cabulous rhymes with "fabulous"

Risks of dying one’s hair while pregnant

Looking through my drafts and found this—no idea why I hadn’t published it, as it seemed to be pretty much done.  Maybe I did publish it and Tumblr hiccuped?  Anyway, here it is.

—-

I researched this, because I dye my hair all the time.  The dye itself is semi-permanent color, but I have to bleach first in order for it to take well.  This shade of pink doesn’t happen by itself. :P

Basically, the risk associated with maternal hair-dying, if it exists, is not for pregnancy loss but for an elevated risk of certain childhood cancers.  Since the 1980s, numerous studies have been done; some of them found a correlation and many did not (and keep in mind that studies that do not find a correlation are less likely to be published, and therefore are probably underrepresented).

The most recent study I can find, “Maternal Hair Dye Use and Risk of Neuroblastoma in Offspring,” published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control in 2005, found a correlation between maternal hair dying and the most common of childhood cancers, neuroblastoma.  Specifically, they found that a child with neuroblastoma was about 1.6x as likely to have a mother who had dyed her hair during pregnancy or in the month preceding it.

Personally, I don’t find it terribly convincing, because their response rates were low and like most studies of substance use effects in pregnancy, it’s entirely dependent on retrospective accounts.  Such accounts are heavily biased toward finding an effect, because people whose children developed some kind of problem are likely to have racked their brains about what they might have done during pregnancy that could possibly have caused it, whereas people whose children did not develop a problem are likely to have gotten much fuzzier about what they did or didn’t do.  Reports on frequency especially are likely to be suspect.

Another odd aspect of this study is that they found a greater effect for temporary hair dye than for permanent dye, despite the fact that permanent dye is typically made up of nastier chemicals—this might be explained by more frequent exposure or less use of professional assistance/ventilation for temporary dye use.

This study acknowledges another study from 2002 that found no association between maternal hair-dying and childhood cancer (“West Coast study of childhood brain tumours and maternal use of hair-colouring products” published in the journal Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology).  Response rates for this study, as well as sample sizes (around 600-800 cases in the case group and the control group), were almost identical to the 2005 study that did find an effect.

As noted, studies of this type in particular and published studies in general are biased toward finding an effect.  Given the fact that the literature overall is actually, if anything, skewed towards the “no effect” side, I personally did not change my hair-dying behavior. [Note: In fact, I had just had it redyed like three weeks or so before AJ was born… those hospital linens got stained pretty pink.]  It’s all about your own evaluation of the risks involved.

One thing you can do to minimize risk if you do want to dye your hair is to book appointments for the first available slot of the day, so that you don’t get exposed to any chemicals other than your own—the one thing that definitely IS bad for pregnant people is hanging out in a chemical-saturated environment on a regular basis, which is why working in a salon dying lots of people’s hair is definitely NOT recommended.

@jojothehappyhobo

jojothehappyhobo said:

Thank you. I hope it cheers you up knowing that that your blog eased my mind when I was overwhelmed. Later talked to doctors & got a book, but hearing about your big things & little things prepared me for my big & little things in a different way.

Ugh, new Tumblr won’t even let me copy & paste your first part!  (Does anyone know a work-around for that?)

But yes, it makes me feel really good to know that my blog was helpful for you.  Teaching women’s health this year has made me feel really good just in terms of helping people learn to be active patients, but in general when I’m sharing experiences of pregnancy and birth with them, they’re still a ways off from actually having those experiences.  So I’m glad that I could provide a kind of “experience scouting” for you. :-)

guardianbeast:

cabulous rhymes with “fabulous”: One down… (content warning: discussion of SSRIs, mental & physical health issues)

cabell:

So, Zoloft gave me hideous jaw tension (one of the few remaining parts of my body where I usually DON’T carry tension), low-level nausea, constant somnolence, and difficulty attaining orgasm (although, ironically, did not seem to make me less INTERESTED in sex). It was possibly making my migraines…

I’ve actually been on Paxil without terrible side effects for the past 10 years (then again, I wouldn’t know if I’d had sexual sideeffects, the joys of being a libidoless asexual ^^;)… The problem with treating neurochemistry is a number of problems can cause the same symptoms paired with individual variation makes treatment a nightmare, and one must go through crazy amounts of trial-and-error before finding just the right mix.

Good luck!

Thanks—yeah, I know it’s basically a question of trial and error, it just sucks that it takes so long to even figure out if something is HELPING.

The biggest issue for me is that Paxil is unsafe for pregnancy (category D)—though I would hope to not be on an SSRI long-term (mainly because of my many other drugs and particularly their tendency to interact with my anti-coagulants), it would REALLY suck to be on it and then have to go off it to get pregnant.  Most of the other SSRIs are category C, and thus at least potentially okay (though there is some recent research calling that into question).

@kristinpuhl

Is Celexa bad? I like it for my anxiety/depression.

Among the SSRIs, Celexa has a relatively high excretion into breast milk.  It’s certainly not bad enough to be reason to discontinue breastfeeding or the medication if an effective therapeutic dose has been established, but it’s not preferred.

It’s also a mild antihistamine, which could potentially cause problems with supply, though that’s less of a concern.

For my particular symptoms, while I know Celexa is used off-label for various anxiety conditions and OCD, there doesn’t seem to be as much evidence as for other drugs (and no indication for PTSD).

It would probably be near the bottom of the list for me to try, for these reasons.  It is, however, relatively safe for pregnancy (category C, which in my opinion is good enough if you know the medication benefits you).

@alierakieron

alierakieron replied to your post: @queernonymoose

I dunno, the not being able to go outside when the heat got over 80 without fainting thing was pretty shitty. ESPECIALLY this summer. Let’s face it, it all sucks.

No argument here.  Pregnancy: sucky.

@queernonymoose

To me, my future pregnancy would be basically arguing with people that “yes, this vintage t-shirt fits. Yes, just because its showing my belly does not in fact mean it does not fit.”

I REALLY hope that next time I am due in the summer.  Everyone was all “Oh, you wouldn’t want to be so BIG in the summer!” but yes, motherfuckers, I would.  It would beat being SEVERELY NAUSEATED in the summer which is what happened when I was due in late January/early February, plus I could just wear flowy dresses and sandals, so I would never have to bend down to do anything with my feet.

A friend just IM’d me because she wanted to talk to someone who wouldn’t talk about pregnancy like “it’s all unicorns and rainbows.”

So you know, if you ever need someone to talk to about a pregnancy that is basically okay in terms of expected outcome, but is total shitballs in terms of experience, I am happy to commiserate.

(I was high risk because of my clotting condition and had to take anti-coagulants, so there was an elevated risk that I might die during delivery, but since I was being treated there didn’t really seem to be additional risk to AJ.)

I am especially expert at:

• nausea
• migraines
• itching
• horrific ligament pain

I know Im probably just being hormonal and whatever

violaincrescita:

mysmallcorneroflife:

but I hate when moms are like wahhh im 37 weeks pregnant and not even dilated. WHY!? Why are you complaining that your baby isn’t ready to come out yet? Huh? Last time I checked 40 weeks was FULL TERM and 40 weeks is when baby is suppose to come out. Not at 36, 37, 38, blah blah. I understand. You are excited. You are tired of feeling fat. You are tired of not sleeping. You miss your body. OKAY! But why the crap would you want to rush your baby into this world? They need to develop INSIDE the womb for so long in order to make sure you have the healthiest baby possible. Not to mention this world sucks. It terrifies me to think that my children will grow up in a world full of hate, dangerous drugs, and judgement. I want them to stay in my womb for the full 40 weeks. I want them to be safe for as long as possible and be as healthy as possible and I don’t think moms should be going around being like HEY IM 32 weeks! WHAT CAN I DO TO SPEED UP THIS PROCESS AND MAKE MY BABY COME NOW!?

……….That is stupid. Honestly.

I never understood why so many moms want their babies out asap! I was tired & in pain at the end of my pregnancy, but I knew that since it was my first, I would probably go over 40 weeks, and I was okay with that. it meant our baby would be full term, completely ready to come out, and I wanted her here when she was ready, not when I was! I never tried any methods to induce my labor, either. just took a week off from work, relaxed & didn’t think about it too much! I was too nervous about everything to care about how much I didn’t want to be pregnant anymore. if more moms took the time to just relax, stop thinking about going into labor, and trust their bodies, we’d have way more happy mamas around here.

This is a nice idea, but it’s simply not possible for many people.  I’m in a position of a lot of privilege, but I did not get any maternity leave and I had a very limited amount of time that I could use around the birth.  I had three weeks, total, and I wanted it all to be AFTER the birth, not before, even though I was in so much pain from the effects of relaxin from about 32 weeks on that I could barely walk.  (Not to mention the numerous other nasty side effects I had, far beyond “not being able to sleep,” and let’s not forget that after 36 weeks I was having to give myself multiple painful injections a day and they literally did not get my dose correctly adjusted until after the birth, so I had to get my ass to lab appointments about twice a week on top of everything else.)

This isn’t to say that it’s a good idea to try to induce without medical justification, because it’s not.  Induction at 37 weeks—which, by the way, is considered “term,” although there are a lot of problems with the whole 40-week idea anyway—is a leading cause of low birth-weight and is also associated with a higher incidence of C-sections, so it’s risky for both the pregnant person and the infant.  People often think that, because it’s so common, it must be “safe”; this is a big problem with how pregnancy is treated by the US medical community.  (There’s a similar problem with people’s perceptions of planned, but not medically indicated, C-sections.)

BUT, ultimately, every pregnant person has the right to make their own decisions.  We all deserve bodily autonomy.  I do think there are huge problems with people not having complete and accurate medical information, but that doesn’t mean that I think I get to tell other people what their decisions should be.  Reducing other people’s concerns about their body, their baby, whatever that you probably don’t actually know about because EVERY PREGNANCY IS DIFFERENT, to them just being cranky about “feeling fat” is a shitty thing to do.

(Source: poetryandmotherhood, via twolittledoudicans)

evelark:

Mandated paid maternity leave in countries around the world

lacigreen:

atheistme:

stfuconservatives:

other-stuff:

Afghanistan 90 days
Algeria 14 weeks
Angola 90 days
Argentina 90 days
Australia None 
Austria 16 weeks
Bahamas, The 8 weeks
Bahrain 45 days
Bangladesh 12 weeks
Barbados 12 weeks
Belarus 126 days
Belgium 15 weeks
Belize 12 weeks
Benin 14 weeks
Bolivia 60 days
Botswana 12 weeks
Brazil 120 days
Bulgaria 120-180 days
Burkina Faso 14 weeks
Burma 12 weeks
Burundi 12 weeks
Cambodia 90 days
Cameroon 14 weeks
Canada 55% up to $413/week for 50 weeks (15 weeks maternity + 35 weeks parental leave shared with father)
Central African Republic 14 weeks
Chad 14 weeks
Chile 18 weeks
China 90 days
Colombia 12 weeks
Comoros 14 weeks
Congo, Democratic Republic of the 14 weeks
Costa Rica 4 months
Cuba 18 weeks
Cyprus 16 weeks
Côte d’Ivoire 14 weeks
Denmark 18 weeks
Djibouti 14 weeks
Dominica 12 weeks
Dominican Republic 12 weeks
Ecuador 12 weeks
Egypt 50 days
El Salvador 12 weeks
Equatorial Guinea 12 weeks
Estonia 455 calendar days (100%)
Ethiopia 90 days
Fiji 84 days
Finland 105 days
France 16 weeks (100%) rising to 26 weeks (100%) for third child
Gabon 14 weeks
Gambia, The 12 weeks
Germany 14 weeks (100%) 6 before birth
Ghana 12 weeks
Greece 16 weeks
Grenada 3 months
Guatemala 12 weeks
Guinea 14 weeks
Guinea-Bissau 60 days
Guyana 13 weeks
Haiti 12 weeks
Honduras 10 weeks
Hungary 24 weeks
Iceland 90 days 80% up to a ceiling of Íkr480,000 (€5,300, $6,700) monthly (minimum monthly payment Íkr 91,200 (€1000, $1,275) + 90 days to be shared between the parents
India 135 days (Central Government) 90 days or 12 weeks in State Governments
Indonesia 3 months
Iran 90 days
Iraq 62 days
Ireland 22 weeks (26 weeks from March 2007)
Israel 12 weeks
Italy 22 weeks (5 months) (80%) 2 before birth
Jamaica 12 weeks
Japan 14 weeks
Jordan 10 weeks
Kenya 2 months
Korea, South 60 days
Kuwait 70 days
Laos 90 days
Lebanon 40 days
Libya 50 days
Liechtenstein 8 weeks
Luxembourg 16 weeks
Madagascar 14 weeks
Malaysia 60 days
Mali 14 weeks
Malta 13 weeks
Mauritania 14 weeks
Mauritius 12 weeks
Mexico 12 weeks
Mongolia 101 days
Morocco 12 weeks
Mozambique 60 days
Namibia 12 weeks
Nepal 52 days
Netherlands 16 weeks
New Zealand 14 weeks
Nicaragua 12 weeks
Niger 14 weeks
Nigeria 12 weeks
Norway 54 weeks (12.5 months) (80%) or 44 weeks (10 months) (100%) - mother must take at least 3 weeks immediately before birth and 6 weeks immediately after birth, father must take at least 6 weeks - the rest can be shared between mother and father.
Pakistan 12 weeks
Panama 14 weeks
Paraguay 12 weeks
Peru 90 days
Philippines 60 days
Poland 16-18 weeks
Portugal 120 days
Qatar 40-60 days
Romania 112 days
Russia 140 days
Rwanda 12 weeks
Saint Lucia 13 weeks
Saudi Arabia 10 weeks
Senegal 14 weeks
Seychelles 14 weeks
Singapore 12 weeks
Solomon Islands 12 weeks
Somalia 14 weeks
South Africa 12 weeks
Spain 16 weeks
Sri Lanka 12 weeks
Sudan 8 weeks
Sweden 480 days (16 months) (80% up to a ceiling the first 390 days, 90 days at flat rate) - shared with father (minimum 60 days)
Switzerland 16 weeks (100%), 8 weeks mandatory
Syria 75 days
Tanzania 12 weeks
Thailand 90 days
Togo 14 weeks
Tunisia 30 days
Turkey 12 weeks
Uganda 4 weeks
Ukraine 126 days
United Arab Emirates 45 days
United Kingdom 6 weeks (90%) 20 weeks at a fixed amount (as of March 2006 = £108.85)
United States None 
Uruguay 12 weeks
Venezuela 18 weeks
Vietnam 4-6 months
Yemen 60 days
Zambia 12 weeks
Zimbabwe 90 days

The US and Australia with the outstanding 0 days or weeks of mandated paid maternity leave.

Well as you can see, I tried to make this easier to read and then gave up. Anyways. Yeah. America and Australia are the only countries on the list without mandated paid maternity leave. (I notice North Korea isn’t on there — we probably don’t have access to that information given that it’s North Korea and everything. Anyone know?)

In America, we have the PDL and the FMLA.

PDL. Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) which entitles you up to four months of unpaid, job-protected leave when disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition.

 

FMLA.  Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) if you have been employed with the Company for at least one year, provides up to 12 weeks job protected leave.

So you get a few unpaid months off if you gave birth, and they can’t legally hire someone to replace you. But that’s about it. Shameful, America.

-Jess

Wtf :(

I like that some of the countries allow for paid paternity leave too. Thats bad ass.

Looks like it’s time to move!

:|

[gif redacted]

Just a note about FMLA: You have to be employed full-time, and the company has to have 50 or more employees.  Otherwise, you have no rights at all.  Which is why graduate assistants, hourly workers, small business employees, and others don’t get maternity leave.

I had never heard of “Pregnancy Disability Leave.”  As best as I can tell, it refers to short-term disability leave used specifically for pregnancy-related conditions, which means that it is not available in all states and if used, it runs concurrently with FMLA leave (the only difference being that short-term disability does offer a reduced rate of pay).

So I finally got my medical records…

…and there doesn’t seem to be a pathology report on the placenta included, which I am 90% sure is an omission on the records people’s part.  I have an OB appointment on Thursday so I’ll ask her about hospital practice then.   The prep work going into this complaint is pretty freaking intense.

(There is a note that the placenta was “intact,” but it’s on paperwork that I believe was filed by Dr. Death immediately after the delivery, and that hardly counts.  There are some other little gems in her reports clearly designed to bolster her position that I should have just let her pump me full of pitocin after two hours in L&D and then vacuum out my baby.  I don’t want to get into it right now, but suffice it to say that I hope REALLY BAD THINGS for this woman’s life.)

One thing that I wasn’t expecting to find here, and which really weirded me out, is the notes on ME, post-delivery.  There’s a report from the floor nurse that says “Patient is stable… she is loving & attentive.  She is asking appropriate questions.  She is prepared for discharge.”

Like, I understand why this would be an area of concern immediately post-partum.  But at the same time, knowing what I know about how strongly healthcare professionals’ judgments are influenced by bias, especially racism?  It makes me sick to my stomach thinking of all the things that might make them decide someone was NOT “loving” or “asking appropriate questions.”

There’s a lot of violence in the world.

On birth control.

thisthat-and-liberalstuff:

So, I see a lot of arguments talking about how “but birth control isn’t JUST to prevent pregnancy, it’s health care X, Y, and Z!” 

And I’m just sitting here like “is the prevention of unwanted pregnancy suddenly NOT legitimate healthcare?” 

When people give reasons as to why birth control in its various forms should be provided cheap and affordable, prevention of pregnancy is always listed last, as an afterthought, or is presented as “well yeah, SOME people use it so they don’t get pregnant, but MORE people use it for ~medical reasons.~”

So, my wanting to have control over when I become a mother isn’t “medical” enough for you? My wanting to have safe sex while not having to compromise the goals that I have laid out before I enter motherhood isn’t a ~legitimate~ reason as to why I shouldn’t have to struggle to pay for BC, or go to the Health Department because I have no insurance where the people don’t or can’t give me proper reproductive services other than “use condoms” and send me on my merry way without having the decency to help with the constant bleeding after sex/unusual pains/ect? 

What I’m trying to get at, is, why isn’t safe sex and pregnancy prevention not considered a legitimate reason for people to have birth control? Is it because it doesn’t fit into the GOP’s “traditional family,” where everyone is magically virginal until marriage, and then the sole goal after he “puts a ring on it” is to reproduce at the rate of rabbits, and any kind of hindrance on “God’s Plan” shall surely send us into the pits of hell? 

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that people don’t want to acknowledge that we weren’t put on the planet to be incubators for future generations. 

Or maybe it’s because people don’t want to realize that those of us capable of getting pregnant like to have sex (and sometimes a lot of it) without the hassle of also being pregnant. Perhaps they realize we don’t give a fuck about their shitty standards of how we “should” act, and that pisses them off because they can’t have total control over us. 

Whatever the reason is (and all of these reasons and then some probably fall as a reason) my decision to prevent pregnancy IS legitimate health care, and I am honestly sick and tired of hearing people place the qualifier “but people use BC for health and medical reasons, not just prevention of pregnancy” as if preventing pregnancy ISN’T a medical decision, or like I should be ashamed because a big reason that I’m on birth control is because I fuck, and I like it, and I DON’T want to be a mother. 

Being pregnant is not itself a medical condition, but it sure as hell carries a wide variety of physical/medical risks (more for some than for others, but in a lot of cases, you don’t know you’re in the former category until you’re actually pregnant).  And of course, research has shown that unwanted pregnancies are psychologically damaging.

(Source: masenko-your-face, via aragingquiet)

So getting my own medical records is costing me $52.

On the other hand, if these records allow me to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the doctor who attended my delivery was straight-up negligent with regard to the giant chunk of placenta she left in my uterus, it will be WELL worth it.  (They generally weigh it after delivery, and it’s fairly likely that somewhere there is actually a pathology report indicating that it was NOT intact.)

(Yes, I sent in that records request almost a damn month ago.  That’s how long it takes, apparently.)