P.Rad, in the news again

Paula Radcliffe just ran the Jane Tomlinson 10k and while she ran 15 minutes slower than her world record time, the 7 months pregnant elite runner looked the picture of relaxation as she strode to the finish line with her 3 year old daughter, Isla. Old P.Rad has been coming under a bit of fire lately, considering her training regimens have been the subject of public discussion as there are many folks who are still a bit freaked out by pregnant women running right up until they give birth.

The Telegraph, however, recently published Paula's 'Day on a Plate' listing what out what she eats by the hour:

"7.45am Fresh lemon juice and coffee (decaf because I'm pregnant), and a bowl of porridge with water instead of milk as I'm a bit lactose-intolerant.

8.30am Drop off my daughter at school then do my first run. Normally, I do 10 to 23 miles, but while I'm pregnant I stick to eight miles. I trained all through my first pregnancy, and was running the day before I gave birth!

10.30am A big brunch – cereals with soya milk and fruit – then weights in the gym.

12pm Half an avocado and a tin of salmon. Sleep for a few hours.

5.30pm Toast with Marmite or honey and a banana. More running, but a shorter route.

7pm Nibble on almonds while I stretch.

7.30pm I try to eat within half an hour of training. My husband makes pasta with vegetables. Fruit and soya yogurt afterwards. I love to eat adventurously, but before a marathon it's simple brown rice or grilled chicken."

While I'm no dietician, I wonder how ethical it is to publish the diet of an elite athlete in a mainstream newspaper considering lots of women might take this as 'advice'.

What do you think of Paula's diet?

Encapsulate your placenta

I'm baaaaaack!

What better way to herald my return to blogland than a post about placenta. Eating placenta, that is. I've written a bit about placenta eating already. This week in Time, however, Joel Stein revisits his first experiences with his wife's placenta in Time.

The most fascinating part of his story is not that his wife wanted to eat her placenta. Apparently, for $275 you can get someone to come to your house and cook up your placenta, "freeze-dry it and turn it into capsules to help ward off postpartum depression and increase milk supply". The 'placenta pills' are presented in a glass jar with a card, a CD of lullabies and a satin pouch housing part your child's umbilical cord, fashioned into a heart.

I haven't been able to find the service that Joel Stein and his wife used but I did find a number of 'placenta encapsulation services' like this one and this one or this one. I never knew such a thing existed. Most of these services charge about $200 for processing and encapsulating your placenta. But seriously, you might as well just do it yourself for $75 with a placenta encapsulation kit.

Yay or nay?

Placenta: it's what's for dinner.

I Ate My Baby's Placenta. Need I say more?

See more images and stories at Mom Logic. Anyone out there with a good placenta story?

Pre-conception care: useful or a crock?

In an interesting study recently published in the British Medical Journal, it seems that women of childbearing age in the UK (20-34 years old) are less likely to follow pre-pregnancy recommendations such as decreasing the consumption of alcohol, taking folic acid supplements and quitting smoking. Of the 12, 445 women in the study, only 2.9% were taking folic acid supplements and having fewer than 4 drinks per week three month before conception. The authors of the study pin this down to young women being less inclined to want to change their pre-pregnancy lifestyles. The authors also suggest that public health messages about pre-conception care are not getting to women. I wonder if it's really just a lack of appropriate communication of public health messages or if women are just actively resisting the overly prescriptive rules and regulations surrounding pregnancy (from pre-conception to post-birth). Increasingly, women are being told to treat their bodies as if they could be pregnant at any time and I think this fits in nicely with all of the moral panics about motherhood and fertility for young women in their 20s.

I'm interested as to whether any of you following pre-conception care closely or if you think it's all a load of bollocks?

Source: British Medical Journal, Online First, February 13, 2009.

Pregnant with contradictions

Ahhh. The joys of post-thesis bliss.

Moving right along. You would think that scientists could make up their minds. 3 new reports suggest that:

1) light drinking during pregnancy could benefit the baby: mothers who have a drink every so often are more relaxed and therefore, have babies with better cognitive and emotional outcomes

2) caffeine intake of more than 200mg per day (about one small latte) leads to low birthweight babies.

3) gaining 'too much' weight (over 40 lbs) leads to big babies (over 9 lbs).

Can somebody please make up their mind?

Sources: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,445532,00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5063289.ece

Eating for two: it's harder than you think

And just when you thought pregnant could not possibly get more complicated.

So, for a long time scientists have been wanking on about how women need to continually remind themselves that when they are pregnant they are certainly not 'eating for two'. Newspapers have been blazing with headlines about women programming their foetuses for obesity if they even look at a block of chocolate.

Well. Now, it seems that according to new research from Dr. Helen Budge of Nottingham University, pregnant women who eat too little can also program their foetuses for obesity. Having too few calories in the womb inflames fat cells and this inflammation 'damages' the body's ability to metabolise properly. Thus, foetuses are at greater risk for obesity later in life.

Right. And how did Dr. Budge come to this conclusion?

By testing sheep. That's right. SHEEP.

And her solution? Budge says women must eat a 'healthy, balanced diet'.

How in the world are women supposed to know what 'healthy' or 'balanced' is anymore if science keeps moving the bloody goal posts?

Source: http://tinyurl.com/6ogava

Eating for two

Charlotte Church is apparently freaking out about her weight and she doesn't want a ‘bum bigger than her bump’.

‘I’m trying hard to regulate what I eat,’ she tells the Sunday Mirror. ‘Indulging yourself is the down side to pregnancy.’

Her daughter Ruby is 11 months old. Charlotte is due in November.

Source: http://www.nowmagazine.co.uk/celebrity-news/271372/charlotte-church-i-don-t-want-a-bum-bigger-than-my-bump/1/

freebirth!

Yesterday, I did a 36 week interview with one of the women in my study who revealed that she is actually going to freebirth her second child after a few weeks of careful contemplation. Up until now, no one in my study has done this (although many have had beautiful home births) so I am very excited and thought I would share. Freebirthing, or unassisted birth, is often referred to as one of the most extreme rejections of the perceived 'overmedicalisation' of childbirth in 'Western' countries. For those that don't know much about this experience, proponents of freebirthing argue that women are the only people suited to deliver children into the world.

The woman I have been interviewing throughout her pregnancy had a fairly negative hospital experience with her first child and decided that her second birth would be positive and totally different. In hospital, she felt out of control, uneducated and at the mercy of doctors and midwives who were telling her what to do. In this second pregnancy, she hired a homebirth doctor to look after her and then a midwife to assist with the actual birth. However, after a few hypnobirthing classes which she and her partner found to be really empowering, they decided that they would birth the baby completely on their own at home in a pool. She said that the only reason she initially thought she should have someone there with her was because of the fear that something would go wrong with the birth; that she didnt trust herself even then though they just wanted the doctor and the midwife to stay in the shadows unless they were needed. However, she didn't feel comfortable holding on to the fear of what could happen considering she already made the leap to having the baby at home without any pain relief or intervention. Freebirthing has been a way for her to shake those last vestiges of anxiety. I have to say I really respect her courage in stepping so far outside of the square and making a decision that I think alot of women would love to do but are definitely too afraid to actually carry out.

Also, her 2yr old daughter is going to be present at the birth (or for as long as she can) and they are definitely going to proceed with a lotus birth (maintaining the connection between the placenta and the baby until the umbilical cord falls off on its own). She also mentioned that part of her plan is to eat some of the placenta to maintain and reinforce her connection to the new baby, freeze the rest of it and perhaps give some to the baby at a later date. I've heard of mothers eating the placenta before but on some level it also means that the body of the mother and baby are not so abruptly separated as soon as the baby is born. By keeping the placenta attached to the baby and then later actually ingesting a piece of the placenta, it's as if mother and child remain connected as one body (like in pregnancy) and later on with breastfeeding.

Laura Shanley has developed a really useful site about unassisted birth with lots of amazing photos, videos and birth stories. This is a must-see for anyone considering freebirthing!

This is a link to a great article about catching your own baby:
http://unassistedchildbirth.com/uc/catch.html