When people talk about breastfeeding, they usually focus on the benefits for babies. Your family, friends, pediatricians and OBGYNs will tell you that breastmilk provides excellent nutrition and has major health benefits for babies. But what we don’t talk about nearly enough, are the significant positive impacts that breastfeeding has on mom.
In the United States, infertility affects 10-15% of heterosexual couples, making it one of the most common medical diagnoses for people ages 20 to 45 years old. Amongst married women in the U.S. specifically, 19% are affected. The WHO estimates that ONE in SIX couples worldwide experience infertility during their lifetime. LGBTQ couples face family building challenges at well. What these substantial numbers suggest is a high likelihood that most of us either know someone affected by infertility, or have been affected by infertility ourselves. Yet there is still so much that is not talked about when it comes to Infertility. Infertility can feel lonely and isolating to those trying to build a family. To address this, National Infertility Awareness Week, or NIAW, was started in 1989 to improve education and bring awareness to infertility.
As I sit here on call on Easter Sunday, April 9, 2023, writing this blog post, I am reflecting about the last 48 straight hours of rainfall as well as the crazy weather shifts going on at the Masters golf tournament this weekend. I started thinking about weather and temperature changes and pregnancies and the passing comments the doctors make to each other like “Good luck, big storm coming in tonight, be ready for some water to break.” Does weather really affect pregnancy? Does water break more often with pressure changes in the weather? Do more women go into labor with storms? Let’s take a closer look.
A very common concern for our postpartum patients is hair loss. I know for certain my wife was not happy seeing clumps of hair come out in the shower or while styling her hair. Like most new moms, she immediately thought something must be wrong and that all her hormones needed to be checked. In actuality, postpartum hair loss is very common. And yes it is caused by hormones; however most of the time this is just a natural process. Let’s take a deeper look.
You are finally at term and the seconds, minutes and days seem to slow to a crawl. Your mother-in-law is texting you non-stop wanting to know when the grand-kiddo is coming. It’s hard to work or do your day-to-day activities because the baby is pushing on your pelvic floor so much you have this sense […]
Congratulations, you are in the final third of your pregnancy. Hopefully, you passed your diabetes screen. If you did not, you are “enjoying” your new low-carb diet or possibly new medications. If this is your first kiddo you probably have a baby shower in the works. (I was amazed with how NICE everyone was with our […]
