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Morning sickness? Never heard of it!

What Morning Sickness?

Morning sickness? What morning sickness?

Morning Sickness To The Extreme

Morning sickness can occur at any time of day. Some believe that the motion of getting out of bed in the morning triggers the feeling of nausea, which may indicate where the time-of-day reference got its name. You may or may not vomit when you have regular morning sickness, but you will feel nauseated. Regular morning sickness usually ends as you get into your second trimester. Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is severe morning sickness. It also begins in the first trimester and can end in the second trimester, or it may go on for most of the pregnancy. The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, suffered from this severe form of morning sickness during both of her pregnancies. It’s important to know if you’re experiencing regular morning sickness or HG. You’ll want to talk to your healthcare provider about the difference, and take steps to care for yourself if you are suffering from this more serious form of morning sickness. Signs of HG that you might notice can include: Severe vomiting, possibly of blood Difficulty keeping liquids down Dizziness and possibly fainting Headache Body odor Extreme tiredness Racing heartbeat Less urine output, and it may be darker than normal in color Unusual and rapid weight loss Constipation Thirst due to dehydration from vomiting Your provider will run tests to confirm HG, and there are lots of treatment steps available. The important thing is to talk to your provider about any issue that troubles you during pregnancy. The earlier this problem is identified, the easier it is to take care of it.   Image: By rumpleteaser from Nagoya, Japan (6 Months) via Wikimedia Commons

Dad-To-Be

If there’s one person who gets ignored during a pregnancy, it’s the dad-to-be. Grandmas and grandpas get attention from their friends, baby’s siblings get extra attention from everyone, and of course the mom-to-be gets a spotlight. The reward. Dad, it’s up to you to participate in the events and discussions during pregnancy, and to help your pregnant partner with, well, everything. If you do this, you will become part of the pregnancy and experience the excitement that burbles along under daily life for the 40 weeks of pregnancy. Your partner will feel tired even when she looks like she’s as healthy as ever. Rewrite the chore chart, either mentally or literally, if you keep such a chart. Move some of her chores to your side of the to-do list. Finish one-off tasks, such as building a deck or moving to a different home. Take advantage of the free time you have during pregnancy, because there won’t be as much of it after baby comes. Plan shopping trips for nursery items, and go with your partner to pick out the big and little bits that go into a functional baby space. Go with her to the prenatal visits. It’s a time to share in the pleasure of seeing baby develop and to support one another when need be. Research the options for birth, and talk about them with your partner. Once a choice is made, find out all you can and help to choose the place. Help your partner pack a bag for the hospital, or wherever she’s giving birth, and pack one for yourself. Most dads forget that part. They get pretty ripe after 48 hours of sweating through birth and helping to care for a brand new human. Your partner will notice all of the ways you help, and will hold a deep and abiding appreciation for everything you’re doing. When it comes time to deliver, be in the room and help her to get through it. Be an equal caretaker of the baby from the moment of birth, and your family will be a tight and loving unit. Best of all, instead of being in your own orbit for 40 weeks, you’ll be right there in the middle of the pregnancy. You’ll be the go-to guy, and no one will forget that.

Pregnancy FAQ

You know those questions that pop into your mind when you find out you’re pregnant? They’re usually random, and of varying importance, but they wake you up in the early hours, demanding answers. We chose five out of the hundreds of questions, and set out to find the answers you seek. After an exhaustive search, we’re prepared to share what we’ve learned. (Note: We bring you the wisdom of others. Check with your physician before making any decisions based on this or any other information you find on the Web. Always a smart precaution!) Q: Can I stay a redhead during pregnancy? A: Yes, you can. Color your hair, or even get a permanent if you like. Q: Can I eat my mother-in-law’s swordfish at our weekly dinner? A: Sorry, but that’s a no-go. Certain fish have a lot of mercury, and that’s not good for the development of the fetus. A weekly serving of shrimp or snapper should be fine. Q: I love my coffee. I can’t give up the caffeine. A: That’s not in the form of a question, but we feel your pain. Many studies point to the possibility of a miscarriage if too much caffeine is consumed, particularly early in the pregnancy. Best not to guzzle the caffeine if you’re trying to get pregnant or find out you are pregnant. Check with your healthcare provider to determine if you can have caffeine, and if so, how much each day. Q: How can I avoid stretch marks? A: Wait, we’re wiping tears of laughter from our eyes. OK, sorry, but the bad news is none of us can avoid stretch marks. Good news is, they generally fade after a few months. Keep hydrated, exercise, rub the tummy with the right concoctions to keep the skin supple, and eat foods that are good for the skin—that’s about all we can do to battle the stretch marks of pregnancy. Q: Monday margaritas with the peeps? A: No. Just no. That’s as far as we got in our research. Check back in a few weeks for more Qs and As. Share your random or on point questions in the comments, and we’ll see what we can find in the way of answers.     Sources: http://www.womenscareofwi.com/services/pregnancy-care-and-amp-midwifery/frequently-asked-questions-during-pregnancy/ http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-health/mercury-levels-in-sushi/ http://www.webmd.com/baby/frequently-asked-questions-about-pregnancy

Pregnancy Around The World

On the day your baby is born, he or she will join more than 350,000 other new humans, all of whom will feel their mother’s touch for the first time. It’s exhilarating to think about, isn’t it? Realizing that babies share the experience of entry into the world of noise and light and varying temperature, we wondered what else they share, and what makes their first day or week different from one another. For that matter, how are pregnancies treated differently from one country to the next? We did some exploring and came up with these folk tales and tidbits around the Internet for you to contemplate as baby grows inside you: In some Latin American and Mediterranean countries, it’s believed that, should you deny yourself strawberries or pickles or other foods you crave, your baby will have a birthmark in the shape of that food. In Latin American countries, there is a belief that if a pregnant woman gets a haircut, it will adversely affect the developing vision of the fetus. In many cultures around the world, it’s considered bad luck to tell others baby’s name before birth. Parents-to-be in Bangladesh typically wait until the pregnancy is in its seventh month before telling others the good news. By that time, the fetus is strong enough to resist the effects of anyone casting an evil eye. In Vietnam, infants are given odd and unappealing names the first few weeks of life. This is done under the assumption that a pretty or strong name might attract evil spirits. Pregnant women in Bali just say no to octopus for any meal, as eating octopus might cause a delivery to be difficult. You won’t catch moms-to-be in Bolivia knitting baby booties. To do so might make the umbilical cord wrap around the fetus’ neck. Seven days after birth, an Egyptian baby is welcomed with a sebou thrown in his or her honor. At that time, the baby is given a name and lots and lots of presents. Families in Japan also wait seven days to name the baby, and after a couple of months of bonding time, the baby is welcomed by everyone outside of the immediate family. In Taiwan, perhaps one of the most polite societies in the world, pregnant women do not make a lot of noise during birth so as not to disturb the neighbors. In Indonesia, the umbilical cord is buried with a young tree. As the baby’s health goes, so goes the health of the tree. Morning sickness is battled in many ways around the world. In parts of West Africa, women eat chalk or soil to fight off the nausea. Some women in Somalia sprinkle ginger on their coffee, and in Mexico they fight morning sickness with anise tea. We recommend slipping a ReliefBand on as an easy fix:). There are so many colorful and fascinating traditions in folklore (and in fact) that we can’t share them all in one blog post. Stay tuned – we’ll want to revisit this topic soon! Do you have any traditions in your family that you’d like to share in the comments? We’d love to hear them.     Sources: http://forums.thebump.com/discussion/1095022/pregnancy-folklore-from-around-the-world http://www.babycenter.in/a1012478/motherhood-around-the-world http://travelmamas.com/pregnancy-birth-baby-traditions-around-the-world/ http://www.pnmag.com/pregnancy/passport-to-pregnancy-traditions-from-around-the-world-3/ http://www.incultureparent.com/2011/08/mothers-to-be-pregnancy-around-the-world/#slide1 http://www.mom-voyage.com/2014/08/15/how-mothers-around-the-world-treat-morning-sickness/ http://www.pregnancy.org/article/morning-sickness-secrets-from-around-world        

Gifts For Mom-To-Be.

It’s fun to shop for that special mom-to-be in your life. Here are some ideas to get you started, and we’d love to hear your wonderfully creative ideas in the comments. Dawn Dais wrote a book called The *&^% No One Tells You: A Guide To Surviving Your Baby’s First Year. Sounds cute, and we all know there’s a lot of grossness the first year or two that no one talks about. Conversations in homes with new babies go something like this: Is that supposed to be that color? I don’t think that belongs there. Where did that come from? (Should be a fun read!) Give a Kiva Card! Kiva is a nonprofit that connects loaners to borrowers. You choose whom you’d like to make a small loan to, say a mom who wants to increase her family’s goat herd. She gets the money, buys five more goats, then pays you back. You take that money and find someone else to fund, and the story repeats. You can stop loaning money whenever you want. It’s a meaningful way to help alleviate poverty, one person at a time. It’s a gift from the heart. An iTunes gift card will fill a phone or tablet with loads of practical and cool apps, such as What to Expect’s Pregnancy & Baby, BabyCenter’s My Pregnancy Today, or BabyBump’s Pregnancy Pro. There are also baby monitor apps and just oodles of others that will make the new mom very happy. If there’s a project that you know the mom-to-be wants to get done around the house, get a bunch of her friends together and go over one weekend to get it done! Everybody’s busy with work and life. Sometimes, big projects can be daunting, and a little help from our friends turns out to be a big deal. Most pregnant women will experience morning sickness. The ReliefBand helps quell nausea and vomiting. Give her one, and she’ll be saying thanks every day for weeks or quite possibly months! Never know how long morning sickness will hang around. Let’s not forget dad-to-be. Get him a waterproof camera and he’ll capture pictures of pregnant mom-to-be splashing in the pool, and later, baby’s first bath! There are loads of waterproof cameras of all shapes and price points, so take your time shopping on this one. Fair warning! We haven’t tried specific products out, but they look fun, don’t they? What gifts have you received that you’ve truly enjoyed? Share in the comments, we all want to hear.

Pregnant? Let’s Tell Some People!

Pregnancy is the best news ever, and it deserves to be shared in a special way! We took a trip around the Web and found all sorts of fun ways to spread the news. Take a look— At Parenting.com there were a bunch of cute tells shared online. A couple of our favorites were the mom-to-be who took a shower and wrote a note on the foggy glass for her hubby to find during his shower the next morning, and the woman who created a flyer announcing the pregnancy, which she had her parents’ paperboy insert in their morning newspaper. Next we stopped by DatingDivas.com and found a few adorable tells. If you have a child still sleeping in a crib, hang an eviction notice on there with a vacate date! Take a picture and send it out. Or, grab the toilet in the classic morning sickness pose while your partner pats your back and reads the What To Expect book. Take a picture, send it out. (Oh, and about the morning sickness, you’re going to want to check us out🙂 LifeAsMama.com found fresh tells, such as this tech-savvy method: photograph three generations of smartphones of tablets, with the newest one decorated in baby wear, or use a baby toy version. Send out to everyone! Oh, and we can’t leave out the motherlode (no pun intended). Pinterest! Look up pregnancy announcements and you’ll find cuties like mock-up movie posters, mom’s and dad’s clothing pinned on a line to dry, along with a baby’s outfit, or mom and dad riding a bike while towing a tricycle behind them. So many fantastic ideas online. What are your favorites? What did you do when you announced, or what do you plan to do? Share in the comments, we want to hear!

Pregnant? 6 Things You Want To Know Right Now (Or Maybe Not).

Pregnancy is new territory for all of us the first time around, but luckily doctors have figured out quite a bit about it. And there’s always mom or your BFs to hit up for info in a pinch. Here are a few bits we thought you’d want to know, as you prepare for baby. Your due date is 40 weeks from the day of your last period, not 40 weeks from the time you find out you’re pregnant. Good to know, right? Keep in mind that not every baby is punctual. Your nose will start working overtime. Odors that you used to love, like fresh peaches or newly-mown grass, may send you running to the nearest toilet. (Unless you’re wearing your handy-dandy ReliefBand:)) Get ready for a little potty to come out when you laugh or sneeze, particularly when baby gets big enough to press on your bladder. Hey, it is what it is. Your mucous membranes may swell due to what happens to your body when you’re pregnant. This in turn may cause you to snore like your grandpa. Good news is, it probably won’t bother you (although others in the household may grumble in the mornings). Your vocal cords may swell, causing you to sound like a two-pack-a-day smoker or a basso profundo singer. Think of the fun you can have faking people out over the phone. What size are your feet? Be prepared, because they might grow during pregnancy, and there’s a chance they won’t shrink back after. We’ve barely scratched the surface of the strange wondrousness of pregnancy. What’s happening with you? Share your stories with the pregnant women of the world!