Review Your Nutritional Plan During Pregnancy - Nutrition During Pregnancy

It's beyond all doubts that healthy food is one of the most essential components for healthy life. Nutrition during pregnancy is one most sought after topic by the pregnant and lactating women world wide. Well planned diet is a of prime significance when it comes to the most crucial phase of life - especially pregnancy. Doctors advice to review your nutritional plan before conception because the first few weeks are the most important phase of pregnancy for the development of fetus. The most important thing in reviewing your nutritional plan is that it should be according to your medical status, body weight and not to be forgotten the eating habits. While poor eating habit during pregnancy may be harmful, taking self decision and selecting high protein diet can bring harm either! Balanced diet is what you should go for. Remember your eating habit has a great impact on your baby. Keeping in regular touch with your medical adviser is very important. It's prudent to make the nutritional changes for pregnancy according to the doctor's advice.

Although severe weight gain during pregnancy is not desired, but it's appreciated to certain extent. Body weight tend to shoot up during this phase because of multiple growth spurts of many organs, which is essential. Remember obesity is something that's entirely different and shouldn't be confused with required weight gain. According to experts' reviews on pregnancy, these are the approximate clinical stat:

• Average placenta weights at term 1 1/2 lbs.
• Amniotic fluid 2 lbs.
• Breast enlargement 2 lbs.
• Uterine mass 2 lbs.
• Blood volume 3 lbs.
• Fat deposit 6 lbs.
• Fluids 4 lbs.,
• Normal sized baby 7 lbs-8 lbs.
  

All these merge up together and the recommended overall weight gain of 25-30 lbs. is appreciated, which means there should be an increase in caloric need per day. This is where the nutritional plan during pregnancy is of utmost importance. When transformed into the nutritional requirement chart, the additional weight gain of 25-30 lbs. comes up with an consumption chart that suggests an additional intake of around 200-300 calories per 24 hours is necessary. The right way to approach a healthy eating habit during pregnancy is to follow the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Guide. In the year 2005 USDA amended the pyramid because to come up with better suggestions for Americans to be healthy. USDA's experts suggest that increase in caloric need during pregnancy shouldn't be made by consuming fatty foods, but by increasing the quantity and quality of fruits, veggies, dairy, grains, and foods containing protein. This way weight gain should be achieved in a gradual mode throughout the entire pregnancy period, which is desired rather than having a rapid and abrupt growth. Reviewing the nutritional plan during pregnancy doesn't mean consuming more than you can, but consuming the right kind of food. Right kind of food means the well balanced diet. Food is categorized into four distinctive categories:

• Protein - Protein is important during pregnancy for growth of organs like breasts and uterus. It also acts as the major building block of the fetal body. Major sources of protein are fish, lean meat, milk and beans.
• Fats - Fat is important for development of nervous system of the fetus and for certain vitamin absorption. But the overall fat consumption should be not more than 30% of the total calories. Saturated and hydrogenated oils should be excluded from your diet chart during pregnancy. Monounsaturated oils such as canola and olive oils are often recomended.
• Carbohydrate - Carbohydrate is the main energy source. Major sources of carbohydrates are milk, cereals, grains, cereals, veggies and fruits.
• Micronutrients - Pregnant and lactating women require essential micronutrients. The micronutrient list inclides components like Folic acid, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B6, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Iron, Calcium and Zinc.
  

So construct a healthy future for your baby by taking the right kind of steps toady. This article is not a thumb rule for the nutritional review plan for pregnant women, but a healthy hints of dos and don'ts. Remember your medical adviser is the right person to guide you with right tips. So consult a doctor prior to taking any decision regarding your nutritional program during pregnancy. Happy motherhood ahead... Good Luck!

Perfume Review - Top US Fragrances

Science of blending essential oils, fixatives and aroma compounds have been on the scene since time immemorial. Spanning back to history, documentations state that perfumery was introduced during the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilization; later refined by Persians and romans. Today it has become an interwoven component of fashion. Starting from Albert Nipon to Yves Saint Laurent there are many classy perfume brands that has been contributing to the modern fashion priented community world wide. While modern women are inclined to brands like Armani, Angel, Calvin Klein, , Ghost, Gucci, Chanel, Burberry etc, men invest more on Jean Paul Gaultier, Pheromone, Masaki Matsushima, Calvin Klein, Fleur Du Male, Hugo Boss, Le Male for men etc. Statistics shows that Hugo Boss and Calvin Klein are the hottest picks for male population in UK. For women in UK Jean Paul Gautier's 'Classique' and Chanel's 'No. 5' tend to top the list.

When it comes to perfumes, American these days prove to be the world's leading perfume buyers. Although until 1960s, the French fragrances had been the most sought after ones in America, but the scenario has greatly differed today. American designer brands have mastered the art of making perfumes and has come up with some of the world's classiest fragrances that delivered a hard blow to many French notes.


Some Top Perfume Brands in USA

Tommy Hilfiger - Although one of the most recent perfume brands in the world of perfumes, Tommy Hilfiger has created a buzz around the country and even abroad. After the pop star Beyonce Knowles endorsed, Tommy Hilfiger's "True Star" gave the company's overall sales a stiff hike. True Star's notes come both in male and female versions and can be purchased in not more than $53 or so.

Estée Lauder - With sensational fragrance of top notes, Estée Lauder has created a sheer magic amidst the fashionable American women mob! "Beautiful" and "Pleasures" are a couple of latest craze in the country. A bit higher than the others in the market, the prices of these fragrances range between $43 to $63.

American Fragrances - This is again another most searched name in USA. "Arabian Night" by American Fragrances is another hot cake for American women these days. Just at the cost of $16, the American young women are chaging their signature note of fashion with a flick of finger. Arabian Night Cologne for Men has also created a sensation amidst the US men fragrance lover mob.

Ralph Lauren - Who doesn't heard about this name? Being one of the largest designer in the perfume industry, Ralph Lauren's products are most sought after ones not in USA, but abroad too! Ralph Lauren's "Pure Turquoise" has revolutionized the US fashion in vogue. The super fresh note of "Pure Turquoise" made it a hottest shot for the modern US women.

If you are looking for a new way to spread the aura of your presence any of the above names is what your pick should be. Let your presence be identified by your signature fragrance. Party freak outs will now be even more special for you with these sensational notes.

Safety Baby Bottle – A Baby Feeder That Smiles at Right Temperature

Nerve-wrecking work loads at offices and business places have been a menace to the peace of life! Especially the present generation's moms and dads are stressed out with all the cacophony of the marketing campaigns and chasing the targets. Professional life is no more a peace these day; nor the personal life! Here’s an innovative solution especially for the modern stressed-out parents to help their baby in cases of baby screaming for milk. It is a very common scenario that you need to jump off your rag at three o’clock in the morning to prepare milk for your baby. The situation seems to worsen a bit more when you are done with the milk preparation, but can't give it to your baby because it's too hot.

The Safety Baby Bottle has been designed keeping in mind these unpleasant situations at midnight. The Safety bottle is like a granny taking care of your baby even at midnight. Just at a glance the Safety Baby Bottle tells you whether the milk is at the right temperature and can be given to your baby. The Safety Baby Bottle design involves a normal baby bottle with a face printed on it with thermochromic anti-forgery ink. The most interesting part of the bottle is that, when the milk is just at the right temperature of 38 degrees Celsius, the face starts smiling in green. In case if the milk is too hot for your baby’s little mouth, say at 45 degrees Celsius or even hotter, the face automatically turns red and into a crying one. So this Safety Baby Bottle that frowns on unsafe milk temperature is an amazing invention that puts a bright curve not only on the tired faces of moms but on the faces of the little heroes and heroins too.

Now, it is a true sense injustice if I do not mention the inventor of this amazing baby product. Well, the Safety Baby Bottle has been designed by Huang Tzu-Yu, Cheng Hung, Wang Tzu-Wei, and Xiang Yu-Wei. However, the bottle is not yet in production, but once up in the market, parents are sure to queue up in the line.

Childhood Trauma can be a major cause of alteration of your DNA

A group of scientists from McGill University and Douglas Institute has been burning their midnight oil with a medical research, studying how childhood trauma affects DNA. The study opened up a new horizon in the medical science. The research results in the fact that childhood trauma can play a major role in altering your DNA and in turn shapes exactly the way one’s genes works. Fund for the research was jointly offered by Canadian Institutes for Health Research and National Institute of Child Health and Development, USA. The samples of brain used in that research work were taken from Quebec Suicide Brain Bank, which is administered by Dr. Gustavo Turecki, an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and also practices at Douglas Mental Health University Institute. This Brain Bank was actually developed with an intention to prevent people from suffering mental distress and committing suicide.

A total sample of 36 brains was used in the research – 12 of abused suicide victims, 12 of non-abused suicide victims and 12 controls. During the research process, various epigenetic marks in the brains of a number of abused victims were brought into close observation. These marks play an active role in influencing a stress response factor, which increases the suicidal tendency. The clinical or scientific term of this stress response factor is hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function. The research also confirms that maternal care also plays a vital role in influencing the genes that are responsible for controlling the stress-response factor. Some of the world-renowned scientists have put forward their revolutionary work on epigenetics. This work uncovers how the parental care influenced the DNA in the brains of some Quebec male suicide victims, who were abused in childhood.

Said Dr.Turecki, “We know from clinical experience that a difficult childhood can have an impact on the course of a person’s life”. Further, Dr.Moshe Szyf, a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics added, “now we are starting to understand the biological implications of such psychological abuse”. Dr. Michael Meaney, a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and Neurosurgery and also at Douglas said in his reports, “the function of our DNA is not as fixed as previously believed. He also added, “the interaction between the environment and the DNA plays a crucial role in determining our resistance to stress thus the risk for suicide and epigenetic marks are the product of this interaction”. The all-McGill study report has been set to publish in the February 22’s issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

iPhones Reviews - Apple's iPhone to Revolutionize The Cell Phone Generation

Here's another amazing creation of Apple. Yes... iPhone that created a buzz across the web. This is again a struggle for Apple to inject the iphone virus amidst the cell phone user mob. Steve Jobs - the Apple founder once stated that he would be happy if the iPhone could manage to engulf as negligible as only 1% of the 1 billion mobile phone users in the global market during its first year. Shortly after this smart gadget stepped in to the market, the US-based market research firm Markitecture published a report showing that only 6% of 1300 mobile phone users were likely to skip to iPhone, keeping aside their traditional cell phones in the next one year.

The biggest hurdle for Apple to promote iPhone is not only it's high price, but also the carrier issues, i.e. Cingular in US. Yet, it seems the iPhone virus is still spreading wide across the globe. So what's there in the iPhone that creates a whole lot of craze all around? Putting it in the simplest way, iPhone is a revolutionary mobile phone that facilitates you by allowing you to make a call just by tapping a number or a name in your call log, address book or favorites list. This technically engineered hi-tech device automatically syncs all the contacts from your Personal Computer, Mac, or even Internet services. This internet-connected multimedia smartphone has been designed with classy flush multi-touch screen, without a physical keyboard. With a minimal hardware interface, the virtual keyboard is rendered on the touch screen instead of pressing buttons like the regular mobile phones. Apple's iPhone has a wide range of functionality. Starting from a camera phone (including visual voicemail and text messaging), it functions almost like an ipod with a hi-tech portable media player. You can use it as a mobile Internet client to access your email, and/or web browsing. Local Wi-Fi connectivity adds flavor to the usability of this internet-connected multimedia smartphone.

Till date, there have been two generations of iPhone. The first generation iPhone was built with quad-band GSM with EDGE hardware, and the second generation have been upgraded with the addition of UMTS with HSDPA, making the device technically smarter.

Fast Facts about iPhone:

• Development of iPhone started with the direction of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who leaded the Apple engineers in the investigation of touchscreen technology.
• It wasn't until January 9, 2007 that Apple publicly announced iPhone, although there was a bunch rumors about the announcement of the device much before the release was officially announced.
• The iPhone was primarily introduced in the United States on June 29, 2007 and thereafter the worldwide.
• On June 29, 2007 Apple shut down its store at 2:00 pm local time to prepare for the iPhone launch at 6:00 pm.
• On weekend of the launch, Apple sold an incredible number 270,000 iPhones during the first thirty hours.
• In the year 2007 iPhone was declared to be Time magazine's "Invention of theYear".
• The iPhone 3G was released on July 11, 2008 that supports much faster 3G data speeds accompanied with Assisted GPS.
• It was not until November 2007 that the iPhone was released in the United Kingdom, German and France, and Austria and Ireland in spring 2008
• On October 21, 2008 Apple announced an incredible sales volume of 6.89 million iPhone 3Gs in the fourth quarter of 2008. With this the sales of iPhones was reckoned till the date was 13 millions.
• Apple Inc. has filed over 200 patents related to the iPhone technology.

Features of iPhone:

• Screen size - Liquid Crystal Display Screen 3.5 in (89 mm)
• Screen resolution - 480×320 pixels at 163 ppi (Pixels Per Inch), with 3:2 aspect ratio
• Input devices - Multi-touch screen interface plus a "Home" button and "Sleep/Wake" located on the top of the iPhone.
• Built-in rechargeable, non-removable battery
• Camera - 2 megapixel
• Location finding - By the way of detecting the cell towers and Wi-Fi network system
• Processor - Samsung S5L8900 (412 MHz ARM 1176 processor, PowerVR MBX 3D graphics co-processor)
• Memory - 128 MB DRAM
• Storage - 8 GB or 16 GB flash memory
• Operating System - iPhone OS
• Hardware - Quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• Wireless System - Wi-Fi (802.11b/g) and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR
• Frequency response - 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response (both internal and headset)
• Battery Backup - Up to 8 hours of talk, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video, and up to 24 hours of audio, lasts over 250 hours on standby, not user-replaceable
• Headphone jack (recessed)

iPhone3G Model Features:

• Color - Black (8 GB or 16 GB) or white (16 GB)
• Size - 4.5 inches (115.5 mm) (h) × 2.4 inches (62.1 mm) (w) × 0.48 inch (12.3 mm) (d)
• Weight of iPhone3G - 133 g (4.7 oz)
• Headphone - Jack (non-recessed)
• Battery Backup of iPhone3G - Up to 10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 5 (3G) or 6 (Wi-Fi) hours of Internet usage, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio and lasts over 300 hours on standby.
• Broadband - 3G for broadband data speeds (Tri band UMTS / HSDPA: UMTS 850 / 1900 / 2100)
• Assisted GPS - According to the preference of location based on Wi-Fi or cell towers
• Digital SAR Rating - 1.38 W/kg

While loads of other features are there that the iPhone has been blessed with, these are just some of the features that have made iPhone all more enticing to the general mass. By default, the home screen contains the the list of icons that includes Text messaging (SMS), Photos, YouTube, Camera, Calendar, Google Maps, Weather, Stocks, Clock, Notes, Settings, Calculator, iTunes, and App Store. This home screen can be customized at any moment by a hardware button right below the screen, closing the application that is opened.

Mac PC vs Windows PC

Wondering why lot of people are inclined to Mac? Are Macs better than PCs? Well, some say "It’s gorgeous..."! Others, who are a bit too "techy", say "It's gorgeous inside". Now the question is what's there in it that has enticed a great section of the present generation's computer savvy mob within just this short spell of time? Apple claims that Mac has been brilliantly engineered with the world’s most advanced operating system accompanied with a high end suite of software that makes it even more smart than the computer itself. Now you do not have to spend more time struggling out to make your computer start working. The new Macs have traded in to the market, revolutionizing the work culture by bringing in a new "time worked more and time wasted less" idea. If you are tired of your Windows PC system getting hanged time and again, low resolution dull images, substandard acoustic quality, it's the right time you should skip to Mac.

The Mac PC vs Windows PC is becoming the most heated up topic of debate day by day. Well, now let us just have a bird's eye view on this computer rivalry that flew the same kind of spark as the cultural rivalry between Coke and Pepsi. The difference is in technology as it is in the way in which two kinds of people are looking at it. The hip-hop section of the society that require computers more for fun like playing video games and chatting, than for writing codes, will inclined towards the stylized, slick Mac. But again so called intelligent mob and the online business persons are usually Windows PC enthusiasts. They usually consider Macs PCs to be just over-expensive toy for the present hi-tech generation and cannot do much of serious computing.

The fact is, none of them are fully correct! With only scanty percent of the market share, Mac is no longer a choice of unemployed artists and fashionable young generation that prefers freaking out in sport blazers and sneakers. The Mac PC interface is multiple time nicer than the Windows with all high quality, stylized animations and the way it works. The important thing is that Apple makes both the hardware and the software, which makes every single component compatible to each other and everything works just as it should. This is why Mac market is on a gradual and steady growth, although Windows is still much ahead in the competition. Macs PCs are just a bit too advanced level computers for the techy generation.