Tommy’s re-launches pregnancy guide: HAVING A HEALTHY PREGNANCY

Relaunched guide includes additional lifestyle advice for mums-to-be

Baby charity Tommy’s has revised and relaunched its pregnancy health guide, to further support families and healthcare professionals with lifestyle advice to help women maximize their pregnancy health.

Whilst Tommy’s newly revised guide will continue to provide key information on the different stages of pregnancy and antenatal care, the new Having a Healthy Pregnancy will be unique in also focusing on evidence-based lifestyle advice, including diet & nutrition, weight management, exercise, smoking cessation and maintaining good mental well-being.

This brings the guide in line with Tommy’s wider strategic direction to address the impact of lifestyle on health in pregnancy, and follows on from the charity’s new health campaign, Tommy’s Five Point Pregnancy Plan (focusing on the same five key areas; www.bounty.com/tommysplan) which was launched in September 2011.

In its current guise, Your Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy is widely distributed, reaching around 30,000 healthcare professionals and families each year.

The 104-page full-colour-book has ten chapters including:

• A detailed pregnancy calendar
• Chapters on diet, weight, exercise, smoking, mental health and drugs and alcohol.
• Antenatal care – from finding a midwife to what happens during your antenatal appointments, as well as what your notes mean.
• Preparing for birth – writing a birth plan, packing your bag for hospital and pain relief options.
• Labour and birth – what to expect.

The redevelopment and production of the guide has been made possible by a grant from Asda, who have supported Tommy’s for over ten years.

This guide is free to order from January 17th from www.tommys.org/shop.

Tommy’s has recently been certified by the Information Standard, so those who refer to Tommy’s information, including publications, can feel reassured that the information they receive is evidence-based, reliable and trustworthy. 

Beckie Lang, Health Campaigns Manager for Tommy’s, says: “Our understanding of the impact of lifestyle on pregnancy has vastly increased in recent years, so we hope that with all the updated and practical advice in this area, many more women will be able to make the small changes to their behaviour which will greatly improve their health and that of their baby.”

Paul Kelly, Asda Corporate Affairs Director adds “We’re thrilled to support Tommy’s with Having a Healthy Pregnancy, which will help so many people go on to have healthy and happy babies. The work that the charity does is so important – we’re delighted to have been able to work with them and support the good work they do for so long.”

Tommy’s believes it is unacceptable that one in four women will lose a baby every year, either at pregnancy or birth.  As such the charity aims to ensure that every baby has the best chance of being born healthy, by funding research into pregnancy problems such as miscarriage, stillbirth and premature birth, and disseminating pregnancy health information that will help parents-to-be have a healthy baby.

Tommy’s

At Tommy’s we believe every pregnancy should have a happy ending.

We want to give every baby the best chance of being born healthy, so we work to fund medical research into the causes of premature birth, stillbirth and miscarriage, and provide a free information service that educates all parents-to-be about health in pregnancy.

Our information service is informed by our medical research and includes a telephone midwife service, a comprehensive website and free books and leaflets promoting health in pregnancy.

By 2030 we want to halve the number of babies who die during pregnancy or birth.

Tommy’s registered charity number is 1060508 and SC039280.

To speak to a Tommy’s midwife call our PregnancyLine for free on

0800 0147 800

For more information visit www.tommys.org

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