Women Pregnancy

Obese women can gain little or no weight during pregnancy — and even lose a few pounds — without harming their babies and that there is no need to eat for two people, new research suggests. The researchers stated that those severely obese and pregnant should actually lose weight during pregnancy. Researchers from St. Louis University School of Medicine held a population-based study to look at the effects of weight gain during pregnancy in obese women. They looked at over 120,000 obese pregnant women to come to their conclusions.

The study found that women of different weights should gain different amounts of weight during their pregnancy, while some of the more obese women would be better off losing some of the extra pounds. The Institute of Medicine’s current guidelines say women should gain at least 15 pounds during pregnancy, without placing an upper limit on pregnancy weight gain. Read more!

Women who suffer through morning sickness during their pregnancies actually may be fortunate because they may have a lower risk of breast cancer later in life, according to new research. A study has found that mothers-to-be who have morning sickness are 30 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer than those who do not. Dr Jo Freudenheim from the University at Buffalo in New York reported the finding this week in Boston, at the annual meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research.
Freudenheim and her colleagues interviewed 1001 women with recently diagnosed breast cancer, ages 35 to 79, and 1917 “control” subjects matched to the case patients by age, race and county of residence.

Jaworowicz’s research, which was presented at the Society for Epidemiologic Research’s annual meeting in Boston, Mass., found no association of other pregnancy-related medical conditions — pregnancy-induced hypertension, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes or weight gain — and breast-cancer risk. Read more!

PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) is a health problem that can affect a woman’s menstrual cycle, fertility, hormones, insulin production, heart, blood vessels, and appearance. It’s hormonal imbalance linked to the way the body processes insulin after it has been produced by the pancreas to regulate blood sugar (glucose). Features of PCOS may manifest at any age, ranging from childhood (premature puberty), teenage years (hirsutism, menstrual abnormalities), early adulthood and middle life (infertility, glucose intolerance) to later life (diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular disease).

Insulin resistance seems to be a key feature in polycystic ovarian syndrome. The underlying cause of PCOS, Insulin Resistance, has many factors that contribute to its presence in the body. The increased incidence of insulin resistance occurs in all PCOS women, not simply obese women. When someone is insulin resistant, this means that cells throughout the body do not readily respond to the insulin circulating in the blood. Read more!

Eating apples while pregnant may give a new meaning to an apple a day keeping the doctor away, according to a study published in Thorax online on Friday. Mothers who eat apples during pregnancy may protect their children from developing asthma later in life. This new research from the Netherlands and Scotland tracked dietary intake by nearly 2,000 pregnant women and examined the effects of the maternal diet on airway development in more than 1,200 of their children five years later.
The children of mothers who ate apples had a significantly reduced risk for the development of asthma and childhood wheezing, according to researchers at Aberdeen University.

This study focuses on medical evaluations for asthma and related symptoms (i.e., wheezing) when the children were five years old. As a result of the evaluations cited in this research, other than apples, there were no consistent associations found between prenatal consumption of a range of healthful foods and asthma in the 1253 children who were evaluated. Read more!

Ready to get pregnant? These easy health and lifestyle changes can increase your odds. Despite everything you’ve been told since puberty, getting pregnant doesn’t always happen the minute you have unprotected sex. “In any one month, the chances for the average couple are just one in five,” says Alice D. Domar, Ph.D., director of the Mind/Body Center for Women’s Health at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. But that doesn’t mean they need high-tech intervention. “About 85 percent of couples will be successful after trying for a year,” says Domar, “but they should still be aware of the lifestyle habits that can raise or lower their chances.” If you are currently trying to have a baby or would like to soon, try these eight simple steps to protect and enhance your fertility.

1. Get On A Regular Sex Schedule
The standard advice to have sex midcycle isn’t a surefire road to pregnancy. Read more!

Danish researchers report that moderate drinking moderate amounts of caffeine during pregnancy women does not cause premature or underweight births. Researchers found no evidence of a link between prematurity, birth weight and the amount of caffeine consumed by motherstobe.
Previous studies suggested caffeine might harm unborn babies as it stays in the system longer in pregnant women, passing easily to a growing baby. Conflicting results from earlier studies “have puzzled public health authorities and in some countries pregnant women are warned against caffeine consumption,'’ the researchers write in British Medical Journal.

Unlike other research projects in which women who had given birth were asked how much coffee they drank while pregnant, the Danish scientists monitored 1,207 pregnant coffee lovers who were randomly selected to drink either a caffeinated or decaffeinated brew during the second half of the pregnancy. The group was split into two, with 568 women drinking ordinary instant coffee and 629 drinking decaffeinated. Each woman was regularly monitored to check her caffeine intake, including from drinks such as cola. Read more!

The study conducted by the Australian team at the University of Queensland included nearly 7,500 participants, 3,000 mothers and their children, claims that smoking during pregnancy substantially increases the risk of giving birth to babies who eventually turn into smokers. The researchers were interested in smoking habits of mothers during pregnancy and smoking patterns of offspring during adolescence. Children whose mothers smoked while pregnant were almost three times as likely to start smoking regularly at age 14.
Smoking patterns among children whose mothers stopped smoking while pregnant but then resumed the habit were similar to those whose mothers had never smoked, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal ahead of publication in Tobacco Control.

Children of the 1,000 women who had smoked during pregnancy were three times more likely to start smoking by the age of 14 and twice as likely afterwards compared to other children. Read more!

What are stretch marks? Stretch marks are the nasty lines of stretched tissues that appear on the upper thighs or the stomach right after pregnancy. Stretch marks also appear after a person has relatively gained or increased weight abruptly. During weight increase and height growth, the production of collagen by our body is aborted. Collagen is our skin’s natural protein that gives our skin its natural texture. Once there is an imbalance in the necessary amount of collagen in our skin, it begins to wrinkle and fold at certain areas. Our skin begins to resemble long and think cat-like dry and gray scratches across our stomach and over our thighs, and thus begins the occurrence of the perennial problem and nightmare of women: stretch marks!
Read more!

Our celebrity blog reported that last week Britney Spears spotted in Malibu on a shopping spree for a wardrobe for her new slender frame and celebrate her new skinny body. The pretty star has lost over half the weight she gained after having two babies. She reportedly gained 40 pounds during her first pregnancy with son Sean Preston, which she found difficult to lose in between the birth of the two babies. Now she needs all new clothes for her newly size eight.

A spokesperson for Spears said she had dropped her pregnancy weight without a trainer, diet pills or a nutritionist. Read more!

Depression during pregnancy can contribute to prematurity and low birth weight in infants. New studies at the University of Michigan Depression Center find that a majority of pregnant women who have full-blown depression are not getting appropriate treatment for it, even pregnant women with mild depression are not getting any treatment. Without adequate treatment — medication, talk therapy, or both together — prenatal and post-partum depression can seriously impact both women and their babies.

The findings come from a study of 1,837 pregnant women who were surveyed in the waiting rooms of five Michigan obstetrics clinics, using a standard questionnaire that detects signs of depression. Only one in three of these women were being treated for their depression. Read more!

Women who diet during pregnancy are putting their children at serious health risk, say experts. The study conducted by the researchers of 200 children at the University of Southampton found that the mother’s diet in pregnancy influences the child’s susceptibility to atherosclerosis. The study analysed and correlated that the lower the mother’s calorific intake during pregnancy, the thicker the child’s artery walls. The researchers used ultrasound scans to measure the thickness of the wall of the carotid artery in these children. Experts usually say a pregnant woman needs to eat around 2,500 calories per day.

These children, they said, are at greater risk of developing atherosclerosis - the thickening of the artery walls due to fatty deposits - and may as a result suffer from heart attacks and strokes later in life. Read more!

Taking multivitamins around the time of conception dramatically reduces a woman’s risk of preeclampsia, also known as toxemia, the leading reason of complication during pregnancy that can be lethal to a woman and her fetus, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh report. Children of mothers with preeclampsia are five times more likely to die during birth than if they were born to mothers without the condition, and it is cited for 15 percent of early births in the U.S. The only cure for the condition is giving birth. Previous pre-eclampsia studies have largely focused on vitamin use after the first trimester of pregnancy and have found little benefit.

Women who took multivitamins at least once a week three months before the start of pregnancy and three months after were decreases incidents of preeclampsia by 45 percent for women overall and by 72 percent for women who aren’t overweight, the study found. Read more!

Four plus months pregnant supermodel Heidi Klum has denied rumours that she’s going to be having a water birth when she delivers her third baby later this year because she doesn’t like the thought everything floating around, insisting that she needs to give birth the traditional way.
She explains: “No, I’m not into the water. I like it dry. I’m very German. It seems more controlled.
“I feel like if you’re in the water and there’s all this nastiness going on - I don’t know, it’s swimming all over the place… “We don’t want to get too visual, but I’ve been there. It gets very…different.” Read more!

Japan’s Princess Kiko, who is pregnant with a possible heir to the throne, has developed complications with her pregnancy and needs rest, is likely to give birth ahead of her September due date through a Caesarean operation, the Imperial Household Agency said on Tuesday.
She has symptoms of placenta previa, a condition in which the placenta drops too low in the uterus, an Imperial Household Agency spokesman quoted palace doctor, Ichiro Kanazawa, as saying.
“There is a high risk of early bleeding, infection or preterm birth triggered by the placenta previa,” Kanazawa said. “To prevent these possible complications, the princess will have to rest for some time.” Read more!

Morning sickness during pregnancy is actually a protective reflex, which shields the baby from poisons in the unhealthy foods eaten by the mother, according to according to a study by researchers at the University of Liverpool in the UK, and linked these figures to the typical diet in each country, suggest there is a link between nausea and diet.
For some women even the common smells, particularly fat and fried food, and the sight of food cooking is enough to bring on a wave of nausea. Cereals were least likely to cause nausea and vomiting, the study said. The findings appear in the Royal Society’s Biological Journal. However, research has suggested that morning sickness might have positive consequences - such as a reduced risk of miscarriage.

“While there may be no particular harm in eating, say, meat, now that we have refrigeration and best before dates, our bodies may be pre-programmed by evolution to avoid these particular foodstuffs in the first trimester,” said lead researcher Dr Craig Roberts. Read more!