Thursday, October 30, 2008

FYI

You are all probably so much more educated than I am. You probably read informative stuff online or *gasp* in the newspaper. NPR is probably the only radio channel you listen to. Some of you probably even read academic journals just to learn stuff. Not me. If it isn't on the Colbert Report I probably haven't heard of it.

Not that the ear doctor and I are thinking of starting a family or anything, but here is some interesting information I found out this morning. Before becoming pregnant I should:

1) Get a tetanus/whooping cough booster. Turns out that since I live in hippie-ville, USA a lot of kids don't get vaccinated for whooping cough so it is all over this town. Not bad for an adult to get, but really dangerous if a fetus gets it.

2) Start on prenatal vitamins before pregnancy. Really? Why did no one ever tell me this? I would never have thought to do this until after I saw those two little lines.

3) Get tested for this cystic fibrosis. Turns out 1 in 25 white Caucasian women carry this and if the ear doctor is a carrier then our kid could have a 25% chance of getting it. Not that it would stop us from having a family, but it'd be good for the doctors to know about it ahead of time.

4) Go off the pill 2-3 months in advance and let my body re-stabilize drug free. This makes sense to me but I never would have thought of it on my own.


That's a lot of stuff to learn all at once. How is it that, as a woman who wants, for sure, to have children some day, I never knew this?!?!?!?! Probably because I don't listen to NPR. I guess I'm missing out, right?

Then again, I did get to hear baby got back on the radio on my way back from lunch today....

5 comments:

Robyn said...

So true about the vitamins.... gotta get that folic acid! Then again, if you eat plenty of veggies and fruits you're probably not in that risky of a category!! I didn't know baout the whooping cough!!

and I know a few people who got pregnant right after going off the pill... I waited about 5 months.

Mrs. Case said...

My OB wants me taking the prenatals a full year before geting pregnant. I need the folic acid for a DNA mutation but she said she recommends it for women super early. Besides, they're vitamins so they can't hurt.

Maggie said...

Any woman of child bearing years should be taking a prenatal vitamin.

I tried waiting a few months after going off the pill, but, well, our family is very fertile.

I'm not a carrier of cystic fibrosis, not that means that you for sure aren't, but the chances are less I guess.

Anonymous said...

What is all this baby talk?

Anth said...

Yeah prenatal vitamins was never something I was very good at...and I am supposed to still be taking them since I'm bfing...oops. Just pass me an extra serving of cauliflower, would ya?

My town has had several cases of whooping cough every winter for the past three years. Freaks me out. I think if people would study vaccination more completely, they would understand the vital need for herd immunity.