have missed this in the news over Christmas. It didn’t get nearly the same amount of coverage as all the diet-related features that are everywhere right now. It was hidden away behind the before and after “amazing weight loss” stories, celeb diet plans and “o*esity causes covid” headlines. But that doesn’t make it any less shocking or heartbreaking. 
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I believe there’s a link between the rise in children being diagnosed with eating disorders and the rise in children suffering poor body image. These issues are fallout from a culture that idolises thinness, vilifies fatness and continually promotes one, narrow, over-simplified version of health. 
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Diet culture is coming increasingly aggressively for children, and the pandemic with the huge mental health toll it’s taken has not helped one bit. We already knew the number of pre-teens diagnosed with anorexia in the last decade had doubled, and it seems the figures are rising even higher. We need change. Fast. 
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Check out the Body Happy Kids resources, workshops and Masterclass and the #FreeFromDiets campaign in my bio, if you want to help change the culture our kids are growing up in. They deserve better.
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[Image description: a section from a news article about rising numbers of children suffering with eating disorders. Full text can be found in Alt Text.]
I’ve been looking a lot at old photos lately. Th I’ve been looking a lot at old photos lately. This pic is from summer 2018, when I could hug my mum and travel abroad on holiday. If I close my eyes I can almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, smell the salty sea air and hear the laughter of other families playing on the beach. Holding on to these memories and the hope that the hugs, sunshine and bikinis will come again one day. In the meantime it’s video calls, trackie bottoms and WhatsApp. ❄️☀️ 
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[Image description: Molly and her mum standing on a beach in France, in 2018. They are both wearing brightly coloured bikinis, hugging and smiling. It’s a hot sunny day and the sky is blue.]
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