With all of the fear-based news stories in the media about the Zika virus and spring break coming up, we wanted to get a clear picture on what Zika is and how to prevent it so we at Urban Mommies reached out to Dr. Dina Kulik to get some facts and calm some fears.
My first child had a delivery that made many a mom hate me. This wonderfully compliant girl arrived at exactly forty weeks and one day. I arrived at the hospital, received an epidural, and birthed a baby girl in under two hours. Quick, uneventful, successful.
See? You hate me. But don’t worry, it won’t last.
Especially if they’ve been trying to conceive, women can become understandably obsessed with recognizing early pregnancy signs and symptoms. We all know that you wait until you’ve missed a period, take a test, and you will know for sure. But what about the other little signs that women seem to know, but the books rarely mention? They are called ‘soft signs of pregnancy’ or ‘signs of implantation’ and are hardly discussed. Once, when I was a week late, somebody asked me – do you feel pregnant? Pardon? Feel?
When I had my first baby and became a stay-at-home-mom, I hit a wall of loneliness after about 8 weeks of having zero adult conversation throughout the day and never going anywhere because my baby hated the car more than anything else. I desperately needed to find people I could connect with in order to save my sanity. My wonderful doula suggested that I meet up with a group of girls who called themselves the Booby Buddies (a bunch of breastfeeding mamas offering each other support). Feeling really awkward, I timidly contacted one of the girls in the group and she promptly invited me over for a play date.
There aren’t many scarier experiences in a woman’s life than when she is thinking she may be having a miscarriage. Statistics tell us that around 50% of pregnancies do end in miscarriages, but most of those women have no idea they were even pregnant in the first place. The majority of miscarriages happen in the first two weeks after conception, and the woman thinks she is just having a slightly heavier menstrual cycle than normal. However, when miscarriage happens further along in the pregnancy it can be truly devastating, especially to those parents who have planned and perhaps waited for years for their baby. Many women will ask – how can I tell if I have miscarried?
Some scientists say that implantation is when and where pregnancy begins. What is implantation and are there any common signs of implantation? Implantation occurs when the egg that has been fertilized by the sperm attaches to the inner wall of the uterus about 7-9 days after conception. Having traveled down the fallopian tube and divided several times, the fertilized zygote has reached its final destination in the warm and nourishing uterine lining. Now it can receive the oxygen and nutrients from mom to begin to grow and develop into the beautiful baby it will become. Implantation must occur for pregnancy to continue.
Eating a healthy, balanced diet rich in antioxidants and high in nutrients is important, but there is more to it than that – it can boost fertility. Surprisingly, it’s not just what you eat, but when you eat it. Our bodies have different nutritional needs over the course of the month, so it makes sense that there is a link between conception and food.
Unique baby names are so important. They give meaning, show kindness to your heritage, and personality. Also, you probably worry about your kid being called something horrible in school. Wow. It feels like a bigger decision than getting pregnant in the first place. So many of us would love to avoid the ‘Jennifer 1’ , ‘Jennifer 2’ phenomenon that plagued us through grade school. Some of us bought every typical book, and frustrated with the normalcy, went through newspapers, Restoration Hardware catalogues and then, the atlas. (Of course…)
Oh dear. Spotting before your period – what does it mean? Your period is not due for at least another week, but you have found a little blood or pink or brown discharge that isn’t followed by normal flow bleeding. This is spotting and tends to always lead to your heart skipping a beat.
While many of the moms I know have preferred a chilly winter pregnancy to the discomfort of expecting in the hot summer months, I’ve learned firsthand that being pregnant in the winter comes with its fair share of obstacles–specifically, staying healthy during a winter pregnancy despite sick kids, cabin fever, and fewer opportunities to remain active.