One EXTREMELY tired, vegetarian at 21 weeks - PLEASE HELP!!

[Itstime222]

Hi,

My wife is 21 weeks pregnant with our first child, and she is really suffering with tiredness. As in she can hardly move and is feeling pretty rough all the time. She didn't get any morning sickness and we do have quite active lives, but today for example she wasn't sure if she could drive the 30 minute to work! Does anyone happen to know if this is normal - I know you can be a lot more tired if you are pregnant, but this just seems really extreme.

One other thing worth mentioning is that she is a vegetarian or pesketarian (eats fish) - I don't know if that might be contributing to it?

Is there any additives or supplements she can take to help? All she is currently taking is pregnacare..

Thanks for your help in advance.

:-)

Sounds like she needs to slow down more than anything else! I wouldn't worry about that though as her body will force her to do just that.

Another vegetarian here. I've been through two pregnancies without anaemia, although my iron levels were low second time around. After the first trimester (during which I struggled to eat anything apart from toast and yoghurt), I ate a normal vegetarian diet but made sure I ate plenty of dried fruit (especially apricots), fortified cereals, nuts, pulses and dark chocolate. The dark chocolate also helped when I needed a bit of sugar (which I crave in the later stages).

Pregnancy is tiring though. I found myself getting breathless easily even from the early stages, because of the blood flow changes. Keeping fit is a good thing, but at this stage she needs to listen to her body and rest when she needs to.

Hi matildathecat - thanks a lot for the advice, have passed that on - sounds to me like over exertion is the problem at the root of all of this. How to tell someone to rest when they don't want to - now that's another problem! Great to hear from a pro though :-)

Lairypoppins (love the name) never mind her diet - I love peanut butter and cheese on toast!! :-) Sounds good.

Basketzatdawn - are you not recommended to eat nuts then whilst pregnant, I thought it was a good thing? I push the water drinking quite a lot as I drink loads - problem is - more water, more time on the toilet!

Basketzatdawn - we just try and get things done before work - I go off to the gym for 90 mins and she rides her horse - its quite relaxed but I think its more about the time not spent in bed!

Bolshybookworm - we tend to be good, or as good as we can in the week and then bad at the weekends - so there is always fat and chocolate in the diet etc :-)