Many new fathers, initially do not understand that they too are presented with critical life altering opportunities when their partner becomes pregnant. Because the father’s life will change even before the birth of the child. I am going to share with you the most critical; to quit smoking, to improve diet, to regularly engage physical exercise, and to better manage household finances.
I will relate to my own personal experiences as I describe what commonly is experienced by other fathers around the world. First, let’s examine dangerous habits—and smoking is perhaps the worst a new father may have and the most difficult to change. We should understand, and value the concern of many pregnant women that beg their men to stop smoking. I will illustrate a few points. Increasing your life expectancy as the major income earner of the household is of vital importance—we all appreciate this moral philosophy. However, when my wife became pregnant I was still a pack a day smoker, 3 years later I am a pack a week smoker. I don’t smoke in the vicinity of my family or in the home. Currently, I am wearing a cigarette patch and this may speed my forfeiture of cigarettes all together in a matter of weeks. Not only is smoking dangerous to my health and health of my family—in terms of secondhand smoke but it is also an costly addiction to maintain. When I tabulate how much I spent on cigarettes each day at the heightof my cigarette smoking of 2 packs a day, I wasted eleven dollars each day for almost 3 years or $18,000 dollars—money that I could have invested in a mutual fund or some fixed asset to provide future income to raise and educate my children. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) it will cost $286,050 in today’s dollars to raise a child to age 17. These expenses include: housing, food expenditures, transportation, clothing, healthcare, childcare and education. Thus a father’s lifetime income earning ability is of critical importance when he begins to father children. But we all know that adult children still require financial support long after college graduation; sometimes they require a new car, a new professional wardrobe to start their first job—even repayment of their Sallie-Mae® student loans when they fall behind.
Some fathers are financially tied to their adult children well into the child’s 30’s, or at least until their children have found a stable career with income. Thus heavy drinking, smoking is a grave threat to health and longevity of the head financial contributor in the family. In regards to smoking, a father’s second hand smoke also can contribute to a newborn’s acquiring of asthma and colds. If you are a father reading this and you are planning on making babies, did you know that every cigarette contains dangerous carcinogens that can lower the seminal vitamin E count in sperm that is essential for supporting the genetic integrity of each sperm? And routine smoking can essential weaken the vitality of the sperms’ tail essential for swimming and fighting to fertilize a single female egg.
Elevating the father’s diet quality is the second order of business when a woman becomes pregnant. An new father, has a profound opportunity to bypass fatty and processed foods—like deep fried fast food, vending machine snacks and microwavable meals that lead to obesity, cancer, and heart disease. He can redesign the way he purchases and cooks his meals or for his pregnant wife and growing family. All things considered, many men around the world also put on some form of parallel baby weight just as their wife packs on her pounds during midnight feeding sessions. Often, the father is the willing participant that is sent out at all hours of the day to the grocery store or to the restaurant to fulfill the latest craving by his pregnant wife. During a woman’s pregnancy, men often gain weight alongside their partners. Considerably, not the same amount of body mass but a noticeable amount of consumption and display in the gut area after nine months of following his beloved to the refrigerator or to the local diner. However, the growing trend of organic food is catching popularity across America or what is called “whole” foods—for those couples that can afford to pay a few extra dollars for select fruits, vegetables, cheeses and “grass fed meats” from farm animals that did not receive dangerous hormone injections. There is even a movement for the addition of raw vegetables to a healthy diet. Because cooking these raw vegetables proponents claim, will dissipate a significant amount of nutrients. Thus it is wise to blend vegetable slushies and drinks made from raw vegetables. Fathers of expectant mothers are paying attention to the new ways of preparing foods for their pregnant wives and existing children; using a Chinese bamboo steamer to prepare vegetables and fish, or baking meats and casseroles in the oven. Men during their spouse’s pregnancy learn to cook new meals which their fatigued wives give instruction from a comfortable kitchen chair as they monitor the measurements of ingredients and preparation. Fathers learn to cook new nutritious meals with every pregnancy their wives experience, and since my wife wants four to five kids I will be chef soon.
Physical exercise is also of great importance to during the expectant mother’s first several months in order to maintain healthy pregnancy weight. The exercise also continues after the birth of the child to lose baby weight. Often, new fathers are found in parks jogging alongside their women, and pushing a 3-wheeled “jogging stroller”. Which has become the most popular form of baby fat burning this past decade among new parents. With each new child in the family a man has the opportunity to re-invigorate his health regime by either changing his style of workout to focus on problem areas like his gut, or focus on cardio vascular by jogging with his child in the stroller while mommy is off grocery shopping or having her “time off”. There are many specially created aerobics and baby-stroller groups offered by gyms and spas nationwide that enable both mother and father to work out together; mother and baby(in a stroller) to workout together, or mother , father and baby in a stroller. These physical exercise parings empower the new family to increase their health level together with shared workouts. Ultimately, this also increases intimacies and the father will have a greater appreciation for family health.
In my personal life, I have become a better manager of my finances because of the birth of my son: I eat better, exercise regularly and have cut down on smoking considerably. Moreover, I have discontinues risky hobbies such as snow boarding and skiing and started swimming and bicycling instead. Coincidentally, my wife and I are acutely aware of every expense we can save on by using coupons, and taking one vacation a year instead of two. All of these lifestyle and health changes many new fathers make in the support of a woman’s first pregnancy and the advantageous of these changes are rewarded ten-fold.
