Bloomwell Pregnancy

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Bloomwell Pregnancy

Supporting women to make healthy lifestyle changes at any stage of their pregnancy journey.

Bloomwell Pregnancy is an online health coaching service supporting women to make healthy lifestyle changes before, during, and after pregnancy. Led by Chartered Health Psychologist and Pregnancy Health Coach, Dr Lauren Rockliffe.

For more information visit www.bloomwellpregnancy.co.uk.

02/06/2025

When thinking about our lifestyle behaviours (e.g., the way we eat, the way we move, our drinking behaviour, sleeping patterns etc), it can be helpful to keep our values in mind and to ask ourselves “is this behaviour in line with my values?” If the answer is yes, great. If the answer is no, perhaps it’s worth reconsidering. Behaviours that are misaligned can lead to cognitive dissonance, where your actions are in conflict with your values, causing inner tension and discomfort.

Sometimes it can be difficult to identify exactly what our values are. To help get you started, here’s a list of 10 values to consider.

🩷 Health
🩷 Balance
🩷 Honesty
🩷 Compassion
🩷 Growth
🩷 Connection
🩷 Resilience
🩷 Purpose
🩷 Authenticity
🩷 Gratitude

26/05/2025

Know you’re supposed to be taking folic acid but not sure why or when? Here’s what you need to know 👇

💊 Folic acid is the synthetic version of the vitamin folate, also known as vitamin B9. It can help to prevent birth defects and problems with the baby’s development in early pregnancy.

💊 It’s recommended that women take 400 micrograms of folic acid daily, whilst trying to conceive and during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. However, this may be higher if for any reason you have a higher risk of birth defects – if you think this might be the case, please talk to a medical professional.

💊 In addition to taking folic acid supplements, it is also advisable to try and consume food and drink that are fortified with folic acid (e.g., fortified breakfast cereals, yeast extract, and fat spreads) or that are rich in folate, which is the natural form of folic acid (e.g., leafy green vegetables, peas, beans, and orange juice).
It’s not easy to get the recommended amount of folic acid just from food though, so it’s important to ensure you are taking a supplement as well.

19/05/2025

Sleep is vital to ensuring our bodies are function effectively, which is obviously important when trying to conceive. If you’re currently trying to get pregnant, it’s important for both partners to try and get as much high-quality sleep as possible, aiming for a minimum of 7 hour a night. Depending on your lifestyle, this might not always be possible, but it’s worth keeping it in mind and trying to prioritise getting an early night whenever you can 😴

12/05/2025

Caffeine has a half-life of roughly between 3-6 hours. This means that 3-6 hours after your last coffee, you’ll still have half the caffeine in your system. However, estimates for this vary widely (from as little as 2 hours all the way up to 12 hours) and this is due to individual factors which may affect the rate at which the body metabolises caffeine. ☕

One factor that can affect how quickly caffeine is metabolised is pregnancy! When you’re pregnant, the rate at which caffeine is cleared from your body slows down, meaning it’ll hang about for a lot longer than it normally would. It’s been suggested that by late pregnancy, the half-life of caffeine could be twice as long as it normally is!

On this basis, I’d recommend having your last coffee of the day as early as possible, to ensure it doesn’t affect your sleep and keep you up all night long! 😵‍💫

12/03/2025

It’s likely that throughout your pregnancy you’ll feel more hungry than usual, and this is completely normal! 🩷

However, contrary to popular belief, there is no need to ‘eat for two’. During pregnancy, you actually only need an additional 200 calories a day, and that’s only in your third trimester. That’s equivalent to just two slices of bread (roughly) or three apples! 🍏🍏🍏

If you’re struggling to manage how hungry you’re feeling, you might want to try eating smaller meals more regularly throughout the day, to make sure you start the day with a good breakfast, and to make sure you're getting enough protein in your diet to keep you feeling full up for longer 🍽

03/03/2025

There are two main types of motivation: intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Neither type is better than the other, they’re just different 🤷‍♀️You might identify more strongly with one type of motivation than the other, or you might feel like both types drive your behaviour to some extent.

If you know you lean more towards one type of motivation than the other, try to lean into this and use it to your advantage. For example, if you’re more extrinsically motivated and are driven by rewards and incentives, try signing up for challenges or competitive events that you can work towards 🥇 Or perhaps you want to start planning rewards to help motivate yourself to work towards a certain goal 🎁

Alternatively, if you’re more intrinsically motivated, you might want to spend some time getting clear on what activities you really enjoy and bring you joy 🥰 Whether it’s a particular type of exercise, cooking style, or creative pursuit, leaning into what you love will keep you engaged and motivated!

Let me know in the comments what motivates you to pursue your goals! ✨

24/02/2025

The choice point is a therapeutic tool we can use to help us understand our behaviours more clearly ↖️↗️

Every day, we make decisions that take us closer to, or further away from, our goals and the life we want to be living. 'Away moves' are things we do that are detrimental for our health, that don't serve us, or make us less happy. 'Towards moves' are the opposite; they are all of the positive things we do for ourselves to support our health and wellbeing.

For example, if one of your goals is to go for an early morning walk each day, going to bed late at night might mean you're too tired to do this the next morning. Staying up late would therefore count as an 'away move' as it's taking you further away from the life you want to be living. On the flip side, making sure you're in bed early would count as a 'towards move'.

'Away moves' are often triggered by specific situations, thoughts, and feelings, so it can be useful to consider what's underlying your unhelpful behaviours. By doing this, you can start to better understand yourself and identify more clearly the changes needed to help you achive your goals 🥰

Try this for yourself and let me know in the comments if you found it useful! ✨

19/02/2025

This isn’t new research (it was conducted in 2018), but I wanted to share it anyway, as I think the findings are really powerful 😌

In this study, participants were asked to practice just 10-20 minutes of mindfulness meditation every day, for 30 days. That was it. At the end of the 30 days period, they found that participant’s perceived levels of stress had significantly reduced, and their general sense of wellbeing had significantly increased!

I think mindfulness is such an amazing tool, so I’m always going to be banging this drum 🥁 But there’s so much research to show just what a positive impact it can have on people’s health and wellbeing. Doing as little as 10-minutes a day can have a profound impact, so I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something to help improve your wellbeing, that won’t cost you anything and won’t take a lot of time 💕

To read the full article visit: www.liebertpub.com/doi/epub/10.1089/acm.2015.0301

11/02/2025

Exercising during pregnancy is one of the areas I get asked about most as a coach – whilst it is in fact totally safe (and recommended) to exercise, there are still a lot of misconceptions that sometimes hold people back from being as active as they might like to be. So, let’s clear this up! ☺️

1⃣ If you are already leading an active lifestyle, keep going with this. However, if you weren’t doing any exercise prior to getting pregnant, it’s important to start gradually and not do anything too strenuous from the off. Always listen to your body, and don’t push yourself if something doesn’t feel right.

2⃣ It’s recommended to do 150-minutes of exercise a week but start off slowly with just 10-minutes a day and build it up over time ⌛ If you weren’t exercising beforehand, it’s advisable to speak to your maternity team before starting anything new.

3⃣ If you start attending exercise classes (such as spinning or aerobics), make sure to tell the instructor that you're pregnant and start off gently, building up the amount of activity gradually over time. As a general rule, you should be able to hold a conversation whilst you exercise. If you become breathless as you talk, then you're probably exercising too strenuously 😪

4️⃣ As your pregnancy progresses, you might find you need to slow down and take things at a slower pace. Listen to what your body is telling you and adapt your activity levels as needed 💕

03/02/2025

If you’re trying to conceive, it might be worth having a look at your diet to see if there are any tweaks you could make to help support your fertility.

The best foods to be eating are the same as those for general health, so try to follow a healthy balanced diet including protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats, vitamins, and minerals 🍓🍗🥦🥖🥑

Maintaining a healthy BMI (which is between 8.5 to 24.9 kg/m²) can also be beneficial for fertility. If your BMI falls outside this range, making small, gradual adjustments to your weight - whether increasing or decreasing - may help support your reproductive health 🩷

31/01/2025

Does any of the following sound familiar?

✨ You understand the benefits of making healthy changes but are lacking the motivation and drive to action them

✨ You’ve been making changes but are finding it hard to make your new habits stick

✨ You’re struggling to prioritise yourself and your own needs

✨ You find it difficult to maintain lifestyle changes without external accountability and support

If so, you may benefit from health coaching! Whether you’re currently trying to conceive, are currently pregnant, or have recently had a baby, I can support you to make the changes that matter to you.

It might be that you’re looking to make some changes to your diet, to incorporate more movement in your lifestyle, to improve your sleep, better manage your stress levels, reduce your drinking, or something else entirely! Whatever it is that you’ve been thinking about doing, I can support you ☺️

If you’d like to have a chat, please get in touch. I offer a free 20-minute consultation call, where we can talk about what you’re currently struggling with and ways we can work together to move you towards your goals. You can book a call at https://calendly.com/bloomwellpregnancy/free-20-minute-consultation ✨

22/01/2025

Self-compassion is the process of turning compassion inward. It is the tendency or ability to treat oneself kindly in times of failure or distress and to show ourselves kindness and understanding 🩷

It’s also about treating ourselves as we would a friend. In those moments when you’re angry at yourself or being self-critical, ask yourself if you would ever speak to a friend in the same way. If the answer is no, then it’s time to take stock and really think about the way you’re treating yourself. The things we say to ourselves matter. They affect our wellbeing, our motivation, and our overall satisfaction with life.

If you want to know how to start being more compassionate to yourself, give me a follow or drop me a DM. It’s my FAVOURITE topic and I’d love to chat to all of you about how to cultivate more kindness and self-compassion in your own life 🥰

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http://www.bloomwellpregnancy.co.uk/

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