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Pregnancy Tips : How to Tell You Are Pregnant

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Pregnancy Tips : How to Tell You Are Pregnant

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Pregnancy (latin “graviditas”) is the carrying of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the uterus of a female. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets. Human pregnancy is the most studied of all mammalian pregnancies. Obstetrics is the surgical field that studies and cares for high risk pregnancy. Midwifery is the non-surgical field that cares for pregnancy and pregnant women.

Childbirth usually occurs about 38 weeks after conception; i.e., approximately 40 weeks from the last normal menstrual period (LNMP) in humans. The World Health Organization defines normal term for delivery as between 37 weeks and 42 weeks. The calculation of this date involves the assumption of a regular 28-day period.

The best way to determine if a woman is pregnant is by having her blood tested, or she can take a home pregnancy test and look for first trimester symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, fatigue, headache and hormonal changes. Wait a week after a missed menstrual period to take a pregnancy test with help from a labor and delivery nurse in this free video on pregnancy and obstetrics.

Nutrition

A balanced, nutritious diet is an important aspect of a healthy pregnancy. Eating a healthy diet, balancing carbohydrates, fat, and proteins, and eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, usually ensures good nutrition. Those whose diets are affected by health issues, religious requirements, or ethical beliefs may choose to consult a health professional for specific advice.

Adequate periconceptional folic acid (also called folate or Vitamin B9) intake has been proven to limit fetal neural tube defects, preventing spina bifida, a very serious birth defect. The neural tube develops during the first 28 days of pregnancy, explaining the necessity to guarantee adequate periconceptional folate intake.Folates (from folia, leaf) are abundant in spinach (fresh, frozen, or canned), and are also found in green vegetables, salads, citrus fruit and melon, chickpeas (i.e. in the form of hummus or falafel), and eggs. In the United States and Canada, most wheat products (flour, noodles) are fortified with folic acid.

Weight gain

Caloric intake must be increased, to ensure proper development of the fetus. The amount of weight gained during pregnancy varies among women. The National Health Service recommends that overall weight gain during the 9 month period for women who start pregnancy with normal weight be 10 to 12 kilograms (22–26 lb). During pregnancy, insufficient weight gain can compromise the health of the fetus. Women with fears of weight gain or with eating disorders may choose to work with a health professional, to ensure that pregnancy does not trigger disordered eating. Likewise, excessive weight gain can pose risks to the woman and the fetus. Women who are prone to being overweight may choose to plan a healthy diet and exercise to help moderate the amount of weight gained.

Immune tolerance

The fetus inside a mother may be viewed as an unusually successful allograft, since it genetically differs from the mother. In the same way, many cases of spontaneous abortion may be described in the same way as maternal transplant rejection.

There is substantial evidence for exposure to partner’s semen as prevention for pre-eclampsia, largely due to the absorption of several immune modulating factors present in seminal fluid.

Drugs in pregnancy

Drugs used during pregnancy can have temporary or permanent effects on the fetus. Therefore many physicians would prefer not to prescribe for pregnant women, the major concern being over teratogenicity of the drugs. This results in inappropriate treatment of pregnant women. Use of drugs in pregnancy is not always wrong. For example, high fever is harmful for the fetus in the early months. Use of paracetamol is better than no treatment at all. Also, diabetes mellitus during pregnancy may need intensive therapy with insulin. Drugs have been classified into categories A,B,C,D and X based on the Food and Drug Administration(FDA) rating system to provide therapeutic guidance based on potential benefits and fetal risks. Drugs like multivitamins that have demonstrated no fetal risks after controlled studies in humans are classified as Category A. On the other hand drugs like thalidomide with proven fetal risks that outweigh all benefits are classified as Category X

Advice:

When you take your gestational diabetes test (around 24-28 weeks) cut back on your sugar/ carbs/ and fruit for like 3-5 days before.  It will help get a more accurate reading and not a false positive- kwim? b/c going back for longer- when you shouldn’t have to sucks lol

Maybe check for anemia- BEFORE you are so far along??? They wait until about 3rd tri and I have a feeling I was before that- b/c I feel better on my supplements.  Its not worth that feeling if I would have known.  1/3 of preggies are- so you might as well check sooner OR eat more Iron so its not a problem!

IF you have to take an Iron supplement- my Dr. recommends the brand “Slow- Fee” You can get it over the counter at any store- even Target.  It release slower in your body and you don’t get the side affects.  I like it much more then others I have taken in the past.  Dont’ take 2 hours before or after you had Calcium.  It also helps to take with Vitamin C so it gets absorbed better.  This goes for taking Iron as in food too- your body absorbs Iron better without Calcium and caffine- which can block absorbtion. . .  Iron is important for you and baby.

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More women choose do-it-yourself births

12Jennifer Margulis, 40, of Ashland, Ore., delivered  daughter Leone Francesca at home Nov. 4 without medical help. More women are opting for unattended births.

More women choose do-it-yourself births

A growing number are having babies at home without medical help

Jennifer Margulis thinks birth should be a private party — no doctors or midwives invited. So when her daughter Leone Francesca was born at home last month, only Margulis and her husband, James, were in attendance.

“My husband and I were the only ones there when she was conceived,” says the 40-year-old writer from Ashland, Ore. “I thought we should be the only ones there when she was born.”

Margulis is part of a very small but growing number of women who are choosing to deliver their babies at home without the presence of health professionals. Some choose to have a husband or another family member help, while others opt to deliver their babies completely on their own.

The number of home births unattended by either a doctor or a midwife jumped by nearly 10 percent between 2004 and 2006, climbing from 7,607 unassisted births to 8,347 births, according to most recent figures from the National Center for Health Statistics. About 60 percent of the nearly 25,000 home births logged in 2006 were attended by midwives, a figure that experts expect will also rise.

While do-it-yourself deliveries are still uncommon, many doctors and midwives consider them dangerous. Risks can range from hemorrhage in the mother to problems with the baby’s oxygen supply during delivery.

“Most births are not complicated but when something goes wrong, everything happens very quickly and things can go downhill very fast,” says Donna Strobino, a professor and deputy chair in the department of maternal and child health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“If you look at data from developing countries where unattended births are more common, you see a higher rate of infant and maternal mortality with unattended births than with hospital births.”

Even among healthy women with no clear risk factors, life-threatening complications can arise suddenly, says Dr. Hyagriv Simhan, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and chief of maternal-fetal medicine at the Magee-Womens Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “There are lots of women who experience unpredictable bad events,” Simhan says.

Shauna Schoenborn, a stay-at-home mom from Imperial, Mo., and other advocates of unassisted birth aren’t swayed by doctors’ warnings. To them, pregnancy and delivery are natural processes that the medical establishment has turned into disease that must be managed.

After giving birth to her first baby in the hospital, Schoenborn, 31, chose to have her next four children at home — by herself. Although her husband was in the house during the births, he didn’t help with the deliveries.

“My hospital births were very managed,” says Schoenborn. “I wanted privacy and to be free of internal exams. I wanted to give birth in an upright position and they want you to lie down. I feel birth is an instinctive process and in the hospital they treat women like they’re broken and birth like an illness.”

‘I know my body’
Schoenborn also chose not to have prenatal care from a medical professional. That meant no internal exams and no ultrasounds to check for twins and fetal development. “I would know if I was carrying twins,” Schoenborn says. “I know my body.”

For Margulis, the biggest problem in the hospital — and even at home with a midwife — was interference with “normal” labor. When a pregnant woman enters the hospital, Margulis says, she’s signing on for a host of unnecessary interventions, including multiple internal exams, a greatly increased likelihood of receiving the drug oxytocin to speed delivery and also of a Caesarean section.

Margulis’ first baby was born in a hospital and the next two were at home with a midwife. Margulis wasn’t happy with either experience and decided she wanted more control over the process.

After researching the do-it-yourself option, she felt assured the birth process is “safer than taking a shower.”

Margulis cited a recent Canadian study that found giving birth at home with a midwife was about as safe for babies and moms as in a hospital, with the rate of newborn deaths about two per 1,000 for planned home births. The rate of C-sections was a few percentage points higher in hospitals.

However, the women in the studies were very healthy, had no risk factors, and had small-sized babies, says Dr. Harish M. Sehdev, an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and director of labor and delivery at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Hospitals generally have much higher C-section rates because they treat a variety of new moms, including those who are overweight, have big babies and have lots of risk factors like diabetes and high blood pressure.

In addition, one in 20 women who had chosen to give birth at home ended up delivering in the hospital. “And those were the low-risk women,” Sehdev adds.

More important, says midwife Pamela Kane, Margulis is “comparing apples and oranges.” The studies cited by Margulis are looking at home births with midwives present, not unattended births, which are more risky because you don’t have a trained professional nearby who can spot the early warning signs of a serious problem, says Kane, a certified nurse midwife at Pennsylvania Hospital.

And while women like Margulis and Schoenborn may not like being put on a birthing schedule, experts say there are reasons doctors choose to intervene with oxytocin or a C-section if the labor isn’t progressing fast enough. Among them is the risk of damage to the musculature of the pelvic floor if women strain too long, says Sehdev.

When those muscles are damaged, it weakens the moorings that hold the uterus, the bladder and the bowels in place. The impact of that may not be seen till women hit their 50s and 60s, when the organs can unexpectedly drop down into the vaginal canal.

The choices women make might change if they saw the catastrophes that nobody likes to talk about, says Sehdev. “I’ve known women who lost their babies because the baby got stuck and they couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough,” he explains.

Those realities have affected the way Augustine Colebrook looks at unattended births. Colebrook had three children on her own before going back to school to become a midwife so that she could help with births herself.

“I struggle with myself wondering if I would have another kid unattended, after being a midwife for almost 10 years,” says the 33-year-old from Ashland, Ore., who consulted with Margulis during pregnancy. “I think I probably would — it was a life-changing experience. But I’m not sure.”

Margulis, however, says she finally experienced the kind of birth she wanted.

“It was absolutely incredible, a totally empowering experience,” she said. “When you give birth by yourself, you realize how powerful and strong your body is.”

Linda Carroll is a health and science writer living in New Jersey. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Newsday, Health magazine and SmartMoney.

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