Pregnancy / Birth

By Robin Elise Weiss, LCCE, About.com Guide

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Do you pee on a stick or in a cup?

Wednesday February 15, 2012

Woman on Toilet

With few exceptions, most pregnancy tests allow you to pee on a stick directly. This is great, if you're a man. Aiming a stream of urine as a female is much harder. And then there is the ominous warning to not pee on the test window. It totally freaks me out.

There is the second option, pee in a cup and dip the test stick. A few, very few, pregnancy tests come with tiny little cups to collect urine for the testing process. The small cups present their own challenges, but have the benefit of not contaminating the test. The bigger question is can you pee in the cup and not on your hand?

Enter the disposable cup that is big enough to catch the urine and small enough to fit in the toilet. This makes me want to write my own country song about the Red Solo Cup. It large, it's pee-proof, and it does the job.

What's your take on this dilemma? Are you a pee on a stick or in a cup kind of gal when it comes to pregnancy tests?

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Free Newborn Screening Webinar Today

Tuesday February 14, 2012

30 Week Heart Ultrasound

About 1 in every 125 babies born has congenital heart disease (CHD). Many of these are not known prior to birth and some are not known until later in life, sometimes, only after a tragedy has happened. The problem is that you can't just look at a baby and know if they have congenital heart disease.

Today there will be a free webinar to talk about how pulse oximetry screening can be helpful in finding babies who have congenital heart disease at birth. It starts at 3:30 p.m. ET and is designed for moms, dads, and birth professionals who want to learn more about Pulse Ox testing. It's hosted by Cora's Story and James's Project. Register here.

February 7-14 is Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Week, won't you honor CHD babies everywhere by learning about what this is and what you can do to help protect little ones?

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Baby Shower Videos

Sunday February 12, 2012

Baby at birth series

Nothing says fun like a well planned baby shower. I love the food, the games (Yes, the games.) and just hanging out with my friends and family. I'm pleased to bring you two new videos on baby showers:

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Biceps Curl for Pregnancy

Friday February 10, 2012

Biceps Curl in Pregnancy

What you don't always realize in pregnancy is that your biceps will be very important once the baby is born. Lifting and carrying, even a normal sized newborn puts your arms through a serious work out. This exercise can be done very easily and help you prepare for all of the changes that a newborn will bring to your arms.

How do you exercise your arms?

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Valentine's Day Baby Names

Friday February 10, 2012

Valentines Day Baby

So you're due any day and you realized that Valentine's Day is around the corner. Are you going to choose a Valentine's Day inspired baby name? It might surprise you that many people actually do choose names for their baby based on what happens near the time or birth or even the conception, so why not choose a holiday inspired baby name?

If that's not the naming tradition you use, tell me a bit about how you choose a name. I find it so interesting. I know so many people who pick names out way in advance and yet our last baby took three weeks to get named...

Then again, I know that there are others out there who take a really long time to name their babies. I was just reading somewhere the other day about people who change their baby's name after birth and that number was rising. I wonder if people took more time or if they didn't name before birth if that number would drop. Most places don't require you have a name before you leave the hospital, though it's easier on them paperwork wise.

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Epidural Related Fever in Labor Associated with Problems in Babies

Wednesday February 8, 2012

Epidural

While it has long been known that an epidural in labor increases the risk of fever (>100.4 degrees Fahrenheit), a new study in the Journal Pediatrics shows that this fever is associated with problems with the newborn. With this study 19% of mothers who had an epidural for pain relief in labor had a fever, whereas only about 2% of mothers who chose to go natural had a fever in labor. (This is after controlling for known disease, infection and problems with the baby, including preterm birth.)

The researchers looked for and measured the following problems with the newborns:

low muscle tone (hypotonia)
low Apgar scores (1 and 5 minutes)
assisted breathing after birth
early onset neonatal seizures

The researchers found that these outcomes were two to six times more likely with maternal fever in labor. The likelihood of problems was increased with an increase in the actual fever, so the higher the fever, the more likely the problems were. Other studies have indicated that maternal fever is more likely the longer you have an epidural.

So for mothers who are on the fence about epidurals, this might help you decide that you want to forego the epidural. Though if you have already decided that you'd like to use an epidural perhaps what you can think about is how to delay the epidural as long as possible, which would reduce the risk of fever and therefore fever related problems with the baby.

What are your thoughts on the topic?

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_Source:
_{Greenwell, E. A., Wyshak, G., Ringer, S. A., Johnson, L. C., Rivkin, M. J., & Lieberman, E. (2012). Intrapartum Temperature Elevation, Epidural Use, and Adverse Outcome in Term Infants. Pediatrics, 129(2), e447-e454. doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-2301}

Things Not to Say When Mom Has Morning Sickness

Tuesday February 7, 2012

So having morning sickness seems to be what most women expect in pregnancy. That said, I don't think you can really get what it's like to have morning sickness. Sure, we've all thrown up. We've all experienced feeling sick to our stomachs, perhaps even for a few days at a time with some stray illness. None of it is like morning sickness, none of it.

That said, people want to help. The problem is, what can they really do? While the answer to how to help might differ from woman to woman, what NOT to do is fairly obvious. Have you heard any of these things in your pregnancy? What's the worst thing someone has said to you while experiencing morning sickness?

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Valentine's Day and Pregnant Sex

Monday February 6, 2012

Pregnant Couple in Bed

Happy Valentine's Day! Hopefully you have something special planned with the one you love. But after the fancy dinners, dancing, and chocolates, you might feel like being physically amorous. Yes, you can do that! Don't worry, there are very few reasons that you should avoid sex, in fact the most common reason that you should avoid sex in pregnancy is that you don't want to have sex. But if you and your partner are in the mood and haven't been told to avoid sex - enjoy yourselves!

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Cat Pose

Friday February 3, 2012

Cat Pose in Pregnancy

This simple yoga pose/exercise can really help ease back pain in pregnancy as well as a bunch of other issues, it's called Cat Pose. Have you tried it? You'll love it - try it tonight.

More Fitness Friday:

Color Names for Baby

Wednesday February 1, 2012

Newborn Baby

Beyonce and JayZ are not the first parents to choose a baby name that is a color, but baby Blue Ivy might be one of the most recent ones to be well known. Using names that have to do with colors is a fairly old practice. In fact, some of the "oldest" names I can think of are colors, like Rose. I also think of names that have to do with coloring, like names that mean things like fair haired (Xanthe).

I started thinking of this when someone shared that she named her kids after shades of her favorite color. So it wouldn't be obvious to the average person that her kids' names all had something in common, but it made her happy. Would you name your child a color name? What color and why?

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