I forget where I originally read it – and darned if I can find the link now! – but I heard that babies stick out their tongues right after the first tooth comes in.

We’d been feeling Ashley’s first tooth right below the surface for more than a week. We were lying in bed, she had just finished nursing and I was ready to read her a bedtime story, when she stuck out her little tongue.

“Let me see that” I said, putting my finger in her mouth. And there it was! For two days, I still couldn’t see it but I could feel it.

Her second bottom tooth came in on Mother’s Day. Today, the first top tooth is lingering just below the gum – I thought I felt it surface this morning but I was mistaken.

Teething may begin just a short time before those first central incisors show their cute little tops or, if your child is like my daughter, it could begin very early and seem to go on forever. She started teething at about three-and-a-half months; her first tooth didn’t show up until almost seven months on the dot.

Teeth typically follow this pattern, with the bottom teeth in the set usually coming in first:

• Bottom central incisors

• Top central incisors (these come in anywhere from immediately after the bottom teeth to a month or two later)

• Two additional bottom incisors, followed by two additional top incisors

• Four back molars

• Four canines

• Four additional back molars

There are 20 teeth in a set of baby teeth, and by about 24 months, they will usually all come in – a happy moment for parents when teething is finally over!

Signs of teething include:

• Drool – lots and lots of it!

• Chewing everything in sight. Babies put nearly everything in their mouth – it is one of the ways they explore their world. But if they really start to gnaw down on everything they get their little hands on, they might be teething.

• Refusal to eat (Would you want to nurse or eat if your mouth ached?)

• Frequent night-waking after baby has been sleeping through the night

• General fussiness (Again, what kind of mood would you be in if, quite literally, hard objects were poking their way through your gums!)

• Tugging at the ears

Many doctors say that a low-grade fever and/or a stuffy or runny nose are not signs of teething but may be a sign of infection. By all means, follow your pediatrician’s instructions and if you are concerned about a fever, call the doctor. However, I have noticed that my daughter gets a stuffy nose – her cries sound nasally and she sniffles a bit – every time a tooth has come in and also when her other teething symptoms seem worse. She hasn’t run a fever while teething yet, which I’m sure would be more of a concern.

Since pain in the mouth often radiates up to the ear, and infants can’t really tell the difference, a teething infant may also pull on her ear. However, this symptom combined with a fever could also indicate an ear infection. Trust your instincts, but err on the side of caution if you suspect there’s more at play than teething!

Moms — what sort of teething symptoms have you noticed and how long after that did your baby’s teeth come in?

I just got back from my “baby doctor” appointment.

The fourth month is a pretty routine visit.  They screen your urine for protein and sugar and take your vitals.  During the appointment, your doctor or midwife will go over your “symptoms” and ask if you have any concerns.  They will ask to make sure that you have no swelling in your face, hands, or feet.  They will also make sure that you aren’t having contractions, cramping or bleeding.  These symptoms can signal a serious complication.

Some  symptoms that have shown up for me in the past few weeks: nosebleeds and a stuffy nose.  I dislike the stuffy nose thing, but I’ve found that if I use nasal strips, it helps me to sleep better at night.  I also find that I get winded more easily than usual.

The midwife measured me and announced that I am large for my date. I am consistently measuring two weeks larger than I should measure she tells me.  They feel that perhaps my dates are off.  Wouldn’t that be nice to deliver earlier than expected?  Maybe….can I get everything done that I need to do two weeks earlier than planned?  We are remodeling to make a room for the baby.  I’m not sure if it will be done by August!

This baby does not like the doppler and flutters around to get away from it.  They had a hard time finding the heartbeat because of that.  The midwife finally found the heartbeat at the very top of my uterus near my belly button!

My next appointment is at the Maternal Fetal Medicine center locally because of my–ahem–advanced maternal age. They’ll be discussing risk factors and doing a level 2 ultrasound to check on the baby. I’m hoping that we might be able to see if our child is a boy or a girl!  My next regular appointment is two weeks after that.

Just when I thought I’d been through enough in this pregnancy, last night my belly button started hurting so much it made me cry. I know all these aches are nothing compared to labor, but, the way I see it, at least contractions will have a definite end-point.

I had no idea when my belly button would stop hurting so I could go to sleep, and was also scared about the cause!

I’m in Week 35 of pregnancy, and only experienced belly button symptoms once before. At the start of my second trimester my belly button itched from the inside. I’m posting this because no one seems to talk about these random, seemingly silly but nonetheless painful pregnancy symptoms.

Intense belly button pain could be a pregnancy-related hernia which, according to medical professionals, usually goes away after the baby is born. If it is a hernia, the pain may start very early in pregnancy, or after you’ve done heavy lifting.

But it could be something far more benign: Your growing uterus pushing against your belly button. Later in pregnancy, it could be a sign that your belly button is about to ‘pop.’

Women have reported experiencing this pain beginning as early as Week 8 or as late as Week 36, with the average time being somewhere in the second trimester, so, once again, I’m fortunate. At best, I have a few weeks of this to go!

Rubbing cocoa butter or shea butter on the area, although they’ve been shown to not prevent stretch marks, may help the skin to stretch, alleviating the pain. Ice cubes also dull the pain and soothe the itching. I also find diversion really does help, like baby kicks, if you don’t pay attention to the pain, it won’t hurt as much.

So let’s talk about something else. What random aches and pains did you experience during pregnancy that no one warned you to expect? How did you handle them? What were their causes? Your advice may help first-time mothers-to-be avoid a few sleepless nights worrying about benign pregnancy symptoms.

This week, I took my 30 minutes recommended cardio per day and saved it all up for one day! Trust me, ladies, this is not a good idea!

My husband, my niece, her friend and I decided to walk from 10th Street in New York City’s East Village all the way up Broadway and 52nd Street. I held up better than I could have imagined, walking at a fairly rapid pace and I drank enough water to stay hydrated during the trek. I felt pretty good having survived the journey, and I know that exercise is good for me and the baby. But my body paid for it today with a new-to-me pregnancy pain.

When I first got a sharp pain in the right side of my abdomen this morning, I figured it was just the baby kicking, although I didn’t feel the pressure of a kick. This same pain came and went several times throughout the day; it was sudden and sharp enough to cause me to double-over twice.

However, with no bleeding, spotting, cramps, chills, fever, dizziness, contractions or anything else that would be cause for concern, I chalked it up to “just another pregnancy pain,” and turned to the Internet. A few quick searches reassured me that this pain is quite common, and is called “round ligament pain.”

With a name for my most-recent pregnancy symptom, a quick search on Babies Online turned up even more details and information on round ligament pain, which is extremely common in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

The pain is caused by the stretching and thinning of the thick ligaments that suspend your uterus within your abdomen. The pain may be worse (or, in my case, appear for the first time) after extensive exercise. If this is the case, rest should help alleviate the pain. I’m hoping to feel better tomorrow!

I found that changing positions (from sitting to standing) or, if I was already standing when the pain struck, bending or stretching, helped. After one particularly sharp pain that left me nearly breathless, walking around my house alleviated the discomfort. Rubbing the spot gently also helped.

Your doctor or midwife may recommend Tylenol if the pain is so bad that you can’t sleep or it’s keeping you from functioning normally. You can also try applying a heating pad, taking a warm bath or standing under a warm shower, although pregnant women are advised to avoid hot tubs or extremely hot baths.

Some symptoms may seem similar to round ligament pain but may actually point to a dangerous medical problem. When should you be concerned?

If the pain emanates from the lower right portion of your abdomen and is accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and fever, this could signify appendicitis. Since some statistics show that 1 in every 2,000 pregnant women are diagnosed with appendicitis, it is important to get treatment immediately if you suspect this may be the cause of your pain. Pain from appendicitis will typically get worse over time rather than coming and going in short bursts.

If the pain is accompanied by blood in your urine, you could be passing a kidney stone.

Ovarian cysts or an ectopic pregnancy could be the cause of sharp abdominal pains, but this is more common in the first trimester.

Several articles I’ve read about round ligament pain describe my symptoms exactly, and I don’t have any “warning signs” of these other problems. This was enough to put my mind at ease. However, if you are in pain and can’t pinpoint the cause, call your health care provider immediately. It is probably nothing, but peace of mind is important during pregnancy.

As for me, I’m going to take a hot shower and hope these newest pains subside and don’t wake me during the night. And I’ve certainly learned my lesson about overdoing it with exercise.

The good news? Like any other pregnancy symptom, they will be gone in a matter of months.

The information in this post intended solely as a general educational aid and is not a substitute for medical or other professional advice and services from a qualified health care provider. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Is postpartum depression a common thing?

One in five American women actually suffers from postpartum depressive symptoms (PDS). This is according to a survey recently published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The survey data was collected from 2004 to 2005 in 17 states. The highest incidence of PD was found in New Mexico (20.4%) and the lowest in Maine (11.7%). Those who are most likely to report having PDS are:

• younger women
• women with low educational attainment
• women who received Medicaid benefits for their delivery

Other possible risk factors associated with PDS are

• low infant birth weight (less than 2.5 kg)
• admission to a neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU)
• smoking during the last 3 months of pregnancy
• physical abuse before or during pregnancy
• experiencing stress (i.e. emotional, financial, partner-related, or traumatic) up to 12 months before the delivery

Most common PDS are feeling down, hopelessness and having little interest of pleasure in doing things.

I definitely had PDS after I had my twins and I didn’t need any doctor or psychiatrist to tell me that I had it. I was just wasn’t my old self.

But it seems that suffering from PDS is quite common – and lasts longer – among mothers of multiples. For me, low birth weight and NICU admission were probably the key factors. Add to it sleep deprivation and the stress of taking care of 2 babies at the same.

But then I also knew when I was finally over it – more than a year after delivery. What helped me to recover was the unwavering support of my husband, family and friends, the chance of getting back to work part time, and jogging.

Anybody out there with a PD/PDS story to share?

Sources:

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 11 April 2008

Postpartum depression common among U.S. women. Reuters, 10 April 2008.

A recent study, as reviewed by the American Heart association, shows that women tend to ignore or dismiss symptoms of cardiac events, and thus delay seeking medical help.

The researchers from the Yale School of Medicine interviewed 30 women who suffered from a heart attack about the events before hospitalization. The interviews revealed that many of these women failed to recognize the warning signs of an impending heart attack and dismissed them as due to stress, fatigue or just plain indigestion. Some of these symptoms are headache, neck pain, tummy discomfort, and tiredness. Most of the interviewees expect a heart attack to be more dramatic – the kind that you see on films – and to happen to older people. This resulted in women delaying seeking medical help until the symptoms became more pronounced.

Aside from not recognizing the symptoms, the interviewed women also delay because of:

• Uncertainty
• Preference to self-medicate
• Perceived negative treatment by healthcare providers
• Competing time/family demands
• Individual beliefs and behaviors to health system failures
• Seeking corroboration of symptoms and deferring responsibility to engage the healthcare system

From my point of view, one big reason that we (premenopausal) women would tend to dismiss the above-described symptoms is the fact that every month, we suffer from a wide range of physical discomfort in connection with our menstrual cycle. Then comes more difficulties during pregnancy. In other words, women are used to physical discomfort. It’s no wonder if we tend to dismiss headaches and tummy pains as part of our daily life.

The researchers conclude that young women, their doctors, and their families need to be more informed about heart symptoms and how to distinguish them from other innocuous discomforts of daily life.

The CDC estimates that 47% of cardiac deaths occur before arrival of emergency help or arrival at the hospital In addition, more than half of those who died of heart disease in 2002 were women.

How about you? Would you recognize the early signs of a heart attack? Would you know what to do?

Some doctors will try to estimate when labor will occur. This can be based on the dilation, the due date or it may just be a guess based on previous pregnancies. But, if you press them, they will usually acknowledge that labor just can?t be medically predicted with any accuracy. But, there are a lot of symptoms that I noticed right before labor that occurred every time. I?ve also talked to several women who said they experienced the same things shortly before going into labor.

The night before going into labor with my first two, I stayed up much of the night- cleaning the bathroom. Yes, scrubbing it, polishing it, and generally obsessing about the state of the bathroom. Like clockwork both times I went into labor the following day. This final rush of the nesting instinct has been a signal of labor for centuries, with many an old wives tale revolving around it. My doula told me she spent the night before her first labor putting up a wallpaper border. She was obsessed with the border and refused to go to bed until the nursery was just right.

Other women I?ve talked to cleaned the kitchen obsessively or even cleaned out their cars the day before labor. One friend sent her husband to the store to get a car seat despite his protests, though the baby wasn?t due for two months. She was insistent that they have it before the end of the day. She went into premature labor two days later.

In addition to the revved up nesting instinct is the clearing of the bowels. Yes, it?s not the most pleasant symptom, but I?ve found that it?s just as universal as nesting. It occurred during the very end of all my pregnancies and I?ve talked to a couple of other women who reported the same thing. I?ll spare you the details, but it is just what it sounds like. Bring a magazine.