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How Big is Too Big?

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  In  Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, author Susan McCutcheon explains several reasons why pregnant women are often suggested inductions or cesarean sections by their birth teams, one such reason being the baby's perceived size in ultrasound.  She points out that a baby being truly too big for the mother to birth naturally ocurrs in about 1/2500 pregnancies. She encourages doctors to consider what  Williams Obstetrics  wrote: there are "no current methods to assess fetal size accurately" (2018, pg.262), and how a couple can respond to being told that their doctor wishes to induce because they do not want baby to get 'too big.'   Other scenarios that can prompt suggestions to schedule an induction or cesarean are 'irregular' labor, 'prolonged' labor, Cephalopelvic disproportion ('pelvis too small'), and 'fetal distress' detected by monitor.  McCutcheon goes on to give more reading suggestions and stories of couples' experienc

Food Log evaluation

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 Below I give suggestions for the following first food log of a student.  What would you add to the suggestions? My comments:  "It's great to get a baseline established, and you've got a good starting point.  A few suggestions: let's add a protein to each snack, fortify what we can, and forget about what looks like a traditional 'lunch' or 'dinner--think in terms of nutrients in.  We're aiming for 85-100 grams of protein a day, with as many 100 gram days as we can. "Try some of these:  Trailmix and any kind of nut (add to your yogurt too) cheese sticks, any kind of cheese beef jerky whole grain toast and cream cheese + jam/ honey  hardboiled eggs or scrambled egg bites granola made with lots of seeds and nuts, dried fruit (ask for my recipe) rotisserie chicken, deboned and cut into pieces fish sticks Think more about getting enough of the nutrients than if it feels/ looks like a true 'breakfast' or 'midnight snack.'

Can insurance cover birth education?

  Your childbirth class may be reimbursable by insurance.  Read this article to find out how.

Infants and Toddlers: Do naps matter?

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  Infants and Toddlers:  Do naps matter? PositiveParentingNews.org  asks parents if their children are cranky, fussy, or whiny, and write that "your child may be much better after a nap, which helps with emotional memory and the regulation of emotions."

Infancy: The benefits of breastfeeding, even for only a few days

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  Infancy:  The benefits of breastfeeding, even for only a few days   American Heart Association has reported  that babies who are breastfed, even for a few days, had lower blood pressure at 3 years old than children who had never been breastfed.  

Pregnancy: High quality diets in pregnancy

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  Pregnancy: High quality diets in pregnancy   Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's  annual meeting will unveil findings that suggest that a high-quality diet in pregnancy is associated with a lower risk of fetal growth restriction, and will also release impact on gestational hypertension, gestational diabetes and other factors. In addition,  University of Colorado researchers suggest  that mothers who eat more veggies during pregnancy generally have children who eat more veggies than their peers. Click here to see an example of a food log .