Why A Healthy Diet Is So Important For Pregnant Women

Pregnancy is one of the most physically enduring times in our lives, and it is more important than ever to consume a healthy balanced diet. By ensuring a steady supply of vitamins and minerals, as well as balancing your calorie consumption appropriately between carbohydrates, proteins and fats, you should be able to maintain a healthy diet through pregnancy for a healthy mom, and a healthy baby. Eating healthily during pregnancy is clearly important for the health of your baby, but overall there is no secret formula. By living a healthy lifestyle as you normally would, you can guarantee that your baby is going to be given the best chance health-wise.

The first part of a balanced diet is to consume fruit and vegetables. Fruits are packed with vitamins, which are essential for healthy growth and development. By consuming a variety of different fruits, you can explore your tastes, as well as cover all the bases as far as vitamins are concerned. With vitamins playing such a major role in the healthy function of our bodies, it is imperative you ensure a suitable intake during pregnancy. Additionally, fruits and vegetables provide healthy calories, and are very filling as part of any meal, or for a snack in between. Also, pregnant women need to drastically increase their consumption of folic acid. Folic acid is a nutrient present in many grains and breakfast cereals, and is essential for promoting healthy growth in babies. By increasing your consumption of folic acid and related products, you can help give your baby the essential elements needed to sustain its growth over the longer term.

Another vital element for healthy living during pregnancy is water. Water is an essential component of any healthy diet, and is essential in ensuring you are fully hydrated wherever possible. This can be invaluable in ensuring the effective distribution of nutrients, and will

Pregnancy and lupus

It a very well known fact that the presence on lupus in a pregnant woman has a lot of risks. Still there have been countless cases on pregnant women suffering from systematic lupus that have not only given birth to babies but hey have given birth to normal healthy babies. There are of course exceptions where lupus pregnancies have ended up in miscarriage. It is always very important for women to undergo pregnancy counseling and planning before deciding to have a baby, especially in the cases of lupus pregnancy. Numbers in studies made have shown that it is best for the mother to be nor to have had any symptoms or medication regarding lupus for at least 6 month before remaining pregnant.

Because humans as individuals are so different one from another it is nor unlikely for some women to experience flare ups before or after birth, while others show no signs or symptoms what so ever. In the first case scenario women on drugs will most likely have high blood pressure, develop hyperglycemia or even diabetes or develop kidney problems. Constant care and good nutrition during pregnancy are really necessary if the baby is o be born healthy and without problems and if the mother is to remain safe and not develop any complications. The best of measures must be taken in order to be best prepared to handle any problems or complications. Studies of the cases of lupus pregnancies have shown that about a quarter of the babies of women with lupus are actually born prematurely but don't suffer from any defects or complications afterwards.

Scientist and doctors are doing their best to determine the causes that determine the apparition of the disease and how to best fight it and eventually defeat it. They are trying to answer problematic questions that people ask. Trying to best determines who exactly develops the disease and why is a serious problem for them. Again they are researching why women are more affected than men. On top of that certain women in minority ethnic groups have shown to have a predisposition to developing this disorder. A serious problem they are trying to find the answer to is why the immune system not only collapses but ends up attacking its own body.

In all they are trying their best in finding the best of treatments that can help us in curing this awful disease.

All about home pregnancy tests(part one)

Most of the women who think they are pregnant, but are not sure, use home pregnancy tests. But how many of them know how these tests work and if the result is true or not? Well, first of all a woman should know when the test must be taken and which are the best home pregnancy tests.

So, the first think to know is that these tests detect the pregnancy by measuring the presence of a hormone in the urine. The hormone is called chorionic gonadotropin, and is a telltale hormone. But how can this hormone tell you if you are pregnant or not? Well, this hormone is produced by the placenta. When the egg is fertilized and finds it' s place in the uterus, this hormone is released into the bloodstream.
This usually happens about six days after the egg has been fertilized. From that point the amount of this hormone in the body is doubled every two days. So in about fifteen days after the fertilization took place, the home pregnancy test should be able to indicate if your are pregnant or not. But it all depends on the test. It is said that most of them are not sensitive enough to detect a pregnancy even at that stage. For better and certain results
it is indicated you should take the test a week after your the day that you were expecting your period.

It was believed that home pregnancy test were very accurate, almost 100 percent, even taken the day when a woman misses her period. Later studies have shown that this belief was misleading. The amount of the telltale hormone in the urine can differ from a woman to another very much. It can be different in any given days after the implantation had taken place. Studies have been made on different groups of women, and reaschers discovered that the home pregnancy tests are not sensitive enough to detect a pregnancy
in the first day that the woman missed her period. It worked for almost 15 % of the tested woman. But the the same home pregnancy tests showed to be very precise when taken seven days after the menstrual period was expected.

Of course when reading this, one would wonder why these tests claim to be so accurate, if they are not? Well the fact is that the ninetynine percent accuracy that this tests pretend to be is because the sensibility of the tests can detect a pregnancy, but not in it's first days or in the first day of the missed period. The home pregnancy tests can determine a pregnancy, but it matters when this test is taken. To find out how to choose a pregnancy test and use it, be sure to read part two.

Tubal Reversal Pregnancy Study - 2007 Report

New Study Documents Success of Tubal Ligation Reversal

Many people, including doctors, mistakenly believe that tubal ligation surgery is permanent. A one hour outpatient operation, however, can rejoin the separated segments of fallopian tube so that pregnancy can occur again. Results of a 6 year study of 3,139 women who had tubal reversal surgery show that 69% of the women became pregnant during the study interval (2001-2006). This is the largest and most definitive study in existence providing information on the outcome of tubal ligation reversal.

The recently published Tubal Reversal Pregnancy Study Report 2007 shows that pregnancy rates after surgery ranged from 82% for women under 30 to 41% for women 40 years of age and older. The highest pregnancy rate (87%) was reported by women age 29 or less who underwent reversal of a previous ring or clip method of sterilization.

Tubal segment length measurements were taken during the reversal operations. Women with tubal lengths of 7.5 cm or longer had a pregnancy rate of 80%. The pregnancy rate declined as tubal length decreased, but even women with the shortest tubes (less than 2.5 cm) became pregnant (38%). Although previously unreported in the medical literature, it was discovered during this study that a repaired fallopian tube of any length can result in pregnancy.

One conclusion from this study was that for women who have undergone a tubal ligation procedure and decide later they would like to have more children, tubal reversal surgery is a better option than the alternative treatment of in vitro fertilization (IVF). "The results are clear � across all ages of women included, tubal reversal surgery led to higher numbers of pregnancies and live births than standard IVF procedures. Besides having higher success rates, the one-hour outpatient procedure is less than half the cost of an IVF cycle." said the study's author, Dr. Gary Berger.

The three stages of pregnancy

The normal pregnancy period lasts nine months. These nine months are separated into three trimesters. This classification is a way of dividing the 40 weeks into separate stages when the mother and the child are encountering different types of pregnancy events.

The first trimester is considered to be the first period that last 12 weeks of gestation or 14 weeks from the first of the last normal menstrual period. The symptoms that occur during this period affect only the mothers and consist of dreaded morning sickness that can occur during the day as well and sore and enlarged breasts. During this period several changes may occur. The future mothers may notice blue lines under the skin of their breasts and abdomen or waistline expansions. Other regular symptoms that occur in most women are nausea or even vomiting, food aversions and cravings, tender breasts, constipation, headaches or dizziness.

If the future mother gives up alcohol, smoking or dangerous drugs it may be said that it was a healthy trimester. The child needs a normal development especially in this period because inside the woman's body the major organs and systems of the fetus are forming. In this first trimester the most important changes occur in both mother's and child's body. By the end of this trimester the embryo is transformed into a fetus that is measuring, on average, three to four inches.

The second stage or the second trimester lasts until the end of month seven and it is considered as being the easiest stage of pregnancy. During this stage most women get to recover their lost energy.

Physical changes occur in this second stage. Both mother and fetus continue to grow and the mother's abdomen begins to swell. At the end of this faze the uterus is near the rib cage. The skin on and around the abdomen stretches and marks may be seen.

Even if in many cases this is the easiest stage of pregnancy for some women this stage may bring nasal congestions or occasional nose bleeds. It may also mean whitish vaginal discharge, constipation, an increased appetite or cramps. The fetus continues to grow and organs such as the heart or kidneys develop. The eyebrows, fingernails and even hair begin to form. During this period the fetus moves or even kicks.

The last trimester means the preparation for delivery. The fetus grows in weight and size and his internal organs are forming a body system. This period is very uncomfortable for mother because labor contractions occur more and more often announcing the delivery.

Stages during pregnancy

During pregnancy a woman's body suffers many changes. From the conception to birth her body undertakes the processes of fertilization, implantation and growth of the baby or sometimes even babies. The child is growing in her body getting to develop in there for the next nine months after the conception. These 40 weeks of pregnancy may lead to new physical sensations for each woman. It is known that each woman body reacts different to each individual pregnancy whether it is the first, the second, third or more pregnancy.

The first trimester of pregnancy that it is considered to be the first 12 weeks leads to a woman's body changes. These changes consist of providing a nurturing and protective environment for the baby to grow and develop. Depending on each case these changes can be subtle or can be pretty obvious. Many women do not realize they are pregnant until their menstrual period gets a few weeks overdue. Some of the women just know they are pregnant before missing a period because they feel strange and suspect something is different or in change.

Sometimes the first signs of pregnancy make a woman feel confused. This thing is realized because of the first symptoms in pregnancy that are similar to the pre-menstrual symptoms such as swollen breasts, feeling tired or possible cramping or pelvic discomfort.

There are known cases of women that will not have periods until their baby is partially or fully weaned of the breast, perhaps 6 to 12 months and sometimes even more. Even so it is possible for a woman to be fertile in about 8 weeks after giving birth. So breastfeeding, as a form of contraception tends to be reliable for about 30 % of the women, especially after the child is 3 to 4 months old. A subsequent baby could mean for a mother a very exhausting period and more then that a greater sensitivity for the nipples, especially when the child lathes and suckles at the breasts. These women are also prone to feel nauseated or sick especially in the mornings. Their milk begins to taste more salted then before which may cause a refusal of breastfeeding from the child.

It is a normal fact for women to ask questions about pregnancy. They usually feel unsecure and wonder what is normal during pregnancy. They concern about their health even if they experience the typical pregnancy problems or not. In some cases women do not realize that they are pregnant before a pregnancy test because the changes night not be always so obvious.

Are Vitamin Supplements for Your Pregnant Dog Necessary?

Are vitamin and mineral supplements that necessary for your pregnant dog? Yes. Besides a balanced and healthy diet, pregnant dogs that are into their fourth week of pregnancy need more vitamins and minerals in their system. Also, a balanced di-calcium phosphate may be needed to be added into their diet as well.

"Where should I purchase these dog supplements?"

Di-calcium phosphate tablets and vitamin/mineral supplements can be obtained from most veterinarians or animal hospitals, and even some grocery stores. Health food stores are common to carry these types of animal supplements as well, so you should not have too many problems trying to locate some for your dog.

"What forms do these prenatal supplements come in?"

Just like what is supplied for humans, vitamins and minerals for prenatal dogs are sold in both powder and tablet forms. A lot of dog owners get bothered over choosing the right kind of supplements for their dogs, but it is an individual choice for you and your dog. Regardless if its form, the quality of both types of supplements is the same.

"How do I know what dosage of supplement to administer to my pregnant dog?"

You will find the correct supplement for your dog by looking at the labels of the supplements. The correct supplement for your pregnant dog will be stated clearly, and there are supplements for matrons as well as puppies. It is very important that you realize that prenatal dog supplements have gone through lab testing before they are approved to be marketed and sold in stores. There will also be specific instructions on the labels on how to give the supplements to your dog regarding the dosages or stages of pregnancy.

Your dog may not be used to swallowing tablets, or the tablet may be too big for a dog its size. What you can do is crush the tablet up into powder form and then putting it into your dog's food for it to consume. If your dog has no problems with swallowing tablets, like my Chihuahua for instance, who swallows tablets easily when I place it at the back of his throat, you may want to choose that. But powder form supplements is also a good choice if that is what your dog is better at ingesting.