“The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends 30 minutes or more of moderate exercise per day on most days of the week, unless you have a medical or pregnancy complication. Discuss your plans with your MD before beginning a new exercise routine.”
News
Learn about Contraceptive Options
“Many elements need to be considered by women, men, or couples at any given point in their lifetimes when choosing the most appropriate contraceptive method. These elements include safety, effectiveness, availability (including accessibility and affordability), and acceptability. Voluntary informed choice of contraceptive methods is an essential guiding principle, and contraceptive counseling, when applicable, might be an important contributor to the successful use of contraceptive methods.”
Anxiety during Pregnancy and Postpartum
Approximately 6% of pregnant women and 10% of postpartum women develop anxiety. Sometimes they experience anxiety alone, and sometimes they experience it in addition to depression.
Weekly Online Support Meetings
New to motherhood and looking for support during COVID-19? Join these new mom groups!
Information on COVID vaccine during lactation
Read about considerations for COVID-19 Vaccination in Lactation from the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine.
Your First Gynecologic Visit
Here is good information on Your First Gynecologic Visit including answers to Frequently Asked Questions.
Click here to read more from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
ACOG and SMFM Joint Statement on WHO Recommendations Regarding COVID-19 Vaccines and Pregnant Individuals
We appreciate ACOG’s quick response to the recent information released by the WHO.
If you are pregnant, or considering pregnancy, this joint statement from the American College of OB/GYN and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine is an objective, unbiased statement supporting access to the vaccine for pregnant women, a known high risk group for the severe outcomes of COVID-19 infection.
Vaping and Pregnancy
The use of tobacco products including cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes during pregnancy is the most important modifiable risk factor associated with adverse maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes. Screening for tobacco and e-cigarette use during pregnancy can be a powerful tool to assist patients with smoking cessation. Smoking during pregnancy, particularly of combustible tobacco products, is well-known to effect fetal development. What is not well-known is that the use of e-cigarettes does not eliminate the risk of harm to the fetus.
All pregnant women should be asked about smoking, including the use of e-cigarettes. The strong social norms against smoking during pregnancy lead many women to fail to disclose their true smoking habits. Tobacco can be used in ways other that smoking cigarettes. Cigars, pipes and water pipes are also commonly used, along with dissolvable tobacco products like chewing tobacco, snuff and snus, which are placed in the mouth where the nicotine and other chemicals can be absorbed.
Recently, the use of e-cigarettes has been added to the list of habits used by pregnant women continuing to satisfy their nicotine cravings. The thought by most of these women is that e-cigarettes offered a safer alternative to combustible tobacco primarily because e-cigarettes contain less of the harmful chemicals found in combustible tobacco smoke. It should be noted that this is a false sense of security for the developing fetus.
Women and Sleep: The Stages of Life
From The Lung Disease Center of Pennsylvania’s Breathe Magazine
Sleep and sleep disruption or sleep disorders have become a significant issue for both men and women. The data surrounding sleep dysfunction has, for the most part, been obtained though studies in men. The reasoning being that changes in the hormonal shifts of women presented more problems with study design and the interpretation of results.
Women, from menarche to menopause, report more problems with insufficient sleep and insomnia than men. Women report more difficulty in initiating sleep, difficulty staying asleep, and more frequent early morning awakenings. Women appear to need increased amounts of sleep to function at their best during the day compared to men. These gender differences in sleep complaints suggest that women have a higher susceptibility to sleep symptoms. Hormonal and physiologic changes, which begin in puberty and continue through the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, perimenopause, and menopause, influence a woman’s circadian rhythms, sleep architecture, and sleep quality. Moreover, these changes can contribute to a wide range of sleep disorders. Women’s sleep architecture and quality can be affected by many different factors, such as weight gain, especially during pregnancy. Women are also exposed to many different life pressures due to their gender. Childcare responsibilities, work-life balance, and the caregiver role for the elderly, as well as general stress, can impact a woman’s sleep quality and daytime functioning.
This article will review the problems women have with sleep based on the stages of their lives. Addressed in this article will be three main stages of a woman’s life and the difficulties these times may present for healthy sleep. The stages to be considered are: 1) sleep in women of reproductive age, and this will include sleep during the menstrual cycle and perimenopause; 2) sleep during pregnancy and the postpartum period; and 3) sleep during the perimenopausal and menopausal stage.