I am 11 1/2 weeks and sometimes feel a little ‘flutter’ in my tummy right around my belly button or just below it. I know its pretty early in my Pregnancy so it might be just gas?

I’m going a government paper, and 1 of my platforms is abortion.
What is the earliest a infant can experience discomfort during a Pregnancy?

This is my second Pregnancy (really my third but I miscarried that baby at six-seven weeks.) I felt my son moving amongst 17-18 weeks. I am presently 12 weeks. Earlier right now I was sitting on the couch and felt a “bubble” in my tummy….. My very first believed was oh the baby is moving. Then I realized it is most likely too early. The thing that has me thinking, is that it did not feel like a gas bubble. I was just questioning when do individuals usually feel the infant move during the 2nd Pregnancy?

I have been on the standard “losing 2 lbs a week” diet since my doc told me it was OK to start dieting at my 6 week postpartum checkup. I have never really tried dieting before because I felt I never needed to. But the pounds were inching up over the years, kind of under my radar, and of course after my daughter was born I had a lot to take off afterward. Looking at a photo of myself in high school and now at the age of 33 was a wake up call and so I got serious. I’ve lost about 25 lbs so far and now weigh 168 lbs. The fat loss trajectory has been more or less steady over time, and the food plan isn’t bad (I even ate a Gigi’s cupcake yesterday!) so I am confident that I can keep it up over the long haul.

My question is where should I stop? I am still considered overweight by about 10 lbs so I am not ready to quit at the moment. Naturally I will keep going. But should I stop at 150? 140? 130? 120? I am 5’7″. If I weighed 120 do you think that would be too slim? I don’t have a lot of objectivity here in terms of how much a lady should weigh so I am consulting the masses

My step daughter is pregnant and I am hosting her baby shower. My best friend knows my step daughter( not very well, but they are “friends” on MySpace & Facebook) and knows that she is pregnant. But my friend wants a baby so bad that she is practically green w/ envy and admittedly jealous of anyone who is pregnant. Everyone she knows is either a mother already or pregnant. She about two months ago thought she was, because she was late on her cycle and was having early Pregnancy symptoms( I think they were all in her head, she took 3 p.t and they were all negative) and she supposedly lost it, a month in her “Pregnancy” when her cycle came. She is very sensitive about it, and I don’t know if I should invite her, I think she may come across rude. But I know if I don’t invite her her, she’s gonna get all pissy on me.

So Im having my first baby within the next 5 weeks, my mother in law seems to feel like I am leaving her out of the loop, yet im not sure what loop she is talking about, there is no loop.
I had a baby shower 2 weeks ago and invited her, she didnt seem to talk to anyone but hang off my arm the whole time. My own mother saw this and took over by talking to her and letting me have some freedom and sociallising with the other guests at the party. After the party my mother told me that my in law had said “Its hard working 24/7, I will have to pick a day where I can visit the baby, because the baby needs me and I will visit for a whole day every week.”

Now is it just me or is this wrong. Personally I think a whole day is obsessive, and every week… yeh right!! And the fact the ‘baby’ needs her… that is sooo not true. What am I a babysitter???

So please tell me what you think, how often should she visit? And any advise on how to tell her to step off a bit? Even my own mother isnt planning on visiting so often.
I also have issues with breastfeeding.
I am 100% for breastfeeding, but I dont feel comfortable doing it with an audience (hubby is ok). So basically I cant have MIL stay ALL day as I will be running off to a private room to feed my baby. I know she will get annoyed and try to stay with me, which I am totally against. How can I tell her to F off while Im feeding?

PS I dont mind other people feeding in public.

Today, American infants up to 6 months of age are 59 percent more likely to be overweight than were babies born 20 years ago, a recent study found.

And though chubby babies might be viewed as cute and healthy, parents need to think about preventing obesity at the earliest stages of life, health experts are warning. That means paying attention not only to infant weights, but also to a mother’s weight before conception and her weight gain during Pregnancy.

“A mother’s weight gain during Pregnancy, particularly gaining more than is recommended, is associated with an increased likelihood of childhood obesity,” said Dr. Christine M. Olson, professor of community nutrition at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y.

Olson’s own research found that to be true. She followed 208 mother-child pairs and found that excess weight gained during pregnancy — meaning more than 25 to 35 pounds for a woman who began pregnancy at a normal weight — increased the risk of her child being overweight at 3 years of age. She defined overweight at age 3 as weighing more than 85 percent of children at that age.

About 40 percent of the children born to mothers who were overweight or obese in early pregnancy were overweight by age 3, whereas just 24 percent of those born to mothers whose pregnancy weight was normal or below normal were overweight by age 3.

The impact was greater among women who were overweight or obese before they became pregnant.

The associations ring true, said Dr. Frank R. Greer, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and chairman of the nutrition committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

“Certainly, overweight mothers are at risk for having overweight infants,” he said. “Mothers who have gestational diabetes [diagnosed during pregnancy] are also at greater risk.” And if the child’s father is overweight, he said, that can also help predict whether the baby will be overweight.

But, Greer added, it’s not a simple issue.

“Predicting obesity in the first year of life is problematic,” Greer said. “Obviously, you can pick out the infants at risk by looking at their birth weight and looking at their parents. However, pediatricians are reluctant to do this at the well-baby visit before the infant is approaching the 85th percentile for weight,” generally considered the threshold for being classified as overweight.

What to do? Greer and Olson have a number of suggestions.

Besides getting down to a healthy weight before becoming pregnant, women should follow the weight-gain guidelines during pregnancy, they said. That means 25 to 35 pounds for normal-weight women, more for underweight and less for overweight. Ask your doctor what’s best for you.

Only about 40 percent of women stay within the recommended weight-gain guidelines, Olson has found.

Breast-feeding for the first four to six months can help reduce the chances that a child will become overweight, Olson and Greer agreed. But exclusive breast-feeding for that long can be a challenge, Olson said, especially if a woman is returning to work.

Olson advised women to research their rights. A New York law, for instance, mandates breaks during work for women to pump milk, Olson said. Breast-feeding mothers might also want to ask their supervisors for support and input on how to better mesh breast-feeding and working.

my due date is July2 and please no “your due date can be off by two weeks” bc I identified out through u/s at 4 weeks I was pregnant so yeah. and I know my infant ahsnt dropped bc my ob stated so and bc I really feel ehr feet in my ribcage. so anyways….I am starting to have a lot more frequent real contractions they had been even picked up yesterday on a nst and even though theyarent regular they are commencing to turn out to be more and more frequent throughout the day. anyways my infant is not dropped is there any danger in that? I am not dilated at all but 30 % effaced.

This was interesting!

(LifeWire) — Pauline and Jeffrey Eadie, of Cleveland, had gathered the family together to watch home movies of their two older children as babies. In one movie, Jack, now 5, was looking skeptically at his then-newborn sister, now 3. “In the video, I was saying, ‘Jack, go to the baby, go hug her,’” says Pauline. “And then at some point I said, ‘Go kiss Emma.’”

Unaware that her name had been changed when she was a newborn, Pauline Eadie’s daughter, Caroline, looked at her and asked ‘Who’s Emma?’”

The Eadies are among a surprising number of parents who, following the birth of their child, suffer namer’s remorse. In a recent poll of 1,219 mothers conducted by BabyCenter.com, 10 percent considered changing their baby’s name. The reasons they gave ranged from being inspired by another name to having a relative disagree with the choice.

Regret is common after any big decision, and few prenatal decisions these days are as open to debate as picking a child’s name. Rare are the parents who haven’t invested in a small library of baby-name books or trolled the Internet for a name unique enough to be usefully Googled, but not so weird as to cause ridicule.

“Today, there’s this perception that naming a child is almost like naming a product — there’s this huge national drive now to not be like anyone else,” says Laura Wattenberg, author of “The Baby Name Wizard” and founder of the blog BabyNameWizard.com.

That may be one reason some parents have second thoughts when they realize they’ve picked the present-day equivalent of Jennifer or Justin.

In her first few years, 6-year-old Sophie Sauber’s parents, Rob Sauber and Suzanne Ramljak, of Connecticut, were overwhelmed by the number of Sophies they encountered daily. Four out of 13 kids in their daughter’s preschool class were named Sophie, and other parents were constantly yelling it at the mall. When Sophie was almost 4, they asked how she’d feel about being called Isadora, a name they’d considered before she was born.

“She understood our reasoning and liked the name. We weren’t going to force her,” says Ramljak. One day, after a trial period of a couple of months, she introduced herself as Isadora. “It was like, ‘That’s her name now!’”

Noting that by 12 months children already recognize the sound of their names, Dr. Karla Umpierre, a Miami psychologist and family counselor, encourages parents to get the child’s input and approval if they decide to change the name after age 2. “It’s best to change the name before then, because by 2 or 3 they have a sense of identity, and it could send mixed messages. The child might ask himself, ‘Do you want to change me?’”

“Stability is very important for children,” says Dr. Umpierre. “And changing a name could create a lot of insecurity.”

For most parents, the urge comes long before the baby can say his or her own name. Wavering is not uncommon for those who figure they’ll pick a name once they see the baby. “But that’s a tall order to put on a newborn,” says Wattenberg. “It’s hard to look at this 7-pound thing and say, ‘Oh! She’s an Abigail!’” So they choose something quickly and then spend weeks second-guessing themselves.

That was the case for the Eadies. When their daughter was born, the nursery was full and the nurses were rushing them to sign the birth certificate and leave the hospital. “Emma seemed pretty,” Pauline Eadie says. They sent out birth announcements, “but it just felt strange coming out of my mouth.” They decided they preferred a family name, Caroline.

Adrienne and Matt Grayson, of Charleston, South Carolina, settled on the name Luke early in her Pregnancy. “I also loved the name Beckett, but it felt a little weird, like Apple,” says Adrienne Grayson, referring to the name actress Gwyneth Paltrow gave her daughter. When the baby was born, they named him Luke Beckett Grayson. What followed was a sea of engraved picture frames, monogrammed pillows, “Welcome Luke” signs drawn by the Grayson’s older children — and a wave of regret.

“I couldn’t shut up about how we should call him Beckett instead of Luke, and I also started mourning my maiden name, Shaw,” Adrienne Grayson says. “I thought I should’ve made that his middle name because we weren’t going to have more kids.”

The more she reflected, the more she wanted to change Luke’s name to Beckett Shaw Grayson. The process involved hours on the phone with the Social Security office and the county clerk. She found that although it’s legal to change a minor’s name (as long as both parents consent), states don’t always have a well-oiled system in place for regretful parents.

When her son’s new Social Security card arrived, it read, erroneously, “Shaw Luke Grayson.”

The Eadies, too, were bounced from one government agency to another. Eventually they filed the paperwork with a probate-court judge to change “Emma” to “Caroline.”
I like Isadora way better than Sophie!
all great answers! I think how a name sounds with the last name is important too, I think names that have significance are better than just trying to be popular! I like the story about your Mom, hope you get that little girl!

Hi!! I asked this in “Newborn & Baby” as well. I figured there’d be mommys in “Pregnancy” who could answer too. How do you know you wrapped it right???? I follow the directions and end up doing a modified version of what it says to do to make it work. I feel like I’m squishing my baby!!! And it takes me multiple tries to get it to work with my lack of expert baby wrapping skills and this little squirmy fussy baby It’s my first time ever wearing one… and it’s my first time being a mommy LOL. My daughter falls asleep in it so I guess she’s comfortable. Is it the squished effect something the baby is going for? I don’t want to hurt her. She’s so little now (9wks, 11lbs, 21inch) so I can’t wear it like the pictures show in the booklet… her legs aren’t big enough to hang out comfortable, so I tuck them up… HELP!?!?!?!? Oh yeah, and I do have a Baby Bjorn as well, but I like the wrap, so please don’t tell me to just give up and pick up a Baby Bjorn lol