For the Week Ending December 5, 2021.
COVID-19 Vaccines International Pregnancy Exposure Registry (C-VIPER)
More than 8,000 pregnant vaccinated women are already participating in our survey.
Help us understand the impact of COVID-19 vaccines on pregnancy and babies. Be a part of it!
Click here to Register.
Better, if not breast, milk
Most baby formula is based on cow’s milk. It has been tweaked to make it more similar to breast milk, especially by the recent addition of two distinctive sugars aptly called human milk oligosaccharides and an antimicrobial protein called lactoferrin. But there is still a long way to go. Read more here.
This is important for you because researchers don’t even know why all of the different components of breast milk are there, and what they’re doing. Scientists are working to make enough of them to study.
Baby otter
This winner of the “Creatures Under the Sea” category of this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards will have you wishing you could pick your pup up this way. See it here.
This is important for you because it’s a baby otter.
Free tampons (in Ann Arbor)
Ann Arbor, Michigan, is the first city in the Union to mandate that menstrual products be provided for free in all public bathrooms. These products are essential. Most states still tax these products, so this is a huge leap forward. Read more here.
This is important for you because it may be hard to believe it now, but your period will return one day.
To pacify or not to pacify?
Pacifiers definitely work at pacifying babies; but they have been associated with some negative effects, like discouraging breastfeeding, impairing language development, increasing the risk of ear infections, and impacting dental structures. These associations do not really hold up, though, when the data supporting them is scrutinized (except possibly on teeth). Read more here.
This is important for you because if you want to use a pacifier: go for it. And if not, that’s fine too.
The most popular article on The Pulse this week was How Your Body Changes in Pregnancy: The Digestive System. Read it here.
