Pregnancy

About Pica

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I don’t have Pica, but I thought I would try and teach myself a little something about it.  Just in case it rears its scary head somewhere in the future.

I probably shouldn’t go ahead and assume that everybody knows what Pica is.  So I’ll describe it here and if you know it already you can just skip ahead a little.

Pica is when you have a physical craving for items or substances that have little or no nutritional value.  It is the persistent eating of non-nutritive things for at least a month without any association with an aversion to food.  The word ‘Pica’ itself is from the Latin word for ‘Magpie’ which is a bird who is apparently known for its questionable eating habits.

Usually, it’s associated with Pregnant women, at least in my experience. Though I know a woman at work who has a young cousin who will literally eat anything it is left alone with, even nails and batteries!  That and other rather ‘unsavory’ ingredients.  Let me go ahead and name some of the most common types of pica.

Geophagia

If you recognized ‘geo’ you got it, eating dirt.  Topsoil, clay, chalk, etc…  Animals do it in the wild, and it’s fine, but apparently we can’t chew on the grass with our pups, people frown on that.

A pregnant woman who eats clay may be throwing back to the days of the cave when clay was the best available remedy for nausea.  Clay, in rural US areas, is eaten as some sort of soother for the gastrointestinal tract and may absorb toxins.  Why are we eating the toxins?

My best friend growing up used to eat sand right off the ground.  I don’t know how she figured out that sand was the thing to eat, at the time I just thought it was one wacky quirk.  Like being able to hock a loogie or something (ew).  Not as a geophagic deficiency in minerals.

Pagophagia. Ice

I’ve never met anyone who had to compulsively eat ice before, but I suppose it’s easy to disguise.  I mean, who is going to look at you askance if you chew on the remnants of your soft drink?  It’s even easier to hide if you like Icees.

If you have this compulsion try popping some iron pills, the two are linked.  Though apparently it’s unclear if that’s the truth or pagophagia may cause iron deficiencies, check with your doctor!  But don’t chew too much ice it’s probably not good for your teeth huh?

Amylophagia.  Starch.

What?  There are people out there who eat boxes of purified cornstarch?  News to me.  Though pregnant women should file this one away since amylophagia has similar characteristics to gestational diabetes and can gum up a diagnosis.  Just like g.d. excess consumption of starch leads to high birth weights and delivery complications.

…..

List of pica cravings:  burnt matches, hair, stones, charcoal, baby powder, mothballs, toilet paper, couch cushions, toothpaste, soap, sand, plaster, coffee grounds, coin money, baking soda, cigarette ash, dry bath sponges, kitty litter, wire etc…

Go to ranker.com/list/the-10-most-bizarre-eating-disorder-news-stories/ivana-wynn to see some evidence of pica sufferers.

Go here experienceproject.com/group_stories.php?g=99194 to visit a message board where pica sufferers discuss what they eat and why.

It is suggested (though how can we know) that half of pregnant women who suffer from pica don’t say anything about it.  I just told my husband that I would probably have a hard time telling him if I were inclined to eat let’s say chalk.  Mostly because I already have food shame, but that’s another story.

Can you imagine the fear in confessing to someone, even your doctor, that you like to eat kitty litter?

You don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to, except of course your doctor.  You can’t gain anything by keeping back from him/her.  Their job is to ‘do no harm’, nowhere in the job description does it say anything about being judgmental and if you have that kind of doctor…  kick him/her to the curb and start over with someone more helpful!

Pregnancy and Hot Tubbing

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Two in a Hot TubIf you wish to be especially cruel to a pregnant woman, invite her to go hot tubbing.  Because you know she can’t.  But if she’s like me she may have to fight with herself, because who doesn’t want a muscle melting dip in the frothy hot waters of bliss? Sigh…

One woman I met was sitting in a hotel hot tub and casually talking about her brand new pregnancy to a grandmotherly lady across the way when the grandmotherly lady, upon hearing that the woman was pregnant, proceeded to force her out of the tub with cries of ‘You’re hard boiling your baby!’

Sure, it sounds a little ridiculous, the thought of your tiny little fetus suddenly congealing into a picnic snack.  Gack!  But is there some truth to that?  What is the danger?

Any activity that raises your core body temperature to 102.2 degrees or more can have terrible consequences for your fetus.  Whether from fever or from sitting outdoors in the sun,  especially in the first trimester when his little body is developing.  Research suggests that fetus’ exposed to abnormal temperatures are at risk of disrupted development of the brain and spine.  Elongated time in high-temperature environments could result in some of the following;

  • Spina Bifida, (occurs when the spinal column doesn’t close all the way.)
  • Damage to the central nervous system.
  • Eye problems such as cataract.
  • Abnormal smallness of the brain, (called Micrencephaly.)
  • Cleft palate
  • Heart defect
  • Mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy, schizophrenia, etc…

All it takes to become hyperthermic (too hot) is 10 minutes in a hot tub or sauna, just 10 minutes!  So what can you do to make sure you keep your hot-tubbing lifestyle from getting out of control?

  • Always, always, consult your doctor’s advice.
  • Lower your hot tub temperature gauge to no hotter than 97-100 degrees.
  • If you cannot adjust the setting of a hot tub, take a warm bubble bath instead.
  • Avoid every-day use of the hot tub, once a week for no longer than 10 minutes should be sufficient.
  • Avoid submersion if you can by sitting safely on the edge of the tub and soaking your feet to the knee.
  • Recognize your internal warnings, if you are uncomfortable or dizzy, leave the hot tub area for someplace cooler.
  • And, again… always, always, consult your doctor’s advice!

Ye Olde pregnancy test

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Pregnancy TestModern pregnancy tests are amazingly convenient.  Unbox the stick, pee on the stick, re-cap stick, wait for the stick to indicate
pregnancy.  The entire process often takes no more than 5 minutes top to bottom!

I vaguely recall that the pregnancy tests of 10-20 years ago used to be rather inconvenient.  Involving cups and egg timers.  Ick.

If I’d have been born 1,000 BC, I’d have to pee on a sack of wheat and barley seed to find out if I were pregnant.  Then wait to see if they sprouted or not.  If no sprouts, no baby.  But the rule was if the wheat sprouted I’d have a girl, and if the barley sprouted then it was a boy.  Apparently they tested this theory in the early 60s and history was vindicated!  At least about the sprouting, it had something to do with the woman’s excess estrogen.

Around the same era, the Greeks found it perfectly normal to place bulb of garlic or onion into your womanly area overnight (gag!).  If your breath didn’t stink of onion the next morning, you were preggo!  Don’t ask me, I don’t get it either.

The next earliest test test, though it was hardly a viable home option, was the ‘Rabbit’ test, developed in 1927.  A woman’s urine was injected into a juvenile (female) rabbit, rat or mouse.  The poor baby animal was then euthanized a few days later and its ovaries dissected.  If ovulation was found to have been induced in the juvenile animals, the woman was pregnant.

People later moved onto African frogs, which are more humane because they, when injected with pregnant women’s pee, would just lay eggs so… no killing necessary.

The pregnancy test as we think of it was invented in the 1970’s as a two-hour long process. It called ‘Wampole’s two-hour pregnancy test.

The test kit consisted of; two test tubes, a plastic rack, a bottle of control solution, a bottle of hCG-antiserum and a bottle of cell suspension.  You provide your pipettes and centrifuge.  Ha!  Just kidding, you couldn’t take a pregnancy test at home yet, you had to take your ‘sample’ to a laboratory or doctor’s office.

In ’78, we get the EPT (Early Pregnancy Test) test that takes us from waiting in waiting rooms to waiting in bathrooms.

As at home pregnancy tests moved into the ‘80s and beyond, wait times are reduced, accuracy is increased with the introduction of digital pregnancy tests.  Ovulation kits are introduced into the mix.  What, do you suppose, will they come out with in the future?

 

What Counts as Exercise?

What Counts as Exercise When You’re Pregnant?

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I am not a doctor; I have no medical training.  This article contains my personal experience and whenever in doubt you should just go ahead and Ask Your Doctor!

Time to ExercisePregnant Exercise

I gave up all thoughts of exercise when I started feeling pelvic girdle pain (PGP).  That and twinges of sciatic nerve ouchi-ness.  Walking around the block was out of the question so what chance does actual exercise have?  And I’m not into prenatal Yoga DVDs either; don’t ask why because I don’t really know.  Maybe it harkens me back to the day of my Richard Simmons Sweatin’ to the Oldies VHS tapes.  It probably makes me feel too ridiculous.  Nope, not for me.

Disk Golf

However, Frisbee Golf (a.k.a. Frolf) totally counts as exercise!  Right up my alley since the ‘holes’ aren’t far apart and I have to do a lot of sitting/resting while waiting for my fellow Frolfers to take their turns.  (It’s an extra added bonus that when it’s my turn again there are several people willing to help haul me back to my feet.)  And even then all I have to do is swing my arm, easy!  Even for a complete novice like me, and I had too much fun for it to be ‘exercise.’

I made nine ‘holes’ on a local course before I even started feeling the Pelvic Girdle Pain acting up.  Luckily I had my husband to lean against while hobbling back to the car.  We both had a lot of fun actually, for our second try at it, we’re even considering buying our own ‘Drivers’ though honestly you can do this with regular Frisbees if you want!

A side note, this is the kind of sport you can play from spring into winter.  Maybe it’s even better in winter because when our discs go way off course we won’t have to spend an extra 12 minutes beating around the undergrowth until we find them again!

Swimming

Now, I love love love to swim but lately this option has been making me grumpy.  People come up to me willy nilly and say things they can’t have possibly thought through like “…You should go swimming Leah, swimming is great for pregnant women!” and I’m forced to give them an ‘are-you-stupid?’ look.  Yeah right, like becoming pregnant grants you instant access to water.

I don’t have one family member with a pool in their yard and I don’t care for the lakeside right now.  Fighting massive amounts of sweaty beach goers was annoying when I wasn’t pregnant.  Not to mention the brain-thrashing stress of finding a parking space.  The harm might outweigh the benefits.

There is a YMCA fairly close to me, sure, but I’m in a lower tax bracket so I’ll be using that $60-70 dollars per month gym fee towards things like car seats.

Unfortunately for me, swimming is out.  But if you’re luckier than I am and have pool access, enjoy it for me!

StretchingPregnant exercise stretch

I love, absolutely loooooove the feeling I get when I stretch.  If only I remembered to do it more often.  Yes, yes, I realize that Yoga is stretching but… stretching without instruction feels better to me; more natural.  I do it (stretching) whenever I realize that I’ve been too sedentary for too long.  It feels much, much, better than sitting there being absolutely inactive.  Added bonus, there’s no wrong way to do it.  Anything goes!  So long as it doesn’t end up being painful of course.

And if you don’t feel like stretching (I’ve been there too!) remember that instant feel-better is only a couple of deeeeeeep breaths away!

Weight training

Personally I don’t care too much for weight training, ranks up there with Yoga.  But if it’s your cup of tea, pick up a couple of 5lb dumbbells.  Or, if you don’t have them or aren’t ready to lay out the money for it, just look to your pantry and pick up a couple of soup cans.  They feel too light initially, but they do get heavier with repetition.

I might try some resistance training however, they used to make us do isometrics way back in elementary school, remember?   Go to Youtube and look up Dave Hubbard’s 90-second isometric workout.  It’s short and you can feel your muscles working.  Best yet you don’t have to get out of your chair to do it!

Dancing

Oh Great Googly!  It can sure be fun to boogie down!  I don’t, however, boogie down much with my big belly.  Unless you count show tunes in the shower.  Research does show that it’s far better to move anything at all than be completely sedentary though so…  There’s nooo business like shoooow business like noooo business I knoooooooooow..!

Tennis

I don’t really play tennis; at least I haven’t since I was very little.  I don’t even know the rules completely.  What I do know is that I find it incredibly gratifying to be able to hit a ball with a racket when someone hits it towards (or at) me.  I don’t even need a partner though since the public court has a slab of wood to hit balls against if you’re solo.   Ooh!  I just remembered that the park a few blocks over has an old tennis court!  It’s old looking, lots of weeds growing in the cracks but it’s hardly ever occupied.  If I could just get a hold of some rackets and a ball (hello Goodwill!) and of course if I can just get Jason to try it out with me, I’d be gold!

What should you do?

These are all activities that I am doing or planning to do, based on my present abilities.  Now is probably not the best time for me to take up jogging though, hmm?

Your ability might vary from mine, but I definitely recommend this time as the time to experiment with new ways to have fun!  Buy some sidewalk chalk if you want to, do anything!

Dad Reads to Unborn Baby

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Normally Jason and I don’t get to fall asleep together as I get back from work rather later than he likes to stay up.  But last night when I got home, guess who was still up and ready for a little fetal bonding time?

It was really nice!

We climbed into bed with some annotated Edger Allen Poe and got halfway through ‘The Gold Bug’; which I’d never had the chance to read before.

I’m hoping Jason’s still awake tonight so I can get to the end of the story, and I’m excited to start another one.

The baby is stuck with me 24-7. He or she can’t get away from me and the sound of my voice.  The baby has no choice but to know me and my voice; Jason needs a little bonding time too!

I for one think it’s one of the sweetest things a father-to-be can do to prove how much he’s into his child; you rock Jason!

That’s being hands on!  That’s how you know your husband is going to be a real daddy!

I admit I might have been a little worried about Jason’s bonding with the baby when I first got pregnant, but once my belly popped he connected a lot faster.

It was more real to him.  Also, I think it’s possible I may have inadvertently caused him not to want to bond with the baby. Not before the fourth month for fear of miscarriage.

I wonder if it’d be as hard for him to lose the baby as it would be for me.  And now that the danger of miscarriage is behind us, he doesn’t have to be so guarded.

I’m wondering though if there’s a difference between the baby being able to hear and the baby being able to recognize a voice.  I’ve been told a baby can hear as early as 18 weeks, but a baby isn’t supposed to have a reaction to your voice until about 25 weeks.

Though so far I don’t know how I’d know it, my kid hasn’t given me any sign or signal that he/she is responding to the sound of my voice.

The only thing my baby does that’s predictable is swim like crazy when I lay down on my left side.  That and refusing to do it whenever Jason puts his hand on my stomach to have a feel.

Maybe it’s just a tad too early to tell.

I can’t wait.