BEFORE PREGNANCY
Particular attention to your own health at the planning stage
In order for the pregnancy to proceed without complications, and after 9 months a healthy baby is born, it is necessary to prepare for an “interesting situation”. To do this, you need to consult a doctor who specializes in planning. He will give competent advice and refer you to all the necessary tests. Moreover, not only the woman, but also the man will have to be examined, since the health of his offspring directly depends on his health. Diagnosis of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as various hereditary ones, will help eliminate the problem in time and increase the chances of having a healthy baby. Viruses of herpes simplex, rubella, cytomegalovirus infection, enterovirus, adenovirus, HIV infection, hepatitis B and C are dangerous for the baby. It is also necessary to diagnose and treat diseases caused by various bacteria. For example, chlamydia, streptococci, staphylococci, treponema, listeria and others.
Often you may need to consult with specialized specialists, such as a therapist, ophthalmologist, neurologist, cardiologist, etc. A woman preparing for pregnancy will be sent for an ultrasound.
In order to give birth to a healthy and strong baby, experts advise choosing the period “end of summer - beginning of autumn” for conceiving a child. In their opinion, this is the most favorable time, because being in the fresh air and sun, foods rich in vitamins, and the absence of viral infections are all only favorable factors.
Also, if you want to give birth to a healthy child, try to do this before the age of 35. After this age, the risk of having children with various health problems increases.
Down with bad habits!
It’s a truism, but many, for some reason, never find the strength to cope with this task. And if excluding alcohol is not so difficult for many (yes, even one beer a week!), then with cigarettes the situation is much more complicated. Meanwhile, the entire world community is shouting at the top of its lungs about how bad nicotine affects the formation and development of the fetus. Reduce the number of cigarettes you smoke to 2 or even one per day. And then completely give up this bad habit. The best option would be if you quit smoking 3-4 months before you start “working” with your husband on creating your “masterpiece”. For those who have never smoked and do not intend to, we advise you not to be in a room where others are doing so. After all, passive smoking is also bad for your health and affects the fetus.
Some practical tips
Sometimes, to “start” speech, it is enough to slightly change the conditions in which the child is.
To do this, it is not necessary to use expensive toys or speech development kits.
We create difficulties
Neurologists and psychologists advise that in order to get a child to talk, respond as little as possible to his gestures and requests in the form of mooing. It is worth noting that this is relevant for children aged one and a half, two years and older.
When parents respond to gestures and slurred speech, the child has enough of this method of communication. He has no need to switch to “adult” speech.
But when faced with difficulties, the speech centers of the brain begin to work more actively. Therefore, many “non-speaking” children begin to actively talk while attending kindergarten.
Actively read and listen to fairy tales
Kids love bright pictures. Therefore, reading books fascinates them. While the child looks at the picture and listens to rhymes or mini-fairy tales, he remembers new words.
If you can’t read books with your baby for hours, play audio fairy tales for him. Constantly hearing speech will stimulate the development of the child’s speech centers.
Music is another helper
Play classical music for your baby, it stimulates brain development. Many experts recommend Mozart. His works are more easily perceived by children.
When the child begins to speak his first words, you can turn on the simplest children's songs and try to sing them with him. This not only stimulates the musical ear, but also speech.
Discourage babbling and autonomous speech
It is a mistake to coo with a child and communicate with him in his “bird” language. It is important for babies to see normal articulation and hear normal adult speech.
Let your baby call the car bi-bi, but you should say car, and not bibika and other derivatives of the syllables pronounced by the child.
Some psychologists believe that lisping and imitation of baby babble are appropriate up to six or eight months.
Expand your active and passive vocabulary
For normal speech development, it is important not only to stimulate the child to pronounce new words. But also to replenish his passive vocabulary. That is, words with meanings that he knows, but cannot yet pronounce.
To do this, try to name the things around your baby as often as possible. And for classes, use not only picture books, but also household items. He will better remember what he saw in person.
You can teach a child to speak at 1.5 years old by expanding his active vocabulary. Ask your child to repeat simple words after you (cat, house, etc.). Remember that repetition and regularity of practice is the key to success.
Discuss and ask questions
This rule is best suited for children aged 1 year 9 months and older. The need to answer the question stimulates the speech centers.
With children over one year old, it is necessary to discuss what is depicted on them while looking at the pictures. Tell your child what exactly is drawn, encourage him to show some object.
Play actively
Mini-performances can be organized for children aged one year and older.
You can make up stories yourself or act out scenes from cartoons or fairy tales. A surge of positive emotions and the speech of an adult stimulates the child’s desire to speak.
Stimulate fine motor skills
Let your child play with cereals (buckwheat, rice, millet). Let him have objects with different textures on hand - wood, plastic, wool, cotton.
Let him twist and turn everything that is safe in his hands.
And if you make a development board for your baby with various latches, hooks, and switches, you will get, in addition to speech development, from 15 to 30 minutes of free time.
Sex only during ovulation
For successful conception, you need to have sex only during ovulation . This advice, as they say, mixes truth and fiction: on the one hand, the probability of conception during the period of ovulation is really maximum, on the other hand, it is completely incomprehensible why marital duties should not be performed on less “happy” days? Apparently, here the natural human fear of wasting energy and “not accumulating” the necessary potential before the cherished day “X” comes into force again.
Despite the grain of truth regarding the high probability of conception during ovulation , the advice cannot be called correct. Firstly, the date of ovulation may shift significantly closer to the beginning or end of the cycle, and not occur exactly in its middle, even with completely regular menstruation. Such schedule changes can be caused by stress, climate change, physical activity, a recent illness, or simply slight hormonal fluctuations that are normal in a healthy woman. Thus, the middle of the cycle is just the most frequent, but not at all obligatory, time for the maturation of the egg and its release from the ovary.
There is no method that allows one to accurately record the moment of release of a mature egg from the ovary: even ultrasound, which is considered the diagnostic standard in this area, still allows for the possibility of error in determining the moment of ovulation . Home methods, such as ovulation tests or measuring basal temperature, also will not provide a 100% guarantee that ovulation has occurred. This means that by incorrectly calculating the date of ovulation and having sex only on these days, the spouses do not increase, but, on the contrary, reduce the chances of conceiving a child in this menstrual cycle. After all, the egg lives only 24 hours, and if it does not meet the sperm, then pregnancy will not occur. With regular intimacy, longer-living sperm (up to 1 - 1.5 weeks) can wait until ovulation and fertilize the egg.
Secondly, it sometimes happens that as a result of small hormonal changes in one cycle, ovulation occurs in both ovaries - i.e. two eggs mature and are ready for fertilization at once; in this case, the interval between adjacent ovulations can be extended within 7–10 days. Obviously, in this cycle scenario, the advice to have sex only on the days of expected ovulation (days 12–16) also turns out to be a losing proposition and only reduces the chances of an early pregnancy. With polyovulation, pregnancy can occur even at this time - after all, the second egg can ovulate just at this time, when the first one has already died. However, it is still not worth using this information as a guide to action - sex during menstruation often causes inflammation of the genital organs, since when the uterine mucosa is rejected during menstruation, the organ inside is a wound surface, and the penetration of microbes into the uterus can easily lead to inflammation.
