Online Medicine

As I stated in the previous blog message, there were three things that made my natural birth (i.e, no pain meds) completely do-able.  The first was yoga breath, the second visualization, and the third doulas and my husband, which I will discuss tomorrow.  Visualization is a big factor in making your labor easier.  You will feel an intense pressure, and pain as your baby moves down to the birth canal.  What I did and coach my clients to do is picture your baby going down the birth canal and easily passing into this world.  The visualization can help to calm and relax you so your not resisting the process and your baby comes  easier.

The Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, Texas Children's Hospital in Houston and the Kenya Ministry of Health have announced today an agreement to establish a pediatric HIV care and treatment center in Kisumu, Kenya. The memorandum of agreement was signed today in Nairobi, Kenya to begin creation of the Baylor College of Medicine – Texas Children's Hospital - Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of Excellence-Kenya. "There is a tremendous need for treatment programs for HIV-positive children living in Kenya." said Mark Kline, president of BIPAI, professor of pediatrics at BCM, and chief of retrovirology at Texas Children's. "This Center will build on the foundation of excellence we have created in our programs throughout Africa." The new center, funded by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation's SECURE THE FUTURE program, will be staffed jointly by BCM, Texas Children's and health care …

James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix and developer of the Human Genome Project, will be presented with the DNA sequence data from his personal genome in a program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston May 31. A news conference will be held at 10:30 a.m. CDT. From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. CDT on Thursday, May 31, a program at BCM will feature more in-depth discussions on the science, clinical significance and ethical implications of the project. Representatives from 454 Life Sciences, the company that did the sequencing, and BCM, which verified and annotated the data, will speak, along with James Watson, who will receive the data from his genome as part of the afternoon program. A live web cast of the events will be available on the BCM web site – http://www.bcm.edu/av/bcm_watson.ram .

A three-year, $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will enable researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions to identify chemicals in the blood called markers that indicate a risk of heart disease and heart attack and determine how those markers are affected by changes in weight and lifestyle. The study is part of the Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) study. "What we are finding is that cardiovascular events as well as diabetes are caused by inflammation of the adipose (or fat) tissue," said Dr. Christie Ballantyne, professor of medicine at BCM and an expert in the field of biomarkers for disease. Markers of inflammation could play a role in defining and quantifying heart disease risk, he said. The Look AHEAD study, led by BCM researcher Dr. John Foreyt, will follow 5,000 people who are overweight and have diabetes -- both conditions that lead to inflammation of fatty tissue. Each person …

 I have had both of my children completely natural without the use of any pain medication with using these three important components: 1. Yoga breath 2. Visualization 3. Doulas and my Husband’s Support.  The yoga breath is a very calming deep breath done with an inhalation through the nose and an exhalation through the nose with the mouth closed.  The only difference in labor is towards the middle and end you will open your mouth on the exhale to release the tension in your body (this will happen naturally).  The key is to keep your body and mind calm by focusing on your breath– inhale deeply and exhale deeply.  Instead of trying to control the process, allow your body to do what it is naturally made to do.  The breath will keep you centered, calm, and connected to your baby.