Tips for healthy twin pregnancy

amother ↓

Tue, May 24 2011, 2:30 am

I have a million questions!!

did you take extra vitamins besides prenatals?
how much weight did you gain- especially for those who carried full term
what books can you recommend?
did you excersize during your pregnancy?

thank you!

mommy7

Tue, May 24 2011, 2:45 am

I loved Dr. Barbara Luke's book "When You're Expecting Twins, Triplets, Quads, or More".

She studied only multiple pregnancies, weight gain, vitamin intake etc. and then compared it to what Drs recommend for singletons.

All of her research is laid out in a super-easy to read format. She doesn't dumb anything down, outlines how to gain weight responsibly and well to sustain a healthy twin pregnancy, and ditto for vitamins.

I found that the book helped me tremendously because it was very factual, very interesting and had a lot of diagrams and charts which made it easy to figure out what to expect each week/month.

What to expect when you're expecting for twins should go straight into the garbage. Any book that gargles about whether your twins should share pacifiers, or if two cribs is going to cause separation anxiety bec they were together in the womb Rolling Eyes

is for the paper-shredder.

The most important things you need to know now are weight gain, vitamin intake, exercise restrictions, risk factors and basic expectations of twin pregnancies (the due date is usually 38 wks, not 40 because twins actually develop faster than single babies due to uterine stress).

life'sgreat

Wed, May 25 2011, 1:01 am

amother wrote:

I took prenatals and was glad I managed to take them (as much as possible). I did take omega 3, which they say is very important/good for brain development. I drank a LOT of water and gained a decent amount of weight (which I lost within 2 weeks of birth). I didn't really read books, but online forums for multiples. I didn't exercise once I hit bedrest (in the early 20s).

Congratulations. May everything go well.

May

Tue, Jun 14 2011, 10:18 pm

Mirabelle wrote:

I second the Dr. Luke book.
I followed her recommendations (the best that I could) and was blessed with two healthy babies and NO NICU time.

Same here.

No NICU, no bedrest. Perfect size babies (big enough to be healthy, small enough to push out quickly.

I wanted to take Omega-3, but I was so nauseous I couldn't get near the bottle. I was feeling very guilty about it, until I heard that most Omega-3s have very high levels of concentrated mercury, so it's not recommended for pregnancy. Shaklee's is supposedly better quality but is not kosher.

I didn't exercise but B"H still had a pretty easy natural delivery.

My best recommendation is to use an OB who does a lot of vag twin births and doesn't think that twins means an automatic C (or even a good chance for a C.)