Pregnancy diary 5.0: Is rickets a threat to expectant mothers in England?

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Pregnancy diary 5.0: Is rickets a threat to expectant mothers in England?
Pregnancy diary 5.0: Is rickets a threat to expectant mothers in England?
Anonim

17. week

+ 4 kg

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My NHS check-ups, which I still go to with my private doctor, are scheduled as follows: if there are no abnormalities, complaints or cause for concern, I see someone every 4 weeks from the first 12-week check-up to the 32-week check-up, and then every 2 weeks until delivery. At the moment I have to go to the GP or the NHS midwife every 4 weeks. That is, both see each other every 8 weeks. During the apparitions, there is a urine test and blood pressure measurement, interspersed with a thorough questioning. In addition, the midwife listens to the fetus's heartbeat, palpates my uterus, and will later measure its size.

There is no vaginal examination, ultrasound, or weighing, my weight was assumed to be reported during the very first visit, and they have not de alt with it since. However, I had a very thorough blood test a few weeks ago, they took 6 tubes of blood from me. Everything I've ever heard of can be seen in blood, from HIV to genetic disorders that only affect people of African descent, they've seen it all. When I had to go to the GP this week, he went through the 12 pages of printed results with me and we discussed them line by line. Fortunately, everything was in perfect order with the values, and everything was found to be ideal, with two spectacular exceptions. But these came so unexpectedly that I could hardly believe my ears. It turned out that not only is the amount of reserve iron in my body a little low, but I also suffer from a lack of vitamin D.

Do I have a vitamin deficiency? For me, who diligently takes pregnancy vitamin pills every day and is so careful about what she eats that she gets scared when she remembers at four in the afternoon that she hasn't eaten enough animal protein and fresh vegetables that day? I stared at the numbers on the find circled with a red felt-tip pen, like a small child with a brilliant student who looks in disbelief at the first double bottom of his life in his checker. I've never had any vitamin deficiency and I've only heard of anemia. From the doctor, who looked suspiciously at my snow-white face, I received a prescription for iron and vitamin D, as well as a kind warning that the lack of vitamin D could have serious consequences for me and the development of the fetus. He told me that in addition to taking the pills, I should try to spend as much time in the open air as possible, so that the little that can be seen from under my winter coat and hat can be exposed to the sun, and that I should eat as much meat and leafy vegetables as possible for iron supplementation.

I bought the berries in the pharmacy next to the doctor's office and did what any other mother-in-law would have done in 2010, I ran home to google. Under the dark gray sky. Because of course there is no sun anywhere in London at this time. As I read more and more about vitamin D and its deficiency diseases, the surprises came one after the other. I would like to think that I know a lot about vitamins, but I have to admit that the importance of vitamin D somehow did not dawn on me until now. However, it is a vital vitamin, which is not just a vitamin, but a family of vitamins covered by a collective name, with the same biological effect, but chemically different compounds.

The most well-known deficiency disease is rickets (which the English do not call rickets, of course, but "rickets"), the softening of the bones, which is especially common among the poor of Europe in the 20th century. until the beginning of the century, it was common in cases of severe vitamin D deficiency. But in the last couple of decades, it has also been proven that low levels of vitamin D in the body increase the risk of almost all diseases, including cancer, heart and circulatory diseases, high blood pressure, stroke, osteoporosis, and infertility, among others. Pregnant women should be especially careful, because low vitamin D levels during pregnancy not only have a lifelong negative effect on the development of the bones of the fetus, but also increase the chance that the child will later develop diabetes (diabetes number 1), but increases the chance of vaginal infection during pregnancy and the occurrence of caesarean section. Nevertheless, especially during the winter months, nearly half of Europeans do not get enough vitamin D, and this is most severe in Northern Europe. After all, the most important source of this material is natural sunlight, which does not reach our skin due to the shortened days and the winter clothes that cover our bodies. Very few foods contain enough vitamin D, including so-called oily fish such as herring, salmon and tuna. In the past, cod liver oil was given to children in places where fish consumption and sufficient sunlight were not available. Today, cod liver oil is no longer fashionable, and partly due to this and partly to the fact that children spend less and less time in the open air and more and more in front of screens, rickets has reappeared in the Archipelago. Well, after reading all of this, I managed to get really drunk.

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Although 10-15 minutes of sunlight a day on my face and arms would be enough to completely eliminate my vitamin deficiency, it is almost unattainable for me now. I haven't seen the sun in weeks, and it'll probably be a good few months before I can walk around in mittens. As I learned the other day, window glass unfortunately filters out ultraviolet rays, which would cause vitamin D to be produced. The freshly-prescribed berries, my pregnancy vitamin, and the one or two moments I can catch from the sun's rays every few days, when I happen to be outside, when the clouds graciously leave a pinduri gap between them, remain like this. But how could this happen to me when I have been taking an excellent prenatal vitamin non-stop for over a year? One that supposedly has everything baby and mom need. The list on the box says vitamin D and "100 percent of the recommended daily dose". So what's wrong?

Medicines and vitamins are matters of trust for many of us, and like many other expectant mothers living abroad, I bring my prenatal vitamin from abroad, something I trust. It would be interesting to examine how it is that Hungarian expectant mothers living in England bring their visitors Béres Gravida, Elevit and the child's antipyretic suppository from the Nagykörút pharmacy, while foreign expectant mothers living in Hungary send their "home" ones by post. from the United Kingdom or from their other country. I know this for sure because I have been on both sides of the transport between the borders. I send my vitamin from the USA because I found "the real thing" there. This product does not cause me nausea or tightness (these are the main sins of prenatal vitamins), but it makes me bloom, my hair and skin will be very good, even when the pregnancy hormones do not have their blessed effect on the epidermis, because they do not i am pregnant Bringing vitamins from abroad is obviously a lot of ado about nothing, but a lot of people do it. I crush 3 gigantic tablets of it a day, because that's the dose, and until now I firmly believed that it was enough. But now I know it's not.

The solution to the mystery was provided by an article by "Irish scientists" published in Belfast last fall. The research team noticed that expectant mothers living in the northern part of Europe, who get little sunlight in winter, cannot cover their increased need for vitamin D due to pregnancy, even if they regularly take any brand of multivitamin recommended for pregnant women. Despite the multivitamins and the relatively high consumption of fish here, the vitamin D content of their blood is still not high enough during pregnancy. And that was my eureka moment. I was able to exonerate my pregnancy vitamin from the charge of incompetence.

Since the beginning of the week, I have been diligently grabbing the ugly berries, now I have five a day: three from the contraceptive, one from the iron and one from the vitamin D. I am waiting for the sun to come out from behind the clouds, although the 5 day forecast calls for 5 days of rain and continuous cloud cover. In addition, I try to eat more foods with a high iron content: beef, poultry, eggs, nuts, spinach, beans. So far I am not anemic, but in case of a caesarean section, according to the doctor, it is very important to have spare iron in my body. I hope I have done everything I can to ensure proper vitamin and mineral levels. Because if not, I'm not sure I'd be happy with more colorful, smelly berries. If that's not enough, I think I'll take myself on vacation somewhere sunny. I won't have a better excuse in life anyway.

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