Sleeping Problem

If so, you may be suffering from a sleep disorder.

Below are some of the common sleeping disorder symptoms that have haunted people around the world for years.

Insomnia
Insomnia is a common sleeping disorder suffered by approximately one third of the population. It is a condition where a person experiences poor-quality sleep. Symptoms of insomnia include difficulty in falling or maintaining sleep over a period of time. A person suffering from insomnia may experience irritation or emotional disturbance due to lack of high-quality sleep and if not treated properly, insomnia may hinder a person’s productiveness and social relationships.

Circadian Rhythm Sleep Disorder
Recurring disruptions in the sleeping pattern may lead to circadian rhythm sleeping disorder, a condition where the body’s internal clock is mismatched. Jetlag and frequent nightshifts are some of the most common causes of the disorder. Symptoms may include persistent insomnia or excessive sleepiness.

Narcolepsy
Identified by excessive sleepiness during the day, narcolepsy is a sleeping disorder that plagues many adolescents. A person suffering from narcolepsy often feels an overwhelming sleepiness and falls asleep at frequent intervals. Accompanying symptoms include cataplexy, a sudden loss of muscle tones when experiencing intense emotions; paralysis attacks during waking up or sleeping; and vivid hallucinations. At night, a person with narcolepsy may have difficulties sleeping and experience frequent nightmares and awakenings.

Repeating Nightmares
This sleeping disorder is signified by frequent awakenings due to intense and recurring nightmares. Upon awakening, the sufferer is usually alert and oriented. A person who suffers from repeating nightmares is likely to suffer from distress and loss of self-esteem. Proper treatment is required to prevent impairment in social relationships and productiveness.

Sleep Terror
Sleep terror is signified by frequent and abrupt awakenings from sleep, accompanied by signs of intense fear as if being plagued by nightmares. However, no memory of the dream is ever recalled and a person suffering from sleep terror is likely to wake up disoriented or confused.

Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking is a condition where the sufferer frequently rises from sleep and occasionally performs normal activities, but has no memory of such condition ever occurring. During a sleepwalking episode, the sufferer is usually unresponsive and uncommunicative. Waking up a sleepwalker is quite difficult and once awake, the sufferer is usually disoriented.

1. Health program for the mother

The program must be comprehensive enough as to ensure that the mother will stay healthy all throughout the period of her pregnancy until she gets to nurse the baby. After all, it takes a healthy mother to feed a healthy baby. An effective health program for the mother consists among other things of a proper diet, enough exercise, and staying away from pollutants or an unhealthy environment. This may not be a concern for mothers who have no health problems in the first place. But if the mother has a record of health problems in the past, or if she has been used to a free-wheeling lifestyle where, for example, intake of fatty and high-cholesterol foods, alcohol or nicotine has been excessive or uncontrolled, it is necessary for her to take steps to ensure that she puts herself back in the pink of health.

2. Breastfeeding instructions

Specific tasks need to be undertaken during the initial six months of nursing itself. The flow of breast milk does not normally stabilize until two or three days after delivery, especially for mothers giving birth for the first time. During this hiatus, a mixture of milk (about two thirds), water (about one third), thin gruel, and sugar can be fed to the infant.

Full ration of breast milk should be fed to the baby as soon as its supply stabilizes. Mothers have to be sensitive to how often their babies need to suckle. The first ten days of the baby’s total dependence on mother’s milk requires paying close attention to how the baby reacts to each feeding. Both under and over feeding can have awful consequences to the baby. The stomach of an infant is thin and delicate, yet unaccustomed to the process of digestion, and is likely to stimulate feedback to be baby’s brain in the number of ways. How the baby communicates and makes himself or herself understood by the mother is therefore crucial for both of them to get the breast-feeding program on track.

After a week up to ten days, a feeding interval of three to four hours is generally advisable. This must be done day and night. A practical timetable for both mother and child with regards to night feeding is setting it at ten o’clock in the evening and five o’clock the morning after. It is not good to leave the baby sucking the nipple until both mother and baby find themselves asleep. This can only further deprive them of more time for sleep; after all sleep is something which they are often short of. A structured break allows sufficient time for proper digestion to take place and thereby stabilize the baby’s bowel movements. It makes babies less irritable and cranky, and because of which they are wont to show by crying.

The breast-feeding program should be consistently applied until the baby reaches six months after birth. It is even advisable to carry on with this program beyong this period, or until the time the baby weans, for as long as the mother stays healthy and is able to maintain producing breast milk at the same level of quantity and quality.

3. Breast compression

Breast compression is helpful when breast-feeding runs into problems. If you are the nursing mother, here is how you can apply it.

1. The baby held with one arm, cup your breast with the other arm. Put your thumb on top of the breast while your other fingers are slightly pressing the breast from under it, two or three inches away from your nipple.

2. Being alert all the time is not necessary, but you still need to keep a close watch on the suckling. Guide the baby so that he or she can quickly get the hang of an open-pause type of feeding; this will allow him or her to drink more volume of milk. When the baby begins to nibble or when he or she stops drinking, compress your breast firmly but not too hard. Breast compression causes the milk to flow and the baby is likely start to sucking again.

Keep pressing your breast until your baby stops responding to the compression. If your baby does not latch away from your breast even after you have released the pressure, pause for a few seconds and then start compressing again. Releasing the pressure allows you to rest your hand; it also induces your milk to flow into the baby’s mouth again. If your baby ceases to suck upon releasing the pressure on your breast, it is again likely that he or she will resume sucking the moment he or she senses milk. If the baby is unable to drink enough milk, try to recompress your breast.

3. Go on feeding with compression until your baby stops to drink. Pause until your baby begins to drink again, without your egging him or her on. If you can sense that your baby has stopped drinking, let him or her unlatch, or just take him or her off from your breast.

4. See if your baby still wants to feed. If he or she does, offer the milk from the other breast. Follow the same procedure you earlier did with the other side. You can repeat switching one breast to the other a number of times unless your nipples get sore. Help your baby improve his or her latch.

4. Pitfalls of breastfeeding

One of the more common mistakes made by nursing mothers, particularly those who are inexperienced, is feeding their babies evertime they cry or show signs of discomfort, thinking they are hungry. This may lead to over feeding. This is not necessary nor recommended. When over feeding happens, the digestion process can get disrupted causing, among other things, loose bowel movements, more restlessness on the part of the baby and even fever.

Also, there had been cases when mothers just cannot do away with unhealthy habit or tradition. Inadequate information on the part of lactating moms is often to blame, sometimes leading to more health problems. One misconception is eating as much food as the mother can in the belief that this will fully support the milk production capacity of her mammary glands. While input often equals output, it does not necessarily mean that gaining weight equals gaining health. For that is what excessive eating is all about: gaining weight. The breasts may supply enough milk, but the overall health condition of the mother may be compromised.

Another pitfall which often victimizes young mothers who are nursing for the first time is drinking dark sweet beer called porter. The practice draws from tradition where many a mother has been taught that porter increases the supply of milk and helps sustain her perfect physical health. Without doctor’s approval on a case to case basis, this practice poses threats to the mother. There had been cases when porter intake, particularly in large amounts and on a regular basis, has instead caused the loss of milk supply in the mother and induced loose bowel movements in the baby. Mothers may also experience headache, thirst, hot skin, drowiyness, and fever.

Abhishek Agarwal
http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/breastfeeding-your-baby-4-dos-and-donts-for-all-mothers-740014.html

It has been proved that the mothers who smoked during pregnancy have a high risk of killing their kids as they were born with air passages much smaller than the usual. This leaves them with all sorts of breathing problems after they are born. This leads to a situation called SIDS or the sudden infant death syndrome. Smoking is not only linked with this, but it is invariably linked with every other problem possible. The kid might also be premature and have many other health problems. Smoking reduces the oxygen that is transferred to the kid, and the heart rate of the kid gets affected badly because of this. The child will also have other breathing problems as the oxygen content going to the lungs will be less.

Kids born to smoking mothers are much lighter and shorter when compared to the kids who are born to non smoking mothers. The respiratory illness is all side effects of the smoke that is constantly taken in by the kid. This drastically reduces the amount of sleep the baby takes every night.

More the number of cigarettes that is smoked by you per day, greater is the chance for your kid to develop a series of health problems. With each additional smoker in the house, the chances of the baby surviving in that place without SIDS go down. The exposure to smoke everyday plays a major factor.

So, it is best when you give enough sleep for the kid and yourself through the night at home. Always keep the environment where the baby is devoid of any sort of smoke or contamination. If this is followed correctly, the risk of SIDS goes down drastically and the baby will breathe much better and will breathe fresh air and not cigarette smoke.

Abhishek Agarwal
http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/pregnancy-smoking-how-it-can-kill-your-baby-740042.html

The birth of a first baby is a new adventure for all the family, and particularly for the mother and father, and the newborn child. With it come a number of concerns – either real or perceived – that are naturally associated with new experiences, and particularly with those that will change the life of all the family irreversibly.

There are several myths that accompany the subject of motherhood and one is the famous bonding that occurs between mother and baby. While this is not, in itself, a myth the problems that surround it most certainly are for as we shall see the process of bonding is one that will happen without any special effort, and by simply doing what comes naturally in terms of looking after a baby.

What is bonding?

The story goes that a special bond develops between mother and child and whole this is definitely the case it is important to remember where it comes from.

Ever since man walked the earth mothers have bonded with their babies, and that the process continues in these modern times is indicative of how important the bond is. When a baby is born it will generally be handed to the mother; this is often seen as a symbolic gesture but in fact has at its root the generation driven system of bonding between mother and child. It has been around since man began and will continue to exist for ever more.

How do I bond with the child?

You simply do what comes naturally; each time you feed the baby you are enhancing the bond – it is you who gives him food – and each time you comfort it you are doing so in another way – it is you, the mother, who helps the baby in distress. Further, the natural holding and handling that mothers are adept at adds to the bonding process, and the sounds the mother makes and smells she naturally emits will be the baby’s first memories – it is these early memories that form the basis of the bond, and remain the tie by which the baby is eternally linked with the mother.

What if I don’t bond with baby, or vice versa?

If you are the one who looks after the baby, and who puts it to sleep, takes it for walks and holds, feeds and talks to it then the bonding process is taking place all the time. Often people look for a physical sign of the two getting closer, yet this is not what bonding is about – it is a natural occurrence that comes with the essential ties between mother and child.

Those are the main concerns that come with the bonding aspect of motherhood, and another one is the subject of crying. Many inexperienced mothers believe that a crying baby is one that is distressed, and while this can be a signal of crying there are many more reasons for babies to cry.

Why do babies cry?

This is how they communicate; while we have learned to speak and emote in a more complex and sophisticated manner the baby has yet to progress and is thus limited to the only audible signal he can create – he cries.

Crying can be a sign of distress but new mothers will soon learn to differentiate between different ‘types’ of crying: the distressed cry will be eminently different to the attentions seeking cry, and the hunger cry different again to the one that asks for a change. It all falls into place very quickly and with experience.

This is why the practice of leaving a crying baby at night has become commonplace – often it is simply a cry for attention, and needs to be grown out of rather than encouraged.

Of course prolonged and distressed cries that are unusual must be considered and attended to, but the mother will be an expert in baby cries in no time at all!

It may be worth investing in one or more of the many ebooks that abound on these subjects – after all, advice is to be encouraged.

Mark Crockrum
http://www.articlesbase.com/parenting-articles/a-look-at-the-importance-of-bonding-and-more-698732.html

Catch human nature at its best when you find yourself in the instant parenthood club. The idea of having your life turned upside down by an upcoming new arrival is enough to make anyone stand up and take notice. Or is it? I’m sure there are some people who can sit together planning intensely, and ponder the future of their newborn with the greatest of care. And even before the baby comes, some will have considered post secondary savings plans, a larger house, better neighbourhoods and a minivan.

However, although that is commendable, it only treats how to school the child, where he or she will sleep, the safety of the surrounding area, and how you are going to get the little one(s) to the mall. It doesn’t speak to the child’s upbringing or development as a well-balanced individual.

OK, so the husband has a job that can support the family, good. Mom and dad have excellent family histories as far as health goes, good again. The neighbours are supportive with nice kids… for baby sitting, and grandma is waiting in the wings… ready to pinch a cheek or two. Hey life is good… yeah… yours.

Getting married and having kids are likely two of the most important decisions people have to make, and yet they are left up to the young and inexperienced. These decisions are made when life is exciting, new and interesting. Everything is a wonderful adventure… that we can go through together… in joyful bliss. OK, so ask the 50% or more divorced couples who have tattooed teens with drug problems, what went wrong. “We should never have done it”. Which? Take your pick. If one was a bad choice… the other one was too.

Instant parenthood, if it has already come to that for you, is a time to stop and look inward. Forget about the ‘things’, and concentrate on the few people that are going to control the whole show. List all of the bad babits of you and your spouse and of your parents and in-laws. Now, recognize two things. First, that some of these failings are something you consider too late to change, even though they are likely destructive. And second, those traits, and the rest, will probably all be passed down to your child, with absolutely no effort on your part.

I’m not suggesting sterilizing the environment to clear it of loud music or the occasional squabble… that’s unrealistic. I’m talking about adjusting attitudes, prejudices, resentment, hatred, laziness, greed, envy and more. And ignite some of the good values, inspirations and morals that you wish you had inherited. You probably already know what they are, and they are not very hard to find. Build a better foundation from which to launch yourself into instant parenthood. Go to counseling now, and tell your spouse you’re both doing it for the baby. If your spouse refuses, you have probably identified a problem right there… pride, shame, fear… whatever. Get over it! How will you deal with raising a child if you can’t fix yourself when you are young, and presumably, able.

I know all young parents are probably invulnerable, and all-knowing, but that’s a shame. This isn’t a time to feel immortal, arrogant, or to be resistant to new ideas. Instant parenthood a time for instant change and humility. I don’t care who you are, we all have something to improve upon. In fact, to say you don’t, is to show us you do have a problem.

Instant parenthood means guiding, nurturing, protecting and developing a new life. To ultimately set it free upon the world. That responsibility is the biggest job you have. Do all you can to understand yourself, what makes you tick, and your impact on those around you, before using any of your ‘cast in stone’ talents on your child. Fix yourself first and raising your child will become less complicated.

Make a contract with yourself now that you will become, and will inspire, a well-balanced, happy individual.

Phil Girouard
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/instant-parenthood-what-are-you-thinking-right-now-120135.html

Living with low thyroid levels can be challenging and sometimes even difficult to cope up with. You need to be cautious about what you eat. In serious cases, it can take a serious toll in your daily activities. To help minimize the problem, you usually have to undergo several specific thyroid directed therapy. This helps control the effects of your low thyroid levels on your daily activities. Some of the things that you need to do in order to minimize the effects of your thyroid problems include exercise, eating a healthier and balanced diet, getting good amounts of sleep, and finding enough time to rest and relax. This places your body at a much more comfortable position to handle the stress caused by low thyroid levels.

Low Thyroid Levels and Pregnant Women

Having low thyroid levels causes several symptoms and problems. Most of them are so subtle that we usually disregard them and think that these are just normal and harmless observations. However, one should keep in mind that sometimes these basic symptoms can reach dangerous levels and can be fatal if left unchecked. Low thyroid levels can be problematic to pregnant women as well. This is because during the first three months of the pregnancy, the mother supplies all of the thyroid hormone that the fetus needs. If she has low thyroid levels, this can cause problems in her child’s development as well as her well-being. This is a crucial time since this is the period where the brain of the child is developing. It could lead to problems in the mental process development of the child.

Development of Myxedema

Probably one of the most dangerous consequences of having low thyroid levels is myxedema. This problem occurs when the thyroid hormone production in your system drops to a dangerously low level. People who experience this problem are inclined to develop infections, injuries, or adverse reactions to certain medications. They can also become highly sensitive to the cold temperature. Sometimes these reactions can lead to a myxedema coma; it can also trigger hypothermia where your body’s temperature levels become fatally low.

Getting Rid of Low Thyroid Levels

If you feel that you are suffering from low thyroid levels, then seek out medical help right away before it develops into further complications. Or you may turn to a breakthrough all-natural supplement that helps keep your thyroids healthy. From the makers of the bestselling herbal supplements, this breakthrough is guaranteed to get your thyroids working in tiptop shape.

Jason Meyer
http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/low-thyroid-levels-what-can-you-do-about-it-750537.html