The Most Common Myths About Pregnancy

pregnancy

It seems that people come out of the woodworks when a woman is pregnant to offer tips, advice, warnings, blessings and more. While some of these tips and blessings can be helpful, motivating, and encouraging, some of them are just flat wrong. Over the years there have been many old wives tales, some which date back hundreds of years that warn women of all the different dangers that they can be exposed to while they are carrying a child. Some of the advice might be helpful and some myths that sound too good to be true actually aren’t. For instance, the placenta, if you are not going to donate it to a number of the cord blood banks that can help with stem cell research, can be eaten and has proven to be an excellent source of protein. Here are some of the most common myths about pregnancy.

  1. One of the most classic myths is that a pregnant woman is eating for two. This is only sort of true, but it doesn’t mean that a woman should be eating two heaping adult sized servings for each meal, especially desert. A woman will typically gain up to 35 pounds during pregnancy, but some women, often because of this myth, think that they need to eat more to sustain their child. It can actually be harmful if you eat too much during pregnancy and you can even put on more weight if you do. It is most import to eat more healthily, than eat in larger quantities.
  2. [Read more…]

How to Beat the Frustration When You’re Trying to Conceive

getting pregnant For some women, and even some men, trying to have a baby can be difficult. There is typically a 15% to 25% chance of conceiving during each ovulation cycle, but your chances can decrease with age and other factors, like having chronically irregular menstrual cycles. It can take couples months and years to conceive, and sometimes the stress alone can make pregnancy that much harder to attain. When our biological clocks are ticking on overdrive, the easiest thing to do is panic, but fortunately there are a number of ways to stay calm and carefree. Most doctors recommend that women take certain measures to keep themselves stress free in order to increase their chances for a fertile future. Here are some ways you can beat the frustration when you are trying to conceive.

  1. Remember that trying to conceive is a process. While for some people it might seem like a magical gift that happens without trying, it important to remember that we all have our own unique challenges. Opening ourselves up to this mode of thought can help alleviate our feelings of inadequacy and can vastly decrease our levels of stress and anxiety. Many psychologists recommend facing [Read more…]

Coping When You Have Trouble Conceiving

One of the most exciting times in a couple’s life is when they make the decision to try and have a baby. And while it would be so great if it was a simple as “coming together and making one”, the reality is that, according to the Center for Disease Control, there are over 1.5 million women each year who are between the ages of 15-44 who are considered to be infertile and 7.4 million who have tried some kind of fertility treatment over the course of their lives as a direct result.

infertilityIf you are someone who been trying to conceive for the past 12 months and you have yet to get a positive result on a pregnancy test, that can be hard to deal with.

Don’t take it out on yourself. During this time, it’s really easy to want to put the blame on yourself by wondering if it’s the result of something that you’ve done or didn’t do. However, this kind of thinking only puts stress on the body which can make it even more challenging to conceive. So, try and stay as positive as you can.

Do a lot of research. Due to the fact that infertility is not an uncommon issue, there is more and more information that’s becoming available to individuals who want to get pregnant. Websites [Read more…]

Krill Oil – for Your Overall Health

Krill Oil is a great new supplement that is good for many things, including your overall health. Heart, bones, joints, and more can benefit from this little pill. Maybe you have all heard something about it, maybe not. I did a bit of research and found out why krill oil is so good for us. Krill is a very small animal found in deep waters. Krill is the bottom of the food chain, just about everything that eats meat in the ocean eats krill. Krill oil is what the fish digest to have fish oil in them. The fish oil is digested, assimilated krill oil. So if we eat krill oil, we get the benefits of fish oil- only better, because our body will do the same, and that is what is thought to happen to our bodies with krill oil. Krill Oil compares to fish oil like this:

krill oil bottleMore Omega 3s. Krill Oil contains [Read more…]

Go Green: 5 Simple Tips to Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

There is a movement to go green. People are all making an effort to become more eco-friendly. Many say they are going green, but how can you and your family actually reduce your impact on the environment? Here are a 5 easy tips to make your home more eco-friendly and save some money.green footprints

Tip #1: Clean Green

Take a look at the cleaners you use for tabletops, counters, bath fixtures and floors. If they’re filled with chemicals, it’s time to toss them. Most cleaning needs can be taken care of with natural ingredients like water, baking soda, white vinegar and lemon. Lemon juice and vinegar, being acidic, can help with stubborn scrubbing needs. Baking soda is a gentle cleanser that can be used in numerous ways. It can be used to deodorize refrigerators and garbage pails, scrub and wipe down counters and to remove odors from carpets. It’s also an effective addition to your laundry detergent and bleach, increasing their effectiveness and reducing how much you need to use.

 

Tip #2: Change Your Light Bulbs

Another simple energy saving tip involves changing your light bulbs. Conventional incandescent bulbs lose more energy to heat than compact fluorescent bulbs. CFLs, which don’t work on a filament, can save [Read more…]

How to Prevent Food Borne Illness When Traveling

Prevent Illness when travelingWhen you’re on a trip, sampling local cuisine and indulging in tasty favorites can make for
memorable experiences. However, today’s delicious lunch or a goody from the gourmet food
truck may send you on a detour to feeling sick. Here are some tips to prevent food borne illness
when traveling.

Food borne illness can bring you low with vomiting, flu-type symptoms or even diarrhea. You
may not notice you’ve been affected until hours or days after you’ve tasted the affected food or
beverage, according to the FDA’s Food Safety Tips for Healthy Holidays. Before you take the
first bite of your journey, there are several things to check at a new restaurant or other food
establishment.

Cleanliness Can Stop Contamination
Does the food preparation area look clean? Although some kitchens will be off limits to
customers, a brief glimpse can tell you if an area is disorderly or if the staff has difficulty
controlling the garbage. The World Health Organization’s Prevention of Food Borne Disease:
Five Keys to Safer Food also advises food preparers to keep raw and cooked food separate. This
can prevent the spread of contaminants to your plate.

When your food arrives, take a second to check the temperature. Food safety temperature matters. If a hamburger or chicken dish seems cold, send it back. Undercooked meat or food that hasn’t been properly prepared isn’t worth the risk of food poisoning. At buffets, pass up potato salad, eggs or other items if they aren’t kept at the  [Read more…]

Vitamins You Should Always Travel With

Traveling, while often fun, can also be a cause of great stress whether one is traveling for
business or pleasure. Traveling between time zones can cause jet lag. Sticking to tight
schedules can cause frayed nerves and incredible stress, particularly when traveling
with children. Eating away from home can translate into dietary changes and possible
deficiencies. Being around numerous people in airports, hotels and restaurants can
increase one’s chances of contracting a sickness-causing bacteria or virus. For these
reasons and more, it is vital to travel with certain vitamins to protect one’s health and
boost the immune system. Although numerous people already take certain dietary
supplements each day, the supplements listed below are by far the most important to
remember to bring when traveling.

Vitamin C

Of course, vitamin C is the first vitamin usually thought of as being vital to immune
health. In fact, the history of this vitamin’s immune boosting powers goes back hundreds
of years to the stories of sailors who died of scurvy, a disease caused by a deficiency
of the C vitamin. With today’s access to numerous fresh fruits and vegetables in
developed countries, scurvy is no longer the issue that it once was. However, vitamin C
supplementation remains an important topic.

Vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin. This means that any extra vitamin C found in the body
is removed daily in one’s urine. For this reason, vitamin C must be consumed on a daily
basis. A majority of research recommends consuming around 500 milligrams of vitamin
C each day, which is certainly more than what the government recommends in its daily
allowances. Because of this, many people will need to use a dietary supplement instead of
simply obtaining the vitamin solely through [Read more…]

How to Reduce Children’s Risk of Diabetes

We’ve all seen the scary reports about the state of healthcare in this country. Clearly we have one of the worst systems in the world, and it leaves millions of families susceptible to devastating physical, emotional and financial traumas. But while we would all like to raise hell about this situation, the only thing we can really do to make sure our families don’t fall prey is to focus on prevention. The Centers for Disease Control have released several studies in recent years asking parents to turn their attention to the rising rates of Type II diabetes in our children. It’s an incredibly scary situation. What once was a disease you only saw in the middle-aged or older is now plaguing kids in elementary school. What’s to blame for this development? Part of it is certainly genetics, and if you have a history of diabetes in your family there’s really nothing you can do about it except monitor the situation. But many of the factors that tip the genetic scales are environmental, meaning it is up to us to keep our kids away from the troubling behaviors that lead to this chronic disease. Here are a few pointers to help reduce your children’s risk of diabetes.

First off, you have to understand the risk factors. Genetic history obviously tops the list. If your background is Asian, Hispanic, American Indian or African you are at a greater risk. Another issue is if your child has a body mass index over the 85th percentile for his age group. An early onset of puberty is also a risk factor. If your child has more than one of these you should set up regular diabetes screenings with your pediatrician, at least [Read more…]