It’s National Alcohol and Other Drug-Related Birth Defects Week and health professionals want women to know what they can do throughout their pregnancy to decrease certain risks.

It’s common knowledge by this point that the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy can result in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS). But many people aren’t aware that drinking alcohol while being pregnant can result in other developmental challenges described as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) in children as well.

Babies born with FAS have mental and physical disabilities. These disabilities can range in severity and may include mental retardation. On a side note, there is a disproportionate amount of children who are born with FAS or FASD and end up in foster care or are put up for adoption.

Since health and medical experts have not been able to determine an exact amount of alcohol that is safe to consume during pregnancy, they recommend that women avoid drinking alcohol entirely while pregnant.

At this time each year, the United States Social Security Administration releases the list of most popular baby names from the prior year. And this year was no exception.

The complete list of most popular baby names for boys and girls in 2007 can be found on the Social Security website. However, if you want a quick glimpse at the top 10, they’re listed below.

Girls

1. Emily
2. Isabella
3. Emma
4. Ava
5. Madison
6. Sophia
7. Olivia
8. Abigail
9. Hannah
10. Elizabeth

Boys

1. Jacob
2. Michael
3. Ethan
4. Joshua
5. Daniel
6. Christopher
7. Anthony
8. William
9. Matthew
10. Andrew

Here are a few other quick tidbits about the most popular names. Emily has topped the girls’ list since 1996 while Jacob has been at the top for boys since 1999. And if you’re wondering what the most popular twins’ names are, wonder no more: Jacob and Joshua are the top choices for twins.

If you want to see all the lists or get other important information-including how to get extra help for prescription drug costs-visit the Social Security website.

Here’s a startling statistic for you: there are more fetal deaths due to car crashes than there are child fatalities due to bike accidents or infant deaths in car crashes in the first year of life.

The question is why?

It seems that many pregnant women don’t buckle up for fear that the pressure from the taut seat belt would harm their baby if they were in a car crash. Studies have shown that although this sounds logical, it’s completely wrong. In car accidents involving pregnant women, 80% of women who didn’t use seat belts lost their babies; yet, only 29% of fetuses whose mothers were wearing seat belts properly were seriously injured or died.

A recent study from the University of Michigan suggests that the proper use of seat belts by pregnant women could prevent over 200 fetal deaths annually and probably prevent numerous brain injuries in the fetuses that survive.

While only 7% of pregnant women are generally involved in car accidents during their pregnancies, you want to be as safe as possible if you’re in the 7 percent! According to safety experts it’s best for pregnant women to buckle up and position the lap belt under the abdomen to best protect the baby.

Pregnant women who eat chocolate just might fight off the serious complication known as preclampsia.

Basically, chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is rich with a certain chemical that helps the heart. Preclampsia is a condition in which blood pressure spikes during pregnancy and has features similar to heart disease.

Researchers studied 2,291 who delivered a single baby and asked them about their chocolate consumption during pregnancy. Women who ate 5 or more servings of chocolate each week in their third trimester were 40% less likely to develop preclampsia than their peers who ate chocolate less than once a week.

Researchers believe their findings definitely raise the possibility of a link between chocolate consumption and a reduced risk of preclampsia. They have encouraged others to conduct further research. Looks like chocolate might just do the body-and the baby-good!

A new study has indicated that the number of pregnant women with pre-existing diabetes has doubled in seven years. Obviously, this poses a health risk for both mothers and newborns. If the diabetes isn’t controlled, chances of miscarriage and still birth increase as well as the risk of their babies being born with birth defects.

More than 175,000 women were included in the study between 1999 and 2005. The rate of pregnant women with pre-existing diabetes rose from 8 per 1,000 pregnancies to 18 per 1,000. The rate increased the most among 13- to 19-year old expectant mothers. According to the experts, the findings from this study reflect the overall U.S. population.

It’s important to remember that gestational diabetes-which is developed during pregnancy-is different than pre-pregnancy diabetes. And all women with pre-existing diabetes should plan their pregnancies since they’re considered high-risk pregnancies. Diabetes can be monitored and controlled and women with the condition can deliver happy and healthy babies. Seeking medical help and controlling the disease is of utmost importance.

It might just be that babies are what their mothers ate. Kind of. According to a recent British study, there is a link between what a woman eats before she gets pregnant and the gender of the baby she conceives.

The study involved approximately 700 first-time pregnant women in England who did not know the sex of their fetuses. These women reported on their eating habits for the year before their pregnancy.

56% of the women who were among those with the highest-yet still normal-caloric intake had boys versus 45% of women with the lowest caloric intake. And women who had at least one bowl of cereal for breakfast each day were 87% more likely to have boys than those who had cereal/breakfast once a week. On average, the women who had boys ate about 400 more total calories and took in 300 more milligrams of potassium daily than did the women who had girls.

You’re probably thinking, like I was when I heard about the study, doesn’t the dad have the final say in having a boy or girl? The researchers point out that it’s a possibility that certain nutrients make women’s bodies more hospitable to sperm carrying the male chromosome.  Who knew?

More research needs to be done to prove this theory but it’s interesting to say the least. And if a women would like to try for a certain gender, maybe having a few extra bananas and bowls of cereal…or a few less if they’re leaning toward pink…might be worth a shot.

Dr. Mary Jane Minkin, an ob-gyn at the Yale University School of Medicine, recently answered some questions for Glamour magazine about stuff that many women have wondered about at one time or another. Here are seven fast facts from Dr. Minkin that will put some of your questions to rest:

1. When trying to get pregnant, it takes one month for approximately 15 to 20 % of couples; at six months, 50% will be and after one year, 80% of couples will be expecting.
2. If you’re overweight, your risk for high blood pressure and delivery complications can be increased; if you’re underweight, there can be issues as well.
3. Waiting at least one week after you’ve missed your period to take an at-home pregnancy test will help to ensure that its 100% accurate.
4. Pregnancy hormones increase sun sensitivity; SPF 30 (or higher) sunscreen should be used.
5. At-home teeth-whitening products can be used while pregnant but avoid professional whitening-the bleaching chemicals can affect the fetus.
6. Your belly button could go from an innie to an outie at five months.
7. Stretch marks won’t ever go away completely but after a year they’ll fade from bright red to silver.

Read more:

• Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about pregnancy but were afraid to ask!
• Everything pregnancy and baby…

A recent study by the National Institutes of Health and Harvard suggests that preschoolers whose moms ate low-mercury fish during their pregnancy might have better brain power than their peers.

Moms who consumed more than 2 servings of low-mercury fish per week during their pregnancies had 3-year-olds who generally performed better on verbal visual and motor tests of development according to the study of 341 preschoolers.

Health professionals stress that while low-mercury fish can be brain food, pregnant women should avoid high-mercury fish. Light tuna salmon cod and haddock are a DO for pregnant women. Shark swordfish king mackerel and tilefish are a definite DON’T for moms-to-be.

The bottom line, according to the researchers, is that eating fish lower in mercury could “allow for stronger benefits of fish intake.” Some people think that might sound fishy but the experts claim that the omega-3 fatty acids in low-mercury fish are something moms should sink their teeth into.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) still claims about 2,700 lives a year according to the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development.

Medical experts are getting closer to understanding the exact cause of SIDS but until that time, there are precautions that they urge parents to take. According to “SIDs points to live by”  at PregnancyandBaby.com, it’s important to commit these sleep-safety rules to memory:

• Always put your baby on his back to sleep. At night, for naps, for ten minute marathon snoozes. Always back to sleep; no exceptions.
• Never place your baby on his side to sleep — some studies report that this can double the SIDS risk.
• Allow your baby to sleep with a pacifiers. Recent studies show that pacifiers can reduce the risk of SIDS. The AAP reports that this may be because when your baby has a pacifier he won’t fall into such a deep sleep.
• Don’t smoke around your baby or let anyone else smoke around him.
• Keep his crib or bed (if co-sleeping) away from a major heat source such as a heater blaring on high.
• Keep all blankets off of your baby. If your baby seems cold dress him in warm baby pajamas but skip the blanket until your baby turns one years old.
• Stop worrying once when your baby flips over onto his tummy. If he’s doing this, then he can flip himself back over.

Sure, babies might get their mother’s nose or their father’s eyes or their grandfather’s hair line, but it looks like they might also get the breech-birth gene from their family too. According to HealthDay, Norwegian researchers are claiming that if one or both parents were born bottom or feet first, then their children are twice as likely to be born the same way.

The researchers gathered data on all births in Norway between 1967 and 2004 and specifically looked at first-born children. They discovered that men and women who themselves were born breech had more than twice the risk of breech deliveries for the birth of their own first-borns as compared to men and women who were born head first.

Additionally, the researchers looked at over 35,000 men who had children with two different women and they found the same risk for breech delivery, indicating there is a genetic component to it.

Since breech presentations are not always known before labor, researchers are hoping that this information regarding the parents might be valuable in determining the fetal presentation in the final trimester. As with almost anything, the more information you have, the better off you are. As more studies are done, researchers hope to identify what trait is being passed from parent to child and alert parents to the increased chance of a breech delivery.