Pregnancy •

Exercise Leads To Healthier Mothers And Children

July 10, 2016 By Deborah Cobing Leave a Comment

New Research Shows That Moderate Exercise Is Very Healthy For Pregnant Women

Moderate exercise has a number of benefits for them and their children.

STATES CHRONICLE – Several decades ago, medical specialists believed that any amount of exercise during pregnancy was quite unhealthy for women. Norepinephrine is a hormone which is released during activities such as physical workouts. The hormone may lead to contractions, which in turn may lead to a preterm birth.

After the second half of the eighties, doctors started to timidly advise and encourage some light amount of daily exercise. The research was pointing towards safe pregnancies even with light workouts and doctors were eager to reinforce the healthy lifestyle.

Doctors of this generation have established that moderate exercise is not just fine when it comes to pregnancies, it is actually the much healthier choice.

It is definitely worth noting that the research results apply in cases where a mother is pregnant with only one child. In the case of twins, triplets, or more, doctors will recommend any lack of overexertion.

The newest research puts emphasis on the fact that moderate workouts will not lead to a preterm birth if the mother is healthy.

The Benefits of Moderate Exercise

Moderate exercise on average led to halving the base risk of gestational diabetes. During pregnancy, most women have about a 5.9 percent chance of developing gestational diabetes but with moderate workouts, the risk falls to 2.4 percent.

Hypertension is also another condition which can be avoided with moderate exercise. Regularly, 5.1 percent of all pregnant women have a high risk of hypertension. When exercise is brought into the equation, the chance of hypertension drops to 1.9 percent.

Lastly, the most important benefit of moderate exercise during pregnancy appears to be the decrease in the chance that during delivery, the mother would require a C-section.

C-sections have been proven to not be healthy for the child. However, the number of unnecessary C-sections in the United States has been slowly but constantly growing for half a century.

A C-section brings with it the mother’s risks of placental issues with future pregnancies, infection, or blood clots. Statistics have also shown that children born via C-section have a much higher chance to have type 1 diabetes, to suffer from morbid obesity, to have asthma, or to be more vulnerable to allergies.

Moderate exercise is defined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity.

Image Courtesy of Pixabay.

Stress Before Pregnancy Can Affect the Baby

March 23, 2016 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Being stressed even before getting pregnant could lead to your baby having a low weight

STATES CHRONICLE – Although most recommendations are given to women who are already pregnant and they are advised to lead a healthy life and have a balanced diet so that their baby will be healthy, it turns out that women need to be careful even before getting pregnant.

According to a new study, being stressed out before pregnancy could increase the risk of birthing a low weight baby. In most people, stress hormone cortisol levels are usually high in the morning and decline through the day. However, there are people who present an abnormal pattern, having a low cortisol level in the morning which fails to decline normally during the day.

This pattern has been linked to several diseases including cancer and artery issues. A new study suggests that the abnormal cortisol levels could also be linked to the weight of the baby. In the study participated 142 pregnant women from several cities in our country.

The researchers assessed the subjects’ stress levels by analyzing their blood pressure, cortisol levels and body mass index. Putting together all data, they found that the cortisol pattern of the mother can affect the baby’s birth weight.

What happens is that the levels of cortisol can lower the blood flow to the fetus which reduces oxygen and nutrients, so the fetus has a difficult time developing properly. According to data, 300,000 babies with low birth weights are born in the U.S. every year. Having a low weight and not being properly developed, means the babies have a higher risk of developing health problems.

This is why it is recommended that women who are planning to get pregnant should evaluate their stress levels and reduce them if necessary. If it is the case, they should treat depression, make sure they have family and friends support and that they’re in a healthy relationship. Physical activity should also become part of their lives as it has been proven that exercising can reduce stress levels.

In this way, women will have a healthy lifestyle which will be good both for their body and for their mind, and most importantly it will prove to be good for their future baby.

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Average Age for New Mothers Is Higher

January 17, 2016 By Sebastian Mc’Mannen Leave a Comment

The average American woman has her first child at the age of 26.

STATES CHRONICLE – Latest statistics show that the average age for new mothers is higher than it has ever been. It seems that American women have their first child around the age of 26. The average age is considerably higher than it was 40 years ago.

T.J. Mathews, a representative of the CDC, declared that the spike in the average age of first-time mothers is due largely to the impressive drop in teen pregnancies. But older women who decide to have their first child contributed too.

There are lots of programs in the present in America that are meant to educate young women about the risks of teen pregnancy and the ways in which a young woman can get pregnant. Thanks to this educational efforts, the rate of young adult women that are with child lowered considerably.

The American government started to track the age of women that are pregnant for the first time in the 1970’s when the average age of conception was 21. Ever since then, the numbers only climbed higher and higher. But sexual education isn’t the only factor, another important cause for this high rates is the busy lifestyle that modern women have.

The idea of a picket white fence and, at least, two children has been replaced with the desire of becoming a team manager, or CEO, or another time consuming leading position. Women have become more business oriented, the fight to equal rights leading them towards a busy life in which children are not a priority until much later on. This is not a bad thing at all, but it contributed to the fact that the average age for new mothers is higher than ever.

Mathews also says that after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 the average age increased by a few units in just a year or so. It seems that the optimization of birth control methods was also a decisive factor in the average age’s increased levels.

Since the 2000’s, it seems that the most impressive rise was recorded among African American women and West Coast mothers. The increase measured a few units in only a couple of years.

The highest values are recorded in the big cities, Colombia has an average of 29, and New York and Connecticut an approximate of 28.

While there is nothing wrong with following your career before thinking about having a child, or waiting for the perfect man to do it with, doctors advise women that are pushing 30 and are thinking about their first child to be extra careful in the process because at this age the pregnancies start to get tricky and complications can appear more often.

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Older mothers’ longevity might be higher comparing to younger mothers

June 26, 2014 By Deborah Cobing Leave a Comment

The women’s age when they give birth is a constant research focus in relevant research community. It did, however, prove to be leading toward a mainstream conclusion: bearing children while older is often accompanied by several problems, be it a higher risk of autism development or the occurrence of birth defects. Other studies found the opposite, as researchers discovered lower rates of brain and kidney defects at older mothers’ infants. Now there are new findings suggesting that older mothers’ longevity is significantly higher than for women who give birth earlier in life.

Older mother’s longevity – research findings

Boston University Medical Center released data which, according to Science Daily, translate into the good news that women giving birth at an older age are prone to live longer. The study focused on women who had family members living exceptionally long lives. The Long Life Family Study comprises an impressive sample of 551 families. The main conclusion is that mothers giving birth to the last child after the age of 33 had their odds of living up to 95 years doubled, a remarkable improvement for older mother’s longevity.

The study aims at identifying genetic influences on the age length. The follow-up question is how do the socio-economic conditions of mothers bearing children at older age? It appears that both the mother’s education and income levels influence both the mother’s and the infant’s health and overall wellbeing. More educated mothers tend to bear children at older ages, thus skewing the overall statistics on mothers’ ages and health issues. Keeping in mind the fact that pregnancy is a strong candidate for gender discrimination at employment, a women who gives birth at 35 will have had by then enough time to get education and job promotions. In the end, when you look deeper into the topic of older mothers’ longevity, it appears that poverty is the main reason behind teen pregnancy. There are several explanations for it. The strongest reasoning appeals to the poor women’s range of choices: not getting a full education and, subsequently, not getting a (well paid) job can lead to having children at younger age. But the direct correlation between them does not seem to be fully understood, explanations being often ended with vague conclusions such as ‘cultural norm’.

The “Extended maternal age at birth of last child and women’s longevity in the Long Life Family Study” will be published in January 2015. It will be a proper moment to reassess the conclusions regarding older mothers’ longevity in the face of a complete scientific argument.

Aspirin Helps Women with Recent Pregnancy Loss Conceive

April 11, 2014 By Deborah Cobing Leave a Comment

We’ve always known that aspirin was a magic drug and that it can help us in various ways, such as improve colon cancer survival, as a new study suggests, but it appears that aspirin is really pulling its weight these days and it can actually help women with recent pregnancy loss conceive. That sounds a bit too good to be true, we know, but read on and see for yourself.

A recent study, published in the online general medical journal The Lancet, discovered that a daily dose of aspirin increases the chances of conceiving a child and delivering that child to term in women who have suffered a recent pregnancy loss.

Aspirin and Women with Recent Pregnancy Loss

Many doctors prescribe low dose aspirin to women with recent pregnancy loss and who want to conceive again, but up until now, there was no proof that this practice actually works. Now, a study lead by doctor Enrique Schisterman (chief of the Edipemiology Branch in Bethesda) carried out a comprehensive study (the largest of its kind) on 1,000 women with a history of miscarriage. He divided the women in two groups, a placebo and an aspirin group.

The aspirin group took folic acid and a low dose of aspirin (81 mg) every day and the placebo group took the same folic acid and a dummy pill. The folic acid is recommended to all women who plan to conceive, as it reduces the risk of giving birth to children with neural tube defects (which affect the spine and the brain).

The women were closely monitored for up to six menstrual cycles; during this time, the women were trying to get pregnant. The ones that got pregnant stopped taking the aspirin at around 35 weeks.

The results of the study were: 13% of the women who took the aspirin and got pregnant had another miscarriage, compared to 12% who took the placebo pills. 58% of the women who took the aspirin got pregnant and carried the child to term, compared to 53% of the women who took the placebo drug.

Those results aren’t amazing at all, as aspirin did almost nothing to reduce pregnancy losses. There’s a catch, though; after careful analysis of the data, the researchers discovered that women who experienced only one recent miscarriage had a higher rate of pregnancy and carrying the child to term while they were taking the aspirin. Here is where the statistics are amazing: 78% of the aspirin group and while 66% of the placebo group conceived, and 62% of the women who took aspirin went on to have live births, while only 53% of the women who took the placebo.

Why is aspirin so good? Because it increases the blood flow to the uterus; more studies are needed to decide if aspirin helps improve fertility.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you taking aspirin? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.

New Study Shows that Light Drinking in Early Pregnancy Raises the Risk of Small or Preterm Baby

March 12, 2014 By James Faulkner Leave a Comment

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom, have discovered that light drinking in early pregnancy raises the risk of preterm baby, even if mothers to be keep within two units per week (which is the government recommended limit).

We’ve discussed about the dangers of binge drinking and the risks of delivering an underweight baby, but this new study changes things. Up until now pregnant women we advised to keep their alcohol consumption to a minimum or to avoid it altogether. The study was published in the BMJ Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and it concluded that drinking alcohol in the weeks following conception not only leads up to bringing a preterm baby into the world, but is also linked to smaller fetal growth.

Light Drinking in Early Pregnancy – How Bad Is It?

Before this study, there was one certainty: the consumption of large quantities of alcohol would cause the fetus to develop FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome), a syndrome that affects the child’s intellect and physical traits. But there was always the question about light drinking in early pregnancy.

While some doctors believed that two units of alcohol per week do not affect the fetus, other studies reinforced the idea that there is no safe limit for alcohol consumption during pregnancy. For example, the CDC (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends that pregnant women should refrain from consuming alcohol during pregnancy while the UK’s Department of Health believe that pregnancy women should stick to one or two units of alcohol per week (one beer or a medium glass of wine, two times a week).

This new study discovered that over two units of alcohol per week increases the chances of delivering preterm of small babies. Almost 1,500 pregnant British women were assessed for the study with ages between 18 and 25. When the babies were born, 13% were underweight, almost 5% were smaller than the norm and 4.3% were preterm. During pregnancy, the average intake of alcohol for the women in this study was 11 units of alcohol per week in the first trimester of pregnancy.

What are your thoughts on light drinking in early pregnancy? Do you think that pregnant women should refrain from consuming alcohol or should stick to the recommended two units per week?

8 months pregnant woman sparks fury with her weightlifting images on Facebook

September 21, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

35-year-old Lea-Ann Ellison, who is expecting her third child and is just two weeks behind her due date, ignited a storm on the social networking sites after she posted her pictures in CrossFit poses with her heavy baby bump.

The shocking yet amazing pictures of Ellison stirred sharp reactions from across the globe with huge debates between people who were outraged that a woman in her third trimester would be exercising so intensely, and those who celebrated her healthy lifestyle and encouraged her to keep it up.

The picture has been shared 2780 times since it was uploaded on September 16. It has 16,685 likes, and counting. And more than 1500 Facebook users have commented below it.

Reactions

“Sure you look and sound cool, but we’re only human…why would you risk hurting your baby just to stay in shape.”

“If anything happens to your baby due to your stupidity, I hope you’ll be able to handle your guilt. Pregnancy is NOT the time to be taking stupid risks.”

“You may have mastered the squat but need to work on motherhood ..8 months doing an overhead squat really??!!!”

“I’m 6 months pregnant with triplets and am still CrossFitting as much as I can! I coached as well as participated in CrossFit classes through my whole first pregnancy, too! My doctors- the specialists included- totally support it.”

Meanwhile, Ellison said that she had no idea the pictures would create such a storm and she’s baffled by all the media attention over the past week.

“I want to thank everyone for their kind and supportive responses! Haters will hate and it’s OK. My life is not their life thank goodness! Lol! Again, thank you! It means so much to feel this much love from a community I adore,” she posted on Facebook.

Milk consumption by pregnant mothers linked to kids growth in teenage

September 6, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Milk has numerous benefits. And when it comes to pregnant ladies and kids, milk can do wonders for improving their health.

A new study has found that consuming milk during pregnancy benefits children well into their early adulthood. It helps the children gain better height than those whose mothers did not take it adequately.

So far studies only supported the fact that milk benefits little kids and help them in gaining weight and growing taller. But the new study directly links pregnant mothers’ milk consumption to their babies when in womb.

The study has said children born to women who drank milk during pregnancy are more likely to be tall in their teenage.

The study showed teenagers of both genders were generally taller if their mothers took more than 150 millilitres – roughly a quarter of a pint of milk – a day during the pregnancy, compared to children born to women who drank less than that quantity.

Study

A team of scientists tracked babies born in the late ’80s and found that their height during adolescence was directly related to how much milk their mothers consumed when they were in the womb.

Nutrition experts from Iceland, Denmark and the US wanted to examine if the benefits seen in the early stages of life from milk were extended into later years.

They tracked babies born to 809 women in Denmark in 1988 and 1989 by monitoring how much milk the women had consumed during pregnancy. The babies were measured for weight and birth length and then followed up again almost 20 years later.

The study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Pregnancy and the Unbelievable Changes in the Body for Expecting Moms

August 26, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Are you expecting a child and witnessing a slew of changes in your body as the time progresses. Changes are obvious as you have a completely new life inside you. As the time progresses, women’s bodies undergo a slew of unbelievable changes. Often, the expecting mothers get hung up on the negative symptoms and with good reason. The unrelenting nausea, excruciating heartburn and all-time fatigue make you feel irritated.

Hard to believe, but women’s bodies do incredibly mind-blowing things as the embryo develops in the womb. Here are some of the amazing things that can happen to women’s bodies during pregnancy. Notably, it is not necessarily same for two pregnant ladies as the changes are tend to differ depending upon your body.

You Grow An Entire Organ

During pregnancy, women’s bodies grow a whole new organ, i.e., the placenta — a structure that develops in the uterus and provides oxygen and nutrients to your baby. It, moreover, plays a key role in waste removal from your womb.

You Actually Glow

If you find yourself looking beautiful and your skin glowy, it’s not just because you’re brimming with I’m-about-to-become-a-mom sentiment; there’s also a physiological basis for it. The aforementioned increase in circulation that occurs during pregnancy causes many women’s faces to appear brighter, or flushed.

You Stop Shedding Your Hair

This is the best news for every woman. During pregnancy you stop shedding hair at its normal rate. During pregnancy, higher estrogen levels extend that growth phase, meaning you lose less hair and may suddenly find yourself with a gloriously thick ponytail.

You Loosen Up

More specifically, as you move through your pregnancy, hormones (especially the aptly named “relaxin”) help soften the ligaments that hold your bones together and the pelvic bones themselves begin moving to accommodate your baby’s birth. Sometimes, this can cause a bit of pain and discomfort (if it’s severe enough, you should see your doctor), although as What To Expect reports, once your baby is born, your joints will firm up again.

You Breathe Differently

It’s not uncommon for pregnant women to feel short of breath, particularly in the later stage of the pregnancy when the uterus grows and begins to press on the diaphragm. But breathing also changes because of the high levels of the hormone progesterone in your body signal your brain to lower the levels of carbon dioxide in the blood.

Your Blood Volume Doubles

During pregnancy, the volume of blood in a woman’s body increases by a whopping 50 percent in order to help support the uterus.

You Become Particularly Orgasmic

The increased blood flow to a woman’s genitals and rise in the numbers of hormones that influences sexual desire increase sexual sensitivity, allowing many women to orgasm more easily.