To Be Mom

Women who experience high blood pressure during pregnancy are 57% more prone to develop a coronary-related heart problem later in life in comparison with other women had normal blood pressure levels during pregnancy.

The study is based on 491 healthy postmenopausal women, where it recorded the coronary artery calcium in the women in 2004 and 2005 and asked them about their blood pressure during pregnancy.

Roughly, 31% of the women surveyed said they had high blood pressure while pregnant.

Scholars thought of doing further research on the topic to establish this link and reasons behind it.

The participants were asked to recall blood pressure changes during pregnancy many years after the fact.

Bots the senior author of the study said in a statement that women who

‘develop high blood pressure during pregnancy may need to be referred to a program that includes cardiovascular risk factor management and be closely monitored for increases in blood pressure, cholesterol and weight.’

A return of high blood pressure and the development of diabetes were seen as other possible risks for women who had elevated blood pressure levels while pregnant.

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The government has recommended for providing free morning-after contraceptive pills to girls as young as 14, also offer them advice by specialists.

The program started in September last year, but it was stopped in January when the Constitutional Court ruled it had been improperly implemented by administrative decree rather than by a presidential decree or legislation.

However, Roman Catholic Church and conservative groups do not welcome the move. They termed the pill a form of abortion and objected to the idea it can be given young girls without notifying their parents.

And have threatened to block distribution of the pill in their towns.

The pill contains a high dose of the most common ingredient in regular birth-control pills. When taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, the two-pill series can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89%, however, it will not work on a woman who is already pregnant.

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Pregnancy, a time when woman is standing on a threshold of a new life, heralding birth of a new living being.

Most of you must be feeling good off course for the ‘life within’.

And might have taken various measures to provide the growing embryo with utmost comfort. Also you might have even avoided tiring activity, however, light exercises, can offer multiple benefits during pregnancy. Some of them are:

1. They are instrumental in providing a comfortable sleep at night.
2. Diminish back pain and improve posture from stronger back, thigh and buttock muscles.
3. Reduce stress, anxiety and risk of constipation.
4. There is also less amount of weight gain during pregnancy and a quicker return to your pre-pregnancy weight.

However, you must discontinue your exercises if you find any of the following signs:

� Fatigue.
� Dizziness.
� Heart palpitations.
� Shortness of breath.
� Pain in your back or pelvis.

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Behavioral symptoms are common in newborns exposed in womb to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a relatively new class of antidepressants. However, these effects appear to be transient and self-limited.

The study is based on 76 mothers, who were taking SSRI at the time of delivery and their newborns, and 90 unexposed mothers and their babies.

Smoking, alcohol intake, and substance abuse were considerably observed in the mothers of exposed infants in comparison with the mothers of unexposed infants. In addition, the exposed mothers were more likely to have asthma, migraine and cesarean sections.

The investigation revealed that amongst the exposed infants,

‘the signs most often observed involved the central nervous system including tremors, shaking, agitation, spasms, hyper- or hypotonia, irritability and sleep disturbances.’

All of these signs appeared during the first day of life and the average duration was 3 days for exposed infants. Also, premature infants, who were exposed to the antidepressant agents exhibited behavioral manifestations, compared with about two thirds of exposed term infants.

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Here’s a piece of advice for all those women who don’t mind challenging their limits when it comes to get successful. If you have already hit 35, and are still planning to put off having babies for some more years...then let me tell you are heading towards a big problem.

According to experts, old age pregnancy is not just complicated for you but for your baby as well. Thanks to the career consciousness and the advanced fertility medicines in the market, many a women are pushing off the child bearing age, unaware of the fact that this unnecessary delivery will create complications in their pregnancy in later stages.
As per reports, the birth rate for U.S women aged 40-44 has almost doubled up during last four years, clearly showing that women are ready to play up with the lives in their womb...all for their career and also under the influence of the much famed celebrities who are also conceiving at a later age.

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A new era in prenatal diagnoses could be seen peeping at the horizon. This is very much different from the previous diagnostic tests.

Prenatal diagnoses were preferably done to monitor the Down’s syndrome, which is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome.

Earlier, the diagnoses were based on chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis.

CVS is done in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, for analyzing placenta cells to detect any genetic abnormalities.

While, amniocentesis is performed at about 16 weeks, it involves inserting a needle to withdraw a small amount of amniotic fluid.

Now, this new and non-invasive technique would determine genetic abnormalities by extracting fetal DNA from blood samples taken from the mother.

Unlike prior tests, which elevated the risk of miscarriage, the new diagnostic tool poses no threat to mother or fetus. The tests produced promising results when performed on 60 pregnant women.

Moreover, Down syndrome testing would no longer hinge on whether the women are older or younger than 35.

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Transdermal nitroglycerin can lengthen pregnancy in women who go into labor prematurely also it has been assume to lessen illness in the newborn. It is thought to prolong pregnancy by relaxing the uterine smooth muscles and is quite safe during pregnancy.

Although, there are a number of medications like tocolytics, which are instrumental in prolonging pregnancy but none of them were effective in dealing with the illness of the newborn.

The study is based on 153 women who were subjected to transdermal nitroglycerin or placebo between 24 and 32 weeks gestation. The research concluded that the risk of premature birth before 28 weeks was reduced by 50%.

Eleven infants in the placebo group experienced the main outcome — a composite of chronic lung disease, inflammation of the intestines, intraventricular hemorrhage, and a brain disorder called periventricular leukomalacia – compared with just three infants in the nitroglycerin.

Moreover, no infant deaths were seen in the nitroglycerin group, while three occurred in the control group.

Thus, the doctors postulated that transdermal nitroglycerin as a standard treatment for preterm labor.

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A mother who catches influenza, pneumonia, or a sexually transmitted disease around the time of pregnancy is susceptible of having a child that will develop leukemia.

Dr. Marilyn L. Kwan, from the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland stated that these observations

’suggest that maternal infection might contribute to the develop of childhood leukemia, which has been postulated to have an infectious origin.’

The study was based on 365 children with childhood leukemia and 460 similar children without cancer. Information regarding maternal illnesses and drug use from before pregnancy through breastfeeding were obtained by interview with the mother.

Researchers discovered that a maternal history of influenza or pneumonia that occurred between 3 months before conception through the end of breastfeeding raised the risk of leukemia in the child as much as 89%.

A maternal history of sexually transmitted disease, such as herpes or chlamydia, had an even stronger effect on the risk of childhood leukemia.

On the contrary, women who took iron supplements around the time of pregnancy had a lesser chance of having a child with leukemia.

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Alcohol consumption during pregnancy may lead to Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.

The timing of alcohol consumption, its frequency, the beverage size and type, all appear to be crucial elements of identifying risk.

A new survey has found that nearly 80% of non-Indigenous West Australian women consumed alcohol during the three months before pregnancy, nearly half had not planned their pregnancies and more than half drank alcohol during pregnancy despite recommendations of abstinence.

Lyn Colvin, a researcher at the Telethon Institute asserted,

‘there is a lack of information as it relates to the measurement of alcohol consumption during the periconceptional period of pregnancy.’

The National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia’s peak health research organization recommends that pregnant women should never become intoxicated and should consider not drinking alcohol at all. The World Health Organization too has advised pregnant women not to drink alcohol.

Thus, it is important that all women of childbearing age are aware, well before they consider pregnancy, of the risks of drinking alcohol during pregnancy so they can make informed decisions about their alcohol consumption in pregnancy.

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1. Gestational Hypertension:

About 5% of women have hypertension before they become pregnant. This is called chronic hypertension. Another 5% or so develop hypertension during pregnancy. This is called gestational hypertension.

Extremely high blood pressure during pregnancy can cause many problems. One is a condition called placental abruption. This is a premature separation of the placenta from the uterine wall, a condition that would normally cause vaginal bleeding and uterine contractions. If the abruption jeopardizes your health or your baby’s health, you’ll need to have an immediate delivery.

The treatment for hypertension during pregnancy is limited. A doctor will generally recommend that a pregnant woman with early or mild hypertension cut back on her activities and avoid strenuous exercise, while more serious cases require hospitalization.

2. Gestational Diabetes:

There is no known specific cause but it is believed the hormones of pregnancy reduce a woman’s receptivity to insulin resulting in high blood sugar. Gestational diabetes affects an estimated two to three percent of pregnant women.

The problem with diabetes in pregnancy is that it often leads to the birth of large babies, because the excess glucose goes to the baby directly. In other words, if mommy has high sugar, the baby has high sugar. And it affects you as an individual the same way it affects the baby in uterus. The baby gets excessively large and urinates frequently, changing the composition of the fetal fluid, which may even put the baby at risk of death.

To test for diabetes, the physician will administer a challenge test. You’ll be asked to drink a glucose solution in a soda-style liquid. After an hour, your glucose level will be measured. If the reading is too high, which occurs about 20 percent of the time, your doctor will have you come back for a glucose tolerance test.

3. Premature Birth:

Just what causes, premature birth, no one knows for certain. Some research suggests that one of the main contributing factors to preterm labor is infection. Though such infections must be occurring quietly, without showing any symptoms, the bacteria in the cervix must be causing an inflammation, and the by-products of that inflammation are chemicals that can induce preterm labor.

Women in premature labor are often given steroids. They are given to women experiencing premature labor in order to literally pump the baby up. Like turning up the heat on the stove to boil the potatoes a little quicker, the steroids help mature the baby’s physiology more quickly so that he or she has a better chance of survival at birth.

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