12 Weeks Pregnant

Here's a quick list of some things to avoid during your pregnancy workouts:

• Don't exercise on your back after the first trimester.

• Try not to hold your breath while you work out.

• Steer clear of jerky or twisting motions, which could further strain your already stressed-out joints.

• Be careful about moves that challenge your sense of balance or risk any sort of trauma to your abdomen.

You'll soon have less oxygen available for exercise, so stop when you get tired and avoid getting overheated. Now isn't the time to do bikram or "hot" yoga.

Is your pregnant belly ready for its close-up? Someday you'll enjoy looking at pictures or videos of your baby bump — and so will your child.

Once a month, document your changing figure. Start now (if you haven’t already) and take photos regularly until you deliver. Later, you can put your “bumpies” into some kind of pregnancy album — you'll be glad you did.

One of exercise's big benefits is that it burns calories. Card-carrying baby-builders like you, though, get the pleasure of replacing those calories with some healthy pregnancy snacks.

So 30 minutes before you exercise, hit the fridge for a light snack and a drink. Follow up your workout with an encore snack.

Bananas and orange juice are great options because they contain plenty of potassium, an essential nutrient that's lost when you perspire, plus they supply quick energy. Add a little protein for staying power like a hard-boiled egg or a cheese stick.

Having a baby was never cheap — but thanks to inflation, a middle-income family may now spend an average of $18,270 on a child each year.

Here’s a range of what you may spend on baby on some of the bigger ticket items:

• Car seat: $80 to $400

• Stroller: $100 to $1,000

• Bassinet: $70 to $650

• Crib: $125 to $350 or more

• Baby monitor: $25 to $400

• Diapers for the first year: $510 to $930

• Formula for a year: $1200 to $1500

Don’t stress about buying everything all at once. Some (or all) of them can go onto your baby registry, if you have one.

And for anything that doesn’t make the cut, just try to save a little at a time — say, by cutting back on restaurant meals or canceling some monthly subscriptions you no longer use regularly.

Nearly half of pregnant women will have heartburn, bloating and other tummy troubles — and for some, it may last all nine months. 

You can put out the fire by wearing looser or stretchy clothes, like empire-waist maxi dresses, drawstring pants and lightweight sweaters. Anything that’s too tight around your waist can constrict your tummy, fueling the burn.

Drink up — it's more important than ever to stay hydrated, so plan on adding an extra glass of liquid for every half hour of activity. And no cheating … it should be an 8-ounce glass.

Stick to water when possible — sports drinks contain too many ingredients you just don't need. Take in even more fluids in warm weather or when you're just plain sweating a lot.

For the pregnant set, not all fish are created equal. While you should avoid high-mercury fish like tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, shark, swordfish, orange roughy, bigeye tuna, marlin and king mackerel, don’t steer clear of all good-for-you seafood.

Fish is one of the best sources of DHA (a healthy omega-3 fatty acid), so try to eat two to three servings of well-cooked shellfish, canned light tuna, salmon (wild-caught is best), or cod a week.