Jenna Fischer was spotted leaving a private gym in LA Friday (June 24). She and her hubby, Lee Kirk, are expecting their first child later this year. Source: Just Jared
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Bump Watch: Jenna Fisher heading to gym
Jenna Fischer was spotted leaving a private gym in LA Friday (June 24). She and her hubby, Lee Kirk, are expecting their first child later this year. Source: Just Jared
Top 10 things NOT to say to a Stay-at-Home mom
My co-Washington Times Communities columnists, Julianna W. Miner and Kristin Wilson Keppler, who write Maternal Ammunition at The Communities penned a humorous column calledd “The Domestic Enemies of the Stay at Home Mom” on their daily blog and it got a big reaction. It was a snarky, obnoxious response to the lack of respect given to stay-at-home moms get.
They've followed it up with a post about things to not say to stay-at-home. It concludes:
If you want to offend or annoy a stay at home mom, please feel free to make any of the following statements to her. If, however, you want to avoid inadvertently provoking a SAHM – read them and consider why they might be interpreted as insulting.
10. Any variation of “you don’t work anymore”.
9. But you went to such a good college! Why do you want to waste your education?
8. What do you do all day?
7. You must be so bored.
6. Can I just drop my kids off at your house?
5. It must be nice to have enough money to stay home.
4. I don’t know how you stand it.
3. When are you going to get a real job?
2. Doesn’t it bother you that you’re not making a contribution?
1. Can you take care of this for me? I know you’re not busy.Read the rest of their post at their Maternal Ammunition blog at The Washington Times Communities.
How to Lose a Belly Bump
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| I mean if Halle Berry can have a post-baby bump, so can you. Don't sweat it. Here are tips to shed it. |
Just spotted an Excellent piece on how to shed and trim that belly bump. Some women have them years after delivering their child and sadly some women who have never ever been pregnant have a bulging tummy! This was a really good piece. Here is a brief excerpt:
OverviewMidsection weight gain is a health problem, increasing your risk for diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, according to the Mayo Clinic. If you want to lose a belly bump, you need to make long-term lifestyle changes. Combining a low-calorie diet with regular exercise will help you achieve your belly fat loss goals.
Step 1
Set fat-burning goals. You can't spot-reduce your belly. Losing a belly bump requires you to lose fat all over your body, including your midsection. Creating a calorie deficit will help you accomplish this. For each pound of fat you want to lose, shed 3,500 calories weekly, recommends MedlinePlus. This is about 500 calories daily for a 1-lb. weight loss each week. You can decrease calorie consumption and exercise to meet this goal. For example, exercise to burn 350 calories and decrease calorie consumption by 150 daily to lose about 1 lb. each week.
Step 2Engage in cardio activity. If you haven't worked out recently, select moderate-intensity activities, such as taking a brisk walk or participating in a low-impact aerobics class. As you get stronger, lose your belly bump quicker by selecting intense activities, like jogging, jumping rope or playing racquetball. Plan at least 30 minutes of cardio activity daily for overall weight loss.
Read Step 3 and the Rest at LiveStrong
Bump Watch: Alyssa Milano's yoga time
Alyssa Milano was spotted headed to prenatal yoga on Tuesday, January 28. Looking great, mama!
Women with MS can get pregnant, have babies
The Washington Post's On Parenting blog reported:
Women with multiple sclerosis are not more likely than others to have complications with pregnancy or childbirth, new research suggests.
In a study published in the Annals of Neurology, researchers in Canada reviewed records for 432 births to women with MS between 1998 and 2009.
Comparing data with that for women without MS, they found that women with MS were no more likely to have assisted vaginal births or require Caesarean delivery. Their babies also were no more likely to be underweight or premature.
The study further found no link between how long the woman had had the disease or the age at which she was diagnosed and risk of adverse events during pregnancy or delivery. READ MORE
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
2 Colorful Pregnancy magazine covers
Well we here over at Bellyitch are loving the break from the traditional in seeing these two colorful covers for the June/July editions of FitPregnancy and Your Pregnancy, a New Zealand magazine.
Recall, a ways back there was an expose on the lack of diversity of pregnancy magazine covers. You can check out that piece HERE!
A-Listers gather for Kate Hudson's a baby shower
While a raucous award ceremony rolled out a world away in L.A. on Sunday, expectant mom Kate Hudson was quietly showered by famous friends and family in Malibu.
The Academy Award-nominated actress was toasted at a private estate in the beach community with around 80 guests, reports People, including pals Courteney Cox, stylist Rachel Zoe, Jessica Capshaw and Jennifer Meyer Maguire.
"She looked amazing and kept giggling while mingling with friends, nibbling on food and playing games," a source told the magazine. "She seemed to have the best time."
Read the rest in LA Times
Bump Watch: Lauryn Hill, backstage in Detroit
Lauryn Hill was photographed backstage before performing in Detroit on June 4 as part of her "Moving Target" concert series. She looks so happy happy here, doesn't she - and definitely has that pregnant glow. She is pregnant with her 6th child. The father to her previous 5 kids, Rohan Marley, son to the late great Bob Marley, has denied paternity.
Pregnant Women breakdancing in a Flash Mob dance
Flashmob: Pregnant women breakdancing in London by grooveyourbump
To highlight the plight of pregnant women who do not have adequate prenatal care, a bunch of pregnant women in London did a flash mob dance, breakdancing to be exact! Wowee! Have a look above!
Bump Watch: Tori Spelling on red carpet
Tori Spelling graced the red carpet at the Simon G. Summer Soiree at The Palazzo Resort and Casino Las Vegas, Nevada on June 6. Cute dress.
3 Pregnant women sent to jail for having still births
Care2 examines two cases of women who went to jail over the death of their stillborn children:
Rennie Gibbs became pregnant aged 15, but lost the baby in December 2006 in a stillbirth, when she was 36 weeks into the pregnancy. When prosecutors discovered that she had a cocaine habit, they charged her with the “depraved-heart murder” of her child, which carries a mandatory life sentence. There is not an iota of evidence that drug abuse had anything to do with the baby’s death, but the prosecutors decided they knew better than Ms. Gibbs what her intent was.Earlier this year, charges that were filed against an Indiana woman who attempted suicide in a late stage of her pregnancy. Bei Bei Shuai ingested rat poison in December, trying to end her life because her boyfriend had abandoned her; she was taken to the hospital by friends and got help in time. When her child was born, though, she was first put on life support but then removed when doctors determined that they could not save her. Shuai, 34, has spent the past three months in a prison cell in Indianapolis charged with murdering her baby.
During Amanda Kimbrough's pregnanc, her fetus was diagnosed with possible Down’s syndrome and doctors suggested she consider a termination, which Kimbrough declined as she is not in favour of abortion.The baby was delivered by caesarean section prematurely in April 2008 and died 19 minutes after birth.Six months later Kimbrough was arrested at home and charged with “chemical endangerment” of her unborn child on the grounds that she had taken drugs during the pregnancy – a claim she has denied.
Read more at Care2.com which defends what it calls is a criminialization of pregnant women. It points out that at least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced fetal homicide laws that were originally intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties, but are increasingly being turned by prosecutors against the women themselves.
What do you think? Is it fair? Does a woman have the obligation to do her part to bring her child into the world safely? If an infant dies as a consequence of someone trying to kill themselves, should she be put to death when her unborn baby dies instead? What are your thoughts?
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Bump Watch: Nia Long at the 2011 BET Awards
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| Getty Images North America |
Recently discovered preggers actress Nia Long looked absolutely radiant on the red carpet to the 2011 BET Awards held at the Shrine Auditorium on June 26, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. She and San Antonio Spurs NBA player Ime Udoka are expecting their first child together later this year. Long already has a son 10 year old son Massai Zhivago Dorsey II,
Tia Mowry gave birth to a son this morning!
E! Online News reports that a rep for Tia Mowry confirmed that she and her actor-husband of two years, Cory Hardrict, welcomed a baby boy this morning in Los Angeles. Congrats to the happy couple!
Unique baby shower idea - Onesie decorating party
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
A friend of mine who is due in a couple of weeks had a shower this weekend where guests made crepes and decorated onesies for her impending arrival. What a creative idea and a great way for the guests to leave something for the baby that will be unique, one-of-a-kind and memorable. It worked great for a small intimate shower. And it's all pretty low cost too!
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
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| courtesy Simply Q Studio |
Victoria Beckham's 4th C section reignites "Too Posh to Push" debate
Victoria Beckham is making controversial headlines again as news is released that she has booked her fourth caesarean. The former pop star-current designer and wife to soccer superstar David Beckham has said all four of her C-sections have been medically necessary, but notwithstanding that, she has been getting heat and taunted as being "too posh to push." It is a derogatory term for women who have elective C-sections out of vanity (not wanting to get stretch marks or gain more weight) or convenience (wanting to control the baby's arrival or scheduling birth around an event).
Beckham is not the first A-list star to select the C-section and others have come out with more shallow and superficial reasons. Celebs to go for the elective C include Elzabeth Hurley, Britney Spears, Claudia Schiffer and Christina Aguilera,who is infamously quoted as saying:
I didn’t want any surprises. Honestly, I didn’t want any [vaginal] tearing. I had heard horror stories of women going in and having to have an emergency C-section [anyway]. The hardest part was deciding on his birthday. I wanted to leave it up to fate, but at the same time I was ready to be done early!
Nursery Furniture: Thinking of baby and beyond
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| Nursery by Jessica Mertz |
Fellow Washington Times Communities writer Brighid Moret wrote a great piece on prepping a nursery on her blog PARENTING THE FIRST TIME THROUGH:
In times past, the nursery was a place where all the children of the household slept, played, and in many cases learned. It was also something that only the wealthy could afford. For many families, infants were kept with their parents while older children shared a sleeping space.
If you go back far enough, the entire family shared one room.
Today we talk about setting up the nursery as a commonplace occurrence when a new baby is entering a family, and while co-sleeping is popular and older children may still share rooms, babies seem to have earned their own space in most homes.
The problem I see with nurseries today is one of scale. The furniture displayed in all the ads is very large, and the rooms in the photos themselves are palatial. Unfortunately, many well-meaning parents who only want the best for their child get sucked into these designer dreamscapes and spend too much money on furniture they really don’t need or can’t fit into the intended space.
I wasn’t immune to the marketing either. It’s true. My daughter has the nicest furniture in the house. Our nursery is outfitted with a convertible crib, two dressers, and a glider with matching ottoman, all made out of hard wood with dovetail joints. No pressed board for my daughter. While it all fits nicely into the “nursery,” there isn’t any extra space, and my husband and I wonder what we will do when we have our second child. The bedroom that will become the new nursery is even smaller.
Thinking back on our nursery design process there are some things that helped us make good choices that in the long run will reduce our total expense and have helped us make sure everything fits nicely into the space.
Think Multi-Use
When you consider the essentials that go into a nursery, what comes to mind? Crib, changing table, diaper pail, dresser to name a few. When it comes to the furniture you buy, you can save a bundle here by spending a little more up front. While there are still cribs out there that are solely cribs, and dressing tables that have a rim around the top to keep baby from falling off and shelves to hold diapers, why invest in furniture that will last only a couple of years?
READ MORE GREAT ADVICE at PARENTING THE FIRST TIME THROUGH at the Family Today of Communities at The Washington Times
Woman sprayed police with breast milk after fight with husband
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| Delaware County Police mugshot |
New York Daily News reports:
An Ohio woman attempted to fight off police trying to remove her from her car by spraying them with her breast milk, authorities said.
Stephanie Robinette got into a fight with her husband while attending a wedding at the Bridgewater Banquet & Conference Center in the city of Delaware on Saturday, WBNS 10 News reported.
Her husband told police his 30-year-old wife struck him several times, then locked herself in their vehicle.
"When deputies attempted to remove Robinette from the vehicle, she advised the deputies that she was a breast-feeding mother," said Sheriff Walter L. Davis III.
As deputies went to restrain her, he said, Robinette "proceeded to remove her right breast from her dress and began spraying deputies and the vehicle with her breast milk."
Additional deputies arrived and eventually pried her from the car before placing her under arrest.
Robinette was charged with domestic violence, assault, obstructing official business, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.
"This is a prime example of how alcohol can make individuals do things they would not normally do," Davis said.Wow! You can't make this stuff up sometimes! Brings a new light on the term "pump and dump". Just say no, ladies!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Bump Watch: Mel B in Louboutins, meets Simon Cowell
On the way to a meeting with Simon Cowell to discuss a stint as a judge on Australia's X Factor, Mel B and hubby were spotted. She was squeezed into a pair of what looks like faux leather jeggins of sorts and a saraong like top with geometrical shapes, paired with some 3 inch Louboutins and a leopard print sachel handbag. Oh my eyes are burning from the mix mash of prints. Have a look!
Mel B would be replacing an existing judge Danni who will be leaving the show for a short stint after she has a baby. Well that's something novel. Usually, the pregnant woman heading off for maternity leave is replaced by someone who is not pregnant. Not sure how this will work out but we'll see.
Bump Watch: Jessica Alba, date night with hubby
Jessica Alba was spotted with her husband Cash Warren attending a party at Mr Chow in Beverly Hills. She's got that glow.
10 Creative Baby Shower Ideas
Bellyitch rewind:
This weekend, I have to attend two back to back baby showers. Friends have thrown me a total of six baby showers, I have hosted nearly a dozen myself and have attended close to 100 showers in my lifetime. I thought I’d answer the call and share with Bellyitch readers the 10 most unique ideas I have seen in all of those occasions:
1. 1. Perfectly Matched: At one shower I attended, the mom-to-be dressed in her shower’s color scheme including a diaper tower centerpiece that the host had created. It created a quite cohesive look.
2. 2. Dolls on the line: To save money on shower decorations, have a friend who has gently worn girl or boy clothes string a clothing line across the room and hang them on the line. Pick clothes with the same monochromatic theme to create a classic look.
3. 3. Pennies from Heaven: For a shower game that will also raise money to go into the baby’s first piggy bank, hold a pool to determine the exact date, weight and/or height of the baby. Each entry cost $25 into a small piggy bank and the winner gets bragging rights.
4. 4. Ribbons in the Sky: Though it is a little more expensive, custom made ribbons with the date of the shower and name of the mom (and/or dad to be if it is a coed shower) would add a wonderful memorable and personalized touch. The guests get to keep the ribbon as a memento of the occasion. My best friend made cute personalized buttons for me during a shower she hosted for me in New York where most of my husband’s family lived. You can also make other parts of the shower personalized like the card in the image above from Tiny Prints, an online stationary company that offers customized items like shower invitations.
5. 5. Food for Thought: Color coordinated food/drinks. When I hosted my sister’s shower, the color theme was pink and green in honor of her sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha Incorporated. I offered pink cosmopolitans and green apple martinis. We had water flavored with green cucumber slices and pink salmon and green string bean salad to eat. It all stood out visually and was yummy, if I do say so myself.
6. 6. Tell me Something Good: games have gotten more creative over the years. My all time favorite and most unique I’ve seen was a game where each person wrote down advice to the new mom on slits of paper. Afterwards, the mom read each piece of advice and had to guess which one of her shower guests offered the advice. If she correctly picked that guest, s/he would be eliminated from the competition. The names of those she did not guess are put into a hat and a prize winner is drawn from that pool.
7. 7. Imagine what could be: A very unique invitation I’ve gotten was a photo of a 3-D ultrasound of the mom-to-be’s baby on the cover. It was a delightful thing to see and it really brought to life for me the miracle of birth and what was to come. I was even more excited to attend the shower so I could do the rude thing and rub that belly!
8. 8. Thankful graces: I saw at a friend’s house a small framed photo of the newborn baby inside a card which doubled as a shower thank you card and birth announcement. It was a great way of saving money on thank you cards and birth announcements because most likely some of the same people who attended the shower would be sent a birth announcement anyway. It also saves time and postage. Who has time to address two sets of envelopes when you have barely gotten any sleep staying up with your newborn?
9. 9. Themed shower: Beyond brunches and backyard showers, I’ve co-hosted a shower that was also a pamper party. We hired a nail technician to give the guests pedicures. The co-hosts paid for the mom-to-be’s treatment. Another neat idea would be to have a massage therapist who could do back and shoulder massages or a esthetician to do in home facials. Even the guests appreciated attending this shower!
1 10. Guys and Dolls: Coed shower game – One of the most unique games I’ve seen at a coed shower was a diaper the baby contest where only the male guests could participate. The guys were split up into teams and they had a timed relay to remove one diaper off of a doll, wipe the baby’s bottom and replace it with a fresh diaper. To reduce waste, use cloth diapers that the parents-to-be can take home to use for their baby when s/he arrives or to cut up and re-use as a birth cloth. It’s a great way to get the guys involved during a coed shower.
Just be prepared to see more tools for baby gifts!
Bump Watch: January Jones at beach shower
A few friends met with January Jones in Malibu and brought gifts. Just Jared says it was a baby shower and has pics. Jones' Mad Men co-star Christina Hendricks was there. Check out Just Jared.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
4 cases of Twins with 2 Different Dads
Wow, the odds are one in a million, literally, for a woman to conceive and give birth to twins who have different dads. The medical term for the phenomenon is heteropaternal superfecundation which means "different fathers, multiple babies."
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| source |
By the 1980s there had been between seven and ten documented instances of heteropaternal superfecundation in the medical literature, many of which involve twins of different colors. The first case was documented by the American physician John Archer in 1810. His account, published most recently in the 1980 edition of the medical textbook Williams Obstetrics, still serves as the classic example. In it, a white woman had relationships with a black man and a white man separated by only a few days. Fraternal twins, one white and the other mulatto, were the result. The latest edition of Williams features a case from 1982, shown in the photograph on the left.
More recently, it has also happened by medical ACCIDENT during in the in vitro situation as what happened with a couple in 1993. Wilma and Willem Stuart went through intro fertilization when they couldn't conceive "naturally" and noticed after 3 days the boys looked different (see photo right). But it wasn't until after six months and they saw that one was significantly darker than the other that they asked for a DNA test and learned the fertility clinic had messed up!
It has also occurred in recent years. In 2009, a Dallas woman who cheated on her partner ended up getting two eggs released by her fallopian tubes fertilized: One by her husband and another by her lover. It appears one of the men's sperm must have been hanging out in her fallopian tubes and found its way to one of two eggs that her tubes released while she was ovulating. The other man's sperm fertilized the other egg!
Amazing! Check out the video of a news report below:
Also, this video chronicles a video montage of two girls who have two different dads. It shares much of their upbringing and they look like they both turned out lovely.
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