Dr. Oz Releases a Pregnancy App!

TV’s Dr. Oz from  the hour long Emmy-winning nationally-syndicated "The Dr. Oz Show" and Dr. Michael Roizen, who co-authors a book with Dr. Oz,  have launched a new iPhone app for expectant mothers looking for answers to their questions about having a healthy pregnancy called YOU: Having A Baby.


The app provides expectant mothers with advice and information about their pregnancy from conception through infancy in an easy-to-use Q&A format based on content from their best selling book of the same book co-written by the two docs and other medical experts.


The app is available for download for $1.99 from the App store for use on the iPhone or iPod Touch or on  www.itunes.com/appstore for any other device or phone

Not a bad idea because 1. the app is way cheaper than the book if you haven't already purchased the book; and 2. you may just don't have time to read another book anyway as you prepare for your new baby. Certainly though, you can "play" with the app while waiting at the doctor's office, during your lunch break, while in line at the grocery store...Fun!

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Celebrity Update: The Gossip Edition

It's been awhile since I posted the latest updates on pregnant celebrity gossip so here it goes:

Alicia Keys and her fiance rapper/producer/writer Swizz Beatz say they plan to wed before the baby comes. Getting all traditional are we? 

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Wait a minute, mainstream blogs and rags are reporting on Sara Gilbert outing herself now? Hmm...I was wondering how come I was getting so many hits on my blog for people looking for photos of her and her kids Levi, 5, and Sawyer, 2, who she has with her longtime partner since 2002, Allison Adler. I only reported on it  in my March 30 post about other Gay Celebrities - a whole 5 months ago! 

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Levi Johnston is alleged to have gotten his girlfriend pregnant before hooking back up with his now-fiance Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin's daughter. The National Enquirer reported that Johnston's ex-girlfriend, Lanesia Garcia, was pregnant. The two had a fling last year while Johnson and Palin were on the outs, sources told the paper.  "Levi insists the baby isn't his, but no one really knows for sure," a source told RadarOnline.com.Well given his track record and obvious fertility, it's going to be hard to deny without a paternity test. Apparently, Bristol is so upset, she is thinking of calling the wedding off, say sources.

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Our celebrities over in the US  are quick to simply say "no comment" and deny a pregnancy rumor flat out and leave it at that. The less details to prove the rumor false the better to not even substantiate or feed into an untrue rumor, right? So it appears that best friends of Southeast Asian actresses don't know that protocol. Actress Kris Aquino, daughter of former Phillipines Prime Minister Corazon Aquino, was rumored to have had a gameshow in development scrapped because she supposedly was undergoing a high risk pregnancy. Apparently, she had just had a marriage to a basketball player  James Yap annulled so it was all the buzz.  But leave it to the best friend Boy Abunda to blab extra details in an attempt to clear the rumor.

 “There’s an ad airing commercially now,It’s an anti-cervical cancer advocacy. It’s a Glaxo product. When Kris and I agreed to do their commercial, the contract stipulated, among other things, that Kris must submit to an HPV-DNA screening to check for the virus that causes cervical cancer. After the test, she took her first dose of the anti-cervical cancer vaccine. Oh, and during the test, she had her monthly period. On July 1, she shot the commercial. On July 8, she left for the United States. On July 18, she had her monthly period again. That was in Orlando. Even when she got to Boston, she still had her period. So how can she be pregnant?”

Wow dude! That was a whole lot of TMI right there!

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Every other blog is talking about Heroes star Ali Larter and former Bachelor contestant Melissa Rycroft being pregnant so... here's me joining in though I try to focus on B and C listers and ethnic celebs that don't get as much press.

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But lookey here, even old child stars, like Full House's Jodie Sweenie, more recently known for coming out about their drug addiction are getting some paparazzi and celeb blog love like from the likes of PerezHilton even.

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Finally, Black Celeb Kids has a cute photo of Christina Milian and her daughter Violet Nash who were spotted in LA lately. Cute! Cute!! Both of them!

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Eco Friday: Visit a Local Farmers Market Near You

                           

Whether you are into making your own baby food or just feeding the family wholesome home grown fruits and vegetables from a local source, your best bet is to hit the local farmer's market near you to stock up on goodies. Even in urban areas, cooperatives of farmers make arrangement to bring their wares into the city. Most of the time, even if the foods are  not "certified" organic by the USDA, you can rest assured that many of the produce are often grown with little pesticides and other chemicals because the farmers eat the food they sell as produce. In many markets, you can also find small businesses that sell homemade baked goods and breads or fresh picked flowers. 

When my little one as in swim class at a local pool, we made it a weekend adventure to hit the farmer's market that started shortly before swim class was over and stock up for the week!

Check out Local Harvest for a listing, map and other resources taking you to the nearest farmer's market to you. The website helps you find farmer's markets, family farms and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats and many other goodies.

photo: Source: Michelle Obama visits a DC farmer's market two blocks from the White House.

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New Study Says Kindergarten May Determine a Child's Future Salary

Remember that prolific poem "All I needed to learn I learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum? Well, according to a recent study, it may have been all you needed to earn a decent salary as an adult too!

A provocative new study concludes that children who do well in Kindergarten earn substantially more as adults. The study was based on a longitudinal Tennessee experiment that tracked 12,000 children students who are now 30 years old. It concluded students that had learned much more in kindergarten were more likely to go to college than students with otherwise similar backgrounds.  They were also less likely to become single parents, save more for college and earn more.

All else equal, they were making about an extra $100 a year at age 27 for every percentile they had moved up the test-score distribution over the course of kindergarten. A student who went from average to the 60th percentile — a typical jump for a 5-year-old with a good teacher — could expect to make about $1,000 more a year at age 27 than a student who remained at the average. Over time, the effect seems to grow, too.

To read more on my thoughts about this study and about parental guilt, check out my post "Keeping the Guilt of Raising Children in Check" over on the Family Today Section of The Washington Times Community Section and please feel free to comment over there too!

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Bellyitch Bump Day: The Pregnant Statue

I found these beautiful statues of pregnant women on the Flickr-sphere

Vltava River - Prague =This statue is just by the side of Charles Bridge

source: Clarice

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source: Switch-on-break

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The Faroe Islands Art Museum - Tórshavn-

source: Erik Christiansen

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Pregnant in Dublin

Source- Will Parfitt

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source: JamieBean716

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Christina Applegate reveals her baby Bump!

One of my favorite actresses and cancer survivor Christina Applegate announced that she and her rocker fiance Martyn Lenoble are expecting their first child. 

Seen showing off her bump for the first time this past Sunday at the LA premiere of Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore is the 38 year old actress who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and had a double mastectomy to reduce the chances of the cancer returning!

Given that she's pretty stylish, I hope to be able to count on several months of fashionable Bellybump red carpet photos! Woot!

Congrats to Christina and Martyn!

source

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Alicia Keys & Swizz Beatz said Baby's Gender is still a Surprise

Besides laughing off rumors circulating on the net that they were to have gotten married on a Yacht this past weekend, Swizz Beatz told People that he and Alicia are not going to find out the babies sex in advance. When asked if a daughter or son will join their family which includes Beatz' kids from his ex-wife Moshonda, he replied: "We don't know. We're just going to let that be magical. Whatever we're blessed with, boy, girl, twins, that baby is being born to blessed parents," he said. 

I'd hope with modern technology from ultrasounds they'd know it were twins by now, but I guess you never know. Beatz has two sons: Kasseem Jr., 3, and Prince Nasir, 9.

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