Common Pregnancy Issues and Simple Ways to Tackle Them

Nausea (morning sickness), gas, constipation and heartburn can make you feel miserable during your pregnancy. They are caused by normal hormone changes in your body and the baby growing and taking up more room. Here are some things that you can do to help you feel better.

Ways to Tackle Nausea

• Eat before getting out of bed in the morning. Keep crackers, dry cereal or toast by your bed for when you first wake up.

• Get out of bed slowly and avoid sudden movements.

• Eat 5 or 6 small meals during the day to avoid long periods without eating. An empty stomach can make you feel worse.

• Drink liquids between meals. Fruit juice and caffeine free sodas may help settle your stomach

• Avoid odours and tastes that make you queasy. Someone else may need to help with cooking.

• Have fresh air in the room when you cook, eat or sleep. Smelling a fresh cut lemon may also help.

• Take your prenatal vitamins before going to bed.

Ways to tackle Constipation

• Eat a high fibre diet. Include more fruit, vegetables, beans and whole grains. Try whole grain cereals and bread such as oatmeal, whole wheat bread and brown rice.

• Add wheat germ to your cereal or have a bran muffin.

• Have prunes (dried plums) or prune juice.

• Drink more liquids such as water, milk, cocoa, fruit juice and soup. A glass of warm water first thing in the morning may also help.

• Eat meals at regular times.

• Exercise daily, try walking or swimming. Check with your doctor first.

Ways to tackle Acidity

• Avoid foods that can produce gas such as onions, garlic, beans, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels, sprouts and cauliflower.

• Try a mild activity like walking

• Eat and drink slowly

• Avoid chewing gum

• Keep your weight gain gradual and moderate to minimize the amount of pressure on your digestive tract.

• Try to relax. Tension can also cause you to swallow air, both during meals and during the day.

Heart Burn

• Eat five to six  small meals a day

• Eat and chew slowly

• Avoid fatty, greasy or spicy foods.

• Wear clothes that are loose around your waist.

• Avoid lying down right after eating. Wait at least an hour.

• If you must lie down, do so on your left side.

• Drop a few pillows under your head when you sleep or prop the top of the bed up on a few blocks.

• Quit smoking

• Antacids are generally safe to take during pregnancy but ask your doctor first.

These are some of the common pregnancy issues and easy ways to tackle them without the need for medication. Enjoy your 9 months! Have a Safe Delivery!

Accidental Poisoning in Children: Blame it on Medicines

Picture a child fiddling with his granddad’s Diabetes pills. Imagine how dangerous it would be if he were to ingest these. It could cause the child’s blood sugar to plummet to dangerously low levels. This is just one of the many scenarios that the accidental ingestion of drugs could possibly lead to. Incidents like these do actually happen and with alarming regularity.

Nearly 70% cases of poisoning in children are due to accidental ingestion of drugs

Unsupervised ingestion of drugs by children can have serious consequences and may even prove fatal sometimes. Often children have easy access to their medicines. The child may find the packaging attractive and may, out of curiosity ingest a medicine in quantities large enough to cause harm. Of late, we have seen a rise in the number of children reporting to us with an accidental drug overdose. This is a cause for serious concern. The fact that such incidents are completely preventable makes the rising incidence totally unacceptable.

Children less than 5 years of age tend to put everything they find into their mouths. These children may also be attracted to brightly coloured pills and syrups. Therefore if medicines are left lying within their grasp, the chances of accidental ingestion and overdosage increase significantly. An added danger in case of very young children is their tendency to share these medicines with other children, making the situation even more difficult to handle.

In children younger than 5 years, the risk of accidental ingestion of drugs is more given their tendency to explore. This is not to say that accidental ingestion of drugs is something that will not happen to older children. It can and it does. We could practically neutralize the risk if we could somehow prevent access.

Child Resistant Closure (CRC) – An effective solution at hand

Child resistant caps or Child Resistant Closure (CRC) mechanisms make it hard for children to access the contents of a package. In countries like USA child-resistant packaging is mandatory for most drugs. It would be desirable to have similar regulations in place in India. This measure alone would bring down the incidence of accidental ingestion of drugs significantly.

CRC - Current Indian Ratio

In India, some companies are using Child Resistant (CR) packaging for their products but these are mainly meant for export markets. Recently some companies have introduced CRC in the domestic Indian market for its pediatric products.

Accidental poisoning is common, especially among toddlers aged between one and three years. Give your child the Best Pediatric Surgery Treatment in Delhi.

The commonest forms of CR packaging currently available in India include ‘push through’ as also blister packs with thicker foil or paper/foil laminates. These require a greater effort to take out the medicine from the blister pack and ensure that the child gives up after a few attempts.  By making CR packaging a must for products that are harmful to children, a large number of incidents of paediatric poisoning due to drug overdose can be avoided.

With the rising incidence of paediatric poisoning due to unsupervised drug ingestion, the need for child-resistant packaging of drugs is being increasingly felt. The introduction of this concept in the domestic Indian market means that a large number of pharmaceutical companies might already be in the process of lapping it up. This might eventually lead to CR packaging being made mandatory in India. On the other hand, it could very well be that CR packaging being made mandatory in India forces these companies to follow suit. Be that as it may, whichever way the tide turns, consumers stand to gain.

Reference: https://delhi.manipalhospitals.com/