PCOS, babies, and breastmilk

I read about a strong and awesome lady, Heidi, this morning.  She lost her premature son, Jonah, two days after he was born, but wanted to know what to do with her breast milk.  She could either slow down pumping with the goal of stopping, or she could keep pumping and donate her breast milk.  Her breast milk contained certain hormones that a premature baby needs, since Jonah has been born prematurely.  She decided to pump her milk and donate it to the Mother's Milk Bank of Ohio.  After three months of pumping, she has donated 1300 ounces.  The story is bittersweet and Heidi is a brave woman.  Her story is on the blog Faces of Loss, Faces of Hope: Putting a Face on Miscarriage  Stillbirth, and Infant Loss.

On the blog, there is a drop down menu with "Looking for something specific?  Find a story similar to your own." above it.  I zoomed through it, for no reason, when I came across PCOS.  There were 34 stories about miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss related to PCOS.  That's a lot, and that scared me.  It doesn't help that I have Baby Fever like crazy and I already worry about how the PCOS will affect my fertility, and the heightened miscarriage risk.  I am currently reading a book on PCOS and just finished another one.  The one I just finished was What to Do When the Doctor Says Its PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) by Milton Hammerly and Cheryl Kimball.  The one I'm reading now is The Savvy Woman's Guide to PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome): The Many Faces of a 21st Century Epidemic....And What You Can Do About It by Elizabeth Lee Vliet.  It's a good book, but I like the one I just finished better, because Dr. Vliet uses 25% of the book to brag on herself.  This is not a woman with low self-esteem.  I'm not saying that she should have low self-esteem, but it would be nice to talk more about PCOS and less about how wonderful she is.

                            


I have two more PCOS books on my bookshelf that I haven't read yet.  They are PCOS and Your Fertility by Colette Harris and Theresa Cheung and The PCOS Protection Plan: How to Cut Your Increased Risk of Diabetes, Heart Disease, Obesity, and High Blood Pressure by Colette Harris and Theresa Cheung.

Women who have EDS also have a higher rate of miscarriage, and, of course, I have to worry about passing my bad genes on.  We hope that our future baby will get DH's genes for collagen making, and not mine.  I know that's a gross simplification, though.

On another note, November is epilepsy awareness month!  I'll be covering topics on: what epilepsy is, types of seizures, what to do in case of a seizure, epilepsy and women, status epilepticus,  atonic seizures, febrile seizures, absense seizures, tonic clonic/grand mal seizures, and perhaps more.