CDC Fitness Guidelines Include Pregnancy

By anncowlin | Published September 20, 2010

Recent CDC Guide­lines on Exer­cise for the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion include preg­nant and post­par­tum women. Spe­cific infor­ma­tion for preg­nant women is included at this URL:

http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/everyone/guidelines/pregnancy.html

James Pivarnik, PhD, pres­i­dent of the Amer­i­can Col­lege of Sports Med­i­cine has released a Med­scape video for health care providers encour­ag­ing them to be aware of the fact that the CDC con­sid­ers a min­i­mum of 150 min­utes per week of mod­er­ate activ­ity (or 75 min­utes of vig­or­ous activ­ity for ath­letic women, or a com­bi­na­tion of inten­sity for fit women) to be impor­tant for preg­nant women, along with the gen­eral population.

DTP’s Total Preg­nancy Fit­ness instruc­tors learn how to com­bine activ­i­ties so that women receive an ade­quate amount of exer­cise each week dur­ing their preg­nancy. To find out about becom­ing a teacher, click on Become a Teacher above.

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Safe Birth — Who’s in Charge?

By anncowlin | Published July 23, 2010
Who Con­trols Birth? Defin­ing the Argument.

Peri­od­i­cally, argu­ments arise in the birthing field over who con­trols the way we give birth. Often this hap­pens at times when birthing women change their behav­ior trends, putting finan­cial pres­sure on pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in this field. The major play­ers in this argu­ment are med­ical doc­tors (obste­tri­cians), cer­ti­fied nurse mid­wives and pro­fes­sional home birth midwives.

Cur­rently we are see­ing women leave the tra­di­tional hos­pi­tal set­ting for birth in larger and larger numbers…and tak­ing their dol­lars with them in the process. While the ques­tion of home birth safety arises every time this con­trol argu­ment comes around, the ques­tion of whether it is safe to inter­vene in a labor that is pro­gress­ing nor­mally is a new com­po­nent of the dis­cus­sion. This time the argu­ment is: The safety of home birth vs. the safety of using hos­pi­tal tech­nol­ogy to inter­vene in nor­mal birth.

How Money Affects this Issue

As with all com­mer­cial ven­tures, con­trol­ling access to safe birth requires con­trol­ling the infor­ma­tion in the mar­ket place. This infor­ma­tion needs to address the per­ceived wants of the tar­get audi­ence. For a long time the main mes­sage has been: Safe birth is only avail­able in a hospital.

The finan­cial pres­sure of giv­ing women (con­sumers) what they want — a nor­mal expe­ri­ence of birth in a safe set­ting where med­ical help can be quickly avail­able — has pow­ered the birth-center indus­try. Free-standing and in-hospital birth cen­ters have grown in num­bers, and are largely enabled by cer­ti­fied nurse-midwives. Mean­while, pro­fes­sional home birth mid­wives have increased both their cre­den­tials and prac­tice stan­dards, as well as their visibility.

Both of these options, birth cen­ters and home birth, threaten the liveli­hood of tra­di­tional obstet­ri­cal prac­tices. Low risk births (about 70% of births) have the poten­tial to be nor­mal births, requir­ing lit­tle or no inter­ven­tion. But, giv­ing birth in the hos­pi­tal means par­tic­i­pat­ing in mea­sure­ment pro­ce­dures that inter­vene in the labor process.

So, to con­vince women they need to be in a hos­pi­tal to be safe, med­i­cine has main­tained the argu­ment that home birth or out of hos­pi­tal birth is not safe. How­ever, research does not indi­cate this is true. The nature of this ongo­ing argu­ment is dis­cussed in a 2002 arti­cle from Mid­wifery Today.

What’s New? The Counter Argument.

The phys­i­ol­ogy of nor­mal labor is dom­i­nated by parasym­pa­thetic, med­i­ta­tive, gonadal energy sys­tems. Mea­sure­ment is a sym­pa­thetic, ratio­nal, adrenal energy dynamic. Only when it is time to expel the baby does the under­ly­ing energy sys­tem make a tran­si­tion (tran­si­tion, get it?) to an adrenal impe­tus for the strength activ­ity of push­ing. Imme­di­ately fol­low­ing nor­mal birth, mater­nal phys­i­ol­ogy is again dom­i­nated by gonad-driven energy along with a rush of endorphins.

“Inter­vene enough and things will go awry. You can eas­ily end up being cut and/or sep­a­rated from your baby at birth.” These ideas have gone viral. With the arrival of the inter­net, women have found a very quick way to do what we have always done: Share information.

Thus, in my exer­cise pro­gram and in my child­birth prepa­ra­tion classes, I have more and more fre­quently been field­ing the fol­low­ing ques­tion from women who want a nor­mal birth and want to be safe: “How can I avoid inter­ven­tions while I am in the hospital?”

So, I ask them what leads them to ask this ques­tion. And, they say: “I read on the inter­net and/or heard from my friends that inter­ven­tions make birth less nor­mal and less safe. I want to pro­tect myself.”

Women them­selves are enter­ing the argu­ment in a much more con­scious way than in the past. Some pro­fes­sion­als would like to keep women out of the argu­ment. But, like with many things in our 21st cen­tury world, we have already past the point of no return. As they say, the horse has already left the barn!

Word has got­ten around. More and more, as a pre­na­tal fit­ness expert who strives to lis­ten to my clients, my job has become edu­cat­ing and phys­i­cally train­ing women to cope with a stren­u­ous and prim­i­tive process in a tech­no­log­i­cal world.

Hope­fully, we can all keep our eye on the ball here. Pre­vent­ing trauma should be one key goal. Just as we have learned to hold our new­borns skin to skin so they can smell and taste us, lis­ten to our heart beat and voice, and main­tain their core tem­per­a­ture, let us learn to com­fort and nur­ture our new moth­ers, while we steel them for the rig­ors of birth.

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Beyond Yoga

By anncowlin | Published July 4, 2010
Beyond Yoga

I love Yoga. But…Power Yoga, Hot Yoga, Fast Yoga, Pilates-Yoga, Fresh Yoga, Baby Yoga and even Pre­na­tal Yoga…not so much. I find these phe­nom­ena strange.

Why? Well, 40 years ago – when I first learned Yoga – it was a priv­i­lege. A per­son came to Yoga in the search for a mean­ing­ful life path. It was a blend of the spir­i­tual and the phys­i­cal, and it required a com­mit­ment to what was revealed within the prac­tice. Before being allowed to take my first class, I had to demon­strate that I already prac­ticed med­i­ta­tion. It was not exer­cise per se.

It was not adapt­able like it is today. Depend­ing on the teacher, you learned an ancient sys­tem – Hatha, Vinyasa, Ash­tanga, Iyen­gar, or Kun­dalini. Those were the major meth­ods that have Hindu roots, and those who prac­ticed these art forms knew what they were doing. The teach­ers them­selves had worked on their craft for decades. Today, I know only a few teach­ers who have a pro­found grasp of each of these methods.

Why is Yoga so popular?

Is there some­thing within the work itself – even in the diluted forms, hybrid ver­sions and the celebrity/competitive stu­dios – that allows it to thrive in the self-centered, free-wheeling, branding-crazy mar­ket­place of the early 21st cen­tury devel­oped world?

I find the answer to this in a strange place:  Zen prac­tice, Bhud­dism. One of my favorite notions is from Suzuki’s text Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. “When you feel dis­agree­able, it is best to sit.” This is an ele­ment of nin – con­stancy – or being present in the moment. Not patience, which requires a rejec­tion of impa­tience and there­fore can­not accept the present as it is. When you sit – just sit period, that’s it – all that is real is the moment. This is at the heart of all spir­i­tual experience.

I’m not an expert in Yoga. I don’t teach Yoga, although I have inte­grated Yoga-based skills into my work. I have prac­ticed Hatha and Vinyasa over the years enough to learn how cer­tain skills are treated…belly breath­ing, slow deep breath­ing, main­tain­ing posi­tion and lis­ten­ing to the wis­dom of the body, and iso­met­ric strength­en­ing in prepa­ra­tion for more expan­sive shapes or motions. Long ago, I inte­grated these skills from my Yoga expe­ri­ence into my teach­ing style because these skills are effec­tive for the pop­u­la­tions with which I work. But, I do not teach Yoga.

Can Research Help Us?

Researchers find Yoga a night­mare. There is so much vari­ance now in the prac­tice that find­ings from any one study can­not be trans­ferred to the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. One of the most reveal­ing experimental-design stud­ies found that none of the claims of Yoga improv­ing metab­o­lism could be demon­strated. When asked why they thought this out­come had occurred, the teach­ers who were used in the study said they thought the par­tic­i­pants in the study were not fit enough to do Yoga!

One of the most suc­cess­ful Yoga teach­ers in my area, and one of my favorites, has for decades used a bicy­cle for her pri­mary mode of trans­porta­tion. She cred­its her longevity and suc­cess to Yoga. I attribute it to bicy­cling. Dr. Cooper is right…fitness (which means aer­o­bic fit­ness) is the biggest bang for the buck. Unless you are fit, it is hard to exe­cute some of the more sub­tle demands of many exer­cise regimens.

Some Yoga teach­ers will say that you can make Yoga aer­o­bic or that some forms are aer­o­bic. OK, then it’s aer­o­bics, not Yoga. When­ever I see “aer­o­bic Yoga” it reminds me of aer­o­bic danc­ing. It’s help­ful to remem­ber that Yoga devel­oped in a time and place where sur­vival was depen­dent upon fit­ness. Peo­ple didn’t need to do more aer­o­bics to find enlight­en­ment. They needed reflec­tion and to be present in the moment.

So, I insist on aer­o­bic fit­ness as the first goal of a fit­ness reg­i­men. In the pre/postnatal field, this is the only con­sis­tently demon­strated fac­tor in improved out­comes. As a birth prepa­ra­tion there are Yoga-based fac­tors that will help in labor and birth IF THE WOMAN IS FIT ENOUGH. It is the fact that some Yoga-based skills help fit peo­ple find nin that is my jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for con­tin­u­ing to use them in con­junc­tion with aer­o­bics and spe­cial pre/postnatal prepa­ra­tion and recov­ery exercises.

But, there are cau­tions. Not all Yoga assanas (posi­tions) are safe for preg­nancy. Down-dog, in par­tic­u­lar, scares me because of inci­dents reported in obstet­ri­cal lit­er­a­ture in the 1980s and 1990s that indi­cate such a posi­tion is impli­cated in fatal embolisms. Some shapes are just not doable and oth­ers become less com­fort­able over time. The ones that work have been iden­ti­fied since the 1940s and 1950s and inte­grated into birth prepa­ra­tion courses.

What’s Next?

All exer­cise components -

  • Mind/Body
  • Strength
  • Flex­i­bil­ity
  • Aer­o­bic or Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Fitness

- are nec­es­sary for a bal­anced fit­ness rou­tine. Too much empha­sis on any one fac­tor often results in injury. Aer­o­bics is where the great­est health ben­e­fits reside. Recent research has demon­strated that it is phys­i­cal “fit­ness” (which we can mea­sure) as opposed to just spend­ing time in phys­i­cal activ­ity (which can be a wide range of inten­si­ties) that is respon­si­ble for improved health out­comes. Strength and flex­i­bil­ity train­ing need to be pur­po­sive. There are things we don’t need to do unless we are going to play pro foot­ball or dance Swan Lake! Mind/Body skills help us recover and prepare.

I for one will be glad when we get beyond yoga and back to cross training!

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Fetal Programming

By anncowlin | Published June 16, 2010

What is fetal pro­gram­ming? Every per­son liv­ing on earth was first exposed to a uter­ine envi­ron­ment that helped deter­mine their life­time health and devel­op­ment. The term for this phe­nom­e­non is fetal pro­gram­ming. It is a hot topic and deserves attention.

Accept­ing the impor­tance of fetal pro­gram­ming places respon­si­bil­ity on the mother-to-be to do all she can to insure her body pro­vides nutri­ents and oxy­gen to her grow­ing infant while avoid­ing pos­si­ble risks and tox­ins. At the same time, genetic and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors con­tribute greatly to the poten­tial for some dis­or­ders and prob­lems that arise. Thus, we must be care­ful in assign­ing guide­lines for accept­able behav­ior or blame for poor out­comes to preg­nant women.

On the one hand, we can all see the neg­a­tive con­se­quences of some­thing like fetal alco­hol syndrome…clearly the result of mater­nal behav­ior. Is a preg­nant woman whose baby has been dam­aged in this way guilty of abuse?

But, what if a mother is obese, eats poorly and ends up with an infant with a dis­turbed metab­o­lism. Is this abuse? What if the mother has an infec­tion that results in cere­bral palsy? Or what if she lives near a high­way and invol­un­tar­ily inhales fumes that neg­a­tively affect the placenta?

How do you get a healthy baby? Of course, there are no guar­an­tees. There remain many unknown fac­tors that can affect the course and out­come of a preg­nancy. Some fac­tors we are aware of, such as avoid­ing cer­tain fumes or chem­i­cals.  There are some behav­iors we know can max­i­mize the poten­tial for a good out­come, such as eat­ing ade­quate pro­tein, aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing and strength train­ing. [Note for new readers…lots of these fac­tors have been cov­ered in our pre­vi­ous posts.]

But, what about all the things we don’t know about?

If these goats eat the wrong grass, will they go into labor?

Here is a cau­tion­ary tale:  There is a species of goat that, if they eat a cer­tain type of skunk grass on day 14 (and only day 14) of preg­nancy, will not go into labor. Why? Plant tox­ins in this grass inter­fere with the devel­op­ment of a small por­tion of fetal brain, the par­aven­tric­u­lar nucleus. This nucleus is involved in the sig­nal­ing cycle of labor. With­out it, the mother will not go into labor!

What are the take-home mes­sages here?

  • Prob­a­bly no one is ever a per­fect fetus…too many pos­si­ble threats.
  • There are some threats we can avoid…being lazy, over-eating, smoking.
  • There are some threats we can­not avoid, so we do the best we can.

Do the best you can by your baby…aerobic fit­ness, good nour­ish­ment, sleep, good hygiene and de-stressing your life.

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More on Preventing Childhood Obesity!

By anncowlin | Published April 19, 2010

Rachael Blum of Santa Mon­ica, CA, has alerted us to an excel­lent arti­cle in the New Eng­land Jour­nal of Med­i­cine con­cern­ing the evi­dence for the role of exer­cise in preg­nancy in help­ing pre­vent child­hood obe­sity:  http://healthcarereform.nejm.org/?p=3321&query=home. Rachael, our newest DTP fam­ily mem­ber, has also alerted us to an LA Times arti­cle on this sub­ject:  LA Times arti­cle.

With the recent empha­sis on the impor­tance of move­ment in the fight against child­hood obe­sity, there is recog­ni­tion that ben­e­fi­cial fetal pro­gram­ming through mater­nal exer­cise can make a big con­tri­bu­tion to this effort. A com­bi­na­tion of proper mater­nal nutri­tion and mater­nal fit­ness may well prove to be most effi­cient and poten­tially effec­tive way to help chil­dren develop an appetite for motion!

One fac­tor in this is the find­ing that reg­u­lar, moderate-intensity exer­cise helps pre­vent obe­sity in the new­born: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_97212.htmlt. This, may in turn, help pre­vent child­hood obesity.

Recess for everyone!!!

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The 51% Factor: Pregnancy, Power & Health

By anncowlin | Published April 17, 2010

In the U.S. and most of the devel­oped world, approx­i­mately 51% of the pop­u­la­tion is female. Most females give birth at some point in their lives, although, in any year, only about 2% of the pop­u­la­tion gives birth.

No one liv­ing on earth got here any other way than ges­ta­tion, so there ought to be some power attached to being part of that 51%. His­tor­i­cally, it might be said that the power has been merely for survival…the good breed­ers sur­vived long enough to pro­duce heirs and those who lived on knew where the roots and fruit grew.

Only women can make more peo­ple with their bodies.

Here are some things to consider:

  • Women make people
  • Women’s health and fit­ness before preg­nancy affects whether the preg­nancy is healthy
  • Women’s health and fit­ness dur­ing preg­nancy affects her life­time health and that of her offspring
  • Mater­nal sur­vival is impor­tant to off­spring well-being
  • Mater­nal health and fit­ness affects mater­nal adap­ta­tion and thereby off­spring well-being

Thus, is it not a san­guine notion that the health and sur­vival of women is crit­i­cal to the health of every­one? After all, the health of nations is asso­ci­ated with this slight major­ity of females, and the wealth of nations is asso­ci­ated with its health.

The good news is that peo­ple work­ing from this under­stand­ing are mak­ing some head­way around the globe. Recently, the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion noted that mater­nal death among preg­nant and birthing women world-wide has been dra­mat­i­cally reduced from the 1980’s to recently. This is very good news!

Here is the inter­est­ing foot­note:  Mater­nal death in the U.S. has risen 42% in the same period. While the absolute num­bers remain small, this is a dis­turb­ing pic­ture. What could be caus­ing this?

Time will tell if we can fig­ure it out and fix it. I ven­ture to sug­gest some direc­tions for consideration:

  • The ele­vated cesarean birth rate with its sequel­lae of car­dio­vas­cu­lar and immune sys­tem disorders
  • Obe­sity
  • Meta­bolic syndromes
  • Dia­betes
  • Heart dis­ease

Why am I hope­ful, then? I see among our cur­rent edu­cated gen­er­a­tion of new moms and moms-to-be a will­ing­ness to exert their influ­ence – as breed­ers – over the health care scene. They want less tech­no­log­i­cal birth. They want sup­port. They want more infor­ma­tion. They want to be healthy. These are won­der­ful things. I salute these young women…they also make my job eas­ier in the process.

In addi­tion, I see among young health care prac­ti­tion­ers an under­stand­ing of the value of these things. Among prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing in pub­lic health clin­ics there is a sense of des­per­a­tion on the one hand that the poor and indi­gent have no capac­ity or will to take care of them­selves. On the other hand, the first step is always edu­ca­tion and there are a lot of peo­ple work­ing on this issue.

Which brings me to the clos­ing point:  How do we bring more resources and intel­li­gence to help­ing women be healthy, pre­pare for preg­nancy, have healthy babies, reduce preg­nancy com­pli­ca­tions, and improve infant and mater­nal death rates? I, for one, will keep blog­ging on this issue. You, I hope, will vote for peo­ple who under­stand this issue. The polit­i­cal power and will is in our hands.

51% of us are women…some day 51% of us can set priorities

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Schedule of Events

By anncowlin | Published January 24, 2010
•Next Teacher Practicum

Decem­ber 5 at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

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Classes, Training, Consulting

By anncowlin | Published November 23, 2009

Teach­ers learn hands-on skills for improv­ing pos­ture and mechanics.

Instruc­tors all over the globe have par­tic­i­pated in our train­ing pro­grams and offer a vari­ety of classes or per­sonal train­ing at their own loca­tions. The Take A Class tab will help you find instruc­tors near­est to you. Even if they are not close enough for you to attend their pro­grams, they may be able to help you find some­one local who has expe­ri­ence in the field.

Qual­i­fied indi­vid­u­als wish­ing to run their own pro­grams, obtain fur­ther edu­ca­tion in the field, or even offer our Total Preg­nancy Fit­ness™ or Danc­ing Thru Preg­nancy® pro­grams, are encour­aged to apply to become a teacher or licensee. We can help you deter­mine if this is field is a good fit for you, train you to offer our pro­grams, or help you develop your own.

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Teacher Training is Evidence-Based.

By anncowlin | Published November 23, 2009

The train­ing pro­gram has both aca­d­e­mic and prac­ti­cal com­po­nents. A study guide and writ­ten test pre­cede prac­ti­cal learn­ing. Accom­mo­da­tions are made for those wish­ing to develop their own pro­grams, as well as those wish­ing to teach under our auspices.

All teacher train­ing is under the direc­tion of Ann Cowlin, DTP’s founder with more than 30 years expe­ri­ence as a pre/postnatal fit­ness instruc­tor, trainer, researcher and inter­na­tional pre­sen­ter in the field. She is the author of “Women and Exer­cise” in Varney’s Mid­wifery, the major nurs­ing text­book for mid­wives, as well as her own text­book, Women’s Fit­ness Pro­gram Devel­op­ment. Cowlin is assisted by sev­eral DTP mas­ter teach­ers who have been with the pro­gram for ten or twenty years.

Instruc­tors learn why and how to incor­po­rate effec­tive mind/body skills such as breath­ing and relax­ation, along with strength and flex­i­bil­ity exer­cises into a total fit­ness pack­age. Aer­o­bics is def­i­nitely the biggest bang for the buck. Car­dio­vas­cu­lar fit­ness is the key to almost every ben­e­fit of pre/postnatal exer­cise that has been found through well-designed research. Instruc­tors develop their own indi­vid­ual style of aer­o­bic dance or fit­ness activ­i­ties as part of our train­ing pro­gram, but fol­low best prac­tice guide­lines. As the con­tem­po­rary world puts more and more demands on our time, get­ting the most from your pre/postnatal pro­gram is a smart approach.

Practicums focus on teach­ing these skills for nec­es­sary and essen­tial com­po­nents of exer­cise that have been shown to have a ben­e­fi­cial impact on preg­nancy, birth and recov­ery. In the photo above, for exam­ple, trainees are learn­ing how to teach inter­costal breath­ing in con­junc­tion with diaphra­matic breath­ing, an essen­tial skill in preg­nancy to increase oxy­gen con­sump­tion dur­ing exer­cise. Other skills taught include essen­tial strength train­ing exer­cises, lead­ing effec­tive relax­ation ses­sions, ana­lyz­ing music for aer­o­bic chore­og­ra­phy, and effort/shape analy­sis to pre­vent injury.

Prior to attend­ing a practicum, teach­ers must first pass the Basic study course exam. Poten­tial teach­ers are given 6 weeks to take the study course and exam. Those inter­ested in becom­ing pre/postnatal fit­ness teach­ers need to reg­is­ter for their course around 2 months prior to their pre­ferred practicum. Click on this link practicums for upcom­ing dates and locations.

DTP aerobics 2

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Total Pregnancy Fitness™ helps women Birth Strong!

By anncowlin | Published November 16, 2009

There is noth­ing so joy­ful as a group of moms-to-be, at var­i­ous stages of preg­nancy, mov­ing freely and fully. Cel­e­brat­ing this spe­cial state of being by main­tain­ing strength, endurance and range of motion pro­motes emo­tional well-being as well as health dur­ing this major life transition.

By select­ing activ­i­ties that pro­mote fit­ness, health and well-being for their pro­grams, our teach­ers insure that moms-to-be receive the max­i­mum ben­e­fit from the time they spend in class.

Here are some birth sto­ries from our clients (edited for privacy):

• We’re happy to report that [our baby boy] was born on Sat­ur­day at 12:31 am…our exer­cise classes were ESSENTIAL in the later part of labor — the doc­tor and nurse described me as a “nat­ural” at push­ing, but I had to admit to them that I’d been prac­tic­ing my c-curves twice a week for a few months already! — G.S.

• We arrived at the hos­pi­tal at 8pm on Fri­day and I was 6 cm dilated…I deliv­ered by 1 am with­out pain meds.  It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence. You really do focus inward.  I found sit­ting in the shower hold­ing the sprayer to be help­ful.  Def­i­nitely try dif­fer­ent posi­tions.  I used the bar for when it can time to push.  Just know that there is an end in sight and just hold­ing your baby at the end is the most won­der­ful, amaz­ing feel­ing in the world!  — P.E.

• We arrived at the hos­pi­tal at 6am and I was already 4cm dilated…[at] 5cm dilated, I requested an epidural. The anes­the­si­ol­o­gist did a great job, and I was still able to move my legs with the epidural. I found move­ment dur­ing labor to be very help­ful, and in par­tic­u­lar, cir­cu­lar move­ments of my pelvis (i.e. belli danc­ing). Post par­tum recov­ery has been quick. No doubt that [your] guid­ance and prepa­ra­tion was cru­cial to this end. I would like to thank all of you for your sup­port…  — K.L.

• On Sunday…after more than 26 hours of labor, [my wife] gave birth to [our baby boy]. Through the help of her birth sup­port team she was able to deliver with­out pain med­i­cine. She did a tremen­dous job, and we used many of the skills learned in class to focus, draw her out of her body, breath and relax.  — M.&L.S.

• I just wanted to share with you the very good news that [our baby boy] was born at 8:38 pm last night. He weighed 8 lbs 11 ozs and mea­sures 21.5 inches long. He finally enabled me to put my c curves and such to direct use by arriv­ing a mere 8 days late (instead of the 11 days late that would have led to my sec­ond c-section).  We are hav­ing a very nice time right now…and look for­ward to mak­ing our joint return to the gym in a few weeks!  — F.A.

• Our beau­ti­ful baby boy was born Tues­day night at 9:09 p.m. The deliv­ery went well (drug free!) and I received many com­pli­ments on my 50 min­utes of push­ing. Thanks for every­thing and I hope to see you in 4 weeks or so!  — A.E.

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