News Tidbits: School Lunches, Pregnancy, and Insulin Pumps

There’s not a lot new happening on the pregnancy front with me this week. My hips still hurt, my appetite is still out of control, and my belly is still growing.

Instead of posting more of the same, I thought I would share some interesting news tidbits I’ve gathered off the Web lately.

Here they are, in no particular order.

There are a lot of people getting into the School Lunch act. In particular, these two blogs seem particularly noteworthy.

Fed Up With School Lunch: The School Lunch Project, http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/

Mrs. Q is a teacher in Illinois who is eating the school lunch everyday and reporting on her experiences. Needless to say, the experiences are rarely positive. It looks like she’s getting a fair amount of traffic over on her blog, and she has recently lined up some impressive guest bloggers including other teachers from all over the world (including an American who teaches in Japan,) fed up parents, a Food Service Director, and a student journalist who plans to fill us in on the goings-on in the world of school lunches. Pretty neat stuff!

School Lunch Found Guilty, http://schoollunchfoundguilty.wordpress.com/
This blog is manned by a 6th grade class in Queens, NY. They are documenting their daily school lunch, along with their impressions of it, in the hope of making improvements. As you might suspect, they tend to turn their noses up at the overcoked vegetables and the cold lasagna, but they are surprisingly receptive to the fresh fruit. Here’s hoping their blog garners some publicity, and even more important, some improvements in their school lunches!

In Pregnancy news, IBTHealth is reporting that pregnancy does not make you forgetful . Apparently a group of researchers in Australia recently found that the cognitive abilities of pregnant women were no different than those of non-pregnant women. I would call to tell them how wrong they are … if I could just find my phone!

This article in the San Francisco chronicle warns of the risk of Listeria in pregnancy. Apparently the risks are higher than ever thanks to our “ineffective food safety system.” There is currently no requirement that food producers test for harmful bacteria. The House of Representatives passed legistlation to close this loophole last summer, but the Senate has STILL not voted on it. The article goes on to say that while most people, including pregnant women, are immune to Listeria, fetuses are not. Miscarriage or stillbirth is the unfortunate result. I am thinking twice about my cold cut sandwiches now.

On the Diabetes front, you might have already heard that Medtronic MiniMed just got FDA approval for their new Paradigm Revel. I saw the news first over at Diabetes Mine. The Revel is a combination insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) that includes new and improved features including mulitple alert settings for the CGM, improved screen navigation, and more precise dosing. Nevertheless, it still does not include the autmatic-suspend feature that their Veo system has. Unfortunately, the Veo is only available in Eurpoe. Seems kind of ironic given the perception in the US that countries with socialized health insurance  systems prevent such innovative technologies from entering their markets …

Pregnancy Brain

The book warned me about pregnancy brain. It mentioned that I might forget a few things here and there or become a little distracted. I was not too concerned, though — I’m not one to forget details and I’m in the habit of writing things down when they seem like something I might forget.

But the forgetfulness is in full force now, and I am shocked by how strong it is. First it was names. Suddenly, I could not recall the names of people I’ve known for years, especially at work. Then it was words. It’s like someone removed the vocabulary center in my brain. I would be mid-sentence and the word I needed would just escape me. Poof! Gone.

Then it was my cell phone. I keep leaving it behind … in the car, in the kitchen, next to the bed. It seems that these days, wherever I am, my phone is definitely not.

And when I put things away, I can’t remember where I put them. Two nights ago I spent a half hour looking for a new bottle of ketone strips. They were in the first place I looked, but it took me three attempts before I actually saw them there!

And I fear that it might be getting worse. Sometimes I am in a meeting and I will start into an important thought and then it will just escape me. The whole thought. And when I am working on something and then get interrupted, when I get back to the original project, I find myself scouring my brain for a hint as to what I was working on. But the hints are not there. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times in the last 22 weeks I have gone to the grocery store and come home with only half of the items I needed. Even when I used a list! My husband has started to ask me if I have my meter every time we leave the house because I have developed a tendency to leave it sitting by the back door.

The book says that this brain drain is totally normal and that it will go away after the pregnancy. Apparently it is those pesky hormones up to no good again. In fact, according to their Website, brain-cell volume actually decreases during the third trimester. I hope they are right about my memory returning after the pregnancy. I am a Technical Writer by trade. I need my vocabulary and my detail-rich memory in order to do my job!

Babycenter.com is not so sure about pregnancy brain, though. They say that the results of recent studies conflict with one another, leading to inconclusive evidence.

I’m not sure about the studies or the hormones, but I can definitely attest to the “fog” that has crept into my brain.

Now if I could just find the “Publish” button …

Resources
Forgetfulness (Pregnancy Brain) on http://www.whattoexpect.com, http://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/symptoms-and-solutions/forgetfulness.aspx
Forgetfulness during pregnancy on http://www.babycenter.com, http://www.babycenter.com/0_forgetfulness-during-pregnancy_236.bc
Absentmindedness and Pregnancy on ahealthyme.com http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/absentmindedness