Pregnancy News
September 21, 2007
Pregnant Women Should Sleep More
Pregnancy doesn’t have to cause sleep deprivation, says sleep expert. Pregnancy often causes women to frequently urinate and have some discomfort at night as they try to accommodate their expanding bellies, says Dr. Jodi A. Mindell, associate director of the Sleep Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. But almost all those little disturbances can be managed, she says.
Pregnant women should make sleep one of their main priorities. Mindell explains why in her upcoming book Sleep Deprived No More: From Pregnancy to Early Motherhood. She refers to the study that looked at the sleeping habits of pregnant women in their last month of pregnancy. The study found that women who got less than 6 hours of sleep a night had longer labor periods (29 hours vs. 16 hours) and were more likely to get a C-section compared to women who slept at least 7 hours a night.
Source: Reuters Health
September 21, 2007
Pregnancy Peanut Advice in Question
A new study suggests that mothers who avoid giving their babies peanut products may be causing more harm than good. The study shows that the more pregnant women without a personal history or family history of nut allergies avoid peanuts, the greater the chance of them giving birth to infants with peanut allergies.
This study along with other similar ones question the advice that the British Government gave in 1998 to pregnant women to avoid eating peanut products. Other studies have found that peanut allergies are low or non-existent in countries where babies are given peanut products.
These studies suggest that Britain’s increase in nut allergies in the last decade may be caused by pregnant women or mothers needlessly avoiding ingesting peanuts or providing peanut snacks to their babies.
Source: thisislondon.co.uk
September 21, 2007
Pregnancy Test Designed to Detect Life On Mars
Parts of the device designed to test whether or not life ever existed on Mars have been launched into space to test their durability. The device adopted, named the Life Marker Chip (LMC), works similarly to how pregnancy tests work. The LMC shares the same technology as pregnancy tests and can detect levels of biomarkers, or in other words, signs of life. Scientists hope that the LMC will be a part of the European Space Agency's ExoMars rover mission that is schleduded for launch in 2013.
Source: inthenews.co.uk
