Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/pregnancy

  • Pregnancy 101: Peas made me puke, but not just in the morning

    …d picked up on my soaring level of discomfort and without missing a beat, ate all my peas when Diane wasn’t looking. We ended the evening with my stomach contents intact, but barely. The next morning, as I was preparing my 18 month-old daughter’s daycare lunch, I remembered that we were provided with a parting gift of sautéed peas. I took them out of the fridge and proceeded to aliquot them into containers more suitable for a toddler. As I rem…

    Authored by on February 14, 2012

  • Pregnancy 101: It Hurts Where?

    …during or after pregnancy. Studies report that approximately 20 percent of women experience these symptoms with pregnancy. For most women, the pain goes away within a few months of childbirth. But for somewhere between 7 and 10 percent of them, it doesn’t. A combination of factors appears to contribute to this pain. During pregnancy, a hormone called relaxin softens the ligaments that reinforce a woman’s joints, including the three pelvic joints…

    Authored by on February 10, 2013

  • Pregnancy 101: The science behind the wand of destiny

    …s reproductive health. For blogs, check out this list on Babble, and this list on BlogHer.       [1]Wilcox AJ, Baird DD, Weinberg CR. Time of implantation of the conceptus and loss of pregnancy. N Engl J Med. (1999) Jun 10;340(23):1796-9….

    Authored by on November 26, 2011

  • Miscarriage: When a beginning is not a beginning

    …heory, or ladybusiness expert, I have learned a lot about miscarriage. Only it wasn’t miscarriage, it was spontaneous abortion. Except that some didn’t like the term spontaneous abortion and used intrauterine mortality (Wood, 1994). Or fetal loss. Fetal loss is probably the most common. There is also pregnancy loss (Holman and Wood, 2001). You can use that term, too. Oh, or a-conceptions (a for abortion), compared to l-conceptions (l for live bir…

    Authored by on September 5, 2012

  • Xplainer: How do you date a pregnancy?

    …and 22. Pregnancy is often detected after the first missed period. This graphic is intentionally simple, removing all the hormones and other fun stuff (Ed: which you can find here). You’ll note that it says approximately day 14 and day 28. In textbooks, we often see that women have 28-day cycles and everything has a nice schedule. However, women are not textbooks and sometimes have shorter or longer cycles and/or have ovulation at slightly diffe…

    Authored by on October 3, 2012

  • Hormonal birth control explainer: a matter of health

    …levels of these four hormones drive what we think of as the menstrual cycle, which exists to prepare an egg for fertilization and to make the uterine lining ready to receive a fertilized egg, should it arrive.  Fig. 1. Female reproductive anatomy. Credit: Jeanne Garbarino. In the theoretical 28-day cycle, fertilization (fusion of sperm and egg), if it occurs, will happen about 14 days in, timed with ovulation , or release of the egg…

    Authored by on March 5, 2012

  • HIV+ doesn’t mean you can’t have children

    …nknown HIV levels near the time of delivery, regardless of whether they were taking recommended antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy. The guidelines state that when there is a low rate of transmission (viral loads lower than 1000 copies/mL), the benefits of a scheduled c-section are unclear. Dr. Levison, an obstetrician/gynecologist at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, says that in her practice, women rarely need a cesarean section. The n…

    Authored by on March 11, 2013

  • Pregnancy 101: On the cervical mucus plug and why I’ve never been more happy to hold something so disgusting in my hand

    …and elastic mucus, known as the cervical mucus plug. In non-scientific terms, the mucus plug is like the cork that keeps all of the bubbly baby goodness safe from harmful bacteria. It is quite large, often weighing in around 10 g (0.35 oz) and consists mostly of water (>90%) that contains several hundred types of proteins. These proteins do many jobs, including immunological gatekeepers, structural maintenance, regulation of fluid balance, and e…

    Authored by on December 29, 2011

  • The sperm don’t care how they got there, Rep. Akin

    17 c. rendition of human inside sperm.Public domain in US. [Trigger warning: frank language about sexual assault] By Emily Willingham By now, you’ve probably heard the phrase: legitimate rape. As oxymoronic and moronic as it seems, a Missouri congressman and member of the House Science, Space, and Technology committee used this term to argue that women who experience “legitimate rape” likely can’t become pregnan…

    Authored by on August 20, 2012

  • Pregnancy 101: My placenta looked like meatloaf, but I wasn’t about to eat it.

    …of us are involved in policing the neighborhoods, some of us build structures, some of us communicate information, some of us deal with food, some of us get rid of waste, etc.  Every cell gets a job (it’s the only example of 100% employment rates!). Now back to the cells in the fertilized egg.  As they start to learn what their specific job will be, the cells within the sphere will start to organize themselves.  After about 5 days after fertil…

    Authored by on July 27, 2012

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