Here is an article for you from the ‘well, that just makes perfect sense’ department:

Exercise during pregnancy is good for you! What a revelation :)
The interesting part is that while we all know the exercise is good for you and your heart, a pilot study by the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences showed that your exercise may also be good for your baby and it’s heart!

Using non-invasive monitoring, the researchers hypothesised that maternal exercise during pregnancy can have a beneficial effect on fetal cardiac programming by reducing fetal heart rate and increasing heart rate variability.

During the study, they found there there were significantly lower heart rates among fetuses that had been exposed to maternal exercise. The heart rates among non-exposed fetuses were higher, regardless of the fetal activity or the gestational age.

Behind the medical jargon, this does make very good sense. We all know exercise at just about any life stage, pregnant or not, is good for you. Walking, Yoga and Pilates are all fantastic ways to keep fit and ’stretchy’ (you know what I mean…) during pregnancy. Just be careful once the relaxin hormone kicks in.  The joints, especially hip joints, do tend to turn to mush in the last trimester :)

Hi there all,

Well a beautiful baby girl blessed our family last Monday, 28 April at 325pm after a relatively routine kind of labour. I was thanking god for the pilates classes i took throughout my pregnancy while pushing. So much core and pelvic floor strength was a blessing and meant that instead of the routine hour or so of pushing our little angel was out in 25 minutes! It has also meant a faster and more comfortable post natal recovery for me.

Annabelle Claire is her name and at 8 pounds 11 ounces or 3.94kg she is a healthy and contented little treasure. So far she has been sleeping several hours at a time and even allowing us to get a half decent nights sleep for which we are eternally grateful.

Throughout the labour my husband was by my side. He never left me. This was key to my ability to focus and to continue on when i thought i really couldn’t. I don’t really know how many times I looked at him during the process, but knowing that he was holding my hand, rubbing my back or pushing the hair from my eyes was more comforting than any pain relief drugs ever could have been. His love and support is paramount to my success in every day life, but on this, one of the hardest days of my life it was exceptional. He was there for all of it, the contractions, my water breaking, the crying and despair of transition and the crowning and pushing out of our little princess. He held her against his chest moments after the placenta was delivered and the cord had been cut, their bare skin touching and she entwined her little fingers in his chest hair. It was incredible to see them together. It made me weak at the knees to see it.

A drug free delivery is hard. I won’t tell you that it was a breeze. But I knew that going in to this. It was empowering to know that I was being strong and doing what I believe was best for my baby and for me. I was clear and focussed and our baby came out alert and breathing strongly. Her colour was instant and she took to the breast in less than 30 minutes and didn’t leave for over an hour!!!

It was an amazing day and we are so thankful for the way it all went. The midwives at the Mercy Hospital for Women’s Family Birth centre were so incredible. Encouraging and knowledgeable when we needed them and respecting our privacy when they knew all was well. It was a beautiful and amazing experience - we can’t thank them enough.

After all the waiting and anticipation - it was everything we hoped for just as we focussed on and visualised throughout the pregnancy, and so much more. Life is turned upside down and we couldn’t be happier.

Getting a good night’s sleep halves a young child’s risk of being overweight and lowers the chances of later anxiety and depression, a Harvard Medical School study has shown.

In a study involving 915 children in Massachusetts, researchers found that those who slept less than 12 hours a day in the first two years of life were twice as likely to be overweight at age 3 than children who slept longer. Very young children need more sleep and those in this study slept an average of 12.3 hours per day.

Very Interesting! And you thought getting a good night’s sleep during your baby’s first few years was just good for your own sanity :)

Further, television tended to make matters worse, with children who watched two or more hours daily by age 2 more likely to be overweight at age 3, the researchers said.

“Getting enough sleep is becoming harder with televisions, computers and video games in kids’ bedrooms.”, one of the researches stated.

Closer to home, a study at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Parkville, Australia found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder commonly had sleep problems.Among 239 Australian children ages 5 to 18 years with ADHD in the study, 73 percent had sleep problems. Their most common problems were difficulty falling asleep, resisting going to bed and tiredness upon waking, Dr. Sung (lead researcher) said.

Compared to other children with ADHD but no sleep problems, these children were more likely to have poorer quality of life and daily functioning, as well as poorer school attendance.

Source : News Daily