How To Avoid Stretch Marks During Pregnancy?

Some people may advise you that there is nothing you can do to avoid stretch marks during pregnancy simply because stretch marks are hereditary. Just the thought however of avoiding having to wear your bikini to the beach and hiding your skin for the rest of your life should motivate you to look for a way to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy. 

Discipline Yourself

Stretch marks during pregnancy may be avoided if you watch your weight. This may not completely prevent stretch marks during pregnancy but it can result in fewer marks. The bigger your tummy grows, the more likely it will be for stretch marks to develop.

Thinking that it is perfectly alright to eat more since you're feeding both yourself and your baby is surely one sure way to increasing stretch mark. You should instead follow ideal diet requirements from your doctor that will not starve you or your baby but will also result in just gaining a little over 25 extra lbs. You can also perform pregnancy exercises to make sure that you keep to your ideal weight.

Never Scratch

Aside from disciplining yourself on the aspect of food and exercise, you should also discipline your fingers. Some doctors will not tell you that stopping yourself from scratching your belly can help prevent stretch marks during pregnancy. This is probably because there is no clear explanation why scratching can sometimes make stretch marks worse.

It is possible though that aggressively scratching your belly can promote further internal skin tissue tearing since your skin is already too stretched and already on the verge of tearing. You can prevent stretch marks during pregnancy by soothing an itch with some powder, oil or a gentle belly rub.

Keep Yourself Moisturized

Stretch marks can be prevented during pregnancy if you keep your belly adequately moisturized. Your inner skin can tear even more quickly if it is dry, rough and inelastic owing to a lack of moisture. You should drink a lot of water for natural moisture but you can also use a natural product to prevent stretch marks during pregnancy that is safe for pregnant women to use.

Use a Safe Product

Using safe and doctor-approved skin products such as moisturizers and lotions can also help prevent stretch marks during pregnancy. Simply list down the ingredients of products you want to use and show the list to your doctor before buying these. The safe products are often those that carry all natural ingredients. The logic behind natural based products is that they contain ingredients that are already naturally occurring in nature or in the body which therefore limits the chances of producing side effects.

Don't Always Go for Budget Deals

Be suspicious of cheap offers and deals on skin care products if you want to avoid stretch marks during pregnancy. Pick a product that is not too expensive but also does not have rock bottom prices. Prices are often a reflection of how much research effort and quality ingredients have gone into a product mixture

What would solve primary-care crisis, create jobs and help banks? Building community health centers, writer contends

The federal health-care reform law will mean a glut of new patients who will be newly insured and bog down the primary-care system. Thousands of construction workers are out of jobs as the economy remains stagnant. And the banking sector is still reluctant to lend. The answer to all three problems? Build more community health centers, writes Jeffrey Leonard in an opinion piece in The Washington Monthly. (Photo: Vista, Calif., Community Clinic)

"The way to meet the flood of new patients coming down the pike is to expand the nation's existing network of community health centers — nonprofit clinics that offer primary care to the medically under-served, often in rural areas or inner cities," writes Leonard, CEO of the Global Environment Fund and chairman of the magazine's board of directors. "But to get this done, there's no need to appropriate billions more in direct government spending. Rather, there is a way to lure skittish banks in lending private capital to finance a health-center construction boom in all 50 states, simply by tweaking the language of an existing federal lending program."

Though community health centers generally have difficulty raising their own funds to expand or build facilities, in part because they serve uninsured, low-income patients who can't donate to building projects, they are sound investments, Leonard contends, pointing out only "one or two" of the 1,200 community health centers in America today have ever defaulted on a loan.

Still, they have trouble getting loans from banks, even once they have been able to raise a chunk of funds, in large part because centers "in an economically distressed inner-city neighborhood serving a mixture of Medicaid patients and the uninsured, or one in a depressed heartland town where real estate prices are spiraling downward" are seen as a risk, Leonard explains.

Leonard suggests the centers be eligible for the Small Business Administration's 504 loan program, in which a small business asks a non-profit lender to issue "low-interest, fixed-rate, government-backed bonds to finance up to 40 percent of the project," Leonard writes. As of now, the loan program is only open to some for-profit businesses. But Congress could change that, thus opening up possibilities. Moreover, the loan program is "routine and efficient to process" and the "interest rates are among the lowest on the market," Leonard contends.

Another option would be for construction companies and real estate developers to put up the equity themselves, build the facilities and then rent them out to nonprofits "on a long-term lease or through various lease-to-own arrangements." "Indeed, hungry developers and construction firms would find any number of ways to get the hammers swinging," Leonard writes.

Overall, it's a win-win, Leonard argues."It's hard to imagine Congress appropriating any more direct spending to fuel the construction of health centers," he writes. "But there's no good reason why they shouldn't change a few words in a statute to achieve the same end. Not only would it quickly create much-needed jobs in the construction trades, it would also spark economic activity over the long run in some of the places in America that need it most." (Read more)

Boys should get HPV vaccine to keep from spreading virus

A federal committee has recommended that boys receive the human papilloma virus vaccine, already recommended for girls, to fight the sexually transmitted virus that is known to cause cervical cancer. The vaccine could also protect boys against genital warts and anal cancer.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices released its recommendation Wednesday. It is the first time there has been a public push for boys to receive the vaccine, though it has been licensed for male use for the past two years.

Dr. Baretta Casey, director of Cervical Cancer-Free Kentucky, applauded the move. "To stem the spread of the HPV virus and the many problems it causes is the best thing," she said.

The vaccine is usually given at the age of 11 or 12 and is only effective if it is given before a person becomes sexually active. As many as 80 percent of men and women are infected with HPV during the course of their lives, but most do not develop symptoms or illness, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

The vaccine has been met with reluctance by parents, some of whom fear it would encourage sexual activity. Last year, just 49 percent of adolescent girls nationwide had received at least the first of its three doses, and only a third had gotten all three. In Kentucky, only 25 percent of adolescent females had received the first dose, and fewer than 11 percent had received all three doses.

Casey attributed parents' hesitation to a fear that the vaccine is harmful, though research shows otherwise. "It's our hope that people understand that this is a vaccine that has been around for quite a while now," she said. "The effects of the immunization are similar to other vaccines that we currently give our children. And if I can give my child a vaccine that would prevent them from ever developing cancer, I'm for it." On average, 391 Kentucky women develop cervical cancer and 66 die.

The cost of the vaccine — about $110 for each of the three doses — is also believed to be a factor in the low vaccination numbers, though Casey said Medicaid covers it, as do major health insurance providers such as Blue Cross Blue Shield and Anthem. Though the numbers are low, Casey said she is seeing some boys being vaccinated in Kentucky "but it's not a widely done practice." (Read more)

PIkeville Medical Center agrees to pay $36,000 to settle claim that it improperly billed Medicare

Pikeville Medical Center has agreed to pay more than $36,000, but does not have to admit any wrongdoing, to settle a lawsuit that accused it of improperly billing Medicare.

The suit was brought by Dr. Michael Fletcher, director of the pain management clinic from May 2005 to July 2007. "The hospital used improper billing codes for the pain management clinic, which indicated services were provided in a private physician's office, rather than a clinic," reports Brett Barrouquere of The Associated Press.

Fletcher alleged the same was being done at the hospital's radiation oncology and medical oncology units and told hospital administration as much, but nothing was done. Fletcher will receive $7,228 as part of the settlement of the suit, filed under the federal False Claims Act. (Read more)

Jury tells nursing home to pay $1 million to former resident

A Fayette County jury has decided that Lexington's Cambridge Place Nursing Home will have to pay more than $1 million in damages to a former resident who fell and was found in an equipment storage room with broken bones in her face.

In January 2009, Irene Hendrix, who has Alzheimer's disease, was reportedly walking up and down a hall using a Merry Walker, which is a walker that has a seat. At some point, Hendrix, right, fell and was found with bleeding in her brain, a 4-centimeter cut on her forehead and the broken bones, the Lexington Herald-Leader's Valarie Honeycutt Spears reports. Hendrix's daughter and guardian filed a lawsuit against the facility later that year, alleging negligence.

After two hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Hendrix $1 million for physical pain, suffering and mental anguish. It also awarded Hendrix more than $27,000 for her medical bills. "A jury spoke today regarding the level of care they expect for their loved ones in nursing homes in Fayette County," plaintiff's lawyer Scott Owens said.

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the Office of the Kentucky Attorney General previously investigated Hendrix's case and a state adult-protection worker "determined that Hendrix was a victim of caretaker neglect and had been exposed to an extreme safety risk," Spears reports. "The protection worker told the attorney general's office that she thought Hendrix's injuries were the result of an accident." The attorney general's office closed the case in March 2009. (Read more)

USDA Certified 70% Cocoa Dark Chocolate

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