Pregnancy, Labor, and Delivery

So after watching a "wonderful" video about the magic of conception, pregnancy, and birth, I have come to discuss some of the anatomical changes in the body throughout pregnancy. First a bit of review. The male and female contain the sperm and the egg which each hold half of the chromosomes to make a human.  Once intercourse occurs the sperm mightily swim toward the egg breaking through tons of obstacles to get there. Once the sperm fertilizes the egg the DNA combines and creates cells that divide exponentially into a fetus which then is born as a baby.  The mother during this process goes under dramatic hormone and anatomical changes.  Creating a new human isn't always easy and many complications can come throughout the process.

Some obvious changes we see in the mother is no doubt, the growing belly... Others include weight gain, mood swings, cravings, and morning sickness.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/travel/10667685/
Travel-cover-shock-for-pregnant-women.html

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/3-tips-pulverize-cravings.htm

Now if we dive a little deeper than the anatomical changes, we run into the physiological changes. The first one we see is a hormone change. Progesterone and estrogen increase dramatically for the purpose of stopping menstruation. We also see a change in the cardiovascular symptoms. Plasma volumes must increase and blood flow rates must also increase to accommodate to the growing fetus. The forming of the placenta and umbilical cord occurs within the uterus to nourish and protect the fetus. During and after birth, breast size increases due to hormonal changes and also to prepare for lactation so the child may be fed.

From Visible Health Solutions

 http://www.visibleproductions.com/index.php?page=asset_detail&asset_id=vpl_0499_001

From the video above we even see changes in the skeletal system during pregnancy. 

When nine months wraps around, pregnant women begin to experience contractions. These contractions may happen very far apart from each other when they first begin but they soon become more rhythmic as birth approaches. These contractions are the tightening of the abdominal muscles to eventually push the baby out of the womb and into the world. 

Complications from pregnancy include breech birth, premature birth, and various birth defects. Breech birth occurs when the baby doesn't get the memo that it needs to turn around before it is born. Premature birth has a number of causes. The main cause is when the body secretes hormones causing the process of labor to begin earlier than it should. The baby may not be fully developed if it is premature and can experience other complications. Other birth defects can also occur. An example is down syndrome. Many factors such as alcohol consumption and smoking during pregnancy can increase the risk of birth defects. Here is a list containing specific birth defects and their risk factors. From CDC website.  http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/data.html

Birth Defects*	Cases per Births	Estimated Annual Number of Cases
Adjusted for maternal race/ethnicity**
Central nervous system defects
Anencephaly	1 in 4,859	859
Spina bifida without anencephaly	1 in 2,858	1,460
Encephalocele	1 in 12,235	341
Eye defects
Anophthalmia/microphthalmia	1 in 5,349	780
Cardiovascular defects
Common truncus	1 in 13,876	301
Transposition of great arteries	1 in 3,333	1,252
Tetralogy of Fallot	1 in 2,518	1,657
Atrioventricular septal defect	1 in 2,122	1,966
Hypoplastic left heart syndrome	1 in 4,344	960
Orofacial defects
Cleft palate without cleft lip	1 in 1,574	2,651
Cleft lip with or without cleft palate	1 in 940	4,437
Gastrointestinal defects
Esophageal atresia/tracheoesophageal fistula	1 in 4,608	905
Rectal and large intestinal atresia/stenosis	1 in 2,138	1,952
Musculoskeletal defects
Reduction deformity, upper limbs	1 in 2,869	1,454
Reduction deformity, lower limbs	1 in 5,949	701
Gastroschisis	1 in 2,229	1,871
Omphalocele	1 in 5,386	775
Diaphragmatic hernia	1 in 3,836	1,088
Adjusted for maternal age**
Chromosomal anomalies
Trisomy 13	1 in 7,906	528
Trisomy 21 (Down syndrome)	1 in 691	6,037
Trisomy 18	1 in 3,762	1,109

Weekly Three Questions

What tasks have you completed recently?

Well I've managed to stay organized and keep up with my homework in all my classes while I was up in Albuquerque for the state tennis tournament. I completed my glog. And well not much other stuff at all.

What have you learned recently?

Well I haven't been at school for three days so not much at all. I learned that overpriced ice cream is not worth it.  And, well, nothing else. Sorry this is a pretty suckish week for three questions. 

What are you planning on doing next?

Well I hope the girls tennis team takes the state championship tomorrow. I plan to come home and do more homework and email my english teacher because he didn't really give me make up work ahead of time sooooooo.  ANYWAYS. ok bye have a nice weekend. Unless you are grading this on monday. AWWWWWWWW i just forgot today was the seniors last day and I didn't get to say bye to them...... SENIORS I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN AND SAY BYE.

Literacy Glog: The Demon in the Freezer

The Senses: Hearing PowToon

My PowToon video all about hearing is up on youtube! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHlU_vbNCFw&rel=0t

sTrEsSeD oUt

So you see finals week is coming up and for some reason I go into crazy psycho Jacob mode. I am so stressed out I am using every second I breathe for studying or keeping up with the stuff I have to do that week.  That is what I view as short-term stress. If you want the textbook definition of short-term stress go here. Just a quick comment on that website I totally agree with what it talks about. I think some stress is good.  Stress for me is a motivation to do better, and to be more efficient. Yeah I know stress is awful but I usually perform better under a slight amount of pressure. Also it helps to be stressed out and push harder so you can get to the light at the end of the tunnel. But you have to find a balance. Too much stress is not a good thing.

So when we talk about long-term stress we are obviously talking about something a bit bigger than finals week.  So then I start to look at the big picture of things. My academic pressure is really stressful. I constantly have to work hard to meet my goal of staying Valedictorian throughout high school and I have to make sure I am studying for the ACT and SAT to make sure I get into a good Universities. The little individual stresses I have in my classes and extracurriculars all pile into one category of long term stress of meeting some long term goals.

I find that I stress out a lot. However, I don't think it is an entirely bad thing. I think it is part of my type-A personality. I regret my stress at the moment but when I look back at it, I am really appreciative that I powered through because it all paid off in the end. I know in finals week I'll be saying things like: "WHY AM I EVEN HERE. I DON'T EVEN LIKE SCHOOL OR PEOPLE OR TEST. LIFE SUCKS. CAN I GO HOME TILL NEXT YEAR? ANYONE HAVE A PAUSE BUTTON I CAN HIT FOR A FEW MONTHS?" And I am not denying this but if you see me saying these things just remind me I'm dumb, and I'll be ok and that it will all pay off in the end.

So in terms of stress reduction? I like to get my mind off of school for a while.  I play tennis which is fun. I like to go running and walking with my dog in the evenings. It means I have to stay up a little later but it's nice to relax for a little bit. I know this sounds weird, but blogging about this is actually making me feel better. I feel like I'm venting to my Anatomy peers and such and It's actually making me feel a little less stressed.  Another thing I think is a good stress reliever is friend support.  Having someone you can talk to and laugh with makes it a ton easier.

Okay, so I have a goal. During finals week in order to remain calm, I decided I am going to do things one day at a time. I found that that has worked in the past. When I have a busy week instead of looking at it as one messy schedule filled week, I chunk it into days and say "If I can just make it through today ok, then I can do tomorrow." and it works. So I am going to try that. As for long term stress I'm not sure what I want to do about that or even if  I want to do anything about it.  We'll check back in soon and get all updated and stuff on my stress reduction strategy.

Weekly Three Questions

What have you completed recently?

Well I had a tennis match on saturday against Onate.  No one on the team lost any games which is awesome because Onate totally got schooled. I actually made little flyers and attached candy to them to hand out tomorrow for my re-election campaign. Voting day is on Tuesday so if for some reason a freshmen finds this page (which i doubt my blog is pretty lame) Vote for me!! Oh I also procrastinated all weekend and built a really cool metropolis on simcity. In terms of doing anything before the weekend I went to large group for symphony and we got a one superior rating (which is the best you can get besides a one plus). And we had this guest clinician come in to help us in band before our large group which is this Thursday.

What have you learned recently?

I don't even remember. Well maybe let me try. We learned about rational expressions in algebra 2. In english we just talked about the Scarlet Letter and took some quizzes. I learned a lot of new vocabulary. Mostly because I forgot how much I like reading so I've been reading a ton lately. I am almost done with my book for anatomy and that has some pretty non-vernacular uses of language.

What do you plan on doing next?

I plan on winning the election and becoming the Sophomore Class President for next year. I also plan on doing well at large group. Um the district tournament is next weekend. I really want to do well. Oh! Section Leader tryouts for band are this week and next week so I really want to do well in my tryout and interview.

The Nervous System

"From an engineering standpoint, this is the greatest challenge one can imagine: trying to restore the most incredible machine in the universe." -Todd Kuiken

So in case you haven't figured it out yet "the most incredible machine in the universe" is the brain and nervous system. The most fascinating yet most unknown machines of all. Our brain powers our body and can remeber incredible things with breathtaking precision. Speaking of breathing, our brain controls that too. It is absolutely amazing.  I think what Todd Kuiken was trying to say that the nervous system is so complex and fragile and everything has to be in the correct place for it to work properly. It is so complex that if an engineer where to tackle the daunting task of restoring it, or perhaps, creating it, it would be one of the biggest challenges in all of history. This quote was an analogy to put in perspective the utter magnificence of the human nervous system. 

Now if you really think about it, the brain is really "the most incredible machine in the universe."  Lets take for example the lab we did in class today. It was to test reaction time by having one person drop a meter stick while the other person catches it with their fingers. Well how did you catch it? Well you had a visual input of the meterstick dropping. This signal was sent to the brain. Then your brain processes the picture of it dropping and has to decide what to do. It needs to catch it. So your brain then sends a response to your hand to tell it to catch the falling meterstick. Now keep in mind this all happens in the matter of a few milliseconds. Isn't it crazy how your brain did that. Now think about this, you were probably imagining this happening in your head or recalling the memory of you doing it. AND you were also reading and comprehending this text while breathing, blinking, and your heart beating. Thats a lot of multitasking if you ask me. If you find a machine that can do all of that you let me know.

So after watching Todd Kuiken's TED Talk, his work is so awe-inspiring. He is helping people with prosthetic limbs use them on a level that is close to that of a real limbs function. The best part is, they don't have to touch buttons or move them manually, it is like they never lost their arm, they literally do exactly what you would do to move your arm. When you clench your hand your brain sends nerve signals to do that. So does hers. This new ingenious idea where you would transfer the arm nerves to the pectoral muscles and let them grow as regular arm nerves and use them to create these actions. The pectoral muscle now contracts in weird ways that the prosthetic detects as a certain type of movement that in turn makes the prosthetic complete a task. They are emerging on an even bigger idea to embellish the already amazing prosthetic. They are trying to not just send signals to the prosthetic, but for the prosthetic to produce feedback to the brain so we can feel hot and cold, sharp and dull, or smooth and bumpy.  They have a base for it. It requires stimulation to the pectoral area that corresponds to a certain part of the arm or hand. It also requires being connected to many electrodes that are still on a computer in the alpha stage. But pretty soon if they continue advancing through the technology, we may see a prosthetic arm that you couldn't tell apart from a real arm at all in the future. 

So the question you may be wondering is how is this important to the nervous system. Well the nervous system is our body's way of interacting within itself and with the outside world. This new technology harnesses the power of the nervous system and uses it to its advantage by allowing prosthetics to respond to messages from the brain like a regular arm. The nervous system that is very complex and nearly impossible to understand has been "tapped into" by prosthetics. The intricately complicated system of the brain and body relationship is being learned about and applied to modern medicine to benefit humanity.