Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Pregnant celebrities- summer 2011

Babble- pregnancy lists 10 most popular pregnant celebrities, like Natalie Portman, Jeniffer Conelly, Kate Hudson, etc.. I must add what a beautifull preggy fashion!
This is my favourite: Tina Fey
                                                                                          
Check them all!

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Homebirth and Waterbirth restrictions?

Babble blogs- pregnancy reports following news:

Ladies Hold On To Your Kiddie Pools!

POSTED BY DANIELLE625 ON MAY 26TH, 2011 AT 8:49 PM
4304815340 d6d8bb60d2 300x225 Ladies Hold On To Your Kiddie Pools!Got a kiddie pool in your house?  Watch out!  The FDA may be coming after you!   No… seriously, they might be knocking on your door to seize your unregistered medical device!
No joke!
Water Birth International founder Barbara Harper is no stranger to the on-again, off-again harassment by the FDA, in fact she went a couple rounds back with them in 2000, but now it is being taken to another level.
Currently the FDA has seized all the imported portable birth tubs, and are threatening to destroy them.  Meaning?   Women who have a desire to rent a safe, and sterile birth tub for a home birth, or water birth in another facility will not have this option.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Midwives shine a soft light on culture of fear


Sydney Morning Herald writes about birthing culture in Australia.
HOT showers, soft lighting, ambient music and hospital staff dressed in casual clothing could be part of the maternity ward of the future, as midwives look for ways to remove the culture of fear surrounding birth.

An education program initiated by midwives called The Creative Push hopes to reduce caesarean rates, which account for nearly one in three births in NSW.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Maternity Health Statistics in Middle East Region by WHO

Check Maternity Health Statistics known as Making Pregnancy Safer for Middle East Region. The State of Kuwait ( KUW) has very low rates of evaluated indicators of maternity health, which is very good for Moms and Babies in Kuwait. It means that pregnancy& childbirth are safe.
Maternal Mortality Rate 12,8% ( mother dying due to pregnancy)
" Complications during pregnancy and childbirth are a leading cause of death and disability among women of reproductive age in developing countries. The maternal mortality ratio represents the risk associated with each pregnancy, i.e. the obstetric risk. It is also a MDG indicator."

WHO Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly


Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly

Dr Christos Patsalides

Minister of Health, Cyprus
President of the Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly
Date: 16–24 May 2011
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
The Health Assembly will discuss a specific health agenda prepared by the Executive Board as well as the programme budget, administration and management matters of WHO.

Speeches

Dr Margaret Chan

WHO Director-General

Bill Gates

Co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Her Excellency Sheikh Hasina

Prime Minister of Bangladesh

Dr Christos Patsalides

President, Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly

New study suggests dietary supplement can protect against pre-eclampsia


Medicalxpress reports that a dietary supplement containing an amino acid and antioxidant vitamins, given to pregnant women at high risk of pre-eclampsia, can reduce the occurrence of the disease, finds a study published in the British Medical Journal today. 
Pre-eclampsia is a serious condition where abnormally  and other disturbances develop during pregnancy. It affects about 5% of all first-time pregnancies and is dangerous for both mother and child.

Stressed out: Studies show babies become anxious if ignored for even two minutes by mother


Mail Online reports results of new Canadian studies about effects of ignoring crying baby by the mother.

They may have barely mastered sitting up by themselves. But six-month-old babies become stressed out when they don't get the attention they feel they deserve. Levels of the stress hormone cortisol soar when they are ignored by their mother, and even a day later they are worried about the same thing happening again. 
A baby who is deprived of its mother's love for just two minutes is anxious about being ignored again the next day, a study found.
Experts in child development said that repeated episodes of stress could have a huge effect on a youngster's health and on his or her course in life. 

Mom's Voice Plays Special Role in Activating Newborn's Brain


Science Daily (Dec. 17, 2010) — A mother's voice will preferentially activate the parts of the brain responsible for language learning, say researchers from the University of Montreal and the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre. The research team made the discovery after performing electrical recordings on the infants within the 24 hours following their birth.

"The brain signals also revealed that while the infants did react to other women's voices, these sounds only activated the voice recognition parts of the brains. "This is exciting research that proves for the first time that the newborn's brain responds strongly to the mother's voice and shows, scientifically speaking, that the mother's voice is special to babies," said lead researcher Dr. Maryse Lassonde of the University of Montreal's Department of Psychology and the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Centre.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Amnesty International& Report on Human Rights

THERE IS NO AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESENCE IN THIS COUNTRY

Amnesty International does not currently have a presence in this country.

However, you can still donate to Amnesty International or join as an International Member (English or Spanish only).

Please contact the office of the International Secretariat for more information about Amnesty International's activities in this country.
 I found this message on Amnesty International- Kuwait .

Various Birthing Positions

I came across this article on Science& Sensibility Blog from Lamaze International. The article discuses various birthing positions and their pros/cons.  
"If we limit the discussion of birthing positions to those that can be easily described, classified,  sketched and/or photographed we have quite an array at our disposal:
standing
Sitting variants
Side-lying
Kneeling
Squatting variants (including lap squatting)
Asymmetrical upright positions (standing, sitting or kneeling)

"With so many options available to birthing women why then continue to use a lithotomy / supine /horizontal position?
I highly encourage you to look  for your own answers and do your research. Make your choices which will be best for your and your baby`s  health.

Midwife-led model of care about childbearing women. (Cochrane)

Midwife-led model of care about childbearing women is topic of research of many studies. I wrote about the socioeconomic aspect  in my previous post Socioeconomic value of Midwife (by RCM)
The Cochrane Library published Intervention Review about better delivery outcomes with fewer interventions.
Marie Hatem,, Jane Sandall, Declan Devane, Hora Soltani, Simon Gates:Midwife-led versus other models of care for childbearing women.
"The underpinning philosophy of midwife-led care is normality, continuity of care and being cared for by a known and trusted midwife during labour. There is an emphasis on the natural ability of women to experience birth with minimum intervention. 
The review of midwife-led care covered midwives providing care antenatally, during labour and postnatally. This was compared with models of medical-led care and shared care, and identified 11 trials, involving 12,276 women. Midwife-led care was associated with several benefits for mothers and babies, and had no identified adverse effects.
The main benefits were a reduction in the use of regional analgesia, with fewer episiotomies or instrumental births. Midwife-led care also increased the woman's chance of being cared for in labour by a midwife she had got to know, and the chance of feeling in control during labour, having a spontaneous vaginal birth and initiating breastfeeding. However, there was no difference in caesarean birth rates.

Human Development Report UNDP 2010

Check 3D visualisation of the HDI ( kindly open the link) Human Development Index. Enter the name of your country, press play and watch the animation of the developement from year 1980 up to 2010.
HDI evaluates following indicators:
          1. Rank "A country's rank relative to other countries based on the HDI value for a particular year."  
              State of Kuwait ranking as High Human Developement Group      
2. Value"A composite index measuring average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development—a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living. For details on how the index is calculated, see Technical note 1. Calculated based on data from UNDESA (2009d), Barro and Lee (2010), UNESCO Institute for Statistics (2010b), World Bank (2010b) and IMF(2010a)."
            State of Kuwait is ranking No 47 from 169 countries in 2010

Monday, May 16, 2011

My Hypnobirthing experience with Katharine Graves

I consider myself  curios person who like to explore new things. My main interests are ways of self-improvement & self-development. I m also very keen on discovering secrets of consciuoss& subconsciouss mind. So this time I challenged myself to find out about Hypnobirthing. I took Hypnobirthing course with Mrs. Katharine Graves May 5th-May 8th, 2011 and trained as hypnotherapy teacher/ practitioner. I really did`t have any idea what to expect, so if you are curious too, let s begin:

What is Hypnobirthing?
Hypnobirthing is pre-natal series of classes using relaxation techniques, breathing, positive suggestion and visualisations to programme your mind  to reach the state of relaxation and harmony. This will enable you to be calm and collected even in otherwise stressful situations.
"It is simply a way of releasing some of the un-helpful and debillitating beliefs and assumptions that we have acquired on our journey through life. It can actually control pain.
There is no magic to achieving success with self-hypnosis.
Almost anyone who chooses to can reach deep relaxation and redirected focus.

Weight management in pregnancy

Obesity in pregnancy is one of factors contributing to poorer pregnancy and delivery results. Therefore it is adviced to adjust maternal weight before pregnancy and maintaining optimal weight while pregnant.
Weight is evaluated by BMI Body Mass Index, you can calculate yours on  BMI Calculator.

Many hospitals provide specialised clinics like Cedar Clinic of Epsom and St Helier University Hospital, part of NHS  in UK for mothers with MBI more than 35.
"The aim of this pioneering clinic is to provide support, advice and individualised care, with dignity and respect for your wishes, and to achieve a good outcome for you and your baby.At your first appointment with the Cedar team, a detailed history of your medical and personal history will be taken and we will give advice in regards to your nutrition and physical activities.

When birth is trauma

I came across this article written by Elizabeth Ford published in Midwife Thinking Blog
"For most women, birth is not the blissful event of three easy pushes and welcoming their precious baby into the world. Even for those women who have a short straightforward vaginal birth, it can be a tough slog and a real test of the depth of their resources. However, for some women, birth is much more than that. It is a physical and psychological trauma. The aftermath of a traumatic birth can affect a woman for months or years and impact on her bond with her baby, her relationship with her partner, her decision to have another baby and even her willingness to engage with future health care.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Socioeconomic Value of the Midwife

RCM The Royal College of Midwives UK published paper on Socioeconomic value of Midwife. Results showed that Midwifey-led care has lower rates of interventions and also lower rates of cesarian sections, thus could be less costly. However more studies and up-to date economic evaluations are needed.



Domestic violence and pregnancy

Scientists in Malmo University examine effect of the  violence on pregnancy and labour.

2011-04-14
Does experience of violence affect a woman’s labour during delivery? And how do midwives in maternity care deal with the issue of violence against pregnant women? These are questions that Hafrún Finnbogadóttir, a researcher at Malmö University in Sweden, has studied. She is now presenting her findings in a licentiate thesis.
HafrúnDomestic violence, especially violence against pregnant women, is still a shameful subject. This is despite the fact that it is a severe public health issue which threatens both the mother-to-be and the unborn child's health outcomes.
Few Swedish studies have examined how common physical violence against pregnant women is, and those studies available show that the prevalence is widespread namely between 1.3 to 11.0 percent of pregnant women in Sweden
Hafrún Finnbogadóttir, a researcher at the Faculty of Health and Society at Malmö University in Sweden, and with long clinical experience as a midwife, became aware, about twelve years ago, of the major health problems caused by problems such as violence against pregnant women.
“I realised that as a midwife I must have encountered many of these women in my work and that I neither had the knowledge nor the readiness to deal with them,” she says.
This is one of the reasons Finnbogadóttir chose to focus her research on violence – both physical and mental – against pregnant women.

Preventing type 2 Diabetes ( PH 35 NICE)

NICE National Institute for for Health and Clinical Excellence in UK which makes recommendations to NHS ( National Health System) in UK published new guidelines of Preventing Diabetes Type 2 ( this type of diabetes is influenced by lifestyle )

State of Kuwait is one of the leading countries with high incidence of Diabetes Type 2 due to high rates of obesity, high energy foods- especially fat-saturated ( fast food), lack of regular activity and exercise.

NHS defines diabetes as follows:

Type 2 diabetes

Diabetes is a group of disorders with a number of common features characterised by raised blood glucose. In England the four commonest types of diabetes are:


Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Mom’s hug revives baby that was pronounced dead

MSNBC Today reported about  Mom`s hug revives baby that was pronounced dead

"Kate Ogg was told her newborn son Jamie had died after efforts to resuscitate the premature infant had failed shortly after his birth. But when Kate was given the chance to say goodbye to the apparently lifeless baby, she and her husband, David, found they were instead saying hello to the newest member of their family.
Now 5 months old and healthy, baby Jamie and his twin sister, Emily, appeared on TODAY Friday with their proud parents, who told the amazing tale of what happened to them in a Sydney, Australia, hospital last March.


Breastfed babies develop fewer behaviour problems (BMJ)

BBC Health News reported May 11, 2011 that breastfed babies have fewer behavioral problems with comparison to formula fed babies based on results of Millenium Cohort Study.

"10 037 mother–child pairs from white ethnic background (9525 term and 512 preterm children) were included in the analyses. Duration of breast feeding (at all or exclusively) was ascertained from parental interview at study baseline, when the children were aged 9 months. Child behaviour was assessed using a parent-completed questionnaire, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The authors used logistic regression to investigate the associations of breastfeeding duration with abnormal parent-rated SDQ total and subscores at age 5 in term and preterm children separately."

World No Tobacco Day 2011 by WHO

Word No Tobacco Day is Initiative of WHO World Health Organization.


"The World Health Organization (WHO) selects "The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control" as the theme of the next World No Tobacco Day, which will take place on Tuesday, 31 May 2011."