Homesteading while pregnant Do’s and Don’ts

I’m in way too many homesteading groups and over and over again I see ladies announcing  that they’re pregnant and freaking out about what they can and can’t do on their homestead or farm. If there were a ton of restrictions we wouldn’t be here today, think about all of our grandma’s that worked into the barn up until the moment they were in labor. Heck, think about me I was 2 months pregnant when we moved to our little homestead had baby girl number 2, and was pregnant 5 months later. I’ve literally been pregnant all but 5 months while building our homestead.

If you’re super concerned you can talk to your doctor about what they recommend avoiding, my midwife literally just learned that I have a homestead when I was 8 months pregnant, the only advice she gave me is to rest whenever I find time. If you have a farm or homestead you know that life is basically putting out “little fires” all day long, every time I walk outside for a break to enjoy baby animals I end up rescuing an animal from a strange predicament and cleaning up 4 random things, replenishing water, and little things like that. There’s always something to do and not always other people around to help.

I’ve handled all kind of animals, helped with building projects, mucked stalls, collected eggs, helped birth baby goats, gardened, and so many more things. Most homesteaders will tell you they didn’t change a thing when pregnant. I’m definitely excited to get more done around the homestead when I have more energy and I’m not absolutely huge. Below are the only things I recommend when pregnant, washing hands as often as possible, trying not to over exert yourself, and washing up anything from the garden before consuming.

Wash your hands

We definitely wash our hands a lot, it’s our number 1 rule. If you were outside at all, wash your hands, because chances are you touched an animal or something an animal has touched. You should probably have a good moisturizer too, because all of that hand washing dries your skin out like crazy.

Don’t over exert yourself

This is easier said than done, because sometimes the little bits of chaos turn into absolute chaos and it’s all hands on deck. Kind of like when we got a new chicken coop with lots of snow on the ground and arctic temperatures and we had to make the coop move in ready by making nesting boxes and roosting bars and a door and fencing, but the goat decided to go into labor and the barn was full of chickens and 6 months worth of frozen chicken manure was covering every surface and there was only a teeny tiny place to kid her babies so we had to move and muck everything, plus build barn stalls in lightning speed. I probably over exerted myself, but I took breaks when I absolutely needed to and we got it done. I definitely lifted more than the recommended weight limit, but heck the 1 year old is almost at my weight limit, and she definitely needs to be picked up. Feed bags are less demanding than the toddler, but they need to be picked up too. Just listen to your body, and stop if you’re in pain.

Wash produce first

We’ve all heard of Toxoplasmosis from cats, in fact it’s one of the only things most doctors will tell you to avoid in the beginning of pregnancy, to avoid litter boxes. When in all reality the vegetable garden is probably more of a threat. If you have barn cats or stray cats, they probably think your garden is a really awesome litter box. Outdoor cats are far more likely to carry Toxoplasmosis as they get it from ingesting raw meat, and our barn cats are eating far more mice than our indoor cats. So consuming food from that dirt straight out of the garden without washing, or not washing your dirty hands after working in the garden are actually more dangerous situations than changing the litter box. Washing your produce takes care of it though.

Just use some common sense and practice good hygiene when you’re pregnant and you’ll be fine. It can be fun being pregnant on the homestead, and even more fun to watch your baby grow up on the farm. The first time our middle daughter saw our goats was one of the best days on the homestead.