Archive for August, 2008

Women who go through a traumatic event during or soon before pregnancy may be at increased risk of having an underweight baby, a large study suggests.

Researchers found that of more than 1 million Danish women who gave birth over 24 years, those who dealt with the death or serious illness of a loved one shortly before or during pregnancy were more likely to have a low-birth weight baby.

The findings, reported in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, do not prove that severe stress during pregnancy harms fetal growth. However, it is possible that this is the case, according to lead researcher Ali S. Khashan, of the University of Manchester in the UK.

Research indicates that high levels of stress hormones in the mother can hinder fetal growth, and severe stress may make it difficult for some pregnant women to follow a healthy lifestyle.

Still, Khashan told Reuters Health, the current findings are “subtle,” linking severe stress to a relatively small effect on birthweight. “So the overall risk to an individual experiencing ‘normal’ stress is tiny,” the researcher explained.

On the other hand, Khashan said, the study does give “valuable insights” into the importance of the uterine environment in fetal development and, ultimately, babies’ well-being.

Congratulations! Till now you have completed half the path in your pregnancy and you need to complete another half.

Eating healthy, childbirth lessons, drinking enough water, petite maternity clothing, proper workouts, enough rest and a supportable maternity pillow can be the weapons to complete the remaining half journey.

What are the physical changes that occur in your body during pregnancy week 20?

During this time, engaging in a Lamaze course is a great way to get relief. This course will teach you a wide range of alternative breathing and birthing techniques. If you are already under the course, then do these activities along with yoga or swimming courses.

The Lamaze classes will teach you essential coping strategies for labor, along with focused breathing, labor support, positioning, relaxation, massage [pregnancy massage], hydrotherapy and also the use of heat and cold therapies.

Both of these pregnancy exercises will help you in focusing your breathing patterns and at the same time they will increase your strength, flexibility and energy flow. Now the size of your uterus is approximately 18-22 cm. You feel slight itching because of the wide stretching of your body.

Usually, constipation during pregnancy occurs when you feel abdominal pain or discomfort, infrequent and difficult bowel movements and the passage of hard stools.

Half of the pregnant women are affected by constipation at some point in their pregnancy.

Reasons behind constipation during pregnancy:

Usually, low fiber diet, anxiety, worry, lack of physical exercise can lead to constipation during pregnancy.

Also, constipation occurs due to the increased level of hormones that relax your intestinal muscles and pressure on the intestines because of the larger size of uterus.

Relaxing the intestinal muscles can slow down the movement of food and wastages through your systems, leading to constipation.

Iron supplements can also cause constipation. If you are taking iron supplements, ensure that you drink more and more water.

Preventing constipation during pregnancy:

Here are few tips that help in preventing constipation from occurring.

1. Consume the diet rich in fiber

You will get 25-30 grams of fiber per day, if you consume vegetables, fruits, whole grain bread, and breakfast cereals.

2. Drink plenty of water

Undiagnosed infections may be causing a significant number of premature births, researchers reported on Monday after finding bacteria or fungi in 15 percent of the amniotic fluid samples taken from women in pre-term labor.

The heavier the infection, the more likely the women were to deliver younger, sicker infants, the team at Stanford University in California found.

“If we could prevent these infections in the first place, or detect them sooner, we might one day be able to prevent some of these premature births,” Dr. Dan DiGiulio, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

More and more children are being born prematurely in the United States, with 12 percent of births coming before the 37th week of gestation. Premature babies are vulnerable to breathing problems, underdeveloped organs, infections and cerebral palsy.

DiGiulio’s team looked for the DNA of germs in amniotic fluid samples collected from 166 women in pre-term labor at the Detroit Medical Center between October 1998 and December 2002.

They used this method and standard laboratory cultures to determine that 25 of the 166 samples were infected with either bacteria or fungi. They also found at least one unknown organism that could be a new species.

During pregnancy, muscle pain and back ache are very problematic and they can be more than just a nuisance.

The pregnancy weight gain of 25-35 pounds along with the increased stress on your body caused by your baby can sometimes lead to severe discomfort.

Studies showed that almost half of the pregnant women will experience low back pain at some point during their pregnancy.

As your baby grows in size, your weight is even increased and the curvature of your lower back is increased thus placing additional stress on your spinal discs at that area.

Due to this, the spine in your upper back area must compensate so that the normal curvature of your upper spine increases.

In order to come out of these problems, pregnancy hormones are released, which help to loose the ligaments attached to your pelvic bones. Also, there are some complementary therapies, which greatly help to combat from back pain. Among those, chiropractic is one good therapy.

Benefits of chiropractic care during pregnancy:

This complementary therapy is a good alternative to over-the-counter drugs and also prescription drugs for severe back pain.

Pregnant women who endure the psychological stress of being in a war zone are more likely to give birth to a child who develops schizophrenia.

Research published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry supports a growing body of literature that attributes maternal exposure to severe stress during the early months of pregnancy to an increased susceptibility to schizophrenia in the offspring.

According to lead author Dolores Malaspina M.D., M.Sc.P.H., Anita Steckler and Joseph Steckler Professor of Psychiatry at the NYU School of Medicine, “The stresses in question are those that would be experienced in a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, a terrorist attack, or a sudden bereavement”.

Data from 88,829 people, born in Jerusalem from 1964 to 1976, were collected from the Jerusalem Perinatal Study that linked birth records to Israel’s Psychiatric Registry.

The NYU authors discovered that the offspring of women who were in their second month of pregnancy during the height of the Arab-Israeli war in June of 1967 displayed a significantly higher incidence of schizophrenia over the following 21-33 years.

The study also showed that the pattern was gender-specific, affecting females more than males.

Some radical changes take place during this week. Two reasons are there behind this, one is there are actually faster changes during this period and the second is now the changes are more noticeable.

As time progresses, there is considerable increase in the height. As your baby’s legs are developed and straightened up, your doctor can measure the fetal growth from head to toe but not from crown to rump.

Along with these, you will observe some more changes in you and your baby’s body during pregnancy week 19.

What are the physical changes that occur in your body during pregnancy week 19?

During this time, pregnancy exercise is the most important thing that you need to concentrate on. Most of the physicians recommend you to start the pregnancy-friendly exercise regimen for healthy development of you and your baby.

Walking, yoga [Pregnancy Yoga], and small weight training are the good ones for your heart and overall stamina during this physically challenging time. Regular exercise practice can greatly help you to increase the overall flexibility so that you will experience less tension and pain at the time of labor. Also, regular workout practice helps you to stay away from unnecessary weight gain.

Birth control patch is a type of hormonal method of birth control, which is only obtained with prescription.

In this birth control option, a thin plastic patch of length 1¾ inch square is directly placed on your skin.

This method works with the hormones that are absorbed from the patch into your system.

This patch can prevent to become pregnant by using any one of the three below mentioned methods:

• First, the patch prevents the production of eggs from the ovaries
• Second, the patch makes the cervical mucus to become thick to prevent your partner’s sperm from reaching the egg.
• Third, the patch changes the lining of the uterus to prevent implantation.

Usage of birth control patch:

Only, you need to use the birth control patch with the suggestion of your health care provider. You can use the patch for one week at a time. You can place the patch on the skin of your buttocks, upper arm, stomach, or upper torso.

You need to replace the patch for every week and each week on the same day for three weeks. Remove it on fourth week in order to allow the menstrual cycle.

Alcohol use during the teen years can not only lead to subsequent alcohol problems, it can also lead to risky sexual behavior and a greater risk of early childbearing.

An examination of the relationship between a lifetime history of alcohol dependence (AD) and timing of first childbirth across reproductive development has found that AD in women is associated with delayed reproduction.

“Reproductive dysfunctions include a range of menstrual disorders, sexual dysfunctions, and pregnancy complications that include spontaneous abortion or miscarriage,” explained Mary Waldron, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine and corresponding author for the study.

“Teenagers who drink tend to have disruptions in their menstrual cycle as well as unplanned pregnancies.”

These complications may become more pronounced with time, added Sharon C. Wilsnack, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor in the department of clinical neuroscience at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences.

“Higher rates of reproductive dysfunction in adult women may reflect the cumulative effects of longer exposure to alcohol for older women than for female adolescents,” she said.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine alcohol’s effects on reproductive onset across reproductive development,” said Waldron. “Most previous research has examined risks to teens or adults but not both.

VBAC stands for vaginal birth after cesarean and it is the process of delivering a baby vaginally after a previous baby has been delivered through cesarean section.

But, we can not successfully predict which women can deliver vaginally and which women will end up with a repeated cesarean section.

Totally, 60-80% of the women who attempted the VBAC can deliver the baby vaginally.

Eligible criteria to undergo VBAC:

• Previously, if you only had one cesarean section and performed only with low transverse incision, then the risk of uterine rupture is very low i.e. 0.2-1.5%. If you have had more than one cesarean delivery and incision is done in your upper uterus and it was vertical, then you are at an increased risk of uterine rupture.
• Your pelvis should be large enough to allow the baby to pass through safely.
• In the past, you never had any other uterine surgeries like myomectomy to remove the fibroids.
• If you have never experienced any uterine rupture.
• If you do not have any obstetric or medical condition that can make your vaginal delivery risky.
• If you do not have any uterine scars or anomalies.