Pregnancy myths really vary from country to country. Most women follow some of these folklores due to the tradition they have ever since. But then, medicine and technology have changed the pregnancy experience of modern women. The development of medical testing has helped couples in determining the gender of their child. Discussion here will involve the facts regarding common pregnancy myths.

Women believe that standing on your head after making love can increase the chances of becoming pregnant. But according to some experts, this method has no proof to help women in getting pregnant. Though they contend that lying down after sex for 20 to 30 minutes can increase the chances of getting pregnant.

Another myth is that, people can determine the gender of a child through the shape and height of a woman’s stomach. The famous belief states that, women who carries a boy has a low belly. While women who will give birth to a girl, has a high stomach. But this is a total misconception. Because the shape and height of a woman’s stomach is determined by uterine tone, muscle tone and the baby’s position. In order to know the real gender of a baby, getting an ultrasound is very much recommended.

It is also erroneous to say that there is an association between the shape of a woman’s face and the gender of a baby. Pregnant women gain weight differently during pregnancy and their skin changes. People cannot tell that if a woman has a rosy cheek, is an indication that she will give birth to a baby girl.

Others also believe that taking a bath is unsafe and unhygienic. In contrast to this popular myth, there is no clear evidence which shows that tap water which enters the vagina can contaminate the pregnant woman. Actually, hygiene is very much needed during pregnancy.

Some women are afraid that if they put their arms around their head, the umbilical cord will muffle the baby. But there is no definite connection about this. Because according to a study conducted, 25 percent of all babies are born with their cords around their necks. Another myth that they believe is that, women lose a tooth for every birth that they have. But with the availability of supplements and vitamins nowadays, pregnant women will be ensure of preserving their maternal health. If a woman has a vitamin deficiency in her diet, calcium may be lost from the her teeth and bones. That is why pregnant women are advised to take at least 1500 mg of calcium everyday, either from food sources or supplement. Teeth will really fall if calcium is deficient or depleted.

During pregnancy, other women don’t begin any exercise that they are not already doing prior to pregnancy. This one has some basis. Because this will add protection to the newly pregnant woman from injury. In starting a pregnancy exercise, it is really important to seek the advice of a healthcare provider. It is advisable for pregnant women to join in a prenatal exercise or much better a yoga class not only to be physically fit but also to build a support group and even future social network. It is advised that pregnant women should take a walk for 30 to 40 minutes everyday plus a light exercise session after any physical activity.

With the modern technology and medicine being developed today, pregnant women should not anymore rely on these myths because there is no really clear evidence that these are true. What is best is that you must have a regular check-up with your doctor and ask for further questions if ever you want to clarify something. Because definitely they know best.

About The Article
For up to date links and information about Pregnancy, please go to: http://www.PregnancyClue.com.

A glazed doughnut or a wedge of apple pie might be what we choose for a mid-morning munch. Unfortunately, these snacks contain refined sugar that is not only bad for your teeth and gums, but also for your pregnancy. Sugar, sometimes disguised as sucrose, dextrose, or glucose, provides empty calories, adds weight, and can lead to diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis.

We Americans eat entirely too much sugar — almost 7 tablespoons per person per day. Depending on who’s doing the research, that could be anywhere from 64 to 150 pounds per year. These “empty” spoonfuls contribute no nutrition or fiber and crowd out nutritious fare from your diet. In the presence of certain bacteria in the mouth, sugar leads to the production of toxic bacterial byproducts that are very acidic. These toxins, if allowed to sit on the enamel of your teeth, cause caries (cavities). If not removed properly from along the gum line and in between the teeth, they irritate the gums and will ultimately erode the supporting bone that anchors the teeth in the mouth. A mother-to-be is more susceptible to dental problems due to the excessive hormones circulating in her system. According to the Surgeon General’s report in 2000, “toxins or other products generated by periodontal (around the teeth) bacteria in the mother may reach the general circulation, cross the placenta, and harm the fetus.” Pregnant women with severe gum infections are seven times more prone to having a baby that is premature. Prevention and early diagnosis of dental decay and gingivitis (swollen, tender gums) are important for your health as well as your baby’s. So, what can you do about assuring good nutrition and oral health during pregnancy? Here are three tips from my book, Pregnancy and Oral Health that will make a difference right away:

Healthy Snack Alternatives

Here is a list of healthy snack ideas to replace those quick, convenient, sugary ones that contribute to dental decay:

• Yogurt with fresh fruit
• Unprocessed cheese
• Brown Rice, whole grain bagels, whole wheat toast, or bran muffins with cream cheese, peanut butter, or fruit spread
• Homemade frozen popsicles, using one 6oz. can frozen concentrated juice mixed with a small container (6-8 oz) of plain yogurt. I used to give these to my son when he was teething. They were yummy for both of us!
• Baked apples or other baked or stewed fruit
• Fresh fruit (Choose from a range of colors to ensure variety of nutrients and vitamins)
• Fruit smoothies, homemade, using yogurt and banana as your base. Add other fruit and flavorings with ice to make a delicious drink
• Unsweetened whole grain cereals with yogurt and fresh fruit.
• Nuts and seeds.
• Celery with peanut butter (my personal favorite).
• Raw carrot sticks, cucumber slices, green pepper wedges — or any fresh vegetables, for that matter. Serve with a dip made from ground garbanzo beans (hummus), yogurt, sour cream, or cottage cheese with herbs.

When you indulge:

When you do indulge in a sugary treat, it is better to do it all in one sitting rather than to sip on a soda or take tiny bites of sweet things all day long. (One soda has on the average of 12 teaspoons of sugar). Eating tiny bursts of sweets throughout your day is more injurious to your oral health since every time you introduce sugar into your mouth, the bacteria are nourished for about 20 minutes.

Brushing or swishing:

Brush as quickly as possible after eating or drinking anything with a high content of sugar. If that is not possible, I recommend taking a swig of water, swishing it around your mouth and swallowing. By keeping these residues at a very low level, you reduce the nutrients that many plaque-forming bacteria depend on for their growth and survival.

About the Author
Sheila Wolf, affectionately known to her patients and colleagues as Mama Gums, has been a dental hygienist for 32 years, educating and motivating people on both coasts to take control of their oral health. You can read more about the critical link between a healthy mouth and a healthy baby at her website, www.mamagums.com and in her book, Pregnancy and Oral Health: The Critical Connection Between Your Mouth and Your Baby, available through bookstores in June 2004 and on www.Amazon.com. Sheila invites questions and can be reached at 866 MAMA-GUMs or through her website.

Our children are being bombarded with candy from every direction. Chocolate bars, gum, suckers, and assorted gummy candies line the checkout lanes in grocery stores. School fundraisers sell candy bars, cookies, and brownies in the hallways during lunch hours. Every mall, skating rink, soccer complex, movie theater, and even the video store has a place to buy candy.

And then there is the holidays. Halloween trick or treat bags bulge with every kind of candy imaginable. Christmas stockings are topped with bubble gum and chocolate bars. Valentine messages are stamped on candy hearts and boxes of candy are the staple of communicating love. Easter baskets overflow with jellybeans and chocolate bunnies.

Candy is everywhere and its presence wreaking havoc on our children’s teeth and waist lines. Children are visiting the dentist with serious tooth decay at younger and younger ages every year. Obesity in children is a national concern.

With candy being universally available and regularly within sight of children, what is a parent to do? How do you combat its influence on your children? How do you lessen the influence of advertisers and get candy consumption under control in your family? How can you win the candy wars?

The following suggestions can assist you in curbing your children’s candy consumption. Use them to increase the health and well-being of your family.

1. Begin by being a model for your children to follow.

If you are a chocoholic and find yourself foraging through the cupboard for the last chocolate bar or eating an entire bag of M & M’s once they are opened, reflect on the message you are sending your children. It will be difficult for you to curb your children’s candy consumption when they see you unable to curb your own. So model the message. Eat a small portion of candy and set the rest aside for later. Talk to your children about your desire and your willingness to stay conscious and make healthy choices about your own candy consumption. The positive images you give them on how to set candy aside will help them to be more likely they are to set it aside themselves.

2. See candy as a wonderful opportunity to set limits with your children.

As parents we set limits around television, computer time, video games, bed times, friends, and a variety of other items. Setting limits with candy does not mean you make if totally off limits. It means that you provide opportunities for your children to enjoy candy within some clearly defined parameters or guidelines.

Children want guidelines. They thrive on structure. It is the structure provided by the adult that allows them, to relax into being a child. Of course they will push and test the limits. That is there job. Pushing and testing the limits does not mean that your children want them changed. It most often means that they want to see if the structure is really in place.

Set your limits early before you go to the store, before the Easter bunny arrives, before the Halloween bags are full, before you bring candy into the house. “We will be buying one treat today in the store,” sets the limit. So does, “We are shopping for food today. This will be a non-candy trip.”

Discuss with your children how candy consumptions will take place before they head out to gather a bag full at Halloween time. Agree on a portion to be eaten each day and a place to keep it. Do not allow candy to be taken into their bedroom. Do not leave bags of candy in the cupboard for easy access. This is part of setting limits and it is your responsibility as a conscious, committed parent to see that it is done.

Setting a limit doesn’t means you have to say, “No.” Sometimes saying, “Yes,” with a qualifier, helps you avoid power struggles.

“Yes, you can have one right after supper.”

Another important way to set limits and structure candy consumption in your family while reducing resistance and resentment is to offer children choices.

3. Offer your children choices when it comes to candy consumption.

“You can choose five pieces of candy out of your Halloween bag for today and set the rest aside for a different day. Let spread all your candy out and look at your choices.”

“You can choose one piece of candy now or two pieces of candy for after supper. You decide.”

“You can choose to have your Easter basket candy kept in the kitchen cupboard where we can keep track of it or you can choose to be done having access to your candy.”

With candy, remind your children that responsibility equals opportunity. Your children have an opportunity to have some candy. If they are responsible with following the parameters you have set then the opportunity continues .If they choose not to be responsible with candy, they choose to lose the opportunity to have it available. In that instance, access to candy is removed.

This could mean you may have to remove all the candy from the house and make it unavailable to anyone. That would include you.

4. Make the eating of candy something special.

Educate your children that candy is not food. It is junk and has no nutritional value for their bodies. Candy and the opportunity to eat it is something special and are reserved for special moments. Keep candy eating rare and enjoyable. Once the line is crossed and candy becomes an everyday occurrence, specialness of it wears off and it presence is now expected..

Have different candy around at different times to bring attention to the special event that the candy may represent. Focus on the event and how different types of candy are significant at different times of the year. Talk about the cultural or family significance of what a particular type of candy may represent. Change the focus from that of mass consumption to that of significance to you and your family.

5. Don’t use candy as a reward.

When you use candy to motivate your children to perform a particular task or behave in a certain way, you are positioning it as a tool of manipulation. Using candy to get children to behave is a form of bribery and produces children who perform for a substance. In this way you end up producing a “candy junky,” someone who chases after the next fix of the desirable substance.

Candy should never be used as a reward by parents, teachers, or any professional working with children. This distorts the role candy should have in a young person’s life and teaches children that the reward (in this case candy) is more important than the task performed..

6. Help your children create an inner authority.

You are not always going to be present when your children have access to candy. You are not going to be there to enforce a limit for your children or give them choices. You want the ability to curb candy consumption to already be inside them. This control for within will develop in children if you can start early and consistently utilize the suggestions above.

Another way to help your child build inner controls is to debrief or talk through your child’s choices with him after he returns from a place where you know candy is easily available. Help him think about and talk through his decisions. Ask him to articulate what he would want to keep the same and what he would like to different next time. Help him create a plan to build on his successes.

Your child’s inner authority is the only authority she will take with her wherever she goes Help her learn to trust her ability to decide and make healthy, responsible choices.

By following these six suggestions you and your children can enjoy the wonderful taste of chocolate and other candies. The holidays can be filled with pleasant moments of special candy consumptions. The “candy wars” will no longer be necessary. Instead, eating candy will move from a weight and tooth decay issue to a wonderful time when one can simply enjoy a sweet taste upon the pallet.

About the Authors:
Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are the authors of The 10 Commitments: Parenting with Purpose. They also publish a FREE email newsletter for parents and another for educators. Subscribe to them when you visit, http://www.chickmoorman.com or http://www.thomashaller.com. Chick Moorman and Thomas Haller are two of the world’s foremost authorities on raising responsible, caring, confident children. For more information about how they can help you or your group meet your parenting needs, visit their websites today.

A baby can first discover his hands at a couple of months old. Or, it may be later when he starts teething and drooling. You may see your baby try to stick his fist in his mouth, or frantically try to gnaw on it while he is drooling. Finding his fist, may lead to him finding his thumb, or in some cases finding a finger, or two. Some babies, when they find their thumb realize that they can suck on it for comfort.

There are babies, both breastfed and bottle fed, who need to suck and who find comfort and are lulled to sleep by sucking. Sometimes these babies can calmed with a pacifier, while other times they can not. Many times it is the mother’s nipple that takes the brunt of the sucking, as it is the only thing that calms down and puts her baby back to sleep.

When a baby finds his thumb however it might mean relief for mom, and more free time to get other things taken care of around the house. Maybe it is the warmth of the thumb or fingers, but some babies who like to suck find comfort in sucking on their thumb. This can worry some parents though.

Some parents are afraid of creating a habit with their baby that they have a hard time of breaking. Others are afraid about damage being done to their baby’s teeth. Statistics show however that most children quit sucking their thumb by the time they are 4 years old, before their baby teeth fall out and their adult teeth start coming in. Thumb sucking is simply outgrown by most children.

It is extremely difficult to stop your baby from sucking his thumb. It is especially hard to keep your babies thumb out of his mouth, and keep it out when your baby is asleep. You can offer the pacifier, which is much easier to take away if your baby will take it. If you breastfeed, you can try to discourage it by nursing more often or nursing your baby to sleep so that he doesn’t search out his thumb for sucking.

If your baby is sucking his thumb and it bothers you but there is nothing you can do about it, ask your pediatrician to see if he has any suggestions for you. With as many babies and kids that your pediatrician see’s it is likely that he has heard stories from other mom’s that worked, and he might have tips for you.

Brushing
There are products on the market that can make brushing your baby’s teeth and gums easier. These include baby tooth pastes, finger brushes, and little bitty tooth brushes. Chances are your baby will like the feel of the finger brush on their sensitive gums while they are teething. The finger brush is made of rubber and will have soft bristles on the end that will feel great in your baby’s mouth.

Starting early will help set precedence for your baby of brushing daily. If it is what they have been taught, and all they know, they will be more likely to do it on their own as they get older. Don’t hesitate to brush your baby’s teeth a couple of times a day.

To brush, either with a finger brush or a baby tooth brush you will use just a small amount of tooth paste and rub it up and down on your baby’s tooth. The same rules apply as when you brush your teeth.

Flossing
Flossing at an early age will establish a basis for good oral hygiene. It should be started when your baby has two teeth next to each other. Flossing can help prevent cavities which can become rampant. In very small children, this is often referred to as “bottle decay.”

When plaque is present it causes swelling, redness, and bleeding of the gum tissue known as gingivitis. As much as seventy percent of children have gingivitis. Consistent removal of plaque can cure gingivitis; however, chronic gingivitis can cause a breakdown of the structures supporting the teeth and become periodontal disease.

Remember, it is never too early to start teaching your baby about good dental health. Your baby will only have two set of teeth in his life. If you start early teaching him how to take care of his baby teeth, then he will have solid precedent to go by when his adult teeth start coming in and he is taking care of them on his own.