Archive for August, 2007

Maintaining a healthy pregnancy weight gain plays a vital role during pregnancy. You can gain the required amount of weight during pregnancy by taking a healthy, balanced diet.

Taking a healthy diet ensures that you and your baby are getting all the essential nutrients. It also ensures the growth of your baby is at healthy rate.

Maintaining a pregnancy weight gain provides a healthy growth of your baby.

Pregnancy weight gain always depends on your height and weight before conception.

So, ask your health care professional regarding the weight you need to gain during pregnancy.

However, you should be careful regarding the weight-gain during pregnancy because too much or too little weight gain can become injurious to you and your baby’s health.

The recommended weight gain during pregnancy is as follows. If your weight before pregnancy was healthy according to your height, you need to gain a minimum of 25-35 pounds.

On the other hand, the pregnancy weight gain should be 28-40 pounds, if you were underweight before conception.

If your weight was very high for your height before pregnancy, increase your pregnancy weight by 15-25 pounds. The weight should not increase more than 15 pounds if you were obese before pregnant.

Pregnancy loss is nothing but loss of a baby during pregnancy.

Loss of pregnancy at any stage can have a huge impact on your physical and emotional conditions.

It is frustrating and heart pulling experience for every woman.

With pregnancy loss, there can be a feeling of sadness, shock, hopelessness, and guiltiness among woman who lost her pregnancy.

From a recent research, it is found that one out of every five pregnancies lead to pregnancy loss.

It is found that pregnancy loss occurs in 75% of all pregnancies. Loss of pregnancy can occur in several ways: miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, molar pregnancy, and stillbirth.

Miscarriage refers to a condition where the fetus expels out of the womb. This kind of pregnancy loss is known as spontaneous abortion. It is found that one-third of all pregnancies leads to miscarriage.

The pregnancy loss that occurs before twenty weeks of gestation is miscarriage and after twenty weeks of gestation is stillbirth.

Ectopic pregnancy also results in loss of pregnancy. It is a condition that occurs when fertilized egg develops outside the uterus. This kind of pregnancy loss is also known as tubal pregnancy.

Pregnancy refers to the condition where a woman carries a developing fetus in the uterus from conception to childbirth.

Having this condition is a wonderful experience to any woman.

Missed menstrual period is the first sign of pregnancy.

Constipation, breast tenderness, backache, morning sickness, drowsiness, frequent urination, increase in the basal body temperature, sense of smell, abdominal and/or pelvic cramps, tiredness, headaches, are some of the signs of pregnancy.

You can suspect a pregnancy if you are experiencing any or some of these signs. However, confirmation can be done through pregnancy tests in a doctor’s clinic or at home.

Urine test, blood test, and ultra sound test are the pregnancy tests required to confirm your conception in a doctor’s clinic. However, you can make use of a home pregnancy test kit for confirmation at home.

Remember that both these tests identify the presence of pregnancy hormone, a special hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) that is produced by your body after a fertilized egg implants into the uterus.

So, the presence of this hormone in the body confirms your pregnancy. The test results can be positive or negative. Positive results indicate that you are pregnant. Negative result indicates no fertilization.

Pregnancy Calendar is a way to follow the development of your baby from conception to birth.

Week one starts with first day of your menstrual cycle. In this period, conception does not occur, but your uterus is getting prepared for fertilization.

In week two of your pregnancy calendar, your uterus is abundant with blood tissue and your eggs are maturing in one of ovaries and getting ready to release one. From the day of your menstrual period, around fourteen to sixteen days, ovulation takes place (for 28-day menstrual cycle period).

During week three of your pregnancy calendar, sperm penetrates the egg in the fallopian tube. Although many sperms meet the egg, only one sperm enters your ovum and fertilization takes place.

In the fourth week, after the blastocyte enters within the uterus, it will settle in one spot of your uterus. Now, these cells split into two groups; one that forms the placenta and the other that forms the baby.

In the fifth week, the embryo develops in layers, ectoderm (outer layer), mesoderm (middle layer), and endoderm (inner layer).

Trying to become pregnant! Giving birth to a baby is a great experience.

Prepare yourself and your body for pregnancy because the physical health of yours before pregnancy influences the health of your future baby.

The key is to know the best time to conceive. For this, consult your health care provider to identify when ovulation period occurs in your body.

Ovulation period is the time when one of the ovaries release an egg for fertilization. This period is the most fertile period where you have high chances of becoming pregnant.

For a woman with a regular 28-day menstrual cycle, the fertile period will be from day 10 to day 18.

On the other hand, you can make use of an ovulation calendar to identify your fertile days. The fertilization, also called conception, occurs when the male sperm combines with the female egg (ova).

Also, stop using birth control techniques a month before you plan for having pregnancy.

On the other hand, if you have chronic illnesses such as hepatitis, cancer, epilepsy, lupus, asthma, hyperthyroidism, urinary tract infections, arthritis, kidney disease, heart diseases, sickle cell disease, herpes, diabetes, and hypertension then consult your doctor to control them before pregnancy.

First trimester pregnancy refers to the first three months of pregnancy.

Pregnancy is divided into three trimesters: first, second and third. Each trimester includes three months.

The first trimester pregnancy is most critical period of pregnancy, as most of the body changes and fetal developments happen in this trimester.

In the first month of this trimester, implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterus takes place and the fertilized egg then starts growing and developing in the uterus until delivery.

This process of Implantation generally happens 5-7 days after fertilization. In this stage, the fertilized egg in the uterus is called an embryo.

Shortly after implantation, the corpus luteum produces progesterone, which helps in maintaining the thickened endometrium.

Even the yolk sac starts developing along with the amniotic sac, a fluid-filled sac that protects the baby in the uterus. The yolk sac helps maintain the pregnancy until the placenta and umbilical cord is formed completely.

The placenta and umbilical cord helps carry food and oxygen to the baby from mother’s body and also excretes the wastes from the baby.

Maintaining the routine exercise program becomes difficult when you are pregnant.

So, you can make use of pilates pregnancy to stay active and healthy.

Pilates pregnancy is the best exercise for women. It is a form of exercise method designed to use during pregnancy and also after delivery to attain the shape of your body back.

Pilates pregnancy helps to maintain strength and flexibility of the important muscles that carry the baby, making pregnancy much easier. It also provides body-awareness, breathing and relaxation.

However, before following the Pilates pregnancy exercises, it is very essential for you to understand the principles of the Pilates method.

The principles that you need to remember while practicing Pilates include:

Centering is the most essential principle of Pilates pregnancy. Vigorously, Pilates exercises are basis from center. Centering provides this by bringing the focus physically to the center of the body (the central core muscles), the area between the lower ribs and pubic bone.

The way you breathe during Pilates pregnancy is very important. In Pilates exercise, the principle of breathing is completely based on enforced exhalation and full inhalation because coordinating the exhalation and inhalation of breathing ensures that oxygen is carried in and the waste gases are passed out at the right time for maximum benefit.

Have you got an unplanned pregnancy? Don’t worry. Remember that you are not alone with this condition.

Unplanned pregnancy, in these days, is affecting millions of women yearly.

It is found that one out of every four women is suffering with unplanned pregnancy.

An unplanned pregnancy can occur with an unprotected sexual intercourse, failure of contraceptive method, or sexual abuse. Remember that having missed menstrual period is the first sign of pregnancy where you need to have pregnancy test for confirmation.

The pregnancy test can be performed in the doctor’s clinic through urine and blood tests or with home pregnancy test kit using your first morning urine (FMU) sample. Don’t get upset if the test results confirm your pregnancy. Several options are available for this unplanned pregnancy.

The three main options for your unplanned pregnancy are abortion, adoption and parenting.

Abortion: It is a medical procedure used to terminate a pregnancy. This procedure can be done in two ways: using medications and surgical procedures. The medications used for abortion procedure are misoprostol (alone), methotrexate and misoprostol, mifepristone and misoprostol.

The surgical procedures for unplanned pregnancy are Suction Aspiration, Dilation and Curettage (D&C), Dilation and Evacuation (D&E), and Induction Abortion.

For every pregnant woman, it is common to experience physical and emotional changes due to an increased weight and hormone level fluctuations.

These changes can result in physical discomfort during pregnancy. You can reduce this physical discomfort and other pregnancy symptoms with pregnancy massage.

The physical discomfort refers to the aches and pains that range from muscular tension to pressure on the knees.

Pregnancy massage is also known as prenatal massage. It is a type of massage therapy designed specially to support the physical and emotional well being of pregnant woman and the fetus.

Several massage techniques, such as Swedish massage, neuromuscular, and oriental-based massage therapies, may be used throughout pregnancy and also during labor.

Pregnancy massages goal is to enhance blood circulation and ease the aches and pains during pregnancy. Trained and experienced massage therapists can provide these goals through massage techniques, which are safe as well as effective for pregnant women.

During pregnancy massage, your body will be positioned and supported appropriately with the help of pillows and padding in order to provide safety as well as comfort for you and your baby.

Have you entered your nine-month pregnancy? You have reached the time of delivery.

In the nine-month pregnancy, you will be having some discomfort with sitting, sleeping, etc, having your baby bigger in size. Your baby is almost ready for labor in four weeks.

During this period of nine-month pregnancy, the baby’s lungs will be fully developed and surfactant production will be increased, which helps the baby to breath after birth.

The baby’s intestine will be collected with meconium called baby’s first bowel movement and the baby starts urinating.

In the nine-month pregnancy, your baby needs to put a good weight.  The lanugo hair or downy hair and vernix disappear. Because of the decreased space in uterus due to increasing size of the baby, the baby cannot move in the uterus. Now, your baby can turn the head and suck the thumb.

The baby can develop immunities to protect against many infections although the immune system is somewhat immature. The baby will receive antibodies through placenta and after birth from your milk.

The weight of the baby will be six to seven pounds with height of approximately seventeen to eighteen inches. Approximately, the baby gains about one ounce a day in this month.