conception Archives — Thrifty Mommas Tips

Prepare for a Healthy Baby Now – When Genetic Screening Makes Sense

Paula — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 13:30:54 +0000

“I don’t care if this baby is a boy or a girl. I just hope he or she is healthy.” Almost every parent, or parent to be has uttered out loud, or thought to themselves, some version of this sentiment. Healthy baby first. Gender second. So what would you do to stack the deck in favour of having a healthy child? Eat better, exercise? Some of these changes are a no brainer. But what about genetic screening before you get pregnant? When does that make sense? Most of us know there are many things you do to help grow a healthy baby once you get pregnant, but how about before that? What if you started thinking about conception and pre-conception planning before getting pregnant? What if you started planning by saving for the Counsyl Family Prep Screen as soon as you started planning your wedding? That’s what Mom and advocate Julie Kristof would like to see more people consider, especially when those people are of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Kristof is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and is mother to a daughter born with an inherited genetic disorder and an advocate for early genetic screening as well as educating other Canadians about their options. Education is the most powerful tool in a prospective parent’s toolkit. Kristof is Mom to Mimi, who just turned nine, and is a boisterous force to be reckoned with. Mimi has familial dysautonomia, which is a serious disease that impacts the entire family. Kristof said she began advocating for genetic screening because she became aware of how little people knew about the topic shortly after her daughter was born. In high school Julie Kristof was screened for Tay Sachs, because of her Jewish heritage. By the time she was considering pregnancy she did not think she needed any more genetic screening. The ideal time to do genetic screening is before you become pregnant, according to Dr. Arthur Zaltz, the Head of Women and Babies Program at Sunnybrook. Zaltz is also Head of Core Obstetrics & Gynaecology Division at the University of Toronto. “What do we know about pre-pregnancy. We know stop smoking. We know take folic acid, but what else? We are not doing a great job at talking about pre-pregnancy counselling, ” says Dr. Zaltz. “Certain ethnic groups have a higher pre-disposition to these disorders.” Although families of certain ethnic backgrounds are usually offered carrier testing for the common conditions in their group, we know that many carrier couples are missed with this approach. In fact most children with rare genetic diseases are born to families with no history of the condition. Starting a family is a highly personal decision for a couple, hopefully resulting in a healthy pregnancy and baby. For Jewish Canadians, especially those of the Ashkenazi Jewish Community, having access to information about potential underlying genetic conditions is one way for couples or individuals to have a clear picture of the risk of specific disorders prior to conception. FACT: About 1 out of 2 people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage is a carrier of one rare genetic condition, most commonly of Gaucher disease, cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs disease, familial dysautonomia, or Canavan disease. More about The Counsyl Family Prep Screen: This particular prep screen is extremely simple according to Dr. Zaltz. It requires a blood or saliva test. · Flexible – can be performed before or during pregnancy · Informative – includes genetic counselling support · Quick – results within 2 to 3 weeks How does it work? A positive result means that a prospective parent is a healthy “carrier” of a genetic disease. When both parents are carriers of the same disease, they have a one in four chance of giving birth to a child that will have that disease, including Cystic Fibrosis, Familial Dysautonomia and Tay-Sachs disease, among many others. These are health conditions where advance knowledge can change the way a couple approaches family planning. The test results are kept strictly confidential and are not shared. “I think you will see over the next couple of years more and more people will start asking for this,” says Dr. Zaltz. Why the Counsyl Family Prep Screen Genetic Screening is Valuable: The Counsyl Family Prep Screen costs about $900 although some provincial and private insurance plans may cover the cost of testing. It screens for over 100 diseases and disorders. The Counsyl Family Prep Screen can help couples and individuals make informed choices about their future child’s health. “Knowing what I know now, I have to say this would be one of the tests I would have considered. The cost is well worth it. Look at it very carefully and ask yourself what your reasons are for wanting to know…I have had to watch my youngest child, who is sick every day. That kind of sucks. My advice would be get the most information you can to make an informed decision,” says Julie Kristof. This post is sponsored which means I have been compensated. My opinion is all my own and it is also truthful.

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Five Free Infertility and Fertility Apps

Paula — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 18:14:00 +0000

Fertility apps and infertility apps are a great way to track ovulation and reproductive health. Here are five free fertility apps that will help at any stage of your fertility or infertility journey. When you are struggling with infertility or trying to conceive you need a huge toolkit of resources just to get through the journey. Knowledge is power, right? Luckily power and knowledge in the age of Google are right at your finger tips. Lately numerous press releases regarding the latest and greatest fertility and infertility apps have been flooding my inbox here at thrifty momma’s tips, so I thought I’d take a peek at a few and share them with you. There are some amazing apps for those who are Trying To Conceive. Value added apps in my opinion. [tweetthis]There are some amazing free apps for those who are #TTC or concerned about #infertility[/tweetthis] Five Best Free Infertility Apps [tweetthis]Have you heard of IVF 4 U App? #IVF #TTC [/tweetthis] 1. IVF4U: This is a great infertility app I just discovered this week. Home grown in Ontario so it’s relevant to Canadians, and especially those based in Toronto area. IVF4U helps you navigate the complex terrain of in vitro fertilization and fertility, period. Don’t let the name fool you – there is all kinds of infertility and fertility information compiled here. IVF4U also adds to your life by helping explain other procedures and by helping you understand how to optimize fertility. Infertility is overwhelming on its own. IVF is not covered by any public funding in Ontario. The treatment itself can cost $10,000 plus medications so an app that’s free won’t add to the take home bill. IVF is explained well here by one of Toronto’s best known fertility doctors, Marjorie Dixon. The tracker helps you keep your appointments straight and track all the data you acquire. There are so many resources, like fact sheets on fibroids, PCOS and fertility success rates with these conditions. There are also links to important advocacy tools like the Raising Expectations report from the expert panel completed in 2009. This app responds quickly and I was able to download the entire expert panel report in about 3 seconds on my iPhone 5S. Loved the speed and the content is exceptional. Plus it’s Canadian. The infertility tracker is powered by My Hopeful Journey which many of you are probably already familiar with. If you have just one app for fertility tracking in Canada I’d choose this one hands down. IVF4U performs very well. It stands head and shoulders above the rest of the free resource apps here because of the links to other information and data. Specs: The app is in English. Requires iOS 5.0 or later but good to go on most Apple iPhone, iPad devices otherwise. By Purple Forge. [tweetthis]Attain fertility predictor is another free fertility app #TTC #IVF #infertility[/tweetthis] 2. Attain Fertility Predictor: Version 2. Version 1.0 had bugs that caused crashes. This version is improved, but still simple. Not as comprehensive as IVF4U. Attain has a whole host of resources on social channels that are quite impressive and useful. The Youtube channel is actually my favourite of all the tools they have. I’d recommend subscribing to that channel over getting the app. The app has a useful fertility loan calculator. I like the marriage of fertility resources and apps with financial tracking tools because that’s the reality of fertility treatment. Attain Fertility Predictor also helps you determine, based on your age, what your chances of conceiving are with IUI (intra-uterine insemination) vs. IVF in vitro fertilization. You can also calculate Body Mass Index to determine if your body weight is in the optimum zone to optimize fertility. Based on all of these details the app then will help you find a fertility centre. I found this particular location based tool not useful for Canada. Attain is a simple tool if you are starting the journey. Specs: By IntegraMed America. Requires anything over 3.0 in iOS operating systems. Very simple run down of information and prediction tools. 3. Glow: If you haven’t heard of Glow yet then I don’t know where you have been living. Glow is the genius of Paypal founder, Max Levchin. A few months ago this guy made headlines stating Paypal creator wants to make you pregnant etcetera. Glow is a free app that helps you track your fertility, helps you share your stories about fertility and infertility in a community atmosphere and now has a tool called Glow First which is nothing short of ground-breaking. This is a genius app. It’s slick and performs well. Glow First is a crowd-funding fundraising shared pooled financial resource for those struggling to pay for fertility treatments. Glow First operates as a non profit and shares all the funds, reportedly not keeping any profits. Glow First is the world’s first crowdfunding program for fertility treatments. Glow is integrated with Facebook and My Fitness Pal (smart move). [tweetthis]Glow is integrated with Facebook and My Fitness Pal #IVF #TTC #infertility[/tweetthis] Glow is proactive and lovely to look at plus the integration with My Fitness Pal makes me think this is a really wonderful opportunity to promote whole body health and reproductive health. You sign up for free and if you wish to contribute to the Glow First pool of funds then you may be able to use the money. Glow is already showing amazing results and this whole approach to health and reproductive health is one to watch in future. There is little here about fertility research. This app is sexy to look at and very intuitive. It triages users depending on wether they are trying to conceive or not trying to conceive, considering pregnancy or pregnant. I can’t stress enough the potential here. Glow is already boasting 1000 successful pregnancies. It’s ground-breaking. Specs: requires iOS 6.0 or later. Nice graphics and it tracks periods really well with sexy little graphic bubbles that tell you this is the best day for you to get pregnant OR be careful on this day, depending on your motivation in using the app. 4. Infertility Survival Kit: by Lisa Drouillard. Infertility treatment tracking simplified. To keep you organized when trying to conceive. This is a pretty basic app but good for those who want simple when organizing their fertility journey. The tracker also features My Hopeful Journey just as IVF4U does. The Infertility Survival Kit is part of My Hopeful Journey’s services. There are no overly sexy graphics or tools here. But this is the app you want if you just want help organizing. I skimmed several of the sections and found descriptions of laporoscopic surgery and other procedures. There are also infertility event listings (I would use the app for that.) But don’t expect a whole lot of detail. I clicked on surrogacy and adoption under Other Family Building Options and was sorely disappointed. There is little said about either and there is No direction at all given or links shared to connect users to resources. But, as noted it is a good organizing tool. Specs: Health and Fitness requires iOS 4.3 or later. 5. Kindara: This is another graphically appealing app. It’s eye candy on my phone. Kindara by Kindara Inc. is a fertility tracker and ovulation predictor. (even the name is hot) It requires iOS 7.0 or higher so not everyone will be able to use this to the maximum potential. But it’s optimized for iPhone 5. This app boasts that it’s helped over 250,000 women get pregnant. I like that Kindara has some amazing reviews also on the site and it seems to be a crowd pleaser. It has simple data entry and the experience is customized for you depending on how you input your personal profile. (Because every body is unique and age and health issues obviously impact your fertility.) Kindara helps you own your fertility. It is most like Glow, out of this entire batch of free fertility and infertility apps. But Kindara is also a bit simpler than Glow. That might appeal to many users. This app is heavy on reproductive details and makes sense of what a temperature shift is and what basal body temperature means and how best to track these things in order to help you conceive. I enjoy the proactive approach of both Glow and Kindara. The Kindara app is supplemented with a videos section that helps explain several things. It also has a Kindara answers section that helps you look up anything you don’t quite understand here. Kindara permits in app purchases of things like a basal thermometer and a natural planning kit. There are pregnancy books and vitamins as well for purchase. specs: requires iOS 7.o or later. optimized for iPhone 5. Lovely to look at and easy to use. This is not a sponsored post. I simply thought my readers would be interested in having more tools to help them when trying to conceive.

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