Child Development

During the pregnancy I got a huge problem – anemia. And I want to tell about it.
Anemia happens when your blood doesn’t have enough hemoglobin. Hemoglobin helps red blood cells carry oxygen from your lungs to all parts of your body.
There are many types of anemia, but I got an iron deficiency anemia (IDA). Iron deficiency anemia happens when there is not enough iron in body. Probably I got IDA because my diet didn’t have enough iron in it. Pregnancy usually can cause iron deficiency anemia if there’s not enough iron for the mother and fetus. Sometimes this can happen when woman loses blood from problems like heavy periods, ulcers, colon polyps, or colon cancer.
The signs of anemia can be weakness, fatigue, low body, temperature, irritability, pale skin, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, numbness or coldness chest pain, dizziness and headache.
Anemia is diagnosed by a blood test. The treatment for anemia depends on the cause of the anemia.
To prevent (treat) anemia I tried to eat food high in iron like red meat, fish, chicken liver or eggs, dried fruits, like apricots, prunes, and raisins lentils and green beans, leafy vegetables, like spinach and broccoli, or cereal with iron in it (iron-fortified).
You can also get iron from food like ground beef, clams, spinach, lentils, baked potato with skin, sunflower seeds, and cashews.
I can say that I ate all kind of these products, but it helped me just a little bit.
For more sources of iron, I tried to eat and drink food that helped my body absorb iron, like orange juice, strawberries, broccoli, or other fruits and vegetables with vitamin C. I tried not to drink coffee or tea with meals. It was really hard for me!!! These drinks make it harder for body to absorb iron. Calcium can hurt absorption of iron also.
I can say that if you have a hard time getting enough iron, make sure you get enough folic acid and vitamin B-12 in your diet!!!
Talk to your doctor about taking iron pills (supplements). But you should know that taking iron pills can cause side effects, like nausea, vomiting, constipation, and diarrhea. I got nausea. It was really unpleasant. And I even didn’t know that it was because of iron pills. I thought it was because hormones of pregnancy. But then I changed my pills for another kind and everything is fine now!!!
Only taking iron pills together with folic acid and water with lemon juice helped me. And of course fresh air!
Not getting enough iron can cause preterm labor and delivering a low-birth weight baby. So if you’re pregnant make sure you get 27mg of iron every day and take an iron supplement (pill). It may be part of prenatal vitamin, get tested for anemia.
For vegetarian woman.
It is easier to get iron from meat than from plant-derived foods. So some vegetarians may need to take a higher amount of iron each day than what is recommended for other people. Try to take vitamin C with other iron-rich foods.
Avoid iron overload
Iron overload happens when the body absorbs too much iron over many years. Excess iron builds up in organs, like the heart and liver. Many problems can cause iron overload. It can happen from years of taking too much iron or from repeated blood transfusions. But the most common form of iron overload is an inherited condition (runs in families) called hereditary.

German government has published the report concerning family questions. It criticizes the young German mums who bring up their children insufficiently.
Federal minister of Germany for family questions Ursula von der Leyen has presented in Berlin the report prepared in her ministry.
Two hours on education of the child.
The document criticizes the way of life of the unemployed young women who have children. “Young German mothers are present on a labour market very slightly. However they prefer to spend their free time in entertainments, but not in household chores”.
According to the ministry, German mums spend with their children only 2 hours and 18 minutes per day on the average. Worth notice that in those European countries where young women are more actively working - in Sweden, Norway, Finland, France - every day they spend with children approximately as much time, as Germany women (2-2,5 hours).
Desire to have children is decreasing
Besides the family policy of the German government focused, first of all, on financial attitudes is criticized in the report. «That is why German young men do not consider a birth of children as important component of the vital plans. That is their essential difference from the same aged people from France, Netherlands, Great Britain and Denmark “.
Long time was considered, that women do not wish to have children because of their career. Career and family are incompatible. However now experts observe with anxiety, that young people don’t have any desire to have children.
According to the report, young women from other European countries at the age of 20 till 34 years consider ideal family with 2-3 children. In Germany many women consider optimum family with the only child. A lot of men don’t want to have children at all.
That is really sad. I think that the demografic situation is getting worse in Germany every year. The population is getting older. Who is going to work and to feed the nation in about 30 – 40 years?????

The girl from West Lothian would become one of the United Kingdom’s youngest mothers.
The teenage boy is due to appear in court in July charged with rape because of the age of the girl, who is now 12.
She said she was looking forward to motherhood and hopes she has a boy when she gives birth.
The girl added that she thought she would be able to cope as she’d had “lots of practice” looking after young children.
“I’m enjoying being pregnant - even though I get a bit of a sore back and sore ribs.”
Her 34-year-old mother told the newspaper: “I’m not ashamed of my daughter at all - in fact, I’m proud of her for keeping her baby.”
The newspaper said the girl smokes up to 20 cigarettes a day.

Is she crazy? What can she give to her future child at the age of 12? Love? Financial stability? Education? She is a child herself. Does she understand that to have a child is a huge responsibility? For the rest of life…… According to the newspaper the girl smokes up to 20 cigarettes a day. So I don’t think she understands. I’m not telling to make an abortion. You know it is not my business, but she should think before… at least she can give up smoking now. Her body is not ready to have a baby at all and smoking is not the best thing now…

Jurgen Hass is going to adopt couple hundred children in Paraguay where he lives now. The 56-years old pensioner (earlier lived in the Rhine small town Rees), intends to provide children with social benefits provided by German law. He says that this social benefits can provide a normal living of eight members’ family for the whole month in such country as Paraguay.
However he is doing it not because of love or desire to facilitate children’s living in poor families. His main aim is to revenge the German state for the unfair treatment to him. He worked as the legal adviser without having special education. So the German court fined him for 100 thousand euro, and later on charge in swindle has sentenced him to three years of prison. He thinks that it is not fair.
Now Jurgen Hass lives in Paraguay and his German pension is about 1000 euros. This is big money for this country. He has already adopted more than 300 children from Paraguay, Romania, Hungary, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and India. The father of how many children he is going to be? There is no any limit he says. He sad that a thousand is enough for the beginning. His “kindness” doesn’t cost the pensioner any euro. The state cannot take away from him his pension or force him to pay for his “love to children” from it.
This happens because of the “hole” in the parental rights law the new version of which the Bundestag has accepted in 1998. The law allows the man to recognize himself as the father of the child if his/her mother agrees and nobody else declares the fatherly rights. All his adopted children received German citizenship. So, according to him – he gives good slap in the face to the German government and provides an opportunity for children from poor families in the countries of the third world to receive German education and the social help from Germany.
Jurgen Hass is not only one who is using such «holes» in the German legislation. There is one more unemployed man in Berlin who annually recognizes himself as the father of about ten children from Bosnia and Vietnam. As a result they are getting the right to stay in Germany and also to receive social and children’s grants. And “philanthropist” gets about one and a half thousand euro for each child. The state can’t stop him while the present law operates.
The Minister of Justice of Germany Brigitte Cupris has presented the new project of the act in April which will give the possibility to the state to punish such men for abusing the law on paternity.

Twins, who accrete by their bodies in a parent womb, are called Siamese. This term is connected with the pair of Chinese twins that were born in 1811 in Thailand (then it was Siam). Boys (parents have named them Chang - “left” and Eng - “right”) accreted in the field of a solar plexus. They had common navel and liver. When they were young they worked as sellers and messengers. At the age of 18 they immigrated to the United States of America and began to go on tour with improbable success. They married sisters, gave birth to more than 20 children and died in the age of 63.
Other pair - the well-known Siamese twins - sisters Blazhek - was born in 1878. Sisters became musicians - violinist and harp-player, one of them gave birth to the child.
In 1952 doctor Jacque Geller (USA) lead the first successful operation on division of Siamese twins. Now such operations are made even more often, and Siamese twins have more and more chances for a high-grade independent life.

The big news from the latest report on births from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is that American women are having more babies! The U.S. birth rate jumped 3 percent from 2002 to 2004, to more than 4.1 million births — the highest number since 1962 (except for a brief spike in 1990). The United States is now boasting climbing birth rates again, following the baby decline of the 1990s.
It is very interesting for me what is going on in the world? Why demographic situation is so different all over the world? I know it depends on religion and wealth of nation.
For example in some countries of Africa and the Muslim countries the religion encourages a plenty of children in family. Abortions can be forbidden in general. China has the other problem. The government forbids having more than one child in family even if parents wish to have more children. Except for that many Chinese people wish to have the son because he continues the dynasty. Most of them when they find out that they will have a girl do the abortion. So there’s gonna be a huge problem very soon. Quantity of boys is growing too fast. It is really bad.
About wealth. Unites States is a rich country and it’s population is growing now. But there are a lots of rich countries in Europe. And I know that demographic situation is not very good there. Why it is so different? Why it is going on this way?

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) there are some interdictions for pregnant women. They say that some fish are dangerous to eat during pregnancy. Pregnant woman should avoid swordfish, shark, king mackerel and tile fish. These fish can contain potentially risky levels of mercury. Mercury can be transferred to the growing fetus and cause serious health problems. A pregnant woman can safely eat up to 12 ounces (two average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are low in mercury. These include shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock and catfish. But pregnant woman can eat no more than 6 ounces of canned albacore (white) tuna per week. Canned white tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna. They also say to eat no more than 6 ounces of tuna steak per week, to avoid game fish. A game fish is any fish caught for sport, such as trout, salmon or bass. Pregnant woman should avoid raw fish, especially shellfish such as oysters and clams. If she eats raw fish, she could get an infection that could hurt her baby.
They also say to avoid soft cheeses such as Brie, feta, Camembert, Roquefort and Mexican-style, unless they are labeled as made with pasteurized milk.

Duh……….. I’m even afraid. So many interdictions. Don’t do this……. Don’t go there………. Don’t eat this…..At least I’m happy I have never tried some kinds of these fish, but It is still a really hard work to be pregnant……….

I got information from Internet, that by new study woman’s perspective on life can affect her pregnancy. Researchers at the State University of New York in Stony Brook followed the pregnancies of 129 women who were considered to be at high risk for early delivery or low birth weight babies due to chronic conditions, such as hypertension, or problems in previous pregnancies, such as miscarriages. The study finding: Negative types who view their lives as stressful are more likely than positive types to have low birth weight infants.
Optimists tend to lead healthier lifestyles, which contribute to healthier, full-term births They are also thought to have stronger immune systems, which may help ward off infections that can lead to preterm births.
I’m trying to do everything for my future little baby. I’m not smoking, not drinking alcohol, not using any drugs. I’m trying to have a rest when I can, trying to eat healthy food (no any kinds of fast food), listen to nice music. Is it a healthy lifestyle? Yes! But sometimes I can’t eat regularly, I can’t stay away from stress, cause life is crazy. I have a job, I study at University and I should pass the exams very soon. Does it mean I’ m gonna have low birth weight infant? No! I don’t want even think about it. My baby is gonna be just fine!!! Am I right?

I am afraid of doctors. I am afraid of blood and I am afraid to give birth to my baby alone. I have read a lot of literature on this theme. And I understood, that on the one hand, I want my husband to be with me, to calm me down, to support, to massage me, to help me breathe correctly. But on the other hand, the statistics shows, that number of divorces among pairs which gave birth together is higher than among pairs where the husband did not participate. According to statistics quarter of all American men who took part in childbirth needed sexological help after that.
Each woman wants her husband to know how hard and painfully it was. But I think, that I will better tell him about it.
Childbirth is a difficult process. And the woman not always looks attractively. I know, that if my husband will be there I will be worried about how do I look.

I think it is better for me to calm down and to think only about my little baby. I’ll see him so soon!!!

After 16 weeks of pregnancy the child starts to hear. He hears sounds of mommy’s body: heartbeat, noise of blood, sounds of a stomach.
He can already hear a voice of mother and even recognizes it!
He hears music and even can react to it. He calms down if it is pleasant. But if he doesn’t like he can even push and kick you! Scientists consider that babies are capable to distinguish the native language from foreign. They like those songs and fairy tales which they heard before the birth.
I already have picked up some fairy tales for my future child. I know that when he will be born, he will calm down and fall asleep quicker after reading (singing) his favorite ones! And I hope it will help me too!!!