Tag: pregnancy

Adulting

How to Understand Your Rights When You Go on Maternity Leave: 5 Things You Need to Know

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There are sets of laws that have been put in place to protect women when they are pregnant and employed. Many women have a lot of questions when it comes to their employment. Will you be given a set time period for your pregnancy? Will your job be protected? Can you be fired? There are a few things pregnant women need to be aware of so they can make sure their rights are fully protected.

The Family Medical Leave Act

For pregnant women, knowing your maternity leave rights is vital. The Family Medical Leave Act was passed in 1993 and applies to companies with at least 50 employees. Those who have worked at least a year with the company and work at least 25 hours a week qualify for taking up to twelve weeks of leave for pregnancy. When you return to work, under the law, you must be returned to employment offering equal benefits. The twelve weeks can be split up or taken all at once.

The FMLA also allows spouses to take leave for work for the care of their pregnant spouse or their newborn baby. It is imperative you are well-versed in the law so you can fully protect your rights as you go through the process.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act

Unfortunately, discrimination still occurs against pregnant women. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was passed in 1978. This act provides women with the same rights as others with medical conditions. This act states the following.

· You cannot be fired because you are pregnant.

· You cannot be forced to take a mandatory leave.

· You must be given modified tasks so you can continue to perform your job safely.

· You are allowed to continue working as long as you can safely and effectively perform your job.

· You are fully guaranteed job security during your leave.

Women need to be aware of this act that was passed to protect their rights as a pregnant woman. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was put in place to ensure pregnant women are treated fairly in the workplace.

5 Things You Must Know

1. As long as you have worked part-time for at least a year, you qualify for maternity leave.

2. You are required to request maternity leave in writing.

3. Your employer must continue to provide you with insurance, but you must pay your premiums.

4. There are only four states that have government-funded maternity leave and they include New Jersey, California, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.

5. Short-term disability insurance can offer coverage for the partial term of the maternity leave, but it will not cover it all.

Although laws have not been put in place in every state that requires employers to offer paid maternity leave, some employers provide this for the good of their employees. Preparation with savings before medical leave can make this period of time less financially stressful.

Conclusion

Pregnant women need to be aware of the rights they hold and should familiarize themselves with the laws and the policies of their employer. Being informed will help you to protect your rights as you go on maternity leave. Those who have been discriminated against or illegally fired should file a report and consider getting legal help.

Parenting

Modern Pregnancy Monitoring Solutions: 4 Advantages of Using A Smart Pregnancy Tracker

Jayne1 Comment
Pregnancy
Photo by John Looy on Unsplash

Pregnancy has always gone along with procreation, and there is something mystical about the whole process, the creation of a human life where once there was nothing: genesis, so to speak. It is a natural and beautiful thing, but there are parts of it that can be uncomfortable and inconvenient for the woman, which is why it is so nice that advancements in technology have made things a little easier. Foremost among these innovations is the smart pregnancy tracker. There are different ones on the market, and it would behoove the modern woman to consider getting one, like those offered at bloomlife.com. Here are four reasons you should consider monitoring your pregnancy with a smart tracker.

They Will Warn You of Sudden Changes with the Fetus

The primary purpose of most pregnancy trackers is to monitor how the fetus is doing in the mother’s belly. As such, for the expectant mother who is wearing one, if the child is in distress, the tracker will alert her before she might be aware that anything is amiss. These trackers can let the mother know if what she is experiencing is only something ordinary like gas, or whether it is, in fact, the onset of early labor.

Your Partner Can Be an Intimate Part of the Process

With a smart pregnancy tracker, your partner can have an insight into what you are experiencing like never before. It’s true that they won’t be able to feel the mother’s contractions, for better or worse, but they will be able to quantify what is taking place. This is a way to create an additional emotional attachment to the woman who is carrying the child that you will both be rearing together.

You Are Less Likely to Go to The Hospital Prematurely

If you’re in the third trimester and you are getting close to the due date, then false labor can easily occur. This is where you are experiencing a bodily sensation that mimics the feeling of labor but is not the actual event. Through the use of a smart pregnancy tracker, you will be much more likely to identify when the main event is about to occur. That can save you multiple unnecessary trips to and from the hospital maternity ward.

When the Time Comes, You Can Precisely Track Contractions

A critical part of the birthing process is the tracking of contractions so that the mother knows when to push. This reveals how quickly the child is coming. With a smart pregnancy tracker, there is no guesswork. The tracker monitors uterine activity in real-time so that the frequency and the duration are there for all to see. This is useful for the birthing mother, her partner, and the medical team who are taking care of her.

Medical technology and prenatal care have progressed to the point where giving birth is so much more likely to produce a happy result in the form of both a healthy child and mother. The smart pregnancy tracker is another innovative tool that a mother can use to ensure that both the pregnancy and the birth go smoothly.

Pregnancy

Getting Pregnant After 40: Risks, Statistics, and Solutions

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Infertility after 40 is becoming a common concern as more women choose to start their families later in life. Simply put, the older a woman gets, the harder it is for her to conceive with her own eggs. This is a scientific fact based on the significant decline of viable eggs produced by a woman as time passes. For women approaching their 40th birthday – or are already in their 40s – knowing their pregnancy risks, statistics, and possible solutions to conceiving after 40 can help them make the best choice for their family.

Valuable Statistics to Know

What are the odds of women conceiving after 40? According to the CDC, 30% of women in their 40s will experience infertility. Keep in mind that age may be one of many contributing factors to infertility. A study published in Fertility and Sterility showed women in their early 40s had a 25% chance of conceiving using their own eggs, but by age 44 that chance dropped to only 1.6%.

However, there is still hope for these women; they can increase their odds of getting pregnant by seeking fertility treatments such as intrauterine insemination (IUI), traditional IVF, or donor egg IVF. Some such fertility treatments are available at Fertility Plus

Risks of Getting Pregnant in 40s

While a successful natural pregnancy is possible over 40, there are still significant risks to consider. After age 35, women have a higher risk of the following:

  • High blood pressure
  • Premature labor and birth
  • Gestational diabetes
  • Preeclampsia
  • Miscarriage
  • Low birth weight
  • Placental problems
  • Birth complications

It’s impossible to know how your body will react, but thanks to scientific advances in fertility treatment, many of these risks can be decreased using assisted reproductive technology (ART).

Treatment Options

Women experiencing infertility after 40 have a few options to consider. They can try stimulating their own ovulation with fertility drugs or seek intrauterine insemination, a process in which a woman is inseminated with healthy sperm just as she is scheduled to release an egg. While both treatments can help increase the odds of conception, the best option with the highest chance of pregnancy for women over 40 – a whopping 39% – is in vitro fertilization (IVF) using donor eggs.

IVF and Donor Eggs

In vitro fertilization uses ART techniques to implant a fertilized egg into the mother’s uterus. As discussed, using one’s own egg becomes difficult after 40. Given this difficulty, families often opt to use donor eggs from a younger, healthier woman. By using donor egg IVF, the mother still experiences the miracle of childbirth with significantly less risk of miscarriage. Frozen donor egg banks provide a nationwide database of egg donors to choose from, or mothers-to-be can choose fresh egg donation from a family member, close friend, or select from a small regional pool of available donors. Frozen eggs are the better option for many families because the donor has already been screened, knows her legal rights, and may have had previous successful conceptions (either through her own children or children resulting from prior donations). Furthermore, the IVF process with frozen eggs is quicker than fresh eggs, as syncing the menstrual cycles of the donor and mother is necessary when using fresh eggs.

Steps Leading to Donor Egg IVF

Before committing to donor egg IVF, couples should seek counseling to prepare themselves for the emotions involved. While this treatment is a source of hope, it can also be a source of stress and anxiety. Aside from therapeutic counseling, couples should also seek legal counsel to establish rights between all parties when using fresh eggs.

The Bottom Line

Pregnancy already comes with a degree of risk and possibility of failure, whether aged 25 or 43. If a woman is struggling to conceive, she should ask her doctor about possible treatment options.

If you’re thinking about being pregnant after 40, there are some precautions that you have to take under consideration. For example, you need to see if you are still fertile, if not there are many avenues you can go down like IVF from Fertility Plus.

 

Baby

Things They Don’t Tell You About Your Post-Baby Body

Jayne3 Comments

When I fell pregnant with Sausage, there’s no denying the fact that I wasn’t in the best shape I could have been in; two years of marriage and the “comfort” had set in, with lots of lovely evenings spent together, eating takeaway and watching movies, and it had exactly the effect you#d imagine on my figure. I’d always planned to get in shape before we even considered having another baby, but fast-forward five and a half years and I fell pregnant a LOT quicker than I thought I would after having my implant removed. All of this neglect aside, there are things which happen to your body, post-baby, that a lot of people don’t talk about. Here’s just a few of the things that I’ve had to deal with:

Hair Loss

I’m pretty lucky that I have fairly thick hair to begin with, but after both of my babies the hair loss was shocking. I always lose it from around my hairline which is probably the most annoyingly noticeable place to lose it from, especially as I wear my hair in a ponytail and it can really mess with your confidence. I’m lucky that I didn’t lose enough to have needed to resort to an FUE hair transplant, but it’s something which affects a lot of new mums. 

Incontinence

This one is pretty much a universal truth for anyone who’s had a baby – you WILL pee yourself at some point in the future. I know women who’ve done every Kegel exercise imaginable who still break out in a cold sweat at the thought of going on a trampoline or getting a bad cough, and it’s not something we should be ashamed about, it’s just a fact of biology.

Stretch Marks

Because of things like Instagram and women’s magazines, it would be really easy to think that only us mere mortals get stretchmarks and that they’re something to be ashamed of. The fact of the matter is, some people get them, some people don’t. Celebs have the benefit of photo retouching and professional make-up people to make them look perfect but it’s very rarely a reality.

The Pouch

Obviously, not everyone who has a baby ends up with a pouch (you know , that flap of skin on your belly which just WILL NOT SHIFT not matter how much weight you lose) but it’s incredibly common and a lot of women say that their bodies never look the same again after having a baby, which can be hard to deal with, mentally. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never have my 22-year old body again, HOWEVER, I’m working hard to improve my new normal.

Scars

For ages after having Sausage, I found it really hard to look at my c-section scar because it represented a traumatic time in my life. It was jagged and red and made me feel like a failure for not having given birth naturally. Then Husband told me how grateful he was to that scar, how it represented the fact that a doctor was able to remove Sausage from my body safely while she was being starved of oxygen and save her life. As soon as I started to view my scar differently, it changed my whole view and I now love it.

Pregnancy

10 Things You Wish You Would Have Done While You Were Pregnant

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Sure, pregnancy symptoms can be uncomfortable, but there are plenty of reasons to celebrate during those 40 emotion-filled weeks that lead up to the moment when you finally get to meet your little one face to face! With this in mind, here are 10 things women wish they would’ve done during pregnancy. Try a few on for size: You’ll be glad you did!

Keep a Journal

Journaling takes just a few minutes per day, and it’s a great way to remember your thoughts and feelings later on, or just to air your worries in the present moment. Use an actual paper journal and pen, or type on your computer.

Take More Time out For Yourself

Babies require lots of time and effort, and new moms often have trouble finding time to pamper themselves. Relax now, while you have plenty of uninterrupted time.

Photograph Your Pregnant Belly

It’s a lot of fun to watch yourself grow – and weekly photos of your pregnancy can be important keepsakes later on. Set up your camera and take selfies in the same position each week, or have a friend or partner lend a helping hand.

Exercise

Yes, you’re tired and your body is sore! What you might not realize is that exercise can help ease some of those discomforts and prep your body for labor so everything goes a bit more smoothly. Exercise can also help you deal with the physical demands of caring for a newborn. So get your doctor’s approval, and then choose a fun activity or two. Some health clubs even have classes just for pregnant women, so be sure to explore your options.

Check Out Childbirth Classes

Your schedule may be busy, but once baby arrives, you’ll be glad you took some time out for childbirth classes. There really is no substitute for in-person education, especially if you’re able to get your partner involved.

Make a Belly Cast

Memorialize your pregnancy in a fun way by making a belly cast when you’re at your biggest.

Look Fabulous

Maternity clothes are improving all the time, making it easy to stay stylish throughout your entire pregnancy. It can be a lot of fun to really embrace this time by rocking a stylish haircut and focusing on looking your best.

Take a Babymoon with Your Partner

Babymoons are a lot like honeymoons – plenty of time alone with your partner, focusing on one another and just enjoying the fun of being together. You can take an actual vacation to a destination that won’t work well for a young family if you like, or you can enjoy fun activities close to home. Life after baby arrives will require extra planning, so consider enjoying some spontaneity while you still can.

Party with Your Friends

You can’t enjoy cocktails like you used to, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying a few more girls’ nights out, or from having a fun slumber party with your friends. Your most important friendships will remain strong after baby arrives, but there will be more demands on your time and energy, making it tough to connect on the same level. Have some fun and make some memories!

Sleep In

If you have time and feel up to it, enjoy sleeping in. Babies are notorious for waking their parents at all hours, so bask in the luxury of your bed every time you have the chance.

Sources:

https://www.idiva.com/photogallery-health/fun-activities-to-do-when-pregnant/1592

http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-health/recreation/

https://www.buzzfeed.com/anitabadejo/women-are-amazing?utm_term=.wcNjOxJnX#.ge5z5reMv

http://pregnancyandbaby.com/the-hatch-blog/articles/929411/six-activities-for-1st-time-pregnant-women-to-try

http://americanpregnancy.org/pregnancy-health/exercise-during-pregnancy/