Women's Health Blogs

Cravings and Morning Sickness

Eating a nutritious and varied diet is extremely important during pregnancy, and our last article gave basic nutritional guidelines about what to eat while you are pregnant. There are a few scenarios, like experiencing cravings for certain foods and experiencing morning sickness, which can complicate things. There’s no need to worry, though. You can overcome these challenges!

How should I handle cravings?
Food cravings are natural and can be very interesting. Cravings are often for sweet or salty foods, but they can also be for spicy, fatty, or sour foods. The best way to handle food cravings is to accept them and enjoy a small amount of whatever food you are craving. 

Nobody knows exactly why cravings occur during pregnancy, but they may have to do with changing sensitivities to smells and tastes or the body’s need for extra calories. Some cravings may even signal nutritional deficiencies. Craving red meat and ice, for example, might be associated with iron deficiency, and craving chocolate might indicate that you need more magnesium or B vitamins. Focus on balancing the foods you crave with a nutritious diet, and ask your doctor about any concerns you have. 

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Nutrition During Pregnancy

We all know we should eat a nutritious and balanced diet, but that doesn’t mean we always do it. For women, pregnancy is the most important time to make healthy eating a priority because the food you eat is nourishing both you and your baby. Eating a nutritious diet will help you feel good and encourage healthy development of the tiny person growing inside of you.

So what counts as a nutritious diet during pregnancy? Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that what your mom, friends, and even well-meaning strangers tell you to eat goes completely against the article you just read in a magazine. We know there is a lot of contradictory information out there, so we’re covering the basics.

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Surprise! Contraception sometimes fails!

You might expect teenagers to become pregnant without planning on it, but did you know that many women in their 20’s and 30’s also have unintended pregnancies—while using contraception? It’s hard to believe, but every year more than 1 million American women get pregnant while using birth control. In our last blog entry, we listed contraception methods and their effective rates, and you may have noticed that most methods fall in the 94%-99% effective range. So how are so many women on birth control getting pregnant?

The answer is usually human error. Many women either use their birth control incorrectly or they use it inconsistently.

The good news is that you are in control and can minimize your risk of having an unplanned pregnancy while on birth control. The table below shows the biggest mistakes to watch out for and tips to maximize effectiveness.  

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Contraception

Contraception has come a long way in recent years. The pill is still available in several forms, but women now have many other options to choose from too. We understand that the variety and sheer number of contraception methods available is confusing, so we’ve put together a guide to help you better understand the options that are available today.

Contraception methods fall into two main groups—hormonal and non-hormonal. Hormonal contraception relies on hormones that are released into your body to prevent pregnancy. Non-hormonal contraception prevents pregnancy without the use of hormones, by either creating a barrier between the egg and sperm or by killing the sperm. Here is a breakdown of the different methods:

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