Leah Love

Are These Things Safe While Pregnant? part 2

Mother's Health, Pregnancy, 1 Comment

People liked the article on “Are These Things Safe While Pregnant?“.

So here are some additions of things you interact with on a daily basis that could hurt the health of your baby during pregnancy.

Dyeing Someone Else’s Hair

If you’re thinking about a home dye job, if your doctor o.k.’s it, follow the directions on the box and be absolutely sure to wear gloves!  If you feel it’s not good enough, try going eco-friendly with your dyes.  Like dyes that are vegetables and mineral based pigments.

Here’s a few suggestions; Aveda, Herbatint, Palette by Nature, Fudge Paintbox, Manic Panic, Crazy Color, New Seasons, Henna too but see previous notes on it here.

Hair Removal

Plucking is painful, but not harmful to the unborn baby.  If you are a Nair user, you may want to rethink this for the length of your pregnancy.  The active ingredient in hair removal product is usually thioglycolic acid, which reacts chemically with your hair.

The doctor is out when it comes to an answer to whether or not chemicals in hair removal creams (like barium sulfide and calcium thioglycolate) are too dangerous for your fetus, so you may just feel safer (or happier) asking your partner to break out the razor and join you in the tub!

However, if your pregnancy has you experiencing a rather slow sex drive, like me, and don’t want to lead the poor guy on, you can also wax (ouch) or elect for electrolysis.  I’ll be opting for a more au-natural experience, sigh.  For as long as I can’t see below my belly anyways.

Perfumes

Personally I can’t stand them, there’s something about perfumes that makes a person smell like burnt feathers.  Ish.

Read the label on the bottle, the word ‘fragrance’ is often the cover word for phthalates.  Phthalates are connected to breast cancer in women and birth defects in babies.  I can see wearing a little perfume when it’s just you, but considering the sensitivity of a fetus… just leave the perfume out!

Or, if you’re out of your first trimester, you can go for essential oil.  Here’s a short list of the ‘safe’ oils.

•    Roman chamomile
•    Eucalyptus
•    Geranium
•    Ginger
•    Grapefruit
•    Lavender
•    Lemon
•    Lemongrass
•    Lime
•    Mandarin
•    Patchouli
•    Rose Otto
•    Rosewood
•    Sandalwood
•    Sweet orange
•    Tea tree (Personal Favorite!)
•    Ylang Ylang

However, here’s a short list of oils that you should probably avoid during pregnancy altogether.

•    Arnica (homeopathic is fine)
•    Basil
•    Birch (sweet)
•    Bitter almond
•    Camphor (brown or yellow)
•    Cedarwood/thuja
•    Cinnamon
•    Clary sage
•    Clove (bud, leaf or stem)
•    Coriander
•    Fennel
•    Horseradish
•    Juniper Berry
•    Mugwort
•    Mustard
•    Nutmeg
•    Parsley (large doses)
•    Pine (Dwarf)
•    Rosemary
•    Rue
•    Sassafras
•    Savory (Summer)
•    Tansy
•    Thyme red (large doses)
•    Wintergreen
•    Wormwood

Acne Treatment

My skin hasn’t undergone any dramatic changes since I’ve been pregnant, but some women feel like they’re having a second adolescence.  And, as most of us remember, we slathered on the crèmes like our lives depended on it.  Our social lives anyway.

Stay away from leave on lotions, gels and crèmes as well as peels that have salicylic acid or retinoids.  Though, if you see Glycolic acid, it’s an AHA and a-okay.  Ask your dermatologist.

Sunscreen.

Safe!  Yayy!  Though it’s probably still a good idea to visit the beach between 10 in the morning and 4 in the afternoon, wear a broad-brimmed hat, sunglasses and long sleeves (if possible).  Depending on your sunscreen and how much toweling off or sweating off, reapply every couple of hours.

Makeup!

Makeup is mostly safe. Though I’ll be checking my foundation for retinoids or salicylic acids.  Otherwise it’s fine!

Are These Things Safe While Pregnant?

Mother's Health, Pregnancy, 3 Comments

Let’s just start with this, nobody nowhere has proved one way or another either the safety or the danger of anything.  So let’s take the below with a grain of salt and as always consult a professional, like… your doctor!

Tattoos

Tattoos involve needles, and if you’ve ever had a tattoo or known someone who has, then you’ll know that blood is involved.  Not a lot is known about the side effects of the ink dyes on your fetus’s growth except that the risk is greater just for having exposed your blood to outside influences.

Rarely, some inks are known to cause allergies leading to dangerous reactions.  It is also thought that if you should ever undergo laser treatments to remove an unwanted tattoo, some ‘azo’ dyes may become carcinogenic in the bloodstream.

Henna

I let my mother doodle on my arm with this tube of brown goo that looked a lot like melted chocolate.  I don’t know why I assumed that it was fine, and it mostly is, but I should have done a little research.

Use only natural henna, if your henna is black it is a synthetic chemical, para- phenylenediamine (PPD) and isn’t safe for anyone let alone pregnant people.

Spray Tan

We know that overdoing the real thing can be harmful, but now we also know that the primary ingredients in a spray on tan may be just fine.  They interact with the outermost layer of skin, the one that’s going to flake off anyway, and isn’t absorbed into the subcutaneous layer.

Bath Products – Go Cheap!

Apparently the expensive bath products have the most harmful chemicals. Chemicals that can cause allergies and even cancer.  The cheapest products are comprised of safer ingredients.

Nails

Nobody knows the damage that could be done by the toxicity of having your nails done at a salon.  There is no known safe amount of dibutyl phthalate, formaldehyde and toluene (a.k.a. the toxic trio).  But given that the word ‘formaldehyde’ is pretty much a big no-no, we should all just go ahead and avoid having our nails done while pregnant, unless of course our doctor advises us that it’s ok.

What is best, if you can’t stay out of the salon, is to request pregnancy safe products like Zoya, Acquarella Water Color, Dr.’s Remedy, Go Natural, Honeybee Gardens, No-Miss Nail Polish, Nubaar Nail Lacquer, Peacekeeper Cosmetics, Polished Mama, Refreshingly Free, Safe Nail Polish, Toxicfree Boutique.

And here is a little list of the above polishes who produce Non-Toxic Nail Polish Removers: Acquarella, Go Natural, Honeybee Gardens, No-Miss Nail Polish, Nubaar Nail Lacquer, Peacekeeper, Polished Mama, Safe Nail Polish, Toxicfree Boutique.

Hair Dye

Studies always seem to suggest drastic links between hair dyes and birth defects, like the childhood cancer neuroblastoma.

On a side note, some chemicals banned in Europe are still to be found in American dyes.

Though it seems that deformities may, in fact, occur mostly to people who are working full time in the profession.  So an hour or so in the chair (after the 1st trimester is over) may not be as drastically bad for you as once thought.  Discuss the safest options with your colorist as well as your doctor.

Here is a list of articles you might want to check out!

Artificial Sweeteners While Pregnant

Mother's Health, Pregnancy, 1 Comment

Sweets for pregnant woman.I love sweets.  I just do.  I’m sadly addicted to all things sweet.  Notice that I didn’t say ‘sugary.’  Although, I hold a special place in my heart for sugar.  A secret, shameful, place.  Sigh.

Every so often I’ll try to supplement my sugar with something that’s supposed to be considered less ‘bad’ for my body, like Stevia.  Stevia (a.k.a. sweet leaf, sweetleaf or sugarleaf) is native to tropical regions and is a part of the sunflower family.  The reason some hawk Stevia is that it is not caloric and is supposed to be anywhere between 30-300 times sweeter than sugar.  Sweeter than sugar?  This I have to try. right?

So I bought a bag of Stevia to keep atop my refrigerator as a sort of replacement for sugar.  But it was not to be.  There is a difference between the sweetness of Stevia and the sweetness of sugar.  And it turns out I cannot go cold Stevia.  I must be content to cut my sugar with Stevia so I cannot taste the Stevia taste and will not miss the Sugar taste.

So the short and the long of this is that I don’t like artificial sweeteners.  As a rule, I don’t put them in my kitchen because there seems to be no one sweetener that can be deemed conclusively ‘safe’ for me, especially as a pregnant woman.  But often the choice to avoid artificial sweeteners is taken away from me, like when I go out to eat.  So I think I’d better know which of them not to overdo.

The FDA has approved only five artificial sweeteners:

Acesulfame potassium

Sweet One, Sunett.  A calorie-free artificial sweetener.  Accidentally discovered in 1967, 200x sweeter than sugar, as sweet as aspartame, not quite as sweet as sucralose.  Acesulfame K has been shown to have an impact on hypoglycemia in rats.  But the rats didn’t show signs of cancer yet.

Listen up pregnant women!  Acesulfame K may affect prenatal development through the amniotic fluid and breast milk.  I’m unsure why this is bad except it’s said to affect the mouse’s baby’s perception of ‘sweet.’  Does that worry you?

Aspartame

NutraSweet of Equal.  It has been blamed for causing any number of ailments from fatigue to tumors, even though the FDA can find no proof that it is dangerous for consumption.  However, if you have a genetic condition called phenylkenoturia (PKU) look out.  PKU is a disorder of amino acid metabolism and those with PKU need to keep the levels of phenylalanine in the blood low to prevent mental retardation and neurological, behavioral and dermatological problems.  Phenylalanine is one of the two amino acids in aspartame.  Look.  Out.

D–Tagatose

Sugaree.  Found naturally in cacao, fruit and dairy products and is not quite as sweet as sugar but has less than half the calories.  The FDA calls it safe for consumption and is also a tooth friendly ingredient.

Saccharin

Sweet ‘N Low.  Created out of necessity in 1879, supplemented sugar shortages in both world wars.  Apparently it caused bladder cancer in rats, but the public insisted it be kept on the shelves. In the 1970s there were no other sugar substitutes, so it stayed.  Albeit with a warning label.  However, people are not rats, and male rats are predisposed to bladder cancer, so the warning was taken off the box.

Sucralose

Splenda, Nevella, SucraPlus.  A non-caloric sweetener discovered 1976.  About 600x sweeter than sugar, twice as sweet as saccharin and 3x as sweet as aspartame.  The FDA approves sucralose as safe for consumption.

A Duke University study found that doses of Splenda containing sucralose reduces the amount of ‘good’ bacteria in the intestines of rats by half, increases the pH level in the intestines, increases body weight and damages DNA in mice.  Though apparently this has not been proven in humans.

Conclusion

So if you can trust the FDA, you can feel mostly safe ingesting these.  Though my general rule of thumb is moderation in everything, including moderation.

People, like me, often use as much of the substitute for sugar as the sugar itself, which is, in essence, an overdose of artificial sweetener. High doses increase the chances of the negative effects mentioned above.

So if we just remembered to moderate it, we’d be better off!

Early Signs of Pregnancy

Pregnancy, Comments Off on Early Signs of Pregnancy

Pregnant

I doubt I ever would have known I was pregnant without the stick-test.  Which I only took on a lark because I was a whole day late for my period.  Imagine my surprise when it came back + !  Other than a barely late period, I had no idea that anything was up! Not to say that I didn’t eventually have symptoms…

Yes, yes, a missed period is one of the largest clues that you could be pregnant sure (as is the pregnancy test itself!); but a lot of us just don’t experience menstruation like clockwork either so it really depends on the individual.  Implantation bleeding (when the fertilized egg attaches to your uterus) can look very much like a period, though, it’s what happened to me.

I would have written it off as a short, brownish, period if I didn’t already know I was pregnant.  If you’re pregnant and experience spotting, don’t be scared, you’re likely fine.

Morning sickness, the biggest clichéd symptom of them all, is such a misnomer!  Mornings my tushie!  I’d always feel this indefinable (generally non-pukey) sensation in the late afternoon/early evening time, usually when I was at work.  How fun.  I’d sit there thumping on my chest to force a burp so I could stop feeling green at the gills.

Eventually, I just started drinking sodas (non-caffeinated) to help the burps along faster.  If remedies like Ginger don’t help you, prepare to do some forced napping, it’s the only thing that helped me pass through it.

I’m not going to discuss constipation; you don’t want me to.  You really don’t.  Just make sure that you’re drinking looooots and loooooots of water, okay?  Okay.

Heartburn sucks!  I never ever had heartburn before I got pregnant, and boy was it a surprise!  You can’t tell me that there isn’t a little Leah-Voodoo doll with needles sticking out of its poor little back/chest/throat.  At night, I would wake up out of dead sleep with bile about to spill out onto my pillow.  Ick!  I went through sooooo many antacids.  Sleeping with your upper body elevated does help, take all your husband’s pillows if you have to… If he knows what’s good for him, he won’t mind.

But as for a lot of the other symptoms, there was nothing to tell me of my impending babyhood.  My breasts weren’t sore, I didn’t feel especially tired in any way, nor was I making extra trips to the little girls’ room.  I wasn’t dizzy, tired, bloated, cranky, faint or experiencing food aversions; nor was I having mad cravings for garlic ice cream.  Though (cliché alert) I did once have the compulsion to eat a giant pickle seconds after I’d eaten ice cream.  Does that count?

Don’t worry if you think you aren’t experiencing ‘enough’ symptoms.  You’ll catch up.

Due Date Calculator

Update, 2 Comments

My husband and I already have one child, a son we call Frumpkin.  We love him, but we’re thinking about giving him a little sibling.  We’ve set nothing in stone, my husband and I, but I admit that I’m having fun with the planning process.  Back to the internet due date calculator!

I tested several online due date calculators with my DS’s information (from back in 2012) to see which websites agreed
with my doctor’s due date and ranked them in order of most to least helpfulness.

Due Date Calculator

http://www.perinatology.com/calculators/Due-Date.htm

They include not only the usual first-day-of-last-menstrual-period option but options for conception date, date of 3-day embryo transfer, date of 5-day embryo transfer and a due date by sonogram!  And then they go on to list not only your estimated due date but the gestational age, date of conception, first fetal heart tones, and at least ten other time sensitive dates that you as a pregnant woman might need to know!  Super cool!

http://www.babycenter.com/pregnancy-due-date-calculator

Babycenter.com. They calculated my due date one day early, November 23rd, but I’m hardly going to hold it against them.  They then give me a little message that my baby’s due date has passed and invite me to follow links to their ‘baby, toddler, preschooler, or big kid’ pages.  So they were super helpful!

http://www.firstresponse.com/due-date-calculator.asp?gclid=CKf11bmnxrkCFe9aMgodJmAAbg

I used their test to find out I was pregnant!  Their estimated due date agreed with that of my doctor.

http://www.webmd.com/baby/healthtool-due-date-calculator

Bare bones and a day early.  Meh.

http://www.thebump.com/calculators/duedate.aspx?MsdVisit=1

I’ve used the bump before, but I suppose that since I don’t still use it I probably I failed to find it personally relevant.  The calculator was a day earlier than my doctor’s prediction and the blurbs surrounding the calculator itself are reflections of questions other women might ask upon finding out they are pregnant; i.e. ‘when should I see the doctor?’ but are in no way personalized to me as the babycenter.com site did.

http://www.marchofdimes.com/pregnancy/calculating-your-due-date.aspx

You’d think the March of Dimes would have an accurate online due date calculator, but I think somebody needs to improve it.  I understand that it might be strange to ask what your due date is when you’ve already had your child but at least give an answer if you provide the option.  Don’t go out of your way to provide an irritating error message!  Humor the crazy lady!

http://www.whattoexpect.com/due-date-calculator/

A great site and it was on track with my doctor’s estimation as well. They also offer cool tips depending on how far along you are in your pregnancy.

Traveling with a Toddler

Parenting Toddlers, Comments Off on Traveling with a Toddler

It can be just terrible to be a toddler during an extended car trip.  It’s so easy to fall prey to the car doldrums, and it’s a short trip from boredom to complaint.

In our car, we like to engage with our tot for as long as we can.  Yes, eventually we will break out the hand-held electronics but first… we play car games.

Ideas for Traveling with a Toddler

I SPY

ToddlerNow’s the time to perfect your ‘I Spy’ game.  If your child knows his/her colors (or even if they could use a little more practice), you can play this game anywhere.

Player 1 begins the game with the question that goes like this…  “I spy with my little eye, something ___ “(insert adjective of choice; circular, grey, smelly etc) Alternate phrasing could go “I spy with my little eye, something that begins with the letter___.”

Player 2 makes his/her educated guess.

THAT CLOUD LOOKS LIKE…

Have your tot look out at the clouds if they’re there, ask him what they look like if player 2 is not the driver they can play too.

THERE’S ONE..!

This game can be played in between (even during) other games.  At the start of the road trip the adult (player 1) looks at player 2 and encourages them to pick something that can be occasionally seen along the road (horses, punch buggies etc…)whoever sees the most during the trip wins!

NAME THAT TUNE

Player 1 hums a song from their favorite band or television show; the other player(s) must guess the correct answer.

FIND THE COLORS

This is a good game if your tot knows his/hers colors.  Player 1 calls out a color and the rest of the players must look for something in or outside the car.  Example, call out the color red and player two can point out such things as; barns or other structures, cars, the drivers sweater, etc…

These are just some options, if you have a game that you love playing with your kids, let us know about it!

Baby Shower Games For Guys and Gals

How-to for ParentingLeave a comment

Baby Shower GamesI haven’t been to a lot of baby showers lately, not since I was a kid and it was my mother getting the invites.  But that’s okay, I don’t remember baby showers as being a whole lot of fun anyway.  Quite boring in fact, when one remembers the old baby games I’d been forced to play.  As if accepting an invitation and offering gifts makes us obligated to eat jars of baby food while blindfolded.  No thank you.  I went to the internet and began the search for a better baby shower game.

Pregnant Man:

First, gather the men of the group.

Gather them up, sit them in chairs side by side, tell them to blow up a balloon, tie it off.  Then (while they try to figure out why we women are untying their shoes) inform them that the purpose of the game is for them to stuff the balloon under their shirts; and then, without lifting their shoes off the ground, they must re-tie them without popping the balloon.  The first guy to accomplish this wins a prize!

Sounds simple but it’s worth a lot of laughs for all involved!  Don’t forget to get it on tape.

Baby Shower Relay:

This is another game that can be played entirely by men, and is in fact almost more fun to watch if it is exclusively men.  Immagine it…

Assemble these items on a long table, one per participant; a blindfold, asmall baby bottle filled with liquid of your choice, a cloth diaper, a diaper pin, a baby spoon, a jar of baby food (a kind flavor please!)

Blindfold the men, make them relay race each other for a ‘manly’ prize of your choice.  First, they must drink the little bottle of apple juice or what have you, then they must (remember they’re still blindfolded) diaper their balloon without popping it.  Then they must eat their container of baby food for the win!

Personalized Baby Trivia Questions!

Here is the first draft of the trivia quiz I’m going to try and get out at the Baby Shower for Me and Jason’s friends and family, the ‘correct’ answers are dashed and italicized.

How big is a baby’s head in relation to its body after it’s born?
A. 1/18 the size of the body
-B. one fourth the size of the body
C. 1/2 the size of the body

02. What is Leah’s Due Date?
A. December 1st
B. December 3rd
-C. November 24th

 03. What are the Boy/Girl Middle Names picked out for Jason and Leah’s infant?

A. George/June
B. Leason/Jaseah (a combination of Jason’s and Leah’s names)
-C. Responsible/Buttercup
D. Thomas/Anne

 04. What did the mama-to-be do six hours before she found out she was pregnant?

A.  Go to Six Flags and ride the Raging Bull, the Viper, and Batman: the Ride, twice.
B. Accidentally drank almost three red solo cups of spiked punch at an office party.
-C. Fall down the stairs.

 05. What is the age on record for the oldest woman to be pregnant on earth?

A. 71 years
B. 88 years
-C. 66 years

 06. What is the scientific term for when an egg and a sperm unite?

A. lucid transmittance
-B. zygote
C. prokaryotic

 07. What is the weight of the heaviest baby ever on record?

A. 19 pounds 2 ounces
B. 24 pounds 2 ounces
-C. 23 pounds 12 ounces
D. 36 pounds

 08. How many months before an infant’s eye color is fixed?

-A. 6-9 months
B. 2-4 months
C. 5-7 months

 09. How many bones does a newborn have?

-A. 300
B. 306
C. 289

 10. When do babies typically begin to recognize themselves in the mirror?

A. within the first three months
B. between 5 and 15 months of age
-C. between 9 and 24 months of age

 11. Which sense is developed first in newborns?

-A. hearing
B. touch
C. taste
D. smell

 12. When does a baby start to smile socially?

A. after one year
B. 2-5 months
-C. 4-8 weeks
D. 7-8 months

 13. Excluding medical cost, how much does it cost on average to raise a child for the first year in the USA?

A. $10,000
B. $3,000
C. $15,000
-D. $7,000

 14. How long does it take on average for a man to change a diaper on a newborn?

A. 45 seconds flat!
B. 2 minutes
-C. 1 minute 36 seconds
D. What?  Change a diaper?  Nooo thank you.

 15. What is the essential ingredient in a diaper cake?

A. lavender chocolate
B. Sour Cream
-C. diapers
D. Seven Up

 16. Newborns don’t have this body part:

-A. Kneecaps
B. skull
C. elbows
D. hipbone

 17. From What Book did Jason First Read to His Unborn Kiddo?

A.  Peter Pan
-B.  Tales from Edger Allen Poe.
C. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

 18. What Did Leah’s Mother (Barbara) tell Leah’s Grandmother (Rita) she was going to name Leah?

A. Sugar
-B. Prometheus
C. Honey
D. Andromeda

19. Which oldies music group came up with the the hit song “Baby Love?”

-A. The Supremes
B. The Ronettes
C. The Chantels

20. What color, until the 1940s, was the defining color for boys/girls?

A. Black for both
B. Yellow for both
-C. Pink/Blue
D. Blue/Pink

Your Turn:

Leave your favorite game to play or a game you would like to play at a baby shower in the comments section below. I would love to get some new and creative ideas for next time.

Am I Pregnant Quiz

Pregnancy, 1 Comment

QuestionsAnswer Yes or No to each of these questions.

  1. Is my Aunt ‘Flo’ late?
  2. Have you got your period but it’s unusually light?
  3. Having unusual discharge?
  4. Feeling more tired than usual?
  5. Been feeling ‘emotional’ lately?
  6. Are your breasts feeling sensitive?
  7. Bra getting a little tight?
  8. Pants getting a little tight?  Bloating?
  9. Have you been feeling nauseous or dizzy?
  10. Unexplained vomiting?
  11. Avoiding certain smells/foods?
  12. Having unusual cravings?
  13. Having back pain?  Maybe, headaches?
  14. Do you have to pee more than usual?
  15. Experiencing constipation?
  16. Is your basal body temp running high?
  17. Did the Pregnancy test read positive?

Even if you didn’t say ‘Yes’ to the majority of the answers pay attention to your body.  Even one or two out-of-place symptoms could mean something.  Be safe, if you suspect you could be pregnant, take a test and then call your doctor.