Exercising for Two

When you exercise during pregnancy, your baby is not, as most of us would have thought, a passive, floating passenger (and ballast on the bladder). Instead, he or she may be actively joining in the workout, with the fetal cardiac system growing stronger and healthier as a result of the workouts.

Gretchen Reynolds, in this NYT article, refers to a study that came out last April. "For the study, which was presented on Sunday at the Experimental Biology 2011 meeting in Washington, researchers from the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences revisited a group of 61 healthy women, ages 20 to 35, who’d been part of a pilot study of exercise, pregnancy and fetal heart health. About half of the women had exercised regularly during their pregnancies, jogging, power-walking or otherwise working out at a moderate pace at least three times a week. Some also had lifted light weights or practiced yoga. But their primary activity had been aerobic. The other half of the mothers-to-be “were normally active but did not engage in formal exercise,” said Linda E. May, an exercise physiologist who led the study. "

The study found that unborn children had a response to their mom's workouts! Dr. May examined the fetal cardiac readings and found that "fetuses whose mothers had exercised showed lower heart rates and greater heart-rate variability than those whose mothers had not worked out."

Dr. May told Reynolds "Dr. May reported at the Experimental Biology meeting. The babies born to exercising mothers continued to have lower heart rates and greater heart-rate variability four weeks after delivery than the babies born to the other women. The effect was especially robust in the children whose mothers had exercised the most, Dr. May said; they had the slowest heart rates and presumably the strongest hearts."

Bottom line: stay healthy and work out, for you and your baby's healthy future

Read the entire article here:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/exercising-for-two/

Canadian Home Birth Study Finds Home Birth As Safe or Safer Than Hospital Birth

by Jennifer Margulis, Mothering Magazine's website (emphasis theirs)

A study by Canadian researchers published in the September 2009 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) concludes that planned home births with a midwife in attendance have comparable or better outcomes than hospital births in British Columbia, a province of Canada with some 4.4 million inhabitants.

The researchers studied over 2,800 planned home births attended by the same group of registered midwives over a 4-year period.

They found that women who planned home births had lower rates of invasive and negative interventions than women who had planned hospital births, whether the hospital births were attended by a midwife or a doctor.

Women birthing at home were less likely to experience:

• Electronic fetal monitoring
• C-sections
• Episiotomies
• Augmentation of labor with oxytocin or amniotomy (artificial rupture of the fetal membranes)
• And the use of drugs during labor, among other interventions 


While there were at least six infant deaths in the hospital births, there were no infant deaths among the women who gave birth at home.

Mothers who had a planned home birth had far fewer severe tears or postpartum hemorrhage, and health problems for the mother was much lower among women who had home births. Home birth proved safer in almost every category measured.

Newborns born at home had fewer incidents of:

• Birth trauma
• Meconium aspiration
• Need for resuscitation at birth
• Need for oxygen therapy beyond 24 hours. 


However, they were at a slightly higher risk to be admitted to the hospital after birth. The researchers hypothesize this was for jaundice treatment, for which the newborns born in the hospital would simply stay longer.

This was a highly controlled study of all comparable births attended by the same group of midwives and comparable physician-attended hospital births.

Despite this study and dozens of other large studies showing home birth is safe, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) cites safety reasons for its continued opposition of home birth.

This Canadian study adds to the growing evidence that the widespread American bias against delivering babies at home is not guided by science but by politics, business interests, and misinformation.

http://mothering.com/canadian-homebirth-study

photo: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:gD87BJ1d6eHOhM:http://www.attachmentscatalog.com/images/born_at_home_lavender.jpg

New Study Ties Some Antibiotics to Birth Defects

The first large scale study looking at the use of antibiotics during pregnancy has found a "surprising" link between antibiotics prescribed for urinary tract infections and birth defects.

The findings indicate that "mothers of babies with birth defects were more likely than mothers with healthy babies to report taking two types of antibiotics during pregnancy: sulfa drugs (brand names include Thiosulfil Forte and Bactrim) and urinary germicides called nitrofurantoins (brand names include Furadantin and Macrobid)."

These antibiotics predate the FDA's current testing requirements and have been used for decades with no studies conducted on whether or not they are safe for moms-to-be. "The FDA now grades all drugs for safety to the fetus based on available research, but rigorous studies are so lacking in many cases, that no antibiotics get the highest grade of ''A.''

The challenge is that bacterial infections left untreated can affect the fetus so antibiotics should not be avoided altogether. Information gathering and conversation with health care providers is warranted on the mom-to-be's part.

The FDA has proposed changes to prescription drug labeling that would require more complete information for women of childbearing age, pregnant women and those who breastfeed.

The study appears in November's Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

read the complete AP article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/11/02/health/AP-US-MED-Antibiotics-Birth-Defects.html?em

There's a discussion thread on this topic over at Mothering.com
http://www.mothering.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=66916

CranioSacral for Mamas-to-be

For mamas-to-be just one of the things CST can do is help relieve tension in the pelvis (and uterus), which eases the ligaments and muscles and reduces or eliminates pain in the back and hips.

This bodywork is so relaxing and gentle that it may feel like nothing is going on and the next thing you know you’re waking up from a long nap! So many times folks say to me “I never fell asleep during a massage before," and the next day I get a phone call saying that they've never felt better. That's the wonder of CranioSacral Therapy.

The craniosacral system is the brain (sitting in its cranium or skull), the spine, the tailbone (sacrum), the craniosacral fluid (CSF) and three layers of membranes and tissue. The CSF moves up and down this pathway between skull-spine-tailbone path with its own slow pulse, similar to the pace of the heart beat or the movement of the breath.

This fluid flows rhythmically up and down the spinal column and through the cranium and sacrum, which creates a nearly imperceptible pulse that resonates throughout the body. At times of deep relaxation, this pulse slows and reaches a therapeutic resting place called ‘stillpoint.’ After reaching this point, the body is revitalized – kind of rebooted!

By softly holding the head, spine, sacrum or other places on the body (like the feet) the CST therapist determines what parts of the body are and are not moving with the rhythm of the CSF. The places that are not moving, the restrictions, are addressed with a light touch, palpation or a gentle movement, maybe a rocking, to bring release to the restricted areas of the body.

This light touch, about the same weight as a nickel, facilitates the letting go of tension in the muscles and ligaments so the restricted areas can then move and the CSF rhythm to flow. This flow brings balance and alignment of these structures, which facilitates healthier pregnancies, smoother deliveries, happier Moms and healthier babies.

Bodywork 101

If you are pregnant or trying to conceive, you are probably more focused on your body, it's pieces parts and inner mechanisms than ever before. Bodywork is a way to work with your innate design, to help you bring forth this new life as healthy and joyfully as possible.

Bodywork (specifically pregnancy massage and CranioSacral therapy) helps your body maintain your innate balance and health through this time of profound emotional, structural and energetic change. And, it just plain feels so good!

Pregnancy massage focuses on the changes your body sustains during pregnancy, such as the way your posture changes as your center of gravity shifts with the baby's growth, the changes in your circulatory system as blood flows adjusts to the needs of this growing child and the ways your muscles need to work more and differently.

Statistically, pregnancy massage has been shown to enhance the function of Mom's immune system, reduce Mom's blood pressure/heart/respiratory rates, contributes to fewer prenatal and labor complications, reduce fear and anxiety and contributes to reduced labor times.

Craniosacral therapy is an extremely gentle yet powerful modality that helps balance your body and your energy. One of the main goals of CST is to improve the mobility of your pelvis so that your baby will be able to move into an ideal birth position.

Mama's Body - intro

Mama's Body

it's about the childbearing year (conception, pregnancy, delivery, & postpartum)

and using bodywork to help mama and baby flow through the journey of being born and the adventure of life