 Hello, I'm Dr. Rashmi Dasuza, a qualified nutrition therapist, a health and wellness coach and an ENT surgeon. Today, I would like to give you a few tips on postnatal nutrition and wellness. For most of you, you would already know, being a woman, right from the time you attain puberty, go through conception and then pregnancy and afterwards is like a blind curve on the high Himalayan road. You do not know what to expect at every juncture. Everything around you is like a new moment, a new beginning. You are engulfed with new responsibilities, emotional changes, your body is changing, so are people around you. How do you then know to start off a threat? How do you know how to face all this without being fearful when you're armed with the right nutrition and fitness levels? So, I'd like to add on here, even for a sporting legend, rest is a must. Now, when you need to win the game of mothering, how are you going to start then? By attaining the right fitness levels and nutrition, obviously. To start first, make sure that you get a go-ahead from your gynecologist, your obstetrician about your wellness levels, about your exercise regime. When they say it's okay to start, then yes. Post six weeks, get a nod from your obstetrician and then start on very well with an exercise regime. Start off with something as basic as a 30-minute walk, a brisk walk, and then slowly you could keep increasing your levels of the duration of walk. What else do you want to do? The best thing would be, through your pregnancy or during your pregnancy, for most of you, you would have stopped social interactions. So, make a mom's group in your neighborhood among your friends. Make sure that you take your child along on a stroller if it is possible. And your emotional well-being is also looked after then because you are having your social interactions with your friend and you're walking the talk alongside. The next thing would be your nutrition levels. What should you eat now? Well, I know of a lot of people who say, drink a lot of milk and so you'll be producing milk. It does not work that way, does it? The more eggs you eat, do you produce healthier eggs? That's just a myth. So, what I would suggest is, hydrate well. The better your nutrition you are giving your child is happening only when you are eating right. So, most of your milk which you are going to be nursing your child goes through water content in your diet. So, hydrate well. Make sure you are eating wholesome, local, seasonal fruits and vegetables. Iron-rich fruits and vegetables. Make sure you eat a lot of green leafy vegetables, fennel seeds, dates, jaggery and such other things so that your milk is iron-rich for your child again. Make sure that the water content is well, not only for your milk to be well good but the other option would be to stay hydrated so that you are absorbing all the nutrients and vitamins well. Hydrate well not only because of the contents in your breast milk but also because you need to be having less constipation and why is that? The better your bowel movements, the lesser effort you would be putting on your incision site and that's why make sure you are hydrated throughout your pregnancy and afterward even after you have delivered. So, that's the biggest thing that you would be giving your child. The next thing would be obviously, no alcohol, no smoking. Stay away as much as possible or reduce your dosage or reduce your cups of neuro stimulants like tea and coffee. Obviously, the other thing that I would say is stay away from binge eating junk food, oil laden, spicy, oily, high sugar, calorie dense food. Try and reduce your salt content as well. Obviously because you do not want your PP reading to fluctuate and also you do not want to have water retention and bloating post-pregnancy as well. Your mood swings are also going to alter, you do not want that. The third thing that I would want to again specify is most people say I'm so exhausted all the time through my delivery, post-delivery and through the mothering. How else are you going to make sure that you're not exhausted by sleeping right? Make sure you're sleeping right though this is easier said than done. Most of your mothers would tell you sleep when the babies sleep. I know that's very, very difficult but follow this, it's not going to be. Make sure you're staying away from gadgets, make sure you're staying away from social media. Switch over to deep meditation, deep breathing, relaxation techniques and try making reading a habit and sleep will be your best friend. You do not need to eat only fruits and vegetables and salads all the time. You can have regular home-cooked meals. If at all it's customary in your mothers, if at all it's customary in your households to go for massages, to go for long baths, there's no harm in doing that. But pamper yourself, obviously it's not going to cause any harm in you. There's no really harm in doing that, please go ahead and do that. The other thing here would be sleeping right, breathing well is the next thing that goes after sleeping right. How do you breathe well? There are lots of things nearby, lots of places nearby, especially in KMC as well. We have places here which treat you well, which teach you how to do yoga and deep breathing. Try and get this as a habit in your daily routine. Probably 10 minutes of a yoga routine should be good enough. This in your knowledge tree now, it should be a cakewalk going through your pregnancy. It should be a cakewalk walking post-partum as well. Armed with the right nutrition, armed with the best kind of care that is there in your families, sleeping well, breathing right, now you need nothing to mother your child well. But then there is one thing, remember your body has gone through a lot. It's scarred, it's stretched and you have come out a different you. Learn to accept that well and only then think positive about your body. Now life is going to be a bliss from now on. You are going to be a perfect mother.