Salt no, yoga yes

I saw the slight grimace as my Doc read out my recent blood pressure. “144/90…Hmm, this may be a concern,” she said.

These are words no one likes to hear from their Doc.

Did she not know that to get to her office, I had to drive through Montreal traffic for ONE hour, fight for parking and then wait for two elevators? No duh, my heart was racing and my blood pressure was high.

She wasn’t sympathetic to my excuses. “You’ll have to monitor this frequently,” she said seriously. “If your blood pressure spikes again, I want you to come in IMMEDIATELY.”

Ok, this got my attention. What’s the big deal…??

Well, it turns out that high blood pressure in pregnancy is an indicator of preeclampsia (www.babycenter.ca/pregnancy/complications/pre-eclampsia), a disorder that occurs during pregnancy and affects both mom and babe. This condition can range from mild to severe and causes a reduction in the flow of blood to the placenta. Obviously this can have huge consequences for the baby. Guess who is at most risk for developing this condition? Yup, moms who are over 35.

What does this mean for me? I am hopeful I can manage this new situation on three levels - diet, exercise and stress.

Diet In addition to giving up some of my very favourite food-groups, such as Cosmos, sushi and salami, I will now give up caffeinated coffee, and Doritos. (Once this little man comes out I will have the most amazing party!)

Stress Deadlines? What deadline? I will try my utmost to keep work in focus, not take on any new projects, and not fuss too much about deadlines. (There go all my clients.)

Exercise I’m not running for obvious reasons, so I have discovered pre-natal yoga. So far it’s not too challenging, I can still stand on one leg. It does work, as the other day I fell asleep and woke up with the class staring at me.

I am hopeful “Christine’s plan” of remaining calm and relaxed will help lower my blood pressure, the other options aren’t too appealing.

I’ll keep you posted.

Until next time, Om.