Category: Kids

Are You Struggling With Infertility? Donor Eggs Could Help

Many couples dream about starting a family together one day. They have long conversations into the night chatting about what their children might look like and grow up to be, who they’ll take after and how they’ll behave.

Fortunately, for most couples, getting pregnant is easy. They make the decision that they’re ready to have kids, start trying, and within several weeks or months, they receive the happy news.

For one in six couples in the USA, though, it doesn’t happen this way. Infertility is on the rise in the western world, and while there are some possible causes, there’s no cold, hard reason that wins out beyond age demographics.

Possible Causes of Infertility

An increase in harmful chemicals in the environment, the after-effects of the birth control pill, and sexually transmitted diseases, like chlamydia – these are all possible causes behind the rise in infertility.

Some experts believe that an increase in DDT can effect estrogen levels in women, so you’re strongly advised to consume only organic products. Another possible culprit is parabens. When a couple is trying to conceive, it’s recommended that you abstain from using certain hair dye products, body scrubs, soaps, and beauty products containing parabens.

If you don’t know by now, parabens are a type of preservative used to prevent the growth of bacteria. According to some fertility experts, they also have the ability to take on the characteristics of estrogen, which means that you could be getting too much of it. When your hormones are out of balance, your chances of creating healthy eggs or creating healthy sperm is reduced.

How do you know if a product has parabens in it? Well, unless it’s illegal, it will be listed on the label. Don’t be fooled into thinking it doesn’t contain parabens if you don’t see the exact word on its own. Sometimes it can be part of the word – like propylparaben, ethylparaben, and so on.

Since you’re reading Organic Lifestyle Magazine, I’m going to go ahead and assume that you’re pretty well informed on the negative effects of parabens by now and that you don’t use these types of products, anyway. But you should also be paying more attention to the house paints you use, the food you consume, and the artificial sweetener you put in your coffee. All of these have the power to throw your hormones out of whack and lead to temporary infertility, so look for natural sweeteners, organically grown food and fresh produce, and don’t eat anything from a can.

Delaying Childbearing Until Later in Life

It’s depressing but sadly true, as a woman, your chances of conceiving drop off dramatically after the age of 35 and a little bit more every year after that. With more and more women studying for a postgrad degree or wanting to climb their way up the career ladder, many delay having children until later on. Some couples cite an unstable economy, lack of job certainty, or contract positions without insurance benefits as reasons to hold off on starting a family. You would probably never find the right time to have kids if you over-analyzed it though. And you do have to face the cold, hard fact that the ticking biological clock is more than just a myth.

Dealing With Your Emotions

If you’re part of the demographic of would-be older parents experiencing problems with a low egg supply, you might try IVF (In-Vitro Fertilization). But IVF doesn’t always work for every couple. If you’ve been told that your own eggs aren’t viable for whatever reason, it’s a tough pill to swallow.

For a woman to find out she’ll never be able to conceive using her own eggs is one of the biggest blows she’ll ever have to deal with in life. Before you can even begin to contemplate the idea of using donor eggs, you’ll need to go through a lengthy period of dealing with your emotions.

Many women feel grief over the children that they will never have. The may even feel rage, envy, anger, or depression. Worrying about whether using a donor egg will make the child feel less like your own is also common. If you are suffering from infertility, you’re not alone and you do have options available. But dealing with your emotions first is vital, and this means being open with your partner at all times. You may find professional help and counsel useful, or techniques like mindfulness, meditation, and yoga to process and deal with your feelings, and prepare your mind and body for the next step.

Using Donor Eggs

There have been enormous advances in the field of modern fertility, which mean that you can now safely and comfortably use a donor egg for procreation. While your child won’t share your DNA, you can decide to use your partner’s sperm and select a donor with similar physical traits to yourself. If you’re worried about the child not feeling like yours, don’t; the bond between mother and child begins in the womb.

You’ll be carrying your child for nine months, feeling him grow and kick and even hiccup inside of you. You’ll give birth to him and nurse him. This child would never exist if it weren’t for you, so you’ll never have to feel as if he isn’t yours.

Using donor eggs is far from a new concept. In fact, it’s been around for more than three decades now, although the traditional procedure is changing. Until fairly recently the process was carried out with fresh donor eggs, but now using frozen donor eggs is gaining in popularity.

Thanks to new thawing protocols and “flash freezing” techniques, the success rates of the procedure with frozen donor eggs are now becoming higher. Flash freezing minimizes the chances of ice crystals forming on the eggs and therefore prevents them from getting damaged.

Fresh or Frozen Donor Eggs?

There are a few differences between the two which will help you decide whether you’ll choose fresh or frozen donor eggs. The largest factor will probably be the cost, and the second largest is time. Which is ironic really, seeing as the people who have the most money generally have the least time.

You might be wondering, if success rates are higher using fresh donor eggs, then why would you consider using frozen donor eggs? Well, beyond the fact that frozen eggs are starting to achieve results similar to that of fresh donor eggs, here are a few things you need to know:

Fresh Donor Eggs

Frozen Donor Eggs
A cycle of fresh donor eggs usually runs at around $28,000, including agency fee, medication, and IVF. A cycle of frozen donor eggs is around half the price, at $12,000 to $14,000.
Donor and recipient’s menstrual cycles need to be synched up to receive the donor egg at the right time Any problems with cycle synchronization are removed, as it only depends on the recipient’s cycle.
Donor needs to be chosen locally, so that she can go into the clinic for treatment and transfer. There is a wider selection of donors to choose from due to removed time pressure and national donor bank of samples.
Higher success rates (85%) Lower success rate (65%)

You and your partner will need to decide which option is going to work better for you. Choosing fresh donor eggs may slightly increase your chances, however some frozen donor egg clinics are now offering money back guarantees, as well as financing plans to encourage couples to choose frozen donor eggs as their fertility option.

Conclusion

If you’re suffering from infertility and thinking about researching national egg donor programs, the good news is, you have a lot of options available to you. Whichever option you choose, you’ll need to visit your local fertility clinic with your partner and participate in a pre-screening process, to discuss your medical history and your expectations.

Choosing frozen donor eggs will give you more options, and you can select your donor online and decide according to the factors that are important to you (such as eye and hair color, ethnicity, and even education levels). All donors are extensively medically screened to rule out any infectious diseases or medical problems.

You don’t always have control over the way things happen in life or the hand you’re dealt, but thanks to the modern age that we live in, you and your partner don’t have to give up on your dream of starting a family.

Sources:

10 Natural Remedies for Mosquito Bites – Infographic

girl with mosquito bite, scratching hand has motion blur

Have you ever had a mosquito bite that turned into a big, itchy bump? You may be surprised by the number of natural remedies you have lying around your home that can help stop the itch so the bite goes away faster.

This is especially important for kids who don’t yet fully understand the importance of not scratching a mosquito bite. Don’t spend money on toxic creams. Use one of these solutions you probably already have in your kitchen.

how to stop mosquito bite itch

Infographic courtesy of Mosquito Magnet.

Related Reading:

How Eating at Home Can Save Your Life

(DrFrankLipman – Mark Hyman) The slow insidious displacement of home cooked and communally shared family meals by the industrial food system has fattened our nation and weakened our family ties.

In 1900, 2 percent of meals were eaten outside the home. In 2010, 50 percent were eaten away from home and one in five breakfasts is from McDonald’s. Most family meals happen about three times a week, last less than 20 minutes and are spent watching television or texting while each family member eats a different microwaved “food.” More meals are eaten in the minivan than the kitchen.

Research shows that children who have regular meals with their parents do better in every way, from better grades, to healthier relationships, to staying out of trouble. They are 42 percent less likely to drink, 50 percent less likely to smoke and 66 percent less like to smoke marijuana. Regular family dinners protect girls from bulimia, anorexia, and diet pills. Family dinners also reduce the incidence of childhood obesity. In a study on household routines and obesity in U.S. preschool-aged children, it was shown that kids as young as four have a lower risk of obesity if they eat regular family dinners, have enough sleep, and don’t watch TV on weekdays.

We complain of not having enough time to cook, but Americans spend more time watching cooking on the Food Network than actually preparing their own meals. In his series, “Food Revolution,” Jamie Oliver showed us how we have raised a generation of Americans who can’t recognize a single vegetable or fruit, and don’t know how to cook.

The family dinner has been hijacked by the food industry. The transformations of the American home and meal outlined above did not happen by accident. Broccoli, peaches, almonds, kidney beans and other whole foods don’t need a food ingredient label or bar code, but for some reason these foods — the foods we co-evolved with over millennia — had to be “improved” by Food Science. As a result, the processed-food industry and industrial agriculture has changed our diet, decade by decade, not by accident but by intention.

That we need nutritionists and doctors to teach us how to eat is a sad reflection of the state of society. These are things our grandparents knew without thinking twice about them. What foods to eat, how to prepare them, and an understanding of why you should share them in family and community have been embedded in cultural traditions since the dawn of human society.

One hundred years ago all we ate was local, organic food; grass-fed, real, whole food. There were no fast-food restaurants, there was no junk food, there was no frozen food — there was just what your mother or grandmother made. Most meals were eaten at home. In the modern age that tradition, that knowledge, is being lost.

The sustainability of our planet, our health, and our food supply are inextricably linked. The ecology of eating — the importance of what you put on your fork — has never been more critical to our survival as a nation or as a species. The earth will survive our self-destruction. But we may not.

Common sense and scientific research lead us to the conclusion that if we want healthy bodies we must put the right raw materials in them: real; whole, local; fresh; unadulterated; unprocessed; and chemical-, hormone- and antibiotic-free food. There is no role for foreign molecules such as trans fats and high-fructose corn syrup, or for industrially developed and processed food that interferes with our biology at every level.

That is why I believe the most important and the most powerful tool you have to change your health and the world is your fork. Imagine an experiment — let’s call it a celebration: We call upon the people of the world to join together and celebrate food for one week. For one week or even one day, we all eat breakfast and dinner at home with our families or friends. For one week we all eat only real, whole, fresh food. Imagine for a moment the power of the fork to change the world.

The extraordinary thing is that we have the ability to move large corporations and create social change by our collective choices. We can reclaim the family dinner, reviving and renewing it. Doing so will help us learn how to find and prepare real food quickly and simply, teach our children by example how to connect, build security, safety and social skills, meal after meal, day after day, year after year.

Here are some tips that will help you take back the family dinner in your home starting today

1. Reclaim Your Kitchen

Throw away any foods with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fats or sugar or fat as the first or second ingredient on the label. Fill your shelves with real fresh, whole, local foods when possible. And join a community support agriculture network to get a cheaper supply of fresh vegetables weekly or frequent farmers markets.

2. Reinstate the Family Dinner

Read Laurie David’s “The Family Dinner“. She suggests the following guidelines: Make a set dinnertime, no phones or texting during dinner, everyone eats the same meal, no television, only filtered or tap water, invite friends and family, everyone clean up together.

3. Eat Together

No matter how modest the meal, create a special place to sit down together, and set the table with care and respect. Savor the ritual of the table. Mealtime is a time for empathy and generosity, a time to nourish and communicate.

4. Learn How to Cook and Shop

You can make this a family activity, and it does not need to take a ton of time. Keep meals quick and simple.

5. Plant a Garden

This is the most nutritious, tastiest, environmentally friendly food you will ever eat.

6. Conserve, Compost and Recycle

Bring your own shopping bags to the market, recycle your paper, cans, bottles and plastic and start a compost bucket (and find where in your community you can share you goodies).

7. Invest in Food

As Alice Waters says, food is precious. We should treat it that way. Americans currently spend less than10 percent of their income on food, while most European’s spend about 20 percent of their income on food. We will be more nourished by good food than by more stuff. And we will save ourselves much money and costs over our lifetime.

Eating Healthy Meals as a Family Found to Reduce High-risk Behaviors in Children

(NaturalNews – Raw Michelle) Studies have shown that when children eat meals with other family members, especially healthy meals, they’re less likely to become involved in disordered eating, drug abuse or practice unsafe sex. (1)

Considering that up to 15 percent of youth in the United States suffer from depression and approximately 80 percent of 10-year-old girls have been on a diet, the findings offer hope for the future of children. (1,2)

One study from the University of Illinois found that, when a child ate meals with their family, they were 24 percent more likely to eat healthier foods and 35 percent less likely to engage in disordered eating. (1)

According to the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), about 10 million men and 20 million women in the United States have a clinically significant eating disorder. (2) Many of them range from bulimia and anorexia to ones not yet clinically classified, but which still involve extremely unhealthy behaviors.

Food quality just as important for children as eating together as a family

Experts suggest that, when eating together, where the focus is not on watching television or eating mindlessly alone, children are more apt to engage in conversation that reduces states of depression that are often linked to drug use and other unhealthy actions.

They also note that quality of food in addition to quality of conversation is important. Providing children with healthy foods is essential.

Dr. Felice Jacka of Deaken University led one of the studies that showed a link between higher-quality food and mental health improvements. She said, “In the U.S., as in the rest of the world, diet quality appears to be on the decline largely due to the availability of highly processed, high-fat, refined sugar foods.” (1)

Consumption of high-fat, sugary foods can, among other things, lead to obesity, which has been associated with premature puberty in girls who may reach that state as young as 10.5 years of age. (3) Girls who reach puberty so young are more likely to develop uterine and breast cancer later in life as well as face unwanted sexual advances, since they are often mistaken as older. (3)

Healthy food tips

Eating healthy foods, ideally with family members, can therefore help keep the childhood obesity epidemic at bay and, in turn, pave the way for the youth of America to live long, healthy lives.

Healthy foods include fresh, whole and organic nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits.

When making recipes for children, it’s also helpful to be creative, trying meals that involve healthy food substitutes, such as swapping out traditional items when making a muffin and using zucchini as a main ingredient. Experts at the family-oriented publication Parents suggest this idea, as well as incorporating plenty of healthy frozen treats, fruits and vegetables like sweet potato “chips” in a child’s diet. (4)

Sources for this article include:
(1) http://news.therawfoodworld.com
(2) http://s.naturalnews.com
(3) http://s.naturalnews.com
(4) http://www.parents.com
http://science.naturalnews.com

Top Children’s Vitamin Brand Chock-full of GMOs, Aspartame and Other Deadly Ingredients

(NaturalNews – Ethan A. Huff) Do you know all the ingredients contained in the multivitamin you feed to your children? Thousands of American parents apparently do not, as one of the top selling multivitamins for children, Flintstones Vitamins, is loaded with genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), aspartame, aluminum, petroleum-derived artificial colors, and all sorts of other toxic additives that are literally poisonous to humans, and especially to children.

One would assume that because it is a “multivitamin,” and one marketed specifically to children, that it contains only nutritious ingredients in the most appropriate doses and nothing more. To the contrary, the Flintstones Vitamins brand, which is manufactured by global drug giant Bayer, contains a host of synthetic additives that are actually banned in many countries due to their toxicity not only in humans but also in the environment.

A quick look at the Flintstones Complete Chewables page, for instance, reveals a laundry list of additives that serve absolutely no nutritional purpose whatsoever. Refined sugars, sorbitol, ferrous fumarate, hydrogenated soybean oil, GM corn starch, and artificial, aluminum-based food colorings top the list of questionable additives in this particular children’s multivitamin. Also included in the mix is a host of synthetic compounds labeled as vitamins, all of which have minimal bioavailability.

“Bayer’s Flintstones vitamin brand is far from a natural product, and the consumer should be aware of the unintended, adverse health effects that may occur as a result of using it,” writes Sayer Ji on his health site GreenMedInfo.com about the issue. “It is important to hold accountable brands that refuse to label their products honestly, especially when they contain ingredients that have been produced through genetic modification.”

You can view the full ingredients list for Flintstones Complete Chewables here:
http://www.flintstonesvitamins.com

The rest of the Flintstones vitamin line is not much better. Flintstones Complete Gummies, which are labeled on the company’s site as having a “new formula,” contain many of the same toxic additives. Artificial flavors, coal tar-based artificial coloring agents, and synthetic isolated vitamin compounds are all present in this particular vitamin formula as well.

Many of the ‘vitamins’ used in Flintstones are considered hazardous substances in Europe

Interestingly, many of the ingredients promoted in Flintstones vitamins as helping children get their daily intake of nutrients are actually listed as hazardous or outright banned in places like the European Union (EU), where additive safety is taken more seriously. Cupric oxide, for instance, which is listed as a supposedly nutritional source of copper in Flintstones vitamins, is actually classified as a “hazardous substance” in the EU’s Dangerous Substance Directive.

Similarly, zinc oxide, which is often added to conventional sunscreen products, is listed as a substance that is “dangerous for the environment.” Not only is zinc oxide a poor choice for a zinc supplement as the human body can hardly recognize or use it, but the EU Dangerous Substance Directive considers the substance to be an environmental hazard – how, then, can it be considered healthy for children to ingest?

Then there is the issue of the extreme neurotoxicity of aspartame, which has no place in the human food supply, let alone in children’s multivitamins. And the same goes for artificial colors, which have been shown in scientific studies to trigger attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and various other behavioral disorders in children – why add these to vitamins in the first place?

Parents looking for an alternative to mainstream vitamins like Flintstones may want to take a look at whole food-based vitamin supplement brands like MegaFood, Garden of Life, and Pure Synergy. These brands use vitamins and nutrients derived from whole foods rather than laboratory concoctions, which means the body can assimilate them more effectively.

To learn more about the differences between whole food-based and synthetic vitamins, visit:
http://.healthkismet.com/whole-food-synthetic-vitamins

Sources for this article include:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://.healthkismet.com/whole-food-synthetic-vitamins