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Archive for the ‘Pregnancy’ category

How to treat indigestion during pregnancy ?

February 1st, 2010

Pregnancy brings about a lot of changes in a woman’s body. The first trimester can bring nausea and sometimes vomiting. By the time the second trimester rolls around, the woman is feeling much better. Then as she is ready to enter her third and final trimester, she begins to get indigestion. This is quite common, but very uncomfortable. Indigestion can even go on so long that you can’t sleep at night. There are things women can do to remedy the discomfort.

Causes of indigestion during pregnancy :
One of the chief culprits behind heartburn and other digestive problems is the hormone progesterone. Progesterone decreases your muscle tone and can relax the muscles of the stomach to slow the emptying time.
The stomach also gets pushed up so much during the last trimester that it sits much higher than normal and food contents can be pushed up into your esophagus. When this happens, the valve allows food particles or stomach acid to sit in your esophagus. This can cause heartburn and indigestion.

What you can do to treat Indigestion during pregnancy ?

- Drink plenty of water.
- Add fiber to your diet : The recommended amount of fiber in an adult diet is 25-35 grams per day. If you are pregnant, you might benefit from adding another 15% (or 3-5 grams) per day. Foods that are rich in fiber include whole grains, popcorn, and raw vegetables.
- Walk, Don’t Talk : Pregnant women are often advised to take a walk right after their meals. Also, they must eat five or six small meals each day, instead of three large ones; that way the amount of pressure put on the stomach to digest the food is decreased.
- Peppermint : It is available quite easily and is an excellent cure for indigestion and causes no side effects on either you or your child. So when you feel like you may get another bout of indigestion, make yourself a cup of peppermint tea.
- Avoid eating or drinking things that encourage the valve in the esophagus to relax further. These include greasy or fatty foods, chocolate, caffeine, carbonated drinks, tomato products, citrus juice, peppermint and spearmint, alcohol, onion, garlic, and spicy foods.
- Sit up straight while eating.
- Reduce your stress level by taking time out for something you enjoy, such as a warm bath, a good book, or a chat with a friend.
- Commit to not smoking or drinking alcohol.
- Raise the head of your bed by placing wooden wedges under the legs.
- Talk with your doctor about which antacids are safe during pregnancy, such as calcium carbonate (Tums).

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Posted in Alcohol, Pregnancy, causes, digestion

Tags: causes cure health Indigestion Pregnancy Remedies Treatment

Basal Body Temperature – BBT

December 14th, 2009

Basal body temperature is the lowest temperature attained by the body during rest (usually during sleep). It is generally measured immediately after awakening and before any physical activity has been undertaken, although the temperature measured at that time is somewhat higher than the true basal body temperature. In women, ovulation causes an increase of one-half to one degree Fahrenheit (one-quarter to one-half degree Celsius) in basal body temperature (BBT); monitoring of BBTs is one way of estimating the day of ovulation.
Worldwide, the basal body temperature method is the oldest and most widely practiced of the fertility awareness methods.

HOW ?
This method is useful to confirm that a woman is ovulating each month and by recording her temperature on a chart over several months she can begin to predict when the most fertile days of her cycle are going to be, which is of course necessary for couples either trying to obtain, or trying to avoid, pregnancy.
If a woman has regular cycles she could use this method to help detect the period of the month that she usually ovulates. In this way she could guess the best time to have intercourse to have the greatest chance of becoming pregnant. However, the BBT method is simply not very easy to use or convenient. It relies on detecting small differences in BBT and this can be unreliable in practice because it is hard for a woman to comply with the testing regime. In addition the results can be influenced by numerous factors including eating spicy food, drinking alcohol, lack of sleep or having a cold. All these things make this method difficult to use and in practice even experienced doctors can find the charts difficult to interpret.

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Posted in Fertility, Fertility period, Mensuration Cycle, Ovulation, Pregnancy, temperature

How to prepare a Pregnancy Calendar ?

December 14th, 2009

How to prepare a pregnancy calendar ?
Your past menstrual cycles will work as a guide for estimating your fertile times. In order to track your menstrual cycle and to identify your expected ovulation follow the step by step process below:

Step 1: Plan on tracking your menstrual cycle for 8 to 12 months.
Step 2: Day 1 will be the first day you start menstruation.
Step 3: Pick the longest and shortest of the cycles from your monthly tracking.
Step 4: The first day of your fertility period is determined by subtracting 18 days from the length of your shortest cycle. If 26 days was your shortest menstrual cycle, take 26 and subtract 18 to come up with the number 8. This means that the first day of your fertility window starts on the 8th day of your cycle.
Step 5: The last fertile day is determined by subtracting 11 from the length of your longest cycle. If 32 days was your longest menstrual cycle, take 32 and subtract 11 to reach the number 21. This means that the last day of your fertility period ends on the 21st day of your cycle.
The time in between these two days is considered your fertility window. In the above example, your fertility period would be from the 8th day of your cycle to the 21st day of your cycle. Your ovulation is expected during this time frame. You cannot get pregnant everyday during this period, but it is sometime during this period that pregnancy can occur.