Bi Weekly Baby Bump- Week of August 14th

Boba.com… on why holding your baby front wise isn’t a good idea

DailyMail.com… apparently pregnant women shouldn’t use antibacterial soap

Parade… Savannah Guthrie has last day of Today show before going on maternity leave

Gluten-FreeGal… How to be pregnant with celiac disease

Mirror.com.UK… Nightclub refused flat wearing pregnant women to come in 

DailyMail.com… Edinburgh's giant panda Tian Tian is pregnant and could have her cubs before September

HuffingtonPost… This #Shareacoke pregnancy announcement went viral

EOnline… Hayden Panettiere's Real-Life Pregnancy Is Being Written Into the Nashville story line 

Stress can be inherited through Pregnancy

In today’s modern world it seems that pregnancy is as stressful as ever. The high levels of preterm birth in Alberta Canada is

If the stress affected the rats this much it makes sense that this same logic is applicable to pregnant women.  Something to keep in the back of your mind

"I think if you understand the mechanisms of how this is being generated — the footprint of stress — we have a means of predicting the risk of pre-term birth in future generations and finding certain interventions," said Gerlinde Metz, a professor of neuroscience and Alberta Heritage Foundation Medical Senior Scholar at the university and one of the researchers on the team.

“Researchers subjected rats to stress late in pregnancy and observed their offspring. They found that the daughters of stressed rats had shorter pregnancies than the daughters of rats not subjected to stress, and that the grand-daughters of stressed rats also showed shorter pregnancies even if their mothers had not been stressed.”

The study looked at four generations of maternally-related rats.

It found the stressed rats and their offspring also gained less weight during pregnancy and had higher blood glucose levels. As well, their offspring were smaller and had delays in behavioral development, all effects which were amplified over successive generations.

The researchers believe that these changes are due to epigenetics - the arrangement and expression of our genes.

Future research is planned to understand the mechanisms that generate these epigenetic signatures and how they are passed down from generation to generation.

With more knowledge of these mechanisms it may be possible to predict and prevent preterm pregnancy but also other diseases.

Prof Metz added: 'Preterm births can be caused by many factors, in our study we provide new insights into how stress in our mothers, grandmothers and beyond could influence our risk for pregnancy and childbirth complications.

The study appeared in the journal BMC Medicine.

Sources:

BMC Medicine

CBC News

Daily Mail

New Tennessee Law knocks 4 people off of Benefits list

Right in the middle of the Bible Belt in Tennessee there are now four less people on state benefits.  These four people refused to take the drug testing that Tennessee is starting to offer for welfare applicants.  According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the new practice in Tennessee and at least 11 other states require drug screening or testing for public benefits. 

A recent legal challenge to a Florida law requiring drug testing of all applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — in Tennessee, Families First — was upheld by a federal appeals court, which ruled that the law violated constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Tennessee's law differs from Florida's in that it requires applicants to first fill out a brief written questionnaire about drug use, rather than testing all who apply. 

Applicants who answer "yes" to any of the questions — if they have used illegal drugs, lost or been denied a job because of drug use, or had any scheduled court appearances related to drug use in the prior three months — are then asked to take a drug test. The Department of Human Services pays for the tests, which cost $20 to $35 each.

Applicants who refuse to take the written test or the drug test are disqualified from receiving benefits. Applicants who test positive are required to take a second confirmation test. If the results are positive again, the applicant is given a referral to a drug abuse treatment or recovery support group and has 10 days to verify enrollment or placement on a waiting list.

Applicants can receive benefits as long as they continue in the program and test negative once it is completed. The department provides necessary child care during the drug treatment program.

What Tennessee asks?

Tennessee's drug testing questionnaire for applicants for cash assistance has three questions:

1. In the past three months have you used any of the following drugs?

2. In the past three months have you lost or been denied a job due to use of any of the following drugs?

3. In the past three months have you had any scheduled court appearances due to use or possession of any of the following drugs?

• Marijuana (cannabis, pot, weed, etc.)

• Cocaine (coke, blow, crack, rock, etc.)

• Methamphetamine/amphetamine type stimulants (speed, meth, ecstasy, X, ice, etc.)

• Opioids (heroin, morphine, methadone, opium, buprenorphine, codeine, etc.)

Source: Tennessee Department of Human Services

802 answered no to all questions

4 refused to take the questionnaire and were disqualified

5 passed drug tests after answering yes on the questionnaire

1 tested positive for drugs

The legislative body in Tennessee has been busy the last few months.  In July, a law was passed that made it possible for pregnant women to be "prosecuted for assault for the illegal use of a narcotic drug while pregnant”. 

This new law regarding welfare has eliminated five people from the public benefits and we can only assume more are to come. 

Photo Source: World Atlas
To learn more about this law go to WBIR

Rio without a drug testing lab

Rio de Janeiro’s anti-doping lab was stripped of its accreditation by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) last year; Brazil is still without a certified drug testing laboratory two years out from the next Olympics, which it will host.  The lab lost its accreditation because of the large number of false positives and "repeated failures" test results that the lab found. Apparently, the lab had somewhat of a record for producing “false positives” – in 2012 it produced a positive test for testosterone on Brazilian beach volleyball player Pedro Solberg Salgado that was later shown to be false.

More recently, the lab saw its positive test on now-retired Chelsea soccer star Deco overturned when his sample was retested in Lausanne. Deco originally tested positive for hydrochlorothiazide, a masking agent for steroids, and tamoxifen, often used to lessen the side effects of steroids, but he was officially cleared of the charges after the Lausanne re-test.

Rio, Brazil is set to host the Summer Olympics in 2016 and is now without a drug testing facility to test the athletes with.  For this year’s World Cup that was hosted in Brazil there was no drug testing facility.  All of the samples had to be shipped to a lab in Lausanne, Switzerland according to Inside the Games.  The cost of shipping these samples were close to 250k.

According to CNN Money, the cost of hosting the Olympics is rising and making a profit is harder.  There is even the cautionary tale of Greece who spent close to 11 Billion Euros (double the amount the Government budgeted for) on the games and now the country and most of the EU is in financial distraught.  The cost of sending samples to Switzerland could be possibly double the cost the World Cup spent.  Spending a possible 500K on shipping drug testing samples isn’t feasible for Rio.   The anti-doping lab in Rio needs to get its accreditation back by the time 2016 rolls around.  Brazil is starring to rush but it is running out of time for the 2016 Olympics.  

This article is a summation of an article on Swimswam.com that can be found here. 

The growth rate of IVF in America

The number of IFV treatments in America is growing.  This growth is not only from American couples attempting to conceive but also British couples as well. 

“Dr. Daniel Potter, who runs the largest fertility clinic on the West Coast of America, has delivered 750 babies to UK mothers since he started in 1997. Visits from UK women have risen by 20 per cent year on year to the IVF specialist, which allows them to choose the sex of their baby using a process currently banned in Britain. Dr. Potter says he sees around ten patients a month from the UK for his £7,600 treatment, with 80 per cent of potential parents opting for a girl and 20 per cent a boy.”

Dr. Potter said “'I'm here to educate the British public on gender selection, explain the process and address some of the misconceptions surrounding the treatment. With more and more of my patients coming from the UK, I wanted to meet people face to face and explain that gender selection is a tested, trusted resource available to families.”

UK couples have also been having theirissues with IVF. A recent Magazine article by Lisa Jardine about the frequency with which In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) fails prompted readers to send in their own experiences.

Five million babies have been born worldwide since 1978 thanks to IVF. But few people talk of the many more times the treatment doesn't work, said Lisa Jardine, the departing chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), in the article.

Fertility problems are estimated to affect one in six or one in seven couples in the UK - approximately 3.5 million people .

Around 60,000 fertility treatments are performed in UK licensed clinics per year, with the live birth rate after IVF about a quarter, according to latest figures (2010) from the HFEA.

The latest HFEA figures show that for every cycle of IVF, fewer than a third of patients under the age of the 35 will be successful. And the percentages decrease as women get older.

Moreover, costs are high - 60% of IVF treatment in Britain is carried out in private clinics

Here are some UK women and their opinos on IVF: 

Donna, UK: Several years ago, my husband and I embarked on consultations and investigations, then minor operations and IVF to be able to conceive. We had no choice but to go privately - at 34, I was the wrong age to get IVF on the NHS in our area. Having had the initial consultations and started a course of treatment we were told that IVF was not going to help us at all. In a way, we were lucky as our clinic was honest with us and did not try to "sell" us any more treatments or give us false hope - we had only spent £500. This enabled us to cope with the "loss" more easily at this early stage. Our expectations were well managed by our clinic, although I understand that this is not always the case. We have since gone on to adopt a beautiful boy who has made our family complete for the past three and a half years. I hated the invasive nature of IVF, and although I am glad we tried, I would never turn back the clock. We are financially secure now and would have had no savings for a rainy day if we had continued down the route of IVF.

Beth, Sussex: Having been through IVF four times, I can honestly say that all these clinics are after is your money. I've never received a phone call or letter after a failed cycle. In fact, the last clinic in Brighton thought we had miscarried but my twins are now six months old. The clinic made no effort to contact us. It's shocking.

Diane, York: I think it's quite naive to think that couples who embark on IVF don't know the odds of success. By the time they reach the decision of going down this route, they already know their chances are low. My husband and I certainly did. However, for us, it was a case of not looking back in 30 to 40 years' time, and saying that we wished we had at least tried. We were lucky, we are very proud parents of a lovely little boy at our third attempt, and we don't regret what we went through for one moment.

What do you think about IVF?

Would you travel across the Atlantic for it?