By Anna Sparks & Bruce Ross

When people decide to start a family, there are many things they do to get prepared. While some are easy, other things can be challenging.

Some say having a baby can be compared to the physical effort of running a marathon and not only is it painful, it is also a huge impact on the mother’s physical and mental being.

Those who run marathons prepare for months to get ready for the big day and the same can hold true for moms-to-be and their families.

Did you know moms-to-be can physically and mentally train for having a baby? Some of that training includes first determining how to be healthy enough to start pregnancy. Training for the gestation period where nutrition, exercise and breathing is critical to a healthy start for the baby. It can also help make labor shorter and decrease the risk of complications. Training for the minutes or hours of exertion during labor and delivery is important as is training for the post-partum period or recovery period and the start of the baby’s life.

Many parents-to-be don’t go through planning or they just don’t have access to the tools. Intuitively, most understand the basics like not smoking or drinking alcohol and so on, just as most amateur athletes know when thinking about how to train for a marathon. But, it is also important for success in both endeavors to understand the physical baselines or platform from which to launch the effort in order to achieve success.

We believe that mothers and marathoners ‘to be’ can go through the process of preparation, delivery and recovery much easier with a few steps listed below.

  1. Understand the physical conditioning that will help.
  2. Nutrition planning that is easy and accessible to their personal platform.
  3. It is always nice to have a coach and perhaps a group or community (team) to go through the program together.

Most obstetricians will recommend weight management, exercise, nutrition and various other things, but some don’t have the capabilities to do the planning, coaching and monitoring to make it happen. Doing things the right way can help expectant mothers, (families) avoid problems like Type II Diabetes (T2D), hypertension, excessive weight gain and post-partum depression. Thanks to the Sparks Systems Well Mama Program, moms-to-be do not have to go through this journey alone.

They offer a program that will help establish a baseline, similar to getting ready for the marathon. Ok, maybe the parameters are a little different, but in general they are measurable, and allow the coach and mom-to-be to establish an action plan to be in great health for conception, pregnancy and post-partum and allowing the newborn to be as healthy as possible.

Sparks Systems Metabolic Efficiency tests (resting & active) are simple and it takes about an hour and gives moms-to-be baseline data that can be used to customize goals, nutrition, breathing and exercise plans.

They can work with a Sparks Systems Metabolic Health Coach to help them through this process that can include menu planning and utilizing companies that prep food.

The Well Mama Program can provide all of these services for the family that is planning to have a baby, is already pregnant or is in the recovery phase after having a baby and wants to stay on track in the exercise and food department.

Check out all the details at www.sparkssystems.net.