What to Learn to Become a Great Manager?

1.    Delegating: Learn how to choose what to delegate, match employee and delegated assignment, and set the stage for success by both developing your employees and freeing up your time for critical managerial tasks.

2.    Goal Setting: Learn how to set realistic goals, prioritize tasks, and track milestones to improve performance and morale.

3.    Managing Upward: Learn insight into developing a mutually rewarding relationship, with skills for communicating and negotiating with your manager, presenting problems or opportunities to your supervisor and accepting responsibility for your proposed actions.

4.    Meeting Management: Learn about planning and conducting meetings from start to finish; preparation, keeping the meeting on track, and follow-up and dealing with problem behaviors exhibited by meeting participants.

5.    New Manager Transitions: Learn what it means to be a manager, as well as how to navigate the complex and often stressful transition from individual contributor to a new manager.

6.    Presentation Skills: Learn about preparing and delivering presentations that command attention, persuade, and inspire, rehearsal techniques, creating and using more effective visuals, understanding your objectives and your audience to create a presentation with impact.

7.    Stress Management: Learn the difference between positive stress that enhances productivity and negative stress that breeds tension, lowers productivity, and undercuts job satisfaction, strategies for dealing with underlying causes of worry and stress, tactical coping mechanisms for immediate problem management.

8.    Time Management: Learn how to analyze how you currently spend your time and pinpoint opportunities for improvement, set goals, prioritize tasks, plan your time efficiently using scheduling tools, control time-wasters, and evaluate your schedule once it is underway.

9.    Writing Skills: Learn how to accomplish your business objectives and extends your influence as a manager, create clearer, more effective written communications, guidelines for preparing memos, letters, emails, and other common business documents.

10.  Career Management: Learn how to manage your career--including how to identify your business interests, professional values, and skills in order to target your most exciting career possibilities.

11.  Change Management: Learn how to manage change constructively and navigate the ups and downs that inevitably accompany a change effort.

12.  Coaching: Learn how to strengthen your coaching skills to facilitate the professional growth of the employees you coach.

13.  Developing Employees: Learn how to encourage your employees to learn and grow, while maximizing the return on the management time you invest in employee development.

14.  Difficult Interactions: Learn how to discuss and resolve difficult interactions in the workplace--whether with employees, peers, bosses, or even suppliers and customers.

15.  Feedback Essentials: Learn when and how to give effective positive or corrective feedback, how to offer feedback upward, and how to receive feedback.

16.  Global Collaboration: Learn critical skills required to manage a cross-cultural collaboration, including negotiating, building trust, overcoming language barriers, and navigating the geographical and technological challenges of working across continents.

17.  Hiring: Learn how to identify the particular skill set needed for a job, and then how to research and interview leading candidates until you find the one who best fills your need.

18.  Leading and Motivating: Learn about the essential tasks of leadership: setting direction, aligning people, and motivating others. Learn how to recognize the skills and characteristics of effective leaders, create an inspiring vision, and energize people to support and work toward your goals.

19.  Performance Appraisal: Learn how to prepare for, conduct, and follow up on performance evaluations--in ways that link employee performance to your company's and group's goals.

20.  Retaining Employees: Learn strategies for attracting and keeping top performers, how to handle common obstacles to retention such as burnout and work/life imbalance, and how to develop programs that address the diverse needs and interests of your workforce.

21.  Team Leadership: Learn how to establish a team with the right mix of skills and personalities and create a culture that promotes collaborative work, steps to leading an effective team and includes innovative, easy-to-implement self-evaluation tools.

22.  Team Management: Learn how to diagnose and overcome common problems - such as poor communication and interpersonal conflict - that can impede team progress, learn to take corrective measures to remove team problems and improve team performance.

23.  Virtual Teams: Learn how to create concrete suggestions for forming virtual teams, including assessing their technology and communication needs, structuring the team to build trust, and keeping the team on track

  

24.  Budgeting: Learn about the budget process, different types of budgets, and common budgeting problems--so you can allocate resources wisely to meet your goals.

25.  Business Case Development: Learn how to create an effective business case, from defining the opportunity and analyzing alternatives to presenting your final recommendations.

26.  Business Plan Development: Learn the process of preparing an effective plan for a business proposal, applicable to launching a new internal product as well as seeking funding for a new start-up business.

27.  Crisis Management: Learn a practical, hands-on method for looking at crises--from developing a crises audit to avoid and prepare for crises, to managing an actual crisis, to learning from past events.

28.  Customer Focus: Learn how to target the right customers and build their long-term loyalty by developing systems for learning about--and responding to--their needs.

29.  Decision Making: Learn how to identify underlying issues related to a decision, generate and evaluate multiple alternatives, and then communicate and implement your decision.

30.  Diversity: Learn how to manage diversity to extract maximum value from your employees' differences -- including how to recruit diverse talent, resolve diversity-related conflicts, and communicate with employees and customers from other cultures.

31.  Ethics At Work: Learn how to identify and execute sound choices based on ethical standards and how building a culture of integrity and cultivating an environment of trust among employees, customers, and other stakeholders lays a foundation for sustained success.

32.  Finance Essentials: Learn the essential concepts of finance--budgeting, forecasting, and planning, for managers who are not financial managers.

33.  Innovation and Creativity: Learn how to manage an intellectually diverse work group and their environment to produce more--and better--ideas that encourage innovation when developing products and work processes.

34.  Innovation Implementation: Learn how to implement an innovation--from crafting a vision statement to gaining support and managing resistance--and turn an idea into reality.

35.  Marketing Essentials: Learn the fundamentals that will help you better understand the importance of marketing and how it relates to you, especially for non-marketing managers.

36.  Negotiating: Learn how to become an effective negotiator, the negotiation process: assessing your interests as well as those of the other party, developing opportunities that create value, avoiding common barriers to agreement, and implementing strategies to make the negotiation process run smoothly.

37.  Performance Measurement: Learn how to review financial and non-financial measures used in all areas of organizational performance, addresses both standalone measures (including ROI, EVA, and BET) and measurement frameworks such as dashboards, quality models, and the Balanced Scorecard, systematic processes for tracking performance of initiatives.

38.  Persuading Others: Learn the art and science behind successful persuasion -- changing others' attitudes, beliefs, or behavior to create win-win solutions, -- accomplishing work through others -- rather than simply issue orders.

39.  Process Improvement: Learn what business processes are; why improving them is essential; and how to carry out a business process improvement (BPI) initiative.

40.  Project Management: Learn the nuts and bolts of project management, including project planning, budgeting, team-building, execution, and risk analysis, useful tools and techniques such as GANTT and PERT charts, Work Breakdown Structure, and variance analysis.

41.  Strategic Thinking: Learn how to shape and execute organizational strategy, analyzing opportunities, challenges, and the potential consequences of high-level action plans, addresses identification of broad patterns and trends, creative thinking, analysis of complex information, and prioritization of actions

Source: Unknown

Five Tips for Building a Work Breakdown Structure

Author: Tom Mochal

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is the best way to understand the detailed work of a project when you have to build a schedule from scratch. It lets you break the project down into the major phases, deliverables, and work components that will be built by the project. You can then break down these work components into the activities that are required to build them. The WBS is not the same as the final schedule (which requires sequencing, resources, estimated effort, estimated duration, etc.). Here are five tips to keep in mind when building your WBS.

1.    Create a WBS dictionary for large projects

Normally, you wouldn't need a WBS dictionary. But if your WBS has hundreds (or thousands) of detailed activities, there may just be too much to keep track of by hand. In this case, it might make sense to place all the important information in a WBS dictionary. The dictionary helps keep track of all of the summary and detailed activities, including a short description, the WBS numeric identifier (1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc.), and the estimated effort. If you enter your WBS dictionary into a specialized tool, the tool can also help to keep track of changes to the WBS as well.

2.    Use the summary activities as milestones

Your WBS should contain both detailed and summary activities. (A summary activity is one that is broken down further; a detailed activity is one that is not broken down further.) Although a schedule usually includes only detailed activities, it makes sense to include the summary activities as milestones (i.e., markers signifying that a deliverable or set of deliverables is complete). A summary activity can be used as a milestone since it would indicate that all of the underlying detailed work has been completed.

3.    Break activities into two or more detailed activities

I've seen teams that break one activity in the WBS into only one activity at the next level. In my opinion, this doesn't make sense because then the detailed activity represents the same work as the prior summary activity. This doesn't buy you anything.

4.    Make the final detailed activities action oriented

The detailed activities on your WBS (the ones that are not broken down further) are ultimately moved to your schedule. For that reason, it's easier if the detailed activities in your WBS are action oriented — just as activities in your schedule would be. For example, instead of describing a detailed WBS activity as "meeting," you should state it as "schedule a weekly meeting." Instead of having a WBS detailed activity for "Testing Plan," you should state it instead as "Create Testing Plan." In this way, the detailed activities can be moved to the schedule with a minimum of wording changes.

5.    Don't place requirements on the WBS

If you place a deliverable on your WBS, you can break this deliverable down into the activities that are required to create it. You don't break a deliverable down into the requirements that describe it. Requirements do not belong on a WBS. Only deliverables and activities belong on the WBS.

Knowing and Unknowing

He who knows not, and knows not he knows not, he is a fool, shun him.

He who knows not, and knows he knows not, he is simple, teach him.

He who knows, and knows not he knows, he is asleep, awaken him.

He who knows, and knows he knows, he is wise follow him.

Source: Knowing and unknowing

9 Things never to say to your child

Arunima Mazumdar

Being a parent is difficult and so is coming off as a proud child. It's only human to give vent to your rage by using harsh words. However, when the recipient of your outrage is your own child, it might have uncertain and unmanageable repercussions.

We list 9 insensitive things that you should avoid saying to your child.

1.    I was much more responsible when I was your age

Comparing your child and giving him an example of what all you were capable of when you were a kid is the first big mistake parents make. Their irritation stems from 'expectations' - expectations of bringing up the 'perfect' kid. Try and recall your shortcomings as a child and what all troubles you bothered your parents with. You are the elder one in the relationship hence you ought to know more. A statement such as this will break your child's confidence.

2.    You always end up taking wrong decisions

Don't penalise your kid for being immature. Everyone is allowed to make mistakes and it is in fact a part of the learning process. He might have taken up a field of study that doesn't interest you or perhaps working with a company that you're not very proud of, but that doesn't mean you accuse him of the decisions. Your job as a parent is to guide him, not force him to obey your opinions.

3.    Why can't you be more like your brother/sister?

This is once again an unreasonable comparison and a common one at that. Avoid seeding in animosity between your children by comparing their abilities. Doing so may create a fissure between the siblings. You don't want your kid to harbour negative feelings for you, hence avoid assessing your kids.

4.    Leave me alone!

Adults have huge responsibilities to take care of, responsibilities that children are innocently oblivious of. And there are times when we want to be left alone too. Kids are incapable of understanding the gravity of such situations. An impatient outburst of 'Leave me alone!' can make your child feel neglected, unwanted and depressed at the same time. Show some patience and avoid saying something bad to him.

5.    You should be ashamed of yourself

This statement is outright harsh and saying such an awful thing to any child is simply 'bad'. Yes, there are mischievous kids who go about pestering people with a devil-may-care attitude but that does not mean you reprimand him like this. There are better and milder ways to make the child understand the difference between good and bad.

6.    You're just like your father/mother

Not all married couples are happy living together and the bitterness in their relationship often translates into exchange of unkind words against each other. Some relationships end in separation too. Either ways, kids are a witness to this mutual hostility and criticism. So when you shower your partner's animosity on your kid, that's when he begins to lose respect.

7.    You always find ways to hurt me

There are times when children hurt their parents' sentiments by going against their wishes. Most times it is unintentional but there are kids who do so on purpose. However, saying something like the above statement would make your child feel guilty about his/her decision. He might comply with your demands to make you happy but you'd be taking away his right to happiness in the long run. Let your children take their own decisions and let them live a guilt-free life.

8.    It's better to be childless than have a kid like you

The above statement is mostly an extreme emotional outburst but can have grave consequences on the kid. Unquestionably, it is the most hurtful thing you can ever say to your child. No matter what the crisis is, saying something like this could make you regret for life.

9.    Get rid of the bad company of your friends

We (read adults) don't think before making friends. Neither do children. The only difference is that we know how to stay away from bad company and children don't. Their friends mean the world to them and therefore you cannot just order them to get a new set of 'good' friends.

Source: 9 Things never to say to your child

9 Tips for Soft, Beautiful Hands

The most used part of the body, yet most neglected are our hands. They do so much for us, but we still take them for granted. In addition to the harsh weather, pollutants, we subject them to much more harassment than any other part of the body. Be it while washing clothes, dishing utensils or cleaning or working hard, they are constantly being roughed up by harsh detergents or chemicals.

Perhaps, the most precious gift for giving is being treated with negligence and we are unaware of it. However, it is time to take cues from the remedies listed below and extend our gratitude to them.

Be gentle

For soft and beautiful hands, one need not spend thousands on manicures. A little care and protection is all that calls for its daily care. While washing, choose a mild soap or liquid to cleanse your hands. Slather a gentle moisturising cream or Vaseline to replenish the lost moisture every time you wash your hand or before going to bed.

Wear Gloves

Protect them by wearing rubber gloves while washing clothes and utensils, gardening and any other activity that involves harsh chemicals. This will prevent cracked fingertips and brittle nails.

Scrub

Scrubbing hands once a week is good to rid the hands of dead cells. It will also enhance the cell renewal process. If dry skin, try using sea salt as a scrub.

Milky-way

Soaking hands in lukewarm water or milk is another way of strengthening the nails. Just 10-15 minutes daily task will strengthen them!

Massage

Massage is a wonderful way to stimulate blood circulation in your hands. Spread some cream on the back of your hand and rub it gently with the other back of your hand. Repeat the same for other hand. A few days of this exercise will make your hands soft and smooth.

Calcium Supplements

White spots on nails are a signal of nutritional deficiencies or some nail trauma. To tackle the problem, take calcium supplements or foods rich in calcium and Vitamin C. Meanwhile, allow the nails to outgrow and then trim them to get rid of the yellowness or the white spots. Also, avoid aggressive manicure during this time. Moisturising with Vitamin E oil and applying an antifungal nail polish such as Ciclopirox can help hide the white spots.

Say no to some habits

Nail biting, digging, scratching or peeling can also cause brittleness, so say goodbye to those bad habits and resort to some other means to vent out your anxiousness.

Kitchen Remedies

Kitchen counter ingredients can sometimes save that manicure bill. Coconut oil, olive oil, glycerine, honey, milk cream are all natural moisturisers that would do wonder to soften your pretty hands.

Diet

Lastly, focus on your diet. What you eat is important, so grab those soya products that are rich in protein. Eat more Vitamin B and other vitamin supplements to strengthen the nails. Remember healthy and strong nails are a result of a good diet and a little love.

Even now when you are reading this, your hands are playing an important role, be it in using the mouse, or pressing the keyboard buttons. So pamper these super active organs with the above-mentioned pointers and discover soft supple and beautiful hands!

Source: 9 Tips for Soft, Beautiful Hands

7 Signs You're Overparenting

By Patricia-Anne Tom

Can you be "too good" of a parent?

Circle of Moms member Katherine W. says she's worried she has been overparenting or pampering her kids. "I tried to do the very best I could," she relays, "taking them to parks and interesting places every weekend, reading to them, working in their classrooms and every school event, supervising homework every night, helping with Girl Scouts, driving them to after-school activities, arranging play dates, making family dinners a priority, and on and on." However, Katherine recently noticed that her child's friend, whose parent was not as involved, has grown into a more confident and self-sufficient person. "Did all that effort even make any difference?"

Keep reading.

How do you know if you're turning into an overbearing parent? If, like Katherine, you're wondering if you should be less involved, here we've rounded up Circle of Moms members' advice on signs that you may be overparenting.

1. You Praise Profusely

One of the tell-tale signs that you're being overbearing, instead of balanced, is when you notice yourself giving your child a profuse amount of praise. While children need encouragement, parents can go overboard, for instance, when they have an "unconscious, incessant need to praise and reward their kids," says a Circle of Moms member who calls herself "Chatty." She explains: "I think the only time extra praise is warranted is when children are very young; babies and young toddlers have to learn what is appropriate and what isn't, and praising them in an excitable manner when they master a new skill or act in an appropriate or desirable manner helps them to learn. But, if you're over the top and praise them every single time they do something, especially when it's repeatedly for the same thing they've already mastered and done 1,000 times, it's doing them a huge disservice."

As an example, Chatty says when first potty training her daughter, she and her husband gave her lots of "high-fives" and "good jobs." But once her daughter mastered the toilet, she "opened a dialogue with her about how it made her feel to be able to go to the washroom on her own." 

2. You Offer Too Many Material Rewards

Similar to offering an abundance of praise, some parents spoil their children with too many material things. Stephanie Y. came to this realization when one year her 9-year-old son "clearly expressed his utter disappointment in his Christmas gifts. He explained that he didn't get what he really wanted and poo-pooed what he did get," she remembers.

After unsuccessfully trying to impart a lesson about the spirit of Christmas, Stephanie realized she had been giving her children way too much. "I am the mom that would carry my kids' backpack for them, or buy the toy to bribe them to be good in the store! I needed to change, be more of a parent." Vowing that her children would never be ungrateful at Christmas again, she reduced the gifts her children were receiving all year round, and also reduced her children's candy consumption, so that they would learn to appreciate Halloween, too. 

Charlotte R. is another mom who believes "kids these days have way too many things. When I was growing up we had one phone for the whole house and we had to limit our time to share with everyone. We never got to just sit on the phone and call our friends all the time, because we had household chores to do and our homework and getting ready for school," she says. 

3. You Have Low Expectations

With the rigors of school and extracurricular activities, sometimes parents are hesitant to give their children too many responsibilities. But an ill-fated result of not expecting a lot from your children is that parents "do too much for their kids," says Tracy S.

Setting low expectations while assuming there will be big rewards is especially a common occurrence in school. "According to our local teachers, a helicopter parent is one who browbeats teachers into giving their kid good grades, even though they didn't earn them. That's what makes kids feel 'entitled,'" says mom Jane S.

Tracy S. says her 15-year-old son sometimes would want her help spelling things and would whine if she wouldn't help him without him first making an attempt. "I would tell him that if he can't try it himself, then I don't know how close he is to begin with." Expectations can be set low even before the school-age years, Tracy S. warns. For instance: "How come even when I take my daughter (she's 2) to the store and a store associate is nice and gives her a little something (sticker, sucker, candy, etc.) and I tell my daughter to say thank you, the associates proceed to tell me that she doesn't have to?" she asks. "Too many parents think that kids aren't capable and don't expect things from them. I expect a lot from my children. I expect that they learn to be productive and contributing people who can care for themselves when they are 18. The only way to get from here to there is to teach them along the way."

4. You Dole Out Few Responsibilities

Setting expectations for your children includes holding them accountable for age-appropriate responsibilities, Circle of Moms members add. From a very young age, Ellen B. says, "many kitchen tasks are fair game," and that kids are capable and often willing to bring their dishes to the sink when done, set the table, take the garbage out, and help cook. "And, yes," she adds, "teach them to clean up their messes." Once parents "get over the perception the only you can get things done on time, you will find training them is a time-saver."

Increasing responsibilities and "doing less for them can give them the best possible chance" at becoming self-sufficient, independent adults, mom Ellen explains. "The more children learn to do tasks and make good decisions on their own, the better odds they have of living a productive life," she says. 

When you educate your children about their responsibilities, just be sure they understand that they're not being asked to do things because "'mommy is task master,' but rather [because] 'we live together, and share both the work and the pleasure of having our own home,'" Lisa R. notes. 

5. You Repeat Yourself Frequently

Once they assign responsibilities, overbearing parents often make the mistake of repeatedly telling children what to do. But parents are not raising robots that should follow every order, mom Angelique A. says. She admits she is sometimes guilty of this with her 14- and 15-year-olds and finds herself constantly telling her own children "to do this and that." She adds: "I mean when will it register that if you see something that needs to be done, just do it?" Still, Angelique knows she needs to lay off if she wants to raise responsible adults. "I was taught independence at a very young age. When I had to, I knew what to do when my parents were away."

6. You Help Without Being Asked

Most parents would help their children at the drop of a hat, but several Circle of Moms members advise that parents would be wise to step back and wait to offer help until children ask for it. As a teacher, Pamela W. says she sees today's parents doing too much for their children when it's not necessary. "I see parents carrying their children's backpacks for them, etc., around the school campuses. I also see far more moms and dads who accompany their children into the classroom at the kindergarten level and spend time before the bell rings," she says. 

"It's hard not to helicopter," Shawnn L. admits. But as someone who works at a university, she doesn't support it: "It is extremely frustrating to watch [parents] be overbearing and [make choices] for adult freshman student[s]. It is extremely frustrating to speak to the student and have the parent answer. It is even more frustrating to watch a student make excellent choices with regards to his/her studies, only to see the parent undermine every choice because they either weren't involved enough, or didn't agree."

Lucy L. summarizes: "Don't do something for your child that he or she is capable of doing for themselves."

On the other hand, when parents let children make more decisions and help themselves, they often find that their children are more resourceful than they initially thought. Ann F., for instance, recently encouraged her children to sell their unwanted toys to make some money. "When I checked on them in the playroom, they had a whole pile of toys they wanted to sell and were in the process of lugging them out front." Ann's gut reaction was to stop them, but she had a second thought and asked what they wanted to do with the money they earned. "They said they wanted to donate it to an animal shelter or children's hospital. The whole situation reminded me that sometimes it really is best just to get out of their way, not be overbearing, and when they are making their own fun without any parental involvement, to just let them be," she says. 

As a Circle of Moms member who calls herself "Vegemite Cheese" says of parenting, "It's not always what you do for your kids but what you teach your kids to do for themselves."

7. You Try to Prevent All Mistakes

Of course, when making their own decisions, children will make some mistakes, but Lisa B. says it's healthy to let mistakes happen in a safe environment. "Both my kids are extremely careful about touching hot objects and getting their little fingers caught in doors/drawers. That's because I've let them try it when they were 6 months old. As soon as they were able to open and close a drawer, I've allowed them to close it (not too strongly, though), on their own fingers," she says. "Rather than preventing them from doing something dangerous, I let them experience the consequences (provided it isn't health/life-threatening). They know what it's like to touch a hot drink. When they fall, they know they have to get up and dust themselves off, all on their own."

As another example, Lisa adds that her son once had a bad habit of putting his fingers and toys in his mouth. "After reminding him several times that it was dirty, I waited to see what would happen. He caught a very painful mouth sore. But now he knows the consequences of putting dirty objects in his mouth," she says. Of course, she offers the caveat that she always tries to reinforce good behavior.

Ultimately, moms and dads can avoid overparenting by being supportive of their children, but not being overinvolved, Circle of Moms members say. "There is such a thing as being too involved, too loving, too praising, too in-tune with what your kids are doing . . . just as the other extreme suggests an unhealthy relationship with kids (no affection, attention, encouragement, etc.). Balance really is the key component of all facets of humanity," Jamie B. says. 

"Being over-protective is an easy and common mistake that parents make," admits mom Riana F., noting she sometimes closes her eyes and says, "World please be gentle with this child of mine." But, she realizes, "The world will never be gentle, it will only ever be real, and if I try to protect my children from its challenges I will also be protecting them from its rewards."

Source: Shutterstock

Source: 7 Signs You're Overparenting

Sex During Pregnancy: What You Should Know

By Rituparna Roy Deshpande, Team iDiva

A woman’s body undergoes several changes during pregnancy. At a time when the only thing that she can think of is the well-being of her child, sexual intimacy naturally becomes a secondary affair. While most women are almost averse to the idea of sex during those nine months, others experience an increased drive due to hormonal changes. Here’s what you should know and keep in mind about sex during pregnancy.

Can I have sex during pregnancy?

This is the most widely asked question by pregnant women. Pregnancy can reduce your sex drive, often leading to misunderstandings between you and your spouse. But, the good news is that sex during pregnancy is completely normal and should be treated as a natural activity. However, consult your gynaecologist about any complications that you may suffer from during this stage.

Can we experiment with sex positions?

With a baby bump, it is not very advisable to experiment with sex positions at this stage. Instead of asking your husband to be on top, lie sideways for shallow penetration. Putting weight on the uterus can be extremely dangerous when you are heavily pregnant. You can also get on top as it allows you to control the depth of penetration.

Will I enjoy sex while I am pregnant?

Honestly speaking, sex during pregnancy can be an uncomfortable experience for most women. An increase in blood pressure may cause heightened sensation, which in turn may give you a feeling of fullness. The bad news is that several women also suffer from abdominal cramps during intercourse. Hence, ask your partner to go easy.

Is it normal if I am not in the mood for sex?

It is completely normal for expectant mothers not be in the mood to indulge in sex. The fact that the body undergoes several changes during pregnancy is reason enough for women to refrain from any kind of sexual intimacy. Alternatively, you and your partner can come up with ideas like a hot bath or a sensual massage to stay intimate and enjoy the romance.

Can we have oral sex while I’m pregnant?

Oral sex is completely normal if you find intercourse risky. However, anal sex during pregnancy is a complete no-no as it may cause infection from the rectum to the vagina. Also, make sure your partner does not blow air inside the vagina during oral sex as this may lead to blockage of a blood vessel by an air bubble.

Will sex harm my baby?

Not at all! The cervix is guarded by a thick mucus that keeps infections at bay; even the amniotic sac and strong uterine muscles protect your baby from any kind of movement caused during sexual activity.  A lot of times your baby may move after an orgasm, but that’s because of your increased heart beat. So that takes care of almost everything, doesn’t it? :-)

Can sex during pregnancy cause a miscarriage? 

Miscarriages are the result of chromosomal abnormalities and have nothing to do with sex. Your baby is protected by the fluid in the amniotic sac, and therefore penetration would not harm the baby. However, do check with your gynaecologist if you are in a high-risk pregnancy, and if so, you may have to look for other ways to enjoy yourselves.

Source: Sex During Pregnancy: What You Should Know