Surprise cord-blood find is ‘godsend’ for ailing boy

After half a year of blood transfusions to treat life-threatening anemia, 9-year-old Ricky Martinez was running out of time.

The Murrieta boy needed a bone marrow transplant to save his life. Although his parents had held numerous drives seeking a match for their son, the perfect donor eluded them.

Then another option appeared —- doctors found Ricky’s own blood from his umbilical cord, banked at birth, and stored in a medical facility.

“I had donated it at birth, when I delivered,” said Ricky’s mother, Cynthia Martinez. “I had no idea that I’d be using it for him nine years later.”

The cord blood discovery represents a “godsend” for the family, Martinez said, because Ricky’s body began rejecting the transfusions that keep him alive.

Cord blood contains stem cells —- undifferentiated cells that can spur production of healthy tissue to help treat various diseases. Doctors believe it could jump-start Ricky’s bone marrow, allowing his body to resume normal blood production.

But it’s not a guarantee.

Ricky’s condition, aplastic anemia, is an extremely rare disease, and cord blood transplantation is an experimental procedure for the condition, said David Buchbinder, a hematologist and transplant physician who is treating Ricky at Children’s Hospital Orange County, in the city of Orange.

Although the procedure offers few risks of complications, it also pushes the boundaries of medical practice, placing Ricky in a realm of mixed medical opinions and uncertain results, Buchbinder said.

His parents say they’re willing to go there to save their son’s life.

“His match is the best chance of survival,” said Ricky’s father, Oscar Martinez. “The doctors have told us it’s not a cure —- it doesn’t mean he’s going to defeat it. But it’s our only hope, and it’s his best chance.”

Sudden illness

The first signs of trouble appeared last summer, when Ricky developed large bruises on his legs, skin eruptions on his chest and nightly nosebleeds, Cynthia Martinez said.

After a particularly severe nosebleed that lasted hours, she took Ricky to the hospital, where tests showed her son had low counts of platelets —- blood cells involved in clotting.

He was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a condition in which the bone marrow ceases to make blood cells as the body’s immune system turns against itself.

“There’s some sort of insult, whether it’s a virus, that trips your immune system, so that it attacks your own body and empties your bone marrow,” Buchbinder said.

The bright-eyed boy, who loves his guitar and the Los Angeles Lakers, became a regular at the hospital, receiving weekly transfusions to replace the blood his body couldn’t produce.

His mother said Ricky has braved his illness cheerfully.

“The whole entire time, he’s been such a strong, amazing boy throughout this whole ordeal,” Cynthia Martinez said. “He’s had his spirits up and is always smiling.”

Awaiting a donor

While shuttling their son to doctor visits, his parents began preparing for the next step. Aplastic anemia sometimes resolves with treatment, but Ricky’s condition showed no sign of stabilizing. And the transfusions were a temporary fix.

For long-term remission or a cure, he would need a marrow transplant, in which doctors extract marrow from a donor’s blood or bone, then transplant it to the patient in order to restore healthy marrow.

For months, the family had conducted more than 20 bone marrow drives at parks, schools, shopping centers and churches in Southwest Riverside County, and in Escondido, where they originally lived.

Students at Cal State San Marcos chipped in, as well, launching a campuswide marrow drive in lieu of a final exam for instructor Scott Landau’s fall entrepreneurship class.

Together, the Martinez family and students registered 1,509 qualified donors in honor of Ricky, according to Be The Match, the national marrow donor registry.

Unexpected gift

Meanwhile, hospital workers were scanning donor rolls, and they located one potential donor for Ricky who matched most, but not all, of his biochemical markers. They were also surprised to find a cord blood sample that was a perfect match.

As hospital workers researched it, they discovered it was Ricky’s own cord blood, banked at the time of his birth, Buchbinder said.

“The whole thing is wonderful but strange,” Buchbinder said. “This is truly an amazing gift that we have this cord.”

Cord blood banking is an infrequent procedure, limited to parents who can afford the fee to store their child’s cord blood, or to those, such as Cynthia Martinez, who donate it for research. And aplastic anemia itself is an uncommon disease.

Because of that, Buchbinder said, there’s little medical literature on the procedure they plan for Ricky.

“We don’t typically use cord blood as a stem cell source —- it’s used for other diseases, like leukemia,” he said. “Not that many people bank their own cords. The fact that this was donated, and the fact that it’s still there, and Ricky happens to need it, is pretty amazing.”

Experts divided

Because there are few cases on record, experts are divided on whether using cord blood is a viable treatment for aplastic anemia.

The disease can result from a shock to the system or from a hereditary condition, Buchbinder said. In the latter case, transplanting the patient’s own cord blood would simply reintroduce the problem cells.

After extensive testing, however, Buchbinder said Ricky’s doctors have found nothing to suggest he was born with the disease, leaving the cord blood option open.

“This was truly what we would call an acquired aplastic anemia,” he said. “Somehow, Ricky got something that triggered his immune system” to attack his marrow.

Despite the uncertainties, using a patient’s cord blood confers some advantages over donated marrow. There’s no risk that Ricky’s body will reject his own cord blood cells, or that he will develop “graft-versus-host” disease, in which transplanted cells attack the recipient, Buchbinder said.

“Those cells are Ricky’s, so they will be happy inside of Ricky,” Buchbinder said. “There is no risk to using it, other than the fact that we are going to give him immunosuppressive drugs beforehand.”

Preparing for transplant

On Monday, Ricky will be admitted to Children’s Hospital Orange County, where doctors will begin prepping him for the procedure, delivering strong chemotherapeutic agents to wipe out his immune system and make way for his cord blood cells.

If that goes as planned, they will perform the transplant about a week later.

“They want his stem cells to take over in his own body and have a party and say ‘Yay, we’re home!’” Cynthia Martinez said.

Buchbinder said doctors will know about a month later how well the cord blood transplant worked. Martinez said the family is preparing for a three-month hospital stay while Ricky recuperates.

Last week, Ricky met actress Zendaya Coleman, from the Disney Channel show “Shake It Up!” at Disney’s studio in Burbank, through the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The two shared Xbox games and a pair of friendship bracelets, his mother said, and Coleman tweeted about the meeting, helping Ricky gain an instant following on Twitter.

Before he enters the hospital, his family will take him on a long-awaited outing to ride go-karts this weekend, Martinez said.

Although he has stayed upbeat throughout his illness, Martinez said that he awoke from a recent procedure and confided his fear and fatigue, as well as his resolve.

“He said, ‘I’m going to fight this disease, and I’m going to beat it, Mommy,’” she said.

Ricky’s parents say they will continue to recruit bone marrow donors regardless of the results, knowing that the cord blood transplant may not be a permanent cure.

“It’s just a waiting game for this transplant, to see if the cells can grow on their own,” Cynthia Martinez said. “He can be in remission, but we don’t know for how long. I don’t think we’ll ever know. We’ll just have to leave it in God’s hands, and be grateful for every day we do have with Ricky.”

by By DEBORAH SULLIVAN BRENNAN www.nctimes.com

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Add comment | May 10th, 2012

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Finding The Right Name For Your Baby Can Be Difficult. Here’s How To Make The Process Simpler And More Fun

Choosing a name for your baby could be a wonderful exercise for your and your significant other.  Remembering loved ones who have passed or honoring those in our families is one way we choose the name.  This can get very sticky knowing your mother would want to you name him after  uncle Joe  (whom you never even met) or your great great grandmother gladys back in the old country…. Well first of all take a deep breath, luckily you have a few months to calm the waters.  Put together a list of possibilities,even the most outrageous, and put it away for a week or two and revisit it again then.  When you prepare your list of things to do while you’re  pregnant and for the hospital, add it to your list of things  so every time you check something off it will be right there, staring you in the face reminding you that another discussion is still needed. .  Don’t forget to discuss cord blood banking with your other half and your ob/gyn or midwife. And remember, your probably never met a child who went to kindergarten without a name…..Read here for some great advice on naming your baby…..#cordbloodbanking #pregnancy #moms

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1 comment | May 7th, 2012

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Fetal Movement During Pregnancy

 

 

Feeling your baby twist, wriggle, punch, kick, and hiccup is simply one of pregnancy’s biggest thrills (and it sure beats heartburn, puffy feet, an aching back, and some of the other hallmarks of these nine months). There may be no better proof that a brand-new — and impressively energetic — life is developing within you.

But fetal movement during pregnancy can also drive a mom-to-be batty with questions and doubts: Is my baby kicking enough? Too much? Does my baby have four legs (because it sure feels that way when the kicking starts)?

Although every baby is different when it comes to fetal movement, and there’s a wide range of what’s normal, it helps to take a peek into your baby’s world during pregnancy to understand what’s going on in there, and what to expect when.

Fetal Movement in the First Trimester

From the first few days and weeks of pregnancy (when that rapidly expanding cluster of cells is just a cluster of cells) through the end of the third month (when your practitioner’s Doppler just might pick up the lovely lub-dub of a heartbeat), the first trimester is a time of astoundingly fast development. But don’t expect to feel any fetal movement yet (except the queasiness, the fatigue, the headaches…); your baby is far too tiny, and buried far too deeply within the protective cushioning of your womb, to make a blip on your belly radar. He or she could dance a jig and you’d feel neither a stamp nor a hop.

Fetal Movement in the Second Trimester

Ah, now we’re talking — or at least thumb-sucking, kicking, and thrashing. When will you actually feel those twitterings of life known as quickening? Some pregnant women (the very thin, or those who have had previous children) first feel their baby’s movement as early as the fourth month. Most women won’t be aware of, or recognize, the flits and twitches (which can feel a lot like gas or muscle spasms) for at least another few weeks.

By the fifth month, most women are feeling the fidgets and squirms of their active little tenant. The baby’s routines will grow increasingly acrobatic (and the punches more powerful) as those little muscles get stronger and those fledgling motor skills develop. Your little gymnast is still small enough to be able to turn somersaults with abandon within your uterus. Once you start feeling your karate kid’s kicks and chops, don’t panic if you go several hours — or even a day or two — without noticing any movement. At this stage and with your baby still quite tiny, it’s normal not to feel regular movement. (If you haven’t felt any movement by the middle of the fifth month, your practitioner may order an ultrasound to take a look at how your baby is doing — it might just be that your due date is off.)

Your baby picks up the pace in the sixth month. Leg movements will seem more choreographed, and you may start noticing patterns in the pitter-patter of those little feet (although it’s just as likely that the behavior won’t be predictable). Because the motion of your own body during your daily routine can lull the baby to sleep — and because you’re often focused on so many other things when you’re up and about — you may find that the baby is most active after you’ve settled down for the night (or after you have a snack; the surge in your blood sugar may give your baby a rush of energy — or when you’re nervous, since adrenalin can have the same effect). When you’re relaxed and more attuned to your body, you’re also more likely to be aware of what the baby is up to.

Fetal Movement in the Third Trimester

It starts to get a little cramped in the womb by the seventh month, but your baby still has enough room to toss and turn for a little while longer. Your pint-sized pugilist is getting stronger, and those punches, while comforting, can now be downright jolting.  Babies are individuals, just like the rest of us, and the rhythms and patterns of their activity will vary. Try not to compare your baby’s movements with those of others (your best friend’s pregnancy is different from yours), or of your own previous children. And don’t stress if your baby seems unusually active; it doesn’t mean you’ll have a hyper child later on.

Those kicks and punches are not the only movement you’re probably feeling these days. Have you sensed an occasional flutter of faint but rhythmic tics? The baby probably has a harmless — and perfectly normal — case of the hiccups. (Not having them is just as normal).

To Do in Month 7: After week 28, you can expect to feel fetal activity every day. Set aside some quiet time twice a day to “count kicks,” or any fetal movement. Ten movements of any kind in an hour or less is normal. If you haven’t felt ten movements within an hour, have a snack or some fruit juice, lie down, and continue counting; if it takes more than two hours to reach ten, contact your practitioner.

As your baby packs on the pounds in the eighth month, that formerly spacious apartment called your womb is becoming more like a cramped closet. Acrobatic tumbles are less likely now, but you’ll continue to feel wriggling and turning, with a few jabs of elbows and knees thrown in for good measure. If your little drummer’s bongo-playing on your belly starts to be more than you can take, try changing positions: Sit down if you’re standing, or lie down on your side; the baby will likely change positions too and find something else to do. At this point, you may even be able to interact with your baby: Next time you see a protruding something — a knee, perhaps, or a foot? — give it a gentle press. If the baby is game, you might see the limb get pulled back, then pushed out at you again.

To Do in Month 8: Continue counting kicks, but be aware that your baby now has a fairly regular cycle of sleep and wakefulness. Sometimes a lull in activity just means deep slumber (and soon you’ll be very grateful for that ability to sleep soundly). You should be able to perk things up with a snack, which usually rouses the baby. (If you don’t feel movement — ten within two hours, contact your practitioner right away.)

As showtime approaches, your baby is definitely center stage. In the ninth month, at nearly full length and weight, your little one is not so little anymore, at least not relative to those cramped quarters. You won’t feel those rapid-fire pummeling kicks (there’s just no room for that), but larger lurches and bigger boots (as baby turns over, for example) will definitely get your attention (as will the pounding that some babies like to inflict on the cervix — maybe they sense where the exit is?). Something else that will definitely get your attention: baby’s foot (or feet) lodging into your ribs. Ouch — that can hurt. A gentle nudge, a shift in your position, or doing the pelvic tilt might bring some relief.

To Do in Month 9: It’s crucial to note changes in activity; count fetal movements a few times a day, and report any sudden decreases to your practitioner.

When baby engages — or drops headfirst down into the pelvis — some time before delivery (two to three weeks before in first-time moms, closer to the due date in later pregnancies), those activity patterns could change again. You’ll feel — quite strongly — every turn of your baby’s head (it might feel like little sharp electric twinges close to your cervix), but those little feet can no longer dig into your ribs, which is (finally) a relief. The last few weeks before delivery are highly individual — some babies move a bit less, but don’t be surprised if yours keeps up an energetic pace until it’s time for your face-to-face introduction.

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Add comment | May 3rd, 2012

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Guide to Pregnancy Hormones

 

 

 

It doesn’t seem quite fair to accuse your hormones of causing every bloat, blemish, and emotional outburst during yourpregnancy. But the truth is that this potent cocktail of chemicals really is guilty as charged, and everything that’s happening to your body these days — both the good, and the not-so-good — can be pinned on them. Here are the important hormones you’ll be witness to as you go through your own trials and tribulations.

Luteinizing Hormone and Follicle Stimulating Hormone

Although these hormones are inactive during pregnancy itself, you wouldn’t be in this amazing altered state called pregnancy if it weren’t for the crisp conceptual choreography of luteinizing hormone (LH) and its partner, follicle stimulating hormone (FSH). Both hormones are produced by the pituitary gland in the brain and act early in life to mature the ovaries (and the testes in men); later on, they’re the caretakers of your 28-day (give or take) menstrual cycle.

First to the gate is FSH: At the beginning of the cycle (just as the last of your old uterine lining is sloughed away in your period), FSH stimulates one of your ovaries’ egg-bearing follicles to ripen its cargo and start making the hormone estrogen. Estrogen tells the uterine lining to begin rebuilding and eventually shuts down further secretion of FSH. At the same time, estrogen sets off a blast of luteinizing hormone, bursting the follicle and releasing the egg. The splayed-apart follicle now becomes a structure called the corpus luteum, or “yellow body”; it pumps out the hormone progesterone, which fine-tunes the ripening of the uterus and inhibits LH. Now on its own, the egg makes its way down the fallopian tubes to await the arrival of sperm. If no suitors are successful, it’s down and out, leaving your body with your period.  But if a sperm cell and the egg do rendezvous, the game is on.

Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG)

You probably didn’t recognize it at the time, but you’d come face-to-stick with the hormone hCG the day that little plus sign showed up on your home pregnancy test. It’s manufactured by the cells of the newly developing placenta within days after the fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining and gets the hormonal ball rolling by stimulating the corpus luteum to pump out even more estrogen and progesterone. HCG is found in your urine and your blood, which explains why you can pee on a stick to see if you’re pregnant — and why your practitioner may run a blood test to find out for sure. The hormone increases rapidly in the first few months (if you’re carrying more than one baby, even more will be chugging through your bloodstream), and your practitioner may check its levels to monitor your baby’s progress.

The cause of morning sickness: If morning sickness has you sidelined — morning, noon, night, or all of the above — you can also blame the hormone hCG. Surging quantities in the first trimester contribute to your queasiness. Many researchers say it is no coincidence that morning sickness usually subsides around the same time that hCG levels start to decrease, which is around the beginning of the second trimester, when the placenta takes over production of estrogen and progesterone. Peeing all the time? Blame hCG. And if you’re catching every cold and flu within sniffing distance, you have hCG to thank: It suppresses your immune function to reduce the chance that your body will reject the baby.

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Add comment | May 1st, 2012

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Pre baby bucket list

There are so many things to do and so little time before your LO gets here. Besides all the baby preparing you will need to do, such as the checklists,  the birth plan, etc, you need to plan for a day just for you. It might be filled with pampering, or shopping or a restful day in bed watching your favorite movie. Here are some great ideas from the people at Disney baby.

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Add comment | April 25th, 2012

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Pregnancy and Exercise

If you’re an avid exerciser or just trying to stay in shape while you’re pregnant, it is important to ask your doctor if you are healthy enough to exercise and how much is too much for you and your baby. If you are a runner you may be able to continue running through some of your pregnancy and you may need to ‘dial it down’ to a fast paced walk in the later months.  Exercise increases blood flow to your muscle, and your muscles are working harder so you need to listen to your body.  It tells you what you need to know. Check out this article for more information.

 

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Add comment | April 23rd, 2012

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Music for Prenatal Development

 


Do you play music for your baby? Do you listen to music while pregnant, or perhaps place headphones on your belly? You’re not alone, and new studies are showing how important this is for your child’s development and their ability to share an even greater emotional attachment with mom and dad.

Music Research

Psychobiologist Carolyn Granier-Deferre of Paris Descartes University conducted a study in 2011 with 50 ‘heavily pregnant women’ and the affects that music had on their child. The results ‘suggest that newborns pay more attention to what may be their mother’s melodic sounds than they will of those of other women.’

 

What does this really mean? A baby’s hearing develops during the last three months of pregnancy, and according to researches on this study the evidence suggests that babies who have been played music will better perceive the ‘sounds of speech’ after birth, and perhaps share a greater emotional attachment to those familiar sounds from mom and dad.

According to BabyZone.com, studies conducted by Thomas R. Verny and Rene Van de Carr provided proof that babies who were stimulated while in the womb ‘exhibit advanced visual, auditory, language, and motor development skills.’

How To Play Music For Your Child

Sure, you could watch American Idol and turn the volume up loud for baby to hear, or you could purchase some of the prenatal products on the market that are designed specifically for baby to hear music. You could go the ‘old school’ route and place headphones on your belly, or you could simply listen to the music yourself.

What Music to Play

While there are many conflicting studies on the type of music you should be playing for your child, the key seems to be in the pace and rhythm of the music, more than the type of music itself. A babies heart rate will mimic that of the music, so choose music with uniform, balanced beat rather than music with random, sudden shifts in rhythm.

The Mozart Effect

The Mozart Effect was an incredibly popular study conducted by the University of California at Irvine back in 1995. The results of this study showed that college students who listened to Mozart showed a temporary increase in spatial relationship skills and IQ points.

Unlike Beethoven or Bach, Mozart’s music is incredibly repetitive, with a melody that is very balanced. At the beginning of 2010, research was conducted at the Tel Aviv Medical Center in Israel to test the affects of The Mozart Effect on preterm babies. Once a day for two consecutive days the doctors played Mozart  for these babies, and found that after listening to Mozart the babies were calmer and ‘expended less energy,’ which allowed them to gain weight faster and ‘thrive more quickly’ then their counterparts who were not played music.

Music is wonderful stimulation for both babies in the womb, newborn babies, and children of every age. Musical instruction at a young age has been shown to improve literacy, verbal memory, mathematics and IQ. Music can make us happy, angry, or feel relaxed. Do you play music for your little one? If so, what do you play? How does your child respond?

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reposted from aoafamilyblogger

 

Add comment | April 20th, 2012

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Scientist Who Lost Daughter Champions Cord Blood

 

 

Saving umbilical cord blood from childbirth is a growing practice, and those in the field credit a former NASA astronomer with raising national awareness about cord blood’s potential for providing life-saving stem cells.

“There’s been a huge upswing in interest in cord blood banking,” said Danielle Winner Koontz, a childbirth educator and doula—or labor assistant—in Catonsville, MD. “The conversation comes up in every single [childbirth] class now.”

A newborn’s umbilical cord and placenta contain about two ounces of blood teeming with millions of precious stem cells–immature blood cells that can grow into different kinds of tissues. Stem cells are used to treat leukemia, lymphoma and other cancers, and a growing list of diseases.

Usually, the placenta and umbilical cord are thrown away after childbirth. An increasing number of parents are chosing to collect umbilical cord blood and bank it for a child in case of a future medical catastrophe or donate it to a public bank for a patient in need of a matching transplant.

If more parents know about cord blood banking today, it is due largely to the efforts of Frances Verter, a former astronomer at NASA who established a foundation to educate the public about cord blood after the death of her daughter.

Not even a year old, Shai Verter developed rhabdomyosarcoma, a rapidly growing and highly malignant cancer of connective tissue. Chemotherapy and radiation therapy pushed the cancer into remission but also wiped out Shai’s bone marrow, resulting in leukemia.

“We had a very hard time finding a donor” for a bone marrow transplant, said Verter. “She had a very unusual HLA [tissue] type. There wasn’t a match for her in the United States.”

By the time a matching donor was found in the United Kingdom, Shai was very ill. She improved briefly until slumping back into leukemia and died on Sept. 2, 1997, two months short of her fifth birthday.

Within a month of Shai’s death, Verter was pregnant again. She was determined to ensure that this baby would never want for a bone marrow donor in the future.

At the time, the area of umbilical cord blood banking was new. Only a handful of tissue banks stored cord blood for individual families. Verter—a Princeton-educated astronomer—immersed herself in laboratory accreditation standards and the emerging field of regenerative medicine as she investigated cord blood banks for her baby.

“I discovered that the literature that cord blood banks gave out was pretty puffy, and I talked to sales people who couldn’t answer medical questions,” she said. “To this day, banks will mislead people by saying they’re registered with the FDA. Big deal, all blood banks are registered with the FDA.”

Verter found a place to bank the cord blood when her daughter, Shoshana, was born in 1998. Later that year, she started a web site—Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood—that she tended to part-time in between raising a baby and working as a programmer supporting climate research at NASA’s Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, MD.

“All I was doing was sharing what I documented with other parents,” she said. “It’s the scientist in me. I’m good at documenting. That’s most of what I did at NASA, documenting things.”

At her web site, Verter compiled information about the services provided by a growing directory of cord blood banks, as well as resources about transplant medicine and a searchable map of donation sites. She developed a brochure that has been translated into eight languages.

During the years since, Verter has gained recognition as an expert on cord blood and stem cells. She has published on the subject and regularly attends conferences and gives presentations on cord blood banking.

In 2006, facing a layoff at NASA, Verter formed a nonprofit and put together advisory boards to create the Parents’ Guide to Cord Blood Foundation. She has worked full-time as its director since 2007. Verter runs the charity from her home near Olney, MD, which she shares with Shoshana, 13, and another daughter, 11-year-old Gavrielle.

Today Verter’s web site gets about 500,000 visits a month. Nearly a million American families have banked umbilical cord blood, she said.

“When I started the web site, I had no idea cord blood banking would take off as it did,” Verter said. “It was a total surprise that I never expected. It’s the classic example of being the right person in the right place at the right time.”

“It’s really remarkable how cord blood banking has all changed in the last few years,” Koontz said. “People are much more interested in banking cord blood, either for themselves or donating it to somebody who needs it.”

Calling Verter’s website a “vital tool for increasing public awareness about cord blood banking,” last November the National Marrow Donor Program honored her with a Lifetime Award at its annual meeting in Minneapolis.

“She’s the Mother Theresa of cord blood banking,” said Marion Welch, medical coordinator at  a blood bank based in Stamford, CT.

Welch, who has known Verter professionally for about a decade, has served on the foundation board for about five years.

“It’s an invaluable web site,” Welch said. “Fran has the scientific background to bring this complex information together and make it useful for professionals in cord blood banking as well as members of the public.”

The Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood site helps separate sound science from marketing hype, she said.

Verter is “a watchdog for the industry,” Welch said. “She really remains objective. She wants people to weigh all the options and make decisions based on the needs of their particular family. People want to be educated, not sold.”

Verter’s currency continues to grow as she receives invitations to speak at stem cell conferences around the world and spread the gospel of cord blood banking.

“The funny thing is that I’ve been more successful than I ever would have been as an astronomer,” she said. “I would have just been another astronomer, where here I am playing a unique role.”

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Add comment | April 18th, 2012

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Acupuncture and Morning Sickness

 

 

 

Morning sickness…. It can be a vague feeling of nausea at the start of the pregnancy or being physically sick several times a day. It can disappear after the famous 12 weeks mark or it can go on for months afterwards, up to 20 weeks, sometimes for even longer.

Research has shown that between 50% and 80% of women experience nausea at the start of their pregnancy and about 50% do get physically sick. For some women, vomiting is so bad that it leads to dehydration, weight loss and a possible ‘small for date’ baby.

Research and acupuncture for morning sickness

Several studies have been done on acupuncture and morning sickness. A meta analysis on electro-acupuncture and acupuncture in pregnancy has shown that electro-acupuncture and acupressure reduced nausea and vomiting. And a 2011 literature review by Freels shows that acupressure on P6 reduces the nausea symptoms.

Nausea and Chinese medicine

It is interesting that most of the research has been done using one specific acupuncture point P6. Situated on the inside of the arm, this point is well known for its anti-nausea properties. It is also very easy to find. That’s one of the reasons why it is used with travel sickness bands. However, there are many more points combinations that can be used in Chinese Medicine to help and support pregnant women.

As it is usually the case, there is no direct relationship between the Western diagnosis of ‘morning sickness’ and one single Chinese Medicine diagnosis. A full history will allow the acupuncturist to make his diagnosis and establish the points prescription specific to that particular woman. The practitioner will also be able to give some dietary advice depending on the diagnosis.

Once you are on the road of recovery, there are simple things you can do to ease of the nausea.

1.Keep hydrated. Be sure that, even if you have some nausea, you still drink water on a regular basis. More often than not, little and often works best rather than a whole glass in one go.

2.Choose your drink and start with water, water and water. Try and experiment with herbal teas too such as ginger tea, chamomile or peppermint tea. Ask your practitioner if some of those are perhaps more suitable for you. Someone with some ‘heat signs’ will do better with peppermint tea whereas someone with ‘cold signs’ or suffering from tiredness might do better with ginger tea.

3.Eat small portions regularly and keep to simple, bland foods. Porridge, rice or soups are easier to digest but still very nutritious. Keep some crackers with you so can snack easily. Some people find ginger biscuits help or eating a little before getting up in the morning.

4.Be weary of smells. You will probably find that you have become much more sensitive to smells. If possible, stay away from the offensive odours.

Finally don’t forget that if you really cannot keep any food or drink down, you need to contact your GP or midwife. Excess vomiting can be a serious issue during pregnancy and you would need to be followed by a health care professional.

The months leading up to becoming pregnant and pregnancy itself  are the most important  and exciting times for parents to be.  So just as you make a plan for  how to have a healthy pregnancy, labor and delivery so too, should you consider  banking your newborn’s cord blood. Collecting your child’s umbilical cord blood and saving it in a cord blood bank provides you with insurance in case your child develops any of the illnesses where cord blood is used in treatment.

Click here for a free information packet and special coupon for MAZE Cord Blood Laboratories! }

Check out our sweepstakes for Mother’sDay!! You can win FREE Cord Blood banking and 20 years of Free Storage!! Hurry! Ends May 13, 2012

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6793059

 

 

 

 

Add comment | April 16th, 2012

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Common Painkillers may raise risk of birth defects

According to a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, the study indicated an association between use of the drugs and a modest risk of congenital heart defects, as well as a heightened risk for spina bifida, hydrocephaly, congenital glaucoma and gastroschisis and was reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The analysis was based on the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (1997 to 2005) including data gathered from across 10 states. CDC researchers found that between 2 percent and 3 percent of mothers who took prescription painkillers such as codeine, hydrocodone or oxycodone (Oxycontin) either just prior to becoming pregnant or early in their pregnancy,  the risk of their newborn having a serious heart defect known as hypoplastic left heart syndrome was nearly twice that of women who did not receive these drugs.

The risks are affected by factors such as the amount of medication taken, whether other medications are taken in addition to the opioid drugs, at what stage of pregnancy the drugs are taken, and other health conditions of the mother-to-be. In addition, the report authors pointed out that the risks associated with these drugs in any one pregnancy remains small.

Today, cord blood stem cells are being used to treat diseases that require regeneration of cells in the blood.  Current research, however, is focusing on other cells and cell development via cord blood stem cells, and the hope is that such research will result in future cord blood use for nerve cells, organs regeneration and endocrine cells.

 

Click here for a free information packet and special coupon for MAZE Cord Blood Laboratories! }

Check out our sweepstakes for Mother’sDay!! You can win FREE Cord Blood banking and 20 years of Free Storage!! Hurry! Ends May 13, 2012

 

Add comment | April 13th, 2012

7287pwkr

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