It’s a brand new year. Social media is already full of fresh starts, new goals, and glowing transformations. And you’re simply pregnant.
Maybe you’re in your first trimester, and surprisingly exhausted in ways you never quite imagined, nauseous, and struggling to stay awake past 7 pm. Or maybe you’re heavily pregnant, more slow-moving, and trying hard to be productive.
Because your body needs more rest to just get through the day or recover from another night’s poor sleep. Or maybe you’re somewhere in between these stages, watching everyone else launch into their New Year’s resolutions while you’re focused on just getting through each day.
January is the month of New Year’s resolutions. A time for reinvention, for optimising yourself, or becoming your best self, which really doesn’t work for pregnancy at all, which has its own unique timeline. Your body is engaged in extraordinary work – growing another human, which doesn’t leave much energy for the performance of a “new year, new you.”
In this post:
- The New Year’s effect on pregnant women
- Letting go of the glow myth
- What your body actually needs at each stage
- How partners can support the cocoon
- What “enough” looks like when you’re pregnant
The New Year’s effect on pregnant women
The beginning of the new year comes loaded with expectations. Set goals. Start fresh. Transform yourself. Be better, do more, and look amazing while doing it.
For pregnant women, this cultural mandate collides with a body that has its own agenda – one that often involves slowing down, turning inward, and conserving energy for the monumental work of creating life and sustaining oneself.
If this is your first pregnancy, you might be discovering that your body no longer responds to your will the way it used to. You can’t push through exhaustion. You can’t ignore nausea, and you can’t maintain your pre-pregnancy pace no matter how much you want to. The New Year message of taking control and optimising your life feels almost cruel when your body is making it clear that you’re not in control at all.
If this is a subsequent pregnancy, you might be feeling guilty that you’re not as attentive or excited as you were the first time. You’re managing other children, work, life, and the New Year pressure to do it all perfectly, while also glowing and grateful, which feels absurdly impossible.
The myth of the glow
The pregnancy glow is largely a myth. Or rather, it’s a very specific experience that some women have at certain points in pregnancy, turned into an expectation that all pregnant women should radiate constant joy and vitality.
The reality is far more complex. You might feel:
- Exhausted and nauseous, not glowing
- Anxious about birth and motherhood, not blissful
- Grieving your pre-pregnancy body and life, not excited
- Ambivalent disconnect – loving your baby but not how pregnancy feels
- Terrified about motherhood while everyone around you expects you to be excited
This is all normal.
The Instagram glow brigade sets up a blueprint for failure – those carefully curated photos of pregnant women looking radiant and effortless – shows you a moment, the opposite to the reality of nausea, back pain, insomnia, anxiety, or the simple overwhelming fatigue that pregnancy brings.
What your pregnant body requires
Pregnancy is not one continuous experience. Your needs will vary as your body changes.
First trimester:
- Rest and more rest than seems reasonable. Your body is building an entirely new organ (the placenta) and establishing a brand new life in you. This is BIG work.
- Self-permission to say no to social obligations, New Year gatherings, and anything that feels depleting
- Acknowledge that nausea, exhaustion, and emotional overwhelm are symptoms requiring a healthy response from you
- Space to process the enormous shift that’s happening, even if you wanted this pregnancy
Second trimester:
- Your energy might return, but still a good call to slow down your expectations about keeping up with stuff to do
- Movement that feels good rather than exercise you think you should do
- Connection with other pregnant women or mothers – you’re naturally seeking your new tribe
- Time to begin preparing emotionally and practically, at your own pace
Third trimester:
- Physical rest and comfort are priorities, not luxuries
- Ask for help with daily tasks that are becoming harder
- Notice pressure from you or others to “finish everything” before the baby arrives
- Space to turn deeply inward as birth approaches
Building Your Cocoon
With a first pregnancy, you start to naturally pull back from your pre-pregnancy social world as you become less interested in your single friends’ lives, and they start to find you turning into an obsessed person, talking more about yourself and your future baby. Your shared lives naturally start to separate as you are more drawn to other pregnant women and mothers. You are building your cocoon around yourself and your growing baby.
Your body and psyche are building this inward turning and filtering of information to protect and ripen your preparation for motherhood, creating its own special world – a space between your old life and the family you are becoming.
The New Year pressure to stay connected to everything and everyone while also transforming into your best self misses the point entirely. Sometimes transformation requires a withdrawal, rather than a performance.
How partners can support the cocoon
For partners wondering how to support this cocoon phase: her need to withdraw, rest, and turn inward is both pregnancy biology and a necessary psychological work.
What you can do to help:
- Take on more of the daily tasks without being asked or expecting praise
- Protect her from social obligations she doesn’t want
- Never compare her to other pregnant women or suggest she should be doing more
- Understand that she might not want to go to every New Year event or gathering
- Recognise that her world is naturally becoming smaller and more focused – support that rather than trying to pull her back out
- Asking “what do you need right now?” and believing the answer, even if it’s just rest
What doesn’t help:
- Suggesting she “should” be more active, social, positive
- Comparing her pregnancy to others (“So-and-so worked until her due date”)
- Adding your own anxiety about whether she’s doing enough to prepare
- Expecting her to maintain her pre-pregnancy role in your life without adjustment
Body-based grounding during pregnancy
When your body is changing daily (it is) and the amazing New Year pressure is building, reminding yourself to come back to your actual physical experience will help.
Feel your feet
Stand up and notice how your feet touch the floor or ground. Press them lightly into that surface and feel connected to the earth beneath you by imagining tree roots anchoring and supporting you. Your body is literally grounding you more with each week of pregnancy.
Breathe with your baby
Place your hands on your belly and breathe. You’re breathing for two. A simple and calming practice for both you and your baby.
Move your body
Movement and exercise are different sides of the same coin: so make it enjoyable, satisfying and therapeutic. Go light with your choices and see how that is. Pregnancy is not the time to prove you can keep on top of your usual exercise and training routines.
Rest during the day
Permit yourself to rest without guilt because this is also what your body requires in the busy months of growing your little person on the inside. Rest is productive.
What is “enough” when you’re pregnant
Enough is:
- Getting through the day
- Keeping yourself fed and hydrated
- Resting when your body needs it
- Saying no to things that drain you
- Basic preparation for the baby
- Feeling whatever you’re feeling without trying to change it
No need to:
- Maintain your pre-pregnancy productivity
- Look glowing and put-together
- Attend every social obligation
- Meet other people’s timelines for your preparation
- Match the Instagram version of pregnancy
- Be constantly positive and grateful
New Year’s resolutions are unrealistic and rarely last. No need to make yourself over, be different or better as your pregnancy is already the highlight of your year.
What’s next
The New Year will continue with its pressurised expectations. Social media will keep showing you the glow that’s not real. Well-meaning people will also keep asking if you’re ready, if you’re excited, if you’re doing all the things you are supposed to be doing and what can they do to help.
And you can let all of that go.
Your job right now is simpler and more profound than any New Year resolution: treasure your body, build your cocoon, and prepare what feels right for you.
I work with women through pregnancy and birth preparation, supporting you to trust your body, understand the birth process, and prepare emotionally and practically in ways that feel grounded and realistic.