Dental Health Crucial For A Healthy Pregnancy

Poor dental health while pregnant can lead to a number of pregnancy complications such as diabetes, preeclampsia, premature birth, miscarriage and cardiovascular disease. Bacteria in the mouth can collect in the plaque forming around the teeth and the gums and become infected. This infection can then enter the blood stream and affect the cardiovascular system of the mother. When pregnant this infection can also enter the placenta and the amniotic fluid surrounding the baby and cause miscarriage or preterm labor. To avoid dental infections while pregnant, all women should see their dentist regularly both pre-pregnancy and during pregnancy as well as brush their teeth twice a day using a fluoride toothpaste.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com

Severe Stress In Pregnancy Linked To Schizophrenia

A new study has revealed that if pregnant women endure severe psychological stress, like living in a war zone, during their early months of pregnancy, their child is more likely to develop schizophrenia. The lead author of the study, Dolores Malaspina M.D said, "The stresses in question are those that would be experienced in a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane, a terrorist attack, or a sudden bereavement." The study examined 88,829 children who were born in Jerusalem between the years 1964-1976. Babies born to mothers who were in the early stages of pregnancy during the 1967 War had much higher incidences of schizophrenia when compared with the rest of the population. "A developing foetus requires some exposure to maternal stress hormones as it normalizes their stress functioning. But women experiencing anxiety or excessive stress would do well to address it before a planned pregnancy and to have good social support systems," Malaspina concluded from the study.
http://www.newspostonline.com

Pregnant News

Amerigroup Will Pay $225M To Settle Allegations That It Denied Coverage Of Pregnant, Sick Illinois Medicaid Beneficiaries

Amerigroup will pay $225 million to settle allegations by federal and Illinois state authorities that Amerigroup's health plans denied coverage to pregnant women and people with health ailments in the Illinois Medicaid program, the insurer and the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday, Reuters reports (Dixon et al., Reuters, 8/14).

Cleveland Tyson, a former vice president of government relations at Amerigroup's Illinois subsidiary, in 2002 filed a whistle-blower lawsuit that claimed the company cherry-picked the healthiest patients to reduce spending. In March 2007, a federal judge in Chicago ruled against Amerigroup and awarded $334 million in the lawsuit.

Amerigroup, which first announced the proposed $225 million settlement agreement in July, said that it also will pay $9 million in legal fees in the settlement, and the company has agreed to enter into a corporate integrity agreement as part of the settlement (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 7/23). DOJ also said that the insurer's appeal of the $334 million court judgment will be dismissed as part of the settlement.

Amerigroup last month announced a second-quarter loss of $162.5 million on a one-time, after-tax charge of $199 million for the settlement and said that it will pay for the settlement from an already established fund.

In a statement, Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Illinois, said, "A settlement of this magnitude sends the clear message that this office takes health care fraud very seriously," adding, "This case also illustrated the perils a defendant faces in taking a case such as this to trial." Amerigroup said it agreed to the settlement to reduce the legal and financial uncertainty for the company. In a statement, Amerigroup Chair and CEO James Carlson said, "Our responsibility to our shareholders, associates, members, providers and government partners is to close this chapter now and move toward the future" (Reuters, 8/14).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Pregnant Tip Today

Sick of it all?

Morning sickness affects most women at some point during pregnancy, with symptoms ranging from mild nausea through to full on sickness, which can be quite debilitating. It can also occur at any time, not as the name suggests, only in the morning. There are some things you can do to help yourself however. Try sipping peppermint tea when you feel nauseous, and eat little and often throughout the day. Some women also find that eating something, such as a piece of dry toast or a plain biscuit before they get out of bed in the morning can help. Ginger is also an excellent antidote to sickness, so try ginger tea or ginger nut biscuits as well. Click here for a full list of tips for combating nausea.

Pregnancy: The Nesting Syndrome

By Linda StCyr

Women everywhere who have been pregnant have felt the nesting syndrome take over their body. The nesting syndrome can happen anytime during a pregnancy but often happens between the 5th and 9th month of gestation. It is a primal instinct but many pregnant women may look a little crazy when they get swept up in the syndrome. Nesting varies from woman to woman just as pregnancy varies in each woman. Some women feel the syndrome mildly and others suffer from an overwhelming case of the nesting syndrome.

Nesting is both biological and emotional. A part of it is instinct. A woman knows her body best. Women seem to know when the baby is about to arrive and thus the nesting syndrome takes over. Pregnant women can be found at this point cleaning vigorously, rearranging the baby's room and packing and unpacking the labor bag.

Wild animals as well as domestic animals also have a nest it instinct. That is why you will see a mother bird adjusting the weaves of her nest, a mother bear storing food and a mother cat finding a hidden area of the home where she will birth her babies. Pregnant women are just like the mothers of the animal kingdom getting ready for their offspring.

Emotions come into play with the nesting syndrome when pregnant women want to prepare. A woman's baby deserves the cleanest, healthiest atmosphere and that is a mom's job. Cleaning, organizing and being prepared are all elements that come into play when a pregnant woman experiences the nesting syndrome. At times the increased energy and overpowering need for pregnant women to follow through with these things before birthing their child can lead to an emotional crisis. Often these crisis' are short lived because there is often something else to be done.

Pregnant women who experience the nesting syndrome should keep a few things in mind. Read the labels of your cleaning products before cleaning. Cleaning products should be safe to handle and should be handled with proper care. Use environmentally safe brands that use little to know chemicals. If you must use chemicals then put on rubber gloves, a face mask and only use in well ventilated areas. Open up the windows and put on a fan to circulate the air. Pregnant women should avoid cleaning out the cat litter box because it can lead to a problem called Toxoplasmosis, this is a parasite found in a cat's fecal matter, and if transferred to the unborn child it can cause severe harm. The complications that arise from toxoplasmosis include but are not limited to blindness, deafness and mental development disorders as well as other health complications. Pregnant women need to stay away from the cat litter box.

The nesting syndrome is something that just has to be dealt with by pregnant women and often their husbands too. It can be an amusing time as well as a frustrating time. It is worth it in the end when you bring your bundle of joy home to your clean comfortable well organized home.

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How to Tell when You Are Ovulating ...By Mandy Hill

Ovulation is very important when trying to conceive. After all, without the egg, there can be no baby. Knowing when you ovulate is one of the most important factors in getting pregnant. There are a lot of different methods of finding out your ovulation time. Here I am going to briefly cover a few of those methods.A simple way to know when you ovulate is to use an ovulation predictor kit, otherwise known as an OPK. An OPK works like a pregnancy test in that it will most of the time give you one line for a negative and two lines for a positive, but there are some key differences. An OPK will often times give you two lines, and one will be much lighter then the other. This does not always mean that you are ovulating. Be sure and read the instructions that come in OPK's before using or interpreting them. OPK's will tell you when the ovulation hormone is in your system. This is useful because the OPK is used to predict that you will be ovulating soon. To know that you already ovulated would be to late to have intercourse in order to get pregnant.A little bit more complex way of checking for ovulation is checking your cervical mucus. This can be done by simply wiping a piece of toilet paper across the opening of your vagina and seeing what is on the tissue. Cervical mucus changes a lot throughout your cycles. Usually, right after you end your period, the cervical mucus will not be abundant and will be sticky. As you get closer to ovulation, that cervical mucus will thin out and eventually resemble egg whites. This fertile cervical mucus allows the sperm to survive longer in the usually harsh and acidic vaginal environment while waiting for an egg to be released. After you ovulate, your cervical mucus will begin to dry up and, if not pregnant, you will eventually start your next period.

Another way to check for ovulation is to simply check your calendar as well as your body. If you have a regular cycle, meaning it is the same length each month, checking the calendar is a great way to detect when you ovulate. All you do is check the last day of your cycle, and count backward fourteen days. That will most likely be the time that you ovulate. So when you come to your next cycle, you will need to have intercourse on the few days preceding your ovulation in order to increase your chances of becoming pregnant. Also, around your ovulation time, some women will experience some slight pain, known as ovulation pain. This varies from woman to woman.Ovulating is a complicated thing but once you become familiar with your body and the signs it gives you each month, you should be able to track it fairly regularly. Nobody will know your body better than you, so pay attention and before long you will be able to detect your ovulation without any problems!