Maintaining a healthy and balanced diet before, during, and after pregnancy is vital to ensure the future wellbeing of your child. It is highly recommended that women who are trying to conceive or who are already pregnant take prenatal vitamins in order to maintain overall health as well as the health of their baby.1 Important Vitamins During Pregnancy There are certain…
Category: During Pregnancy
Inducing Labor
Labor induction (also referred to as inducing labor) is when uterine contractions are stimulated to begin the process of labor during a vaginal birth. Labor induction is not a new practice. In fact, it dates back to Ancient Greece as Hippocrates, who is considered the Father of Medicine, recorded descriptions of dilating the cervical canal.1…
Anesthesia During Childbirth
Anesthesia During Childbirth Childbirth is often welcomed with excitement and joy, but it can also be associated with heightened nerves and immense pain. The pain is mostly caused by the baby being pushed out of the female’s body. As mothers have been giving birth since the beginning of humankind, there have been countless forms of…
Gestational Diabetes
Gestational diabetes is a temporary type of diabetes (different from type 1 and type 2) that occurs in pregnant women. Its onset tends to be around the 24th week of pregnancy. Gestational diabetes occurs when pregnant women, specifically those who have never had diabetes before, experience high blood glucose levels during pregnancy. This condition affects…
Being Pregnant with Twins
Being Pregnant with Twins In roughly 2% of all pregnancies, two offspring result from a single pregnancy, leading to the birth of twins. There are two types of twins–fraternal and identical–that are formed through separate processes taking place during sexual reproduction. The third type of twins–the semi-identical twins–form when two sperm cells fuse with a single…
The Odon Childbirth Device
In 2006, Mr. Jorge Odon invented a low-cost birthing device that had the potential to transform modern assisted vaginal delivery. His namesake, the Odon Birthing Device, emerged in spite of the inventor having no experience in obstetrics himself; the contraption was, in fact, an elaboration on an old party trick: removing a cork from a…
Postpartum Depression
Nearly 80% of new mothers experience what is referred to as the “baby blues.”1 The baby blues appear a few days to a week after giving birth, and may manifest as moodiness, irritability, insomnia (problems falling and/or staying asleep), anxiety, or tearfulness.1, 2 Following childbirth, the body goes through significant changes, including a drop in…
Pregnancy by Trimester
Disclaimer: We acknowledge that not all pregnant females will remain the mother of the child and that not all mothers may have biologically given birth to their child. In this article, we use the term “mother” for the sake of simplicity and consistency. Overview Pregnancy lasts about forty weeks when counted from the first day of your last normal period. These weeks…