placenta

Building a Global Team of Teachers for Healthy Pregnancy, Birth & Baby

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Danc­ing Thru Preg­nancy®, Inc.

Women’s Health & Fit­ness Pro­grams
found­ed 1979
MISSION STATEMENT
Many impor­tant health issues for girls and women involve mat­ters of repro­duc­tive
health, child­bear­ing, fer­til­ity and aging. Research informs us that an active, healthy
lifestyle pro­vides a num­ber of ben­e­fits through­out a woman’s life span:

  • reduced dis­com­forts from preg­nancy, labor, birth, recov­ery & menopause
  • reduced risk of hyper­ten­sive dis­or­ders of preg­nancy and pre­ma­ture birth
  • poten­tially short­er active labor and reduced risk of cesare­an deliv­ery
  • more rapid return to joy­ful activ­i­ties, less excess weight fol­low­ing birth
  • moth­er-infant inter­ac­tion, lead­ing to infant psy­chomo­tor enhance­ment
  • reduced rates of obe­sity, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, and type 2 dia­betes
  • reduc­tion of some can­cers, osteo­poro­sis, falls and loss of mus­cle mass
  • improved social sup­port, net­work­ing and stress man­age­ment skills
  • greater belief in one’s abil­ity to be strong and capa­ble (self-effi­ca­cy)

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What is Fetal Programming?

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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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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Birth Mode

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The Sec­ond Stage of Birth is dif­fer­ent from the First Stage. The actu­al expul­sion of the baby requires a change in ener­gy axis. Dur­ing dila­tion (first stage), oxy­tocin is most eas­i­ly released from the pitu­itary gland dur­ing relax­ation (see pre­vi­ous post), but dur­ing tran­si­tion, a change occurs so that the ergotrop­ic response takes over and adren­a­line is key in help­ing oxy­tocin to spike.

What does this mean as far as prepa­ra­tion is con­cerned? While it is impor­tant to learn to relax or main­tain posi­tions such as one does in yoga, the abil­i­ty to sprint, or turn on an aggres­sive action at the end, is crit­i­cal. You need  good aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing. Begin exer­cise with easy breath­ing and move­ment, then prac­tice aer­o­bic endurance and pow­er moves at the end of your work­out! Fin­ish up with cool down and stretch­ing.

The con­trac­tions them­selves change. They remain intense for a longer stretch, but the time between them increas­es. Push­ing involves not only the uterus con­tract­ing, but the pres­sure exert­ed by the trans­verse abdom­i­nal (TrA) mus­cle. Sim­i­lar to squeez­ing a tube of tooth­paste, TrA pres­sure helps press the baby toward the exit — yes, that is the vagi­nal open­ing. If the labor­ing moth­er is not able to apply ade­quate pres­sure, labor assis­tants some­times apply pres­sure man­u­al­ly to the top of the uterus or — if need be — for­ceps or a vac­u­um extrac­tion may be nec­es­sary.

How can a mom best pre­pare so that the TrA can pro­vide the need­ed pres­sure? Strength train­ing the TrA! Like any oth­er motion requir­ing pow­er strength, this mus­cle can be strength­ened to do its job! Here’s how:

pic­ture 1:  sit upright, inhale

pic­ture 2:  exhale, com­press abdomen and curl down

Return to upright and repeat 8 times. Rest. Repeat 8 more times.

What if some­thing goes awry? Cesare­an, or sur­gi­cal birth is an alter­na­tive. Major com­pli­ca­tions before labor include a pla­cen­ta pre­via, infec­tion or unde­liv­er­able breech posi­tion. Dur­ing labor, the most com­mon prob­lem is dys­to­cia — stalled progress through dila­tion (first stage) or push­ing (sec­ond stage). In the push­ing stage, head to large for pelvis is the most com­mon dif­fi­cul­ty.

What hap­pens next? If the birth is nat­ur­al, you will feel a tremen­dous eupho­ria. Bring the baby right up onto your chest for skin-to-skin con­tact. If you have had med­ica­tions, your response may be slight­ly blunt­ed, but you will def­i­nite­ly be over­whelmed by the emo­tions of birth.

Third Stage is expul­sion of the pla­cen­ta, which can no long remain con­nect­ed to the shrink­ing uterus. When it detach­es, the nurs­es or mid­wives will ask you to push and !plop! out it comes. It can be inter­est­ing to see what has nour­ished your baby for so long!

CONGRATULATIONS!  YOU’RE A MOM!

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Twins & Triplets — Exercise & Nutrition Tips

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A detour: We received a ques­tion about nutri­tion and exer­cise for mul­ti­ples. So, here is some infor­ma­tion for those with twins and triplets. Add a com­ment if you have a ques­tion or expe­ri­ence to share on this top­ic! Next comes birth, we promise!!

If one is a girl and one is a boy, they're fraternal!

If one is a girl and one is a boy, they’re fra­ter­nal!

Nutri­tion for Mul­ti­ples:

The pri­ma­ry thing we tell peo­ple with twins or more is that the pro­tein needs rise about 30 grams/baby/day above the 70 — 90 grams/day need­ed for a sin­gle­ton. Water intake also needs to rise. Avoid thirst and as much as pos­si­ble, drink until urine runs clear rather than yel­low (as best as you can).

Mul­ti­ples is con­sid­ered a risk fac­tor, and for each risk fac­tor (mul­ti­ples, under­weight, teenage mom, inter-preg­nan­cy peri­od less than a year) an addi­tion­al 200 calo­ries is often rec­om­mend­ed, with 400 extra calo­ries the upper lim­it.

Exer­cise with Mul­ti­ples:

A crit­i­cal fac­tor in suc­cess­ful implan­ta­tion and growth of the pla­cen­ta appears to be aer­o­bic fit­ness in the six months pri­or to and the first half of preg­nan­cy. Once bio­me­chan­ics become dif­fi­cult in mid-preg­nan­cy, women with mul­ti­ples can con­tin­ue activ­i­ty safe­ly as long as mon­i­tor­ing show the babies are grow­ing appro­pri­ate­ly. A bel­ly sup­port can be extreme­ly help­ful when exer­cis­ing.

Con­traindi­ca­tions for exer­cise include the dis­cov­ery that one fetus is grow­ing at a sig­nif­i­cant­ly slow­er rate than the other(s), that both/all are too small, that the placenta(s) is/are mal­func­tion­ing, or some oth­er con­di­tion occurs, such as an incom­pe­tent cervix or pla­cen­ta pre­via, that would be a fac­tor in any case.

Absolute size dif­fer­ence does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that one baby is grow­ing more slow­ly, as some fetus­es may be a cou­ple weeks younger than their uterus-mate(s) if the moth­er ovu­lat­ed twice in the fer­til­i­ty cycle. Or, s/he might be small­er if genet­i­cal­ly des­tined to be a small­er infant at birth. Thus, growth rate is the mea­sur­able fac­tor that helps deter­mine if a fetus is at risk of not receiv­ing ade­quate ener­gy. This can hap­pen when there are two pla­cen­tas and one pla­cen­ta is work­ing more poor­ly than the oth­er, or for some rea­son there is a flaw in the umbil­i­cal cord of an iden­ti­cal. The com­pe­ti­tion for ener­gy places a slow­er grow­ing baby at risk.

Pro­tect­ing Mom and Baby:

The pla­cen­ta is designed to nour­ish the baby and will do so at a cost to the moth­er first if there is inad­e­quate nutri­tion. Thus, activ­i­ty to the lev­el the moth­er can tol­er­ate and fol­low­ing nutri­tion­al guide­lines above — in the absence of med­ical com­pli­ca­tions — pro­duces healthy off­spring. Mul­ti­ples will gar­ner all the same ben­e­fits a sin­gle­ton does.

Note about images:  we strive to use images we own or that are adver­tised as free on the inter­net. We want to thank google, bing and yahoo for mak­ing free images avail­able.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Pregnancy – Exposure to Toxins and Infection

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Hot top­ic for today: Tox­ins and infec­tions in preg­nan­cy.

Pregnancy Exposure to Toxins and Infections

Preg­nan­cy Expo­sure to Tox­ins and Infec­tions

A moth­er-to-be needs to be aware of items that can have adverse effects on the health and devel­op­ment of her fetus, as well as her own health. Two of these fac­tors are tox­ins and infec­tions.

1. Tox­ins can be food, envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors, and med­ica­tions, alco­hol or drugs. Let’s start with food. Inter­est­ing­ly, many plants have slight tox­ins in them that can have a small neg­a­tive impact dur­ing ear­ly fetal devel­op­ment. One the­o­ry of nau­sea and vom­it­ing in ear­ly preg­nan­cy is that this helps the moth­er’s body pre­vent these tox­ins from inter­fer­ing with nor­mal devel­op­ment. Pica — espe­cial­ly eat­ing dirt that is large­ly clay — may be anoth­er man­i­fes­ta­tion of how the body strives to counter plant tox­ins, as clay can coun­ter­act some of the effects of these tox­ins. So, plant tox­ins can be one food source in ear­ly preg­nan­cy.

Anoth­er source is food addi­tives (things you can­not pro­nounce, so read the ingre­di­ents!). We have no idea how many chem­i­cals and hor­mones added to foods affect fetal devel­op­ment.

NIH illustration of reading food label

NIH illus­tra­tion of read­ing food label

Risk-aver­sion involves avoid­ing items that are risky. If you are not sure, don’t eat it. For up to date infor­ma­tion, look at the FDA site on food safe­ty or the NIH site on read­ing food labels.

Envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that may affect fetal devel­op­ment can include air pol­lu­tion, house­hold cleansers, mold and oth­er items encoun­tered any­where one goes. Things we breathe can be par­tic­u­lar­ly dan­ger­ous, so be sure to keep cleanser use to sim­ple items such as vine­gar, ammo­nia or chlo­rine bleach. Wear­ing a mask while clean­ing is also a good idea.

Med­ica­tions, drugs or alco­hol that might nor­mal­ly be con­sid­ered safe for a non-preg­nant per­son — some­thing as sim­ple as aspirin — can be dan­ger­ous as they affect blood clot­ting fac­tors and threat­en the pla­cen­ta. Or, because they cross the pla­cen­tal bar­ri­er but can­not be metab­o­lized by the imma­ture fetal liv­er, they are tox­ic and induce dam­age to the fetus.

2. Infec­tions are of con­cern, as well. It is pos­si­ble that an active infec­tion at the time of fer­til­iza­tion and implan­ta­tion can con­tribute to dys­func­tion in preg­nan­cy because it inter­feres with the nor­mal immune respons­es of ear­ly preg­nan­cy. Hyper­ten­sion in preg­nan­cy may be relat­ed to infec­tion in the ear­ly days of preg­nan­cy. Some infec­tions — par­tic­u­lary sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted infec­tions — are known to have detri­men­tal effects on the baby’s health. Preterm pre­ma­ture rup­ture of mem­branes (P‑PROM) almost always reflects active infec­tion.

Tak­ing Pre­cau­tions: First, be sure to let your health care provider know about any ill­ness or infec­tion. Sec­ond, take care of your­self. Fol­low rec­om­men­da­tions for fre­quent hand­wash­ing and car­ry ster­ile hand gel in your purse or back­pack. Avoid places where hygiene might be com­pro­mised. Prac­tice safe sex.

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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, Preconditions — Environment

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Please refer to Feb­ru­ary 5 entry for entire graph­ic. Today: Envi­ron­men­tal Pre­con­di­tions to Preg­nan­cy.
bubblus_preconditions-environment
Our envi­ron­ment is with us all the time. Even if we think we are pre­vent­ing or con­trol­ling envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that impinge on our bod­ies and minds, they are lurk­ing here, there, every­where, and they are myr­i­ad. Our envi­ron­men­tal influ­ences are every­thing from the air we breathe to the per­sons who raise or teach us, from the food avail­able to our hous­ing, from our job stress­es to cul­tur­al forces or even the weath­er in our part of the world. These things help shape who we are phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, over the long term and from moment to moment.

08-4Are you pre­pared to become a par­ent? One way to tell is to look at your environment…is it healthy? Are you liv­ing in a sit­u­a­tion that you can count on? What about clean air, safe paint or safe food? What about water? What about peo­ple around you? Are they sup­port­ive? Does your envi­ron­ment help you stay healthy?

What about your body? Fac­tors in the envi­ron­ment that affect fer­til­i­ty (or lack of it) may deter­mine if  you can even become preg­nant, or when you can become preg­nant. Think about this:  Women who work togeth­er often cycle togeth­er. What if you work alone, say at home…does this affect your ovu­la­tion? One fac­tor iden­ti­fied in the low­er­ing age of men­stru­a­tion in girls is the increas­ing num­ber of hor­mones in var­i­ous meats. Anoth­er fac­tor is the pres­ence of non-bio­log­i­cal­ly relat­ed old­er males in the house­hold. If these things are known, imag­ine what is not known about sit­u­a­tions, chem­i­cals or peo­ple in our envi­ron­ment that affect our repro­duc­tion!

There is not an absolute sep­a­ra­tion of genet­ics, envi­ron­ment and behav­ior. If we are genet­i­cal­ly pre­dis­posed to cer­tain dis­or­ders, for exam­ple, we may or may not devel­op them, depend­ing on envi­ron­ment. Some per­sons are inclined toward autoim­mune dis­or­ders, but they may do well or poor­ly depend­ing on the air pol­lu­tion where they live. Some indi­vid­u­als may devel­op immune dis­or­ders. And, this sit­u­a­tion may adverse­ly impact inflam­ma­to­ry respons­es dur­ing implan­ta­tion.

Peo­ple who strive to take care of them­selves even if they live in hor­ri­ble con­di­tions can use their behav­ior to improve their chances for suc­cess in every­thing from a healthy preg­nan­cy to a mean­ing­ful exis­tence. Even if genet­ics and the envi­ron­ment are against the process, behav­ior can some­times over­come the odds. Grant­ed, it’s not like­ly you can pro­duce 6′5″ off­spring (see last post on genet­ics!) if the egg per­son is 5′2″ and the sperm per­son is 5′7″, but much is pos­si­ble beyond that.

So, what do you do about your envi­ron­ment if you are think­ing about becom­ing preg­nant? Take stock. Ask your­self what, if any­thing, might have to change. Ask what you can or can’t accept for your off­spring, if you know there are envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors that aren’t per­fect. Fetus­es are amaz­ing crea­tures; the pla­cen­tas that sup­ply and defend them are ruth­less and will pro­tect a fetus at all costs. But, you can give your body and poten­tial baby a good chance to do well by pro­vid­ing a six month span of a healthy envi­ron­ment lead­ing up to con­cep­tion. And, healthy for mind as well as body.

When your baby comes into the world, a door opens in your heart to a room you did­n’t even know was there. In that room is a cer­tain kind of love and car­ing that can­not be described. It is love for this being who is and isn’t you. As a moth­er, you have been her/his envi­ron­ment for nine months or how­ev­er long you have shared. The womb is a small, pro­tect­ed, orga­nized envi­ron­ment, one that reflects your larg­er envi­ron­ment. So, take stock now, ahead of time.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Preconditions — Genetics

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Please refer to Feb­ru­ary 5 entry for com­plete graph­ic. The Pre­con­di­tion we will dis­cuss today is Genet­ics.

bubblus_preconditions_-_genetics

There are genet­ic fac­tors total­ly out­side your con­trol that deter­mine things as sim­ple as your off­spring’s hair or eye col­or, how the ear­lobe attach­es to the side of the head and whether or not s/he can roll the tongue. More com­plex things, such as a pre­dis­po­si­tion to types of can­cers, bleed­ing dis­or­ders or var­i­ous oth­er dis­eases, also have a genet­ic basis.

Because the male con­tributes the sex of the off­spring, once con­cep­tion hap­pens, the sex off the fetus is deter­mined — at least genet­i­cal­ly. But, it turns out not every­thing genet­ic is set in stone. In utero, hor­mone expo­sures may affect how male and female char­ac­ter­is­tics devel­op, so that some girls will be very girlie, some will be tomboys, and some may be gay. A sim­i­lar effect will influ­ence how boys devel­op.

Genet­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and behav­ioral pre­con­di­tions can be  inter­twined. Envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors can alter genes, caus­ing them to express pro­teins that would oth­er­wise be dor­mant. Like­wise, our behav­ior affects some of our genes. If we have a fam­i­ly propen­si­ty for heart dis­ease, but we eat a healthy diet, exer­cise and avoid risky behav­iors, we alter the impact of our genet­ic code.

Keep in mind that some things will be com­plete­ly deter­mined by genes. It is not rea­son­able to hope, for exam­ple, that our off­spring will be 6′5″ if both par­ents are short (or vice ver­sa). If the moth­er has “thrifty genes” — that is, genes that make it easy for her to gain weight — she may well do so dur­ing preg­nan­cy, even if she fol­lows a rea­son­ably healthy lifestyle. If the immune sys­tems of both par­ents have some sim­i­lar­i­ties, it may affect the mater­nal immune response to the implant­i­ng tro­phoblast cells, thus affect­ing the pla­cen­ta and, indeed, the entire preg­nan­cy.

So, how do we advise peo­ple who are think­ing of preg­nan­cy to pre­pare them­selves for a healthy preg­nan­cy genet­i­cal­ly? Sure­ly, to deter­mine all the poten­tial genet­ic pos­si­bil­i­ties is not fea­si­ble or afford­able at this point. Maybe in anoth­er cen­tu­ry! But, we can know some fac­tors:  Is there sick­le cell ane­mia in both fam­i­lies? Is there a Mediter­ranean type of sick­le cell dis­or­der? What about clot­ting fac­tors or dif­fer­ences in Rh? What about dis­eases or dis­or­ders that are not com­mon, like ALS? These are things that poten­tial par­ents may want to dis­cuss.

Like so much of life, we can’t know every­thing. There are no guar­an­tees. There is a lot to be learned still about human genes and how they work.

This blog has at its heart the notion that phys­i­cal activ­i­ty has tremen­dous ben­e­fits for moth­er and offspring…and for part­ners, too. How does the genet­ic com­po­nent affect this? First, pre­con­cep­tion fit­ness low­ers some risk fac­tors for moth­ers and babies. Sec­ond, each moth­er’s genes will make it eas­i­er or more dif­fi­cult for her to enjoy or ben­e­fit from the activ­i­ty of exer­cise. We appre­ci­ate this and encour­age young moms-to-be to find some­thing enjoy­able that you like doing and find peo­ple or sit­u­a­tions that sup­port you in being active now before you become preg­nant.

If you need assis­tance or advice, please go to www.dancingthrupregnancy.com (use the BlogRoll)

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