8 Easy, Offbeat Ways To Keep Your Energy Levels Up

Yeah, yeah, we’re supposed to live off raw veg and do Pilates to be super-energetic during that gruelling last lap of pregnancy. Meanwhile all we’re craving is doughnuts and sleep marathons. Here are eight (and a half) easy(ish), offbeat(ish) ways to keep your energy levels up.

- Margot Bertelsmann

Boy, can those final weeks of pregnancy drag. You’re exhausted, heavy and uncomfortable, but you struggle to sleep – the cruel irony! – because of the aches and pains in your pelvis, the 12 trips to the loo you need to make every night, and a baby acrobat who chooses 3am to bounce around in your womb. What to do?

1 POP A PILL

What? You’re hardly allowed a Panado, so which “mother’s little helper” are we talking about here? Iron tablets, actually. Pregnant women are often iron-deficient (your doctor can do a skin-prick test to find out), and anaemia is a great culprit for fatigue. This is why dark-green veg, red meat, oily fish, eggs and beans are important in your diet too, but pair them with something like orange juice, because vitamin C helps your body absorb iron. The tannins in your coffee and tea, on the other hand, actually restrict iron absorption... So your percolated beverage might actually be making you anything but perky.

2 SLEEP ON THE JOB

At lunchtime, sneak into the car park and get horizontal on the back seat for the most fun you’ve had since high school... a nap! Seriously, even a very short snooze can pick you up and help you through the looming afternoon. That’s what Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher believed, and we’re not about to disagree with her. If you’re home with older kids, stick on