pregnancy

Pregnancy Pathway, Pregnancy — Maternal Immunological Response

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Today: Mater­nal Immuno­log­i­cal Response…or…the Mother/Fetus Dance!

Maternal Immune Response During Pregnancy

Mater­nal Immune Response Dur­ing Preg­nan­cy

Back to work! Thank you for your fore­bear­ance while we wrote a chap­ter for a nurs­ing text­book!

Dur­ing the course of preg­nan­cy, the mother/fetus dance is ongo­ing. The mater­nal immune sys­tem and the tro­phoblast cells con­tin­ue to influ­ence each oth­er even beyond the implan­ta­tion.

Because the moth­er’s immune response mod­u­lates near the start of each trimester, the fetus is affect­ed to some degree and mounts a response, as well. For a long time it was thought that mater­nal and fetal DNA mate­r­i­al was not exchanged across the pla­cen­tal mem­brane, how­ev­er recent find­ings indi­cate that there is some exchange of mate­r­i­al. Thus, we all car­ry some por­tion of our moth­er’s DNA and our moth­er car­ries some of ours.

What is the impact of this chimeric effect? It depends on how well our DNA gets along!

How does this affect the fetus in utero? The fetus may be affect­ed by clot­ting issues. Depend­ing on mater­nal health sta­tus s/he may be sub­ject to a stronger or weak­er immune sys­tem.

How does this affect the moth­er? Women are more like­ly than men to devel­op autoim­mune dis­or­ders (preg­nan­cy play­ing a role here), and those who bear male off­spring are more like­ly than those who only have girls to have these dis­or­ders.

The maternal/fetal dance goes on.…

Be Prepared for Birth!

Be Pre­pared for Birth!

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Pregnancy Pathway, Pregnancy

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Time for an entre: Preg­nan­cy!!

Up for dis­cus­sion…

Health Influences in Pregnancy

Health Influ­ences in Preg­nan­cy

Let’s start at the begin­ning…in the first trimester you feel sick and tired, right? Three things:

1) your immune sys­tem is pro-inflam­ma­to­ry (caus­ing nau­sea and fatigue), 2) your body is pro­tect­ing your fetus from some tox­ins (if you eat some­thing not so great for the fetus, you throw up), and 3) you have extreme swings in blood sug­ar lev­els so that after you eat, the lev­el soars and you feel sick.

Num­ber 3 can be fixed with behav­ior, but you may have to wait out 1 & 2. To fix num­ber 3 eat very small meals fre­quent­ly (6 or 8 times a day) and be sure to eat pro­tein, that is, eggs, meat, fish, fowl, cheese, nuts, rice & beans, soy, etc. with each small meal. This sta­bi­lizes blood sug­ar and pre­vents dra­mat­ic ele­va­tions that can cause nau­sea.

In most healthy preg­nan­cies, the immune sys­tem will rebound in the sec­ond trimester so that you feel good; it is pro­tect­ing you again!  But, those wicked tox­ins and infec­tions are still out there in the envi­ron­ment, so the mes­sage is beware bad air (smog, smok­ing, indus­tri­al air pol­lu­tion), high­ly processed foods (lunch­meats, things with names you can’t pro­nounce), any drugs or meds not pre­scribed or okayed by your ob or mid­wife, alco­hol, and dan­ger­ous bac­te­ria, virus­es and oth­er microbes!

Exer­cise wisely…no sky-div­ing or scu­ba div­ing! Eat healthy food and get enough sleep. De-stress through relax­ation and med­i­ta­tive tech­niques. Don’t take risks with your health, but do stay active and start to pre­pare for birth and bring­ing home a baby (or two?).

Third trimester & the immune sys­tem goes on the fritz again — can’t keep this baby in here for­ev­er; must expel! You may feel sick and tired again. BUT, keep your pre­na­tal care appoint­ments, keep mov­ing, get good nutri­tion, rest and stay focused. Before you know it the real work begins, not to men­tion the 18 years of sleep depri­va­tion.

Get­ting from here…

Being Fully Present in Your Pregnancy...

Being Ful­ly Present in Your Preg­nan­cy…

…to here..

Being Fully Present as Mom

Being Ful­ly Present as Mom.

…is a jour­ney like no oth­er. The adap­ta­tions of your body to the demands of preg­nan­cy are amaz­ing. If you pay atten­tion, you will learn more about the mean­ing of exis­tence from this than from any­thing else.

BE HERE NOW!!

Sign up for this Blog (top tool­bar, click blog info and sub­scribe)!! Learn from our more than 30 years of help­ing make healthy moms & healthy babies.

Vis­it our web­site:  www.dancingthrupregnancy.com

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Pregnancy Pathway, Conception — Review & Small Rant!

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REVIEW: Evi­dence is clear - pre-preg­nan­cy mater­nal health sta­tus, includ­ing phys­i­cal fit­ness, healthy nutri­tion and an uncom­pro­mised immune sys­tem affect the health and well-being of both moth­er and off­spring, in both short and long term.

This is the mes­sage sum­ma­ry from our first two areas of dis­cus­sion:  Pre­con­di­tions and Con­cep­tion — the green and sand col­ored sec­tions on the chart below.

pregnancy_pathway

COMING ATTRACTIONS: We are about to move on to the blue sec­tion — Preg­nan­cy!!  So, book­mark this Blog for future ref­er­ence!

Also, you can sub­scribe to this Blog by click­ing on Blog Info in the upper right cor­ner and then click­ing on Sub­scribe in the drop down menu.

But, yes, you guessed it, first we have a small rant!

SMALL RANT: When we note that fit­ness, nutri­tion and a healthy immune sys­tem play sig­nif­i­cant roles in the out­come of preg­nan­cy and the future health of moth­er and child, we are appeal­ing to young peo­ple of child­bear­ing age to be care­ful about your bod­ies. The alliance of egg and sperm shapes the world. With 6.5 Bil­lion egg/sperm com­bi­na­tions (yes, peo­ple) present­ly liv­ing on earth, our resources are stretched. With time, either we get more picky about doing this, or the 3rd rock from the sun (remem­ber that show?) is cooked.

Humor­ous incur­sion: In case you need fur­ther enlight­en­ment on this whole area, there is a great web­site that will help you out. Be pre­pared to be amused and amazed!

The Truth about Eggs and Sperm

Hope­ful­ly, this gets you in the right mood and keeps you smil­ing. After all, once you actu­al­ly are preg­nant, we have more seri­ous mat­ters to dis­cuss.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Conception — Health Status

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Today: How the moth­er’s health sta­tus at the time of con­cep­tion affects the preg­nan­cy.

For com­plete graph­ic, see Feb. 5 or 23 post.

The Impact of Health Status at the time of conception.

The Impact of Health Sta­tus at the time of con­cep­tion.

When a woman becomes preg­nant, her health can be a major fac­tor how her preg­nan­cy will pro­ceed. If she has been exposed to a vir­u­lent infec­tion, it may have an impact on how well the implan­ta­tion goes. If she has meta­bol­ic syn­drome, she is at risk for com­pli­ca­tions such as ges­ta­tion­al dia­betes.

On the oth­er hand, if she has tak­en care of her­self, is phys­i­cal­ly fit and well nour­ished, is well rest­ed and has not been exposed to ill­ness­es that induce dra­mat­ic changes in her immune sys­tem, she has done her best to cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion in which her body is best pre­pared for the rig­ors of preg­nan­cy.

There are still genet­ic and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that can affect the course of the preg­nan­cy, but behav­ior is the one fac­tor that women have con­trol over. At Danc­ing Thru Preg­nan­cy we are fond of the notion that if you know a cer­tain behav­ior is the best for a sit­u­a­tion, it is smart to chose that behav­ior; if you do not, you are sab­o­tag­ing your­self.

So, if preg­nan­cy is in your head­lights, eat right, exer­cise, and be cau­tious about expo­sure to ill­ness and infec­tion. Wash your hands, use one of the hand cleansers, prac­tice safe sex (okay, so if you are try­ing to get pg, this may change, but in the mean­time!).

We wel­come com­ments on what you are doing to be healthy for preg­nan­cy!

Curl-up! Strong abs are part of physical fitness!

Curl-up! Strong abs are part of phys­i­cal fit­ness!

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