Water pills, medically known as diuretics, have many legitimate uses, but can cause dehydration and irregular heartbeats if you take them in excess. Abusing diuretics as a weight-control method is not only risky but ineffective, since water weight will re-accumulate when you stop taking the pills.
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A person who drinks two bottles of wine every day classifies as an alcoholic, defined as a person who can’t control his drinking. As many as 2 million Americans may undergo detoxification from alcohol abuse at home each year without medical supervision, Max Bayard, M.D.
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Infant males often have swollen testicles. Testicular swelling present at birth may be related to the birth process and vanishes within a few days.
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Birth is a stressful event for a newborn. Newborns must make many physiologic adaptations immediately after birth, and any number of things can occur at that time. The circulatory system changes, a new oxygen source must be utilized, and the newborn must learn to coordinate sucking and swallowing to obtain nutrition.
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Full-term babies normally come out of the womb ready to breathe on their own, but the way your baby breathes might alarm you at times. Newborns normally breathe faster than older children and adults do. They might also have more irregular breathing patterns.
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It’s not possible to have three actual menstrual periods in 1 month and still have signs of being pregnant. It’s possible, however, to have three bleeding episodes that look like periods in 1 month and still be pregnant.
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When you are 14 weeks pregnant, you have just completed your first trimester. While more miscarriages occur in the first trimester than at any other time, pregnancy complications can still develop after this time.
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During the first month of pregnancy, your baby-to-be grows at a rapid rate. But he's only about 1/5 of an inch long 4 weeks after conception, still not large enough to account for any weight gain by himself. Most women gain very little weight related to pregnancy itself during the first month.
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One of 60 pregnancies is ectopic, or growing outside of the uterus. Vaginal bleeding is common in early pregnancy, occurring in 20 percent to 30 percent of all pregnancies, the American Pregnancy Association says. Vaginal bleeding in ectopic pregnancy can be heavier than bleeding seen in intrauterine pregnancies.
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Scar tissue, also known as adhesions, can cause pregnancy complications when it forms in, on or around the uterus or fallopian tubes. Adhesions form as the result of trauma, such as surgery or infection.
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Many pregnant women have wished for a window into the uterus, to reassure themselves that their baby-to-be is healthy. Ultrasound provides such a window and there are several signs of a healthy pregnancy that appear in the first seven weeks of pregnancy on ultrasound.
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Although many people tell children, “There’s a baby in my stomach," when they’re pregnant, they know the baby is actually growing in the uterus, the female reproductive organ.
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Many newly pregnant women wonder, “Is it twins?” Although twin pregnancies are more easily identified later in pregnancy, even at the time of the first missed period, or 4 weeks of pregnancy, there may be clues that more than one baby is on the way. Some signs are definitive, but others are only suggestive.
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Many pregnancies end in miscarriage before a women even knows she’s pregnant. A full-term pregnancy is measured as 40 weeks, starting with the first day of the last menstrual period. At five weeks of pregnancy, a woman is one week past her first missed period.
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Pregnancy is not a medical emergency, in most cases. Outside of well-established labor, times when a pregnant woman must go to the hospital rather than calling her obstetrician are rare. However, medical emergencies do occur in pregnancy, and when they do, time is of the essence.
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The uterine lining is the site of embryo implantation, so a healthy lining is essential for pregnancy. The uterine lining is shed each month as menstrual flow, which is blood mixed with tissue and cellular debris.
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The first trimester, or three months, of pregnancy, can present many risks to the developing fetus. Because organs, facial features, skeletal tissue and limbs are developing at this time, any negative affect on the fetus can result in serious birth defects.
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Being overweight affects your chances of getting pregnant. A study reported by Barbara Luke of Michigan State University looked at pregnancy rates in 50,000 women undergoing assisted reproductive technology procedures.
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It’s quite possible to get pregnant without a man, but it’s not possible to get pregnant without sperm. If you can find a source of sperm, you don’t need the man who produced it in order to get pregnant.
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A number of hormones affect the reproductive tract. Getting pregnant requires that the delicate balance of hormones is intact; any disturbance in the hormone balance can result in menstrual difficulties that prevent pregnancy.
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