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Here’s What Your Crazy Pregnancy Dreams Mean

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During pregnancy, it’s common to have vivid, strange dreams and frightening nightmares that wake you up in a cold sweat.

Although pregnant women don’t have more dreams than those who are not, they do report more nightmares, according to a study in the journal Sleep Medicine.

Since hormonal changes interrupt sleep, dreams can be more disturbing and also more memorable because of the frequent awakenings, said Jessica Lara-Carrasco, PhD, a clinical psychologist in Montreal, Canada and lead author of the study.

Due to all the changes and stress women experience during pregnancy, the dream content itself also tends to be more strange.

“She has a lot of imagery during the day thinking about how she will be as a mother,” Lara-Carrasco said. “Dreams are more impactful maybe because women are more aware of the changes and stress about future.”

The good news is that dreams aren’t premonitions and pregnant women who have nightmares may actually have shorter labors, according to a study in the journal Psychiatry Research.

Here, read on for nine of the most common strange pregnancy dreams and what they actually mean.

1.      Water

Dreams don’t just happen to us, we actually create them.

“The dream is like the ultimate selfie,” said Ian Wallace, a psychologist in Edinburgh, Scotland, and author of “The Top 100 Dreams: The Dreams That We All Have and What They Really Mean,” and “The Complete A to Z Dictionary of Dreams: Be Your Own Dream Expert.”

“It’s the ultimate self portrait of who you are, what you need and what you believe in that point in your life,” he said.

Dreaming about water is particularly common during the first trimester as the amniotic sac fills up with fluid.

“Anytime we create a dream with fluid, with water in it, it’s usually about our emotions and feelings,” he said.

If the water is dirty or murky, it probably means that you’re not sure how you feel about having a baby. Similarly, a dream about a tidal wave or tsunami that hovers off-shore means there’s an emotional change coming up in your life.

2. Nature and taking pictures

When mother-of-two Erin Kühn, 32, of Ontario, Canada, was pregnant with her second child, she had a dream that she was taking photos in nature while her daughter played with a stick in a puddle of water nearby.

“All of a sudden I turned around and she was lying face down in the puddle. She had drowned. I remember feeling so horrible,” Kühn said.

Dreaming about death isn’t a premonition, but the child represents ideas that you hold dear, such as a goal you didn’t achieve, but need to figure out how to handle.

“There is some situation, something very close to their heart that seems to be in danger in some way,” Wallace said.

Taking photos represents that you’re trying to get the most natural and healthy perspective on what you’re trying to achieve.

“She was worrying that her unique insight would become submerged and she wouldn’t be able to access it again,” he said.

3. Conception

If you have a dream about conceiving your baby, it actually represents creativity and means you’re conceiving ideas from a labor of love.

“You want to nurture and develop that seed of the idea into something wonderful and unique,” Wallace said.

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Here are the Best Baby Tech Products Out There

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Several innovative companies showcased inventive new products at the second annual Baby Tech Summit at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this year.  The Bump, the definitive voice for millennial parents, in partnership with Baby Tech Summit at CES producers Living in Digital Times (LIDT), announced the winners of the second annual The Bump Best of Baby Tech Awards at CES® 2017.

The Bump and Randi Zuckerberg, digital lifestyle expert and host of SiriusXM‘s “Dot Complicated,” recognized the winners for their leading innovations in fertility, pregnancy and baby technology  on the LIDT Stage at CES Tech West.

According to The Bump Moms & Tech survey, 76% of moms say they consider technology an important factor when shopping for baby products, with a majority saying technology gives them peace of mind. Keeping pace with the attitudes of millennial moms and the tremendous growth of the baby tech vertical, this year’s awards program saw a 36% increase in submissions from last year.

 

“As the leading pregnancy and parenting resource for millennial parents, we’re thrilled to bring our highly sought-after Best of Baby Awards to the world’s largest consumer electronics show, CES, for a second year in a row,” said Julia Wang, head of digital content for The Bump. “There were an incredible number of impressive baby tech innovations to choose from, and today’s winners represent the best of the best products that are changing the world of parenting.”

“The Bump Best of Baby Tech Awards winners are the products that will have the greatest impact on parenting in the years ahead, making it easier and enabling parents to stay connected and better informed every step of the way,” said Jill Gilbert, producer of the Baby Tech Summit. “Announcing the winners live on stage at CES provides an opportunity for these innovators to showcase their work in front of the world’s leaders in technology.”

Here are the Baby Tech Award Winners

Baby Eats

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Baby Learn and Play 

  • Think & Learn Code-a-pillar™ is a learning toy caterpillar for ages three and up that encourages experimentation while developing coding fundamentals like sequencing and critical thinking skills.

Baby On-The-Go

  • Winnie is an app that helps parents find great places to go with their kids, restrooms with changing tables or places to breastfeed.

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Baby Safety

  • Happiest Baby Snoo Smart Sleeper boosts sleep with gentle movements, helping babies learn healthier sleep patterns. Based on founder Dr. Harvey Karp’s 5 S’s calming method, the Snoo’s responsive robotic system soothes upset babies with increasing levels of white noise and womb-like motion. Its top in the baby bassinet market.

Fertility and Pregnancy

  • Ava is a fertility tracking bracelet that monitors sleep, stress and menstrual cycle in a single device worn only at night, and detects five fertile days per cycle in real time.

Healthy Baby 

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  • Owlet Baby Health & Wellness Monitor is a smart sock monitor with new features including an innovative new sock design, 8x range increase, and a Connected Care platform that tracks infant’s heart rate and oxygen levels and alerts parents if levels fall outside present zones.

Audience Favorite

  • Kaishi is a fetal heart-rate monitor that allows expecting families to listen to the baby’s heartbeat on their phone and share it over social media.

A complete list of the winners can be viewed The Bump Best of Baby Tech Awards.

Results were based on a compilation of online votes and expert judges. The judging panel included:

Dr. Taz Bhatia, MD, Integrative Health Expert, Owner of Centre Spring MD + Pediatrics

Simon Isaacs, Co-founder and Chief Content Officer, Fatherly

Debbie Sterling, Founder & CEO, GoldieBlox

Jeana Tahnk, Family Tech Expert, Top Tech Mom

Julia Wang, Head of Digital Content, The Bump

Randi Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media  

 

FDA Issues New Fish Guidelines for Kids and Pregnant Women

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A new U.S. government guideline classifies fish into three categories of safety to help pregnant women, breast-feeding mothers and parents of young children make healthy choices.

The 62 types of fish and shellfish included in the guideline are sorted into: best choices: eat two to three servings a week; good choices: eat one serving a week; and fish to avoid.

Nearly 90 percent of fish eaten in the United States fall into the best choices category, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Fifty percent of pregnant women eat fewer than 2 ounces of fish a week, which is far less than the recommended amount, the FDA said. Fish offers nutritional benefits important for growth and development during pregnancy and early childhood, the agency said.

The FDA and EPA recommend two to three servings of lower-mercury fish per week, or 8 to 12 ounces total. Twelve ounces is the recommended maximum weekly consumption, according to the new guidelines.

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These are the Top 10 Best and Worst US States to Raise a Family

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After you decide to finally start your family, one of the things you also consider is where to raise said family. If you are lucky enough to be living and working in a progressive area with lots of resources, wide-open spaces, and programs for children, then you won’t even have to consider moving. But if you don’t and are curious, there are great areas and not so great areas.

Personal finance website, WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2017’s Best & Worst States to Raise a Family.

In order to determine the best states in which to put down family roots, WalletHub’s analysts compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on 40 key indicators of family-friendliness.  The researcher’s data set ranges from “median family salary” to “housing affordability” to “unemployment rate.”

Here are the top Best and Worst:

Best States for FamiliesWorst States for Families
1North Dakota42Alabama
2New Hampshire43West Virginia
3Vermont44Georgia
4Minnesota45Arizona
5Nebraska46Alaska
6Massachusetts47Nevada
7New Jersey48Louisiana
8Iowa49District of Columbia
9Connecticut50Mississippi
10South Dakota51New Mexico

Here is some breakdown of the best and worst areas.

Best vs. Worst

  • Wyoming has the highest median family annual income (adjusted for cost of living), $79,732, which is 1.7 times higher than in Hawaii, where it is lowest at $48,111.
  • Utah has the lowest divorce rate, 16.22 percent, which is 1.8 times lower than in the District of Columbia, where it is highest at 29.81 percent.
  • Wyoming has the lowest share of families receiving food stamps, 6.17 percent, which is 3.6 times lower than in the District of Columbia, where it is highest at 22.01 percent.
  • New Hampshire has the lowest share of families living below poverty level, 5.6 percent, which is 3.1 times lower than in Mississippi, where it is highest at 17.6 percent.
  • Mississippi has the lowest child-care costs (adjusted for median family income), 6.16 percent, which is 2.8 times lower than in the District of Columbia, where they are highest at 17.41 percent.
  • California has the lowest infant-mortality rate, 4.30 percent, which is two times lower than in Alabama, where it is highest at 8.68 percent.
  • Vermont has the lowest violent-crime rate per 1,000 residents, 1.18, which is 10.8 times lower than in the District of Columbia, where it is highest at 12.69.

To view the full report and your state or the District’s rank, please visit:

https://wallethub.com/edu/best-states-to-raiseafamily/31065/

STUDY: Skipping Prenatal Vitamins During Pregnancy Linked to Child’s School Progress

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Failing to take multivitamins during pregnancy could set a child back by a year by the time they reach secondary school, a new study suggests.

The issue of taking supplements is controversial for pregnant women, with research last year suggesting that it was a waste of money to take anything except folic acid and vitamin d.

But a new study by an international team including Harvard University, the University of California and the University of Lancaster, found that multivitamins can add the equivalent of up to a full year of schooling to a child’s cognitive abilities between the ages of nine and 12.

The finding, which was carried out in women in Indonesia, is likely to be most relevant for women who do not get sufficient vitamins and minerals from their diets.

The study also found that early life nurturing, happier mothers and educated parents all led to cleverer children. A nurturing environment was found to be more even more important than biological factors, such as good nutrition, for general intellectual ability, academic achievement and fine motor dexterity.

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STUDY: Mom’s Blood Pressure During Pregnancy Could Predict Baby’s Gender

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The gender of a woman’s future child may be linked to her blood pressure six months before she becomes pregnant, a preliminary study suggests.

A team of Canadian and Chinese researchers found that a higher pre-pregnancy blood pressure reading may be associated with a greater likelihood for delivering a baby boy. Conversely, lower blood pressure may favor the odds of giving birth to a girl.

But the researchers only found an association between pre-pregnancy blood pressure and a baby’s gender. They did not prove a cause-and-effect connection.

How might a mom-to-be’s blood pressure predict her baby’s gender? That’s not completely clear. The researchers suspect blood pressure may be related to the gender of those babies carried to term, not lost to miscarriage.

“When a woman becomes pregnant, the sex of a fetus is determined by whether the father’s sperm provides an X or Y chromosome, and there is no evidence that this probability varies in humans,” said study lead author Dr. Ravi Retnakaran.

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Alison Wong’s ‘New Mom Comics’ Is Now a Published Book!

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I just discovered Alison Wong‘s comic strip series, New Mom Comics when it was fairly new last summer and I also just discovered that she has just released them in a new published book!

When I first saw the hilarious chronicles of the VERY RELATABLE look at the real life up and downs, joys and funny neurotic moments of life as a first time new mom, I was instantly hooked. Now you can get them all for $17.95 over at Amazon.com in her new book, “New Mom Comics: The First Year.”

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Wong and her husband are parents to a one year old son and the illustrator genius said in the caption of one of her strips that she uses the comics to help her stay connected to those first tender months of her son’s life.

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And they grew fast in popularity because of how on point they are. Here are 10 of my faves! I recommend “liking” her Facebook page or subscribing to her blog so you can get updates when she posts a new strip! I did!

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President Barack Obama’s Farewell Address’ Atticus Finch Quote Resonated with Me

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US President Barack Obama gave his farewell address to the nation as his administration and second term summits. I listened and watched and read along to the prepared remarks along with millions of others over the Internet, radios, and television sets around the country.

There were a few policy messages, and a recount of what he believes his legacy has and will be. But it was a message about coming together and setting aside differences to make the country a better tomorrow. I most appreciated a quote from a character in Harper Lee‘s famous book, “To Kill A Mockingbird” following a message that has to do with what we all want for our children.

If our democracy is to work in this increasingly diverse nation, each one of us must try to heed the advice of one of the great characters in American fiction, Atticus Finch, who said ‘You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.’

For blacks and other minorities, it means tying our own struggles for justice to the challenges that a lot of people in this country face – the refugee, the immigrant, the rural poor, the transgender American, and also the middle-aged white man who from the outside may seem like he’s got all the advantages, but who’s seen his world upended by economic, cultural, and technological change.

For white Americans, it means acknowledging that the effects of slavery and Jim Crow didn’t suddenly vanish in the ‘60s; that when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised.

For native-born Americans, it means reminding ourselves that the stereotypes about immigrants today were said, almost word for word, about the Irish, Italians, and Poles. America wasn’t weakened by the presence of these newcomers; they embraced this nation’s creed, and it was strengthened.

So regardless of the station we occupy; we have to try harder; to start with the premise that each of our fellow citizens loves this country just as much as we do; that they value hard work and family like we do; that their children are just as curious and hopeful and worthy of love as our own.” – -President Barack Obama

Because the purpose of this blog is to also help parents grow conscientious, civic-minded and all around great kids, that message resonated particularly with me. I think that part of the reason there is so much tension, hostility and disagreement among the US citizenry these days is that a lot of people do not step back to take into account that, for the most part, everyone wants the same things: peace of mind, security, comfort and a bright and promising future. We all just have different ideas how to get there. We should listen more, really.

Godspeed, President Obama!

STUDY: College Isn’t the Main Reason Women Delay Starting a Family

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Achieving higher education may not be the main reason why women in the UK delay pregnancy, demographers have discovered. Family background appears particularly relevant to explain the link between the age women first give birth and their level of education.

Since the end of the Second World War, the average age of first-time mothers has increased both in Europe and the US. In England and Wales, it now stands at 30.3 years old, according to the latest data released by the Office for National Statistics.

In parallel, the number of years that women spend in school and university has also increased. A number of studies have suggested that there is a causal link between this and their postponement of pregnancy. However, the research published in the journal Demography, now suggests that the effects of education may not be as large as expected.

With an innovative study design, looking both at education enrolment and fertility trends in the general population as well as female identical twins, they attempt to untangle the effects of genes, family background and education on fertility behaviours.

“Together with mortality and migration, fertility is a crucial factor to understand what shapes our social structure and how a society is going to fare in the future. Age at first birth is the main determinant of how many children women have, and so it is very important for demographers to understand what influences it and if education enrolment is involved, how significant a part it plays”, study author Felix Tropf, from the University of Oxford, told IBTimes UK.

Extra year in school, six months older mothers

The researchers analysed the fertility histories of 2,752 identical female twins from a large twin register set up in 1992 in the UK. This approach is interesting because twins share genes and similar family backgrounds, so this isolates the effects of potentially different levels of education.

Analysing the data, the scientists estimated that for every extra year of educational enrolment after the age of 12, a woman delayed motherhood by an average half a year. However, their model also suggests that family background – from socio-economic environment to genes – better explained why women delayed pregnancy. Education alone is estimated to contribute to only 1.5 months of the total six-month delay.

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