Keep these five important tips in mind to help make your wife’s pregnancy easier on both of you.

1. Know your role
You’re Daddy. That means you won’t be giving birth to Baby, and you probably won’t be shushing Baby to sleep once he/she’s born… so what’s left for you to do? Plenty: know the route to the hospital. Memorise it, and be able to drive it in your sleep. Know the deal with your medical aid… and if you don’t have one, start saving now. Know what Mommy wants in terms of childbirth options, and be prepared to speak on her behalf if the pregnancy doesn’t go according to plan.

2. Rub her back
While your child is living inside Mommy and using her bladder as a punching bag, you’d better make sure you’re right next to her, rubbing her aching back. Pregnant women can gain between 10kg and 17kg, or 18-20kg if she’s carrying twins – and that means a huge strain on her back. So when she asks for a backrub, give her a backrub… especially her lower back, and especially towards the end of her third trimester.

3. Do the research
A new Mommy will often wonder why her newborn baby didn’t come with a step-by-step instruction manual. And while she’s doing that, Daddy will be wondering why his pregnant partner didn’t come fitted out with a dictionary.

Epidural, episiotomy, pre-clampsia, anaesthesia, cervical dilation, Braxton Hicks contractions… if you don’t know what these buzzwords mean now, you’re going to have to before Baby arrives. And it’s up to you to find out exactly what everything means – even if it means consulting an encyclopaedia or asking the doctor to explain things as you go along.

4. Get involved… and stay involved
Pregnancy can be a scary time for Mommies, and one of your biggest jobs as Daddy is to convince her that’s not going to have to do it all on her own. Be there with her every step of the way. Help choose Baby’s name, help pick out Baby’s wardrobe, and go along to all the scans and antenatal classes. Remember, it’s your baby too… and you’ll want to be as big a part of his/her life as possible.

5. Stay healthy
Quit smoking now. You’d have to be a real idiot to light up around a pregnant Mom or (even worse) a newborn baby.

Adjust your diet. Mom’s going to have to change the way she eats while she’s pregnant, and it’s just plain mean to chow cheeseburgers while she’s trying to eat healthily. And get plenty of exercise. The next few months are going to be the most exciting and most challenging of your life… so you’ll need to be alert and in tip-tip condition.