Dr. Sangeeta

Toxic shock syndrome (TSS) is a potentially life-threatening condition that causes a steep drop in blood pressure, resulting in deprivation of oxygen to the organs, which in severe cases leads to death. This disease has been associated with menstruating women who use superabsorbent tampons. It was first recognized in the 1970s and 80s when women using tampons of certain brands were affected by this syndrome and those brands were immediately taken off the market. This disease primarily affects tampon wearers and harmful effects of cervical caps, diaphragms, and menstrual sponges have surfaced.

New mothers are susceptible to TSS as well as those who are recovering from a surgery, are wounded or are using prosthetics. It is important to know about its symptoms so that you can identify the disease and seek professional help at the earliest.

Warning signs of TSS include:

1. Seizure
2. Headaches
3. Muscle aches
4. Diarrhea
5. High fever
6. Nausea

Causes
An overgrowth of bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus (staph) causes this disease. It can be found primarily in female bodies. This is one of the many staph bacteria that lead to skin infections in burn victims and patients recovering from surgical wounds. Group a streptococcus (strep) bacteria is another cause of this syndrome.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Foods High in Calcium

1. Sesame seed
2. Spinach
3. Collard green
4. Kelp
5. Broccoli
6. Brazil nut
7. Celery
8. Almond
9. Papaya
10. Flax seed
11. Orange
12. Dried fig
13. Yogurt
14. Milk
15. Soy products

It has become rare for a person to stop and admire a beautiful flower. Life has become fast and the human population is distancing itself from nature, and thus from good mental health. Thanks to the increased awareness about mental health in the recent years, many take up meditation regularly.

The benefits of meditation include eradicating stress, handling adversity and even shedding extra pounds. So, what is heartfulness meditation in particular? This is a simple meditation technique that you can practice alongside yoga or spiritual practices to completely relax as it is not related to any specific philosophy. While practicing this form of meditation, you will be encouraged to try and focus on your heart to experience your true self.

Why should you practice heartfulness meditation?
Heartfulness is a type of super-inclusive meditation that is there for more than a century. More than a million people practice the act in more than 100 countries, and this method is growing at a fast pace all across the globe. This tradition is rooted in the Raja Yoga tradition, and it can be practiced in a group or individually. This practice helps in improving the quality of sleep, relieving stress and boosting the immune system. It also helps in bettering the quality of life in multiple ways.

Here are some of the most compelling reasons why you should practice heartfulness meditation.

1. Helps enhance emotional control: This meditation technique helps in activating the amygdala which is the emotional center of the brain. Hence, it can help you feel calmer, and these benefits are spilled over in our day to day life as well.
2. Acts as a painkiller: You will be surprised to know that if you practice heartfulness meditation every day, you will experience much less pain. In a study, there were two groups of people where one practiced heartfulness meditation while the other group did not. The one who meditated daily experienced less pain.
3. Makes you compassionate: One of the most important benefits of heartfulness meditation is that it makes people more sympathetic and virtuous.
4. Alters Neuro-chemical balance in the brain resulting in more composed and calm emotional state: Meditation is such a fantastic technique that if you can practice it for about 8 months, it will result in a change in the neuro-chemical balance of the brain. 
5. Leads to an improvement of cognition: A study found that if you meditate daily, you will be able to sustain attention and it will invariably result in boosting your cognition. The level of improvement can range somewhere between 15 and 50 percent and the more you meditate, the better the results.

Simple steps to help you practice heartfulness meditation

1. Find a comfortable place in your home or a place where you can sit each day and meditate
2. Make sure you meditate at the same time daily. 
3. Sit comfortably with your hands and legs in a comfortable position
4. Focus on your heart and imagine light filling it
5. Slowly and steadily you will start feeling the vibrations and energy in your body
6. If your mind wanders here and there try to center it back towards the light in your heart
7. Practice it daily for 20 minutes 

Moreover, if you are someone belonging to the field of creativity, then heartfulness meditation can reap long-term benefits for you. It not only sharpens concentration but improves your ability to multitask easily. Thus, if you have not indulged in this beneficial act, this is high time to drench in eternal joy and happiness.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Important Relationship Tips by Marriage Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo (Saarthi)

Do you know it’s surprisingly easy to ruin a perfectly good relationship? People may not be aware they are doing it or might be spending their days thinking they are doing everything right for their relationships. Until one day without notice things start getting bad by frequent arguments, silent treatments, fight, then distancing. ​Marriage Counsellor Shivani Misri Sadhoo shares certain common behaviour that partners should check within themselves, as they can ruin a relationship. 

1. Avoid angry reactions to your partner's feedback

Communication is the key to relationship bonding. However, with time partners tend to take communication between them for granted. By granted means; if their partner places a suggestion or an advice , they react angrily or they send intimidating overreactions or feedbacks that shut their partner down. So the shutdown partner again tries much harder, this time, to be listened and a cycle starts that gradually destroys communication between partners.

So don’t make a habit to react angrily if you have been criticised or been advised by your partner, instead make it your goal to hear everything. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with our partner but it says you give him/her the respect or the window to share their every view with you.

2.  Avoid Deception and duplicity

In today’s life, people are more and more getting habituated of saying things that they don’t follow or believe. Like they tell their partner, “I really love you,” but they act like they don’t have any time to spend with them. They say “I want to be close to you,” then constantly criticize them when they are around.

These mixed messages of saying one thing and doing another represent a fantasy of being close but without really relating to them. Double messages like these slowly kill the relationship and the other person’s trust and faith. 

3. Avoid controlling your partner.

Sometimes without noticing people starts to get intrusive or controlling toward their partner. For example, a partner may stop asking their other half their preferences and choices, instead, they start to impose their personal choices by terming it “we”. For example; “We love Chinese food so let's go for dinner to that restaurant”, without asking if the wife is interested in eating food outside or is in the mood at that moment to eat Chinese or not. Such an action disrespects the other person’s sense of self. When this happens, it not only hurts our partner and his or her feelings , but it can undermine our own strength and our feelings for our partner. 

Good morning everybody. I am Dr Vandana Hegde. I am practising reproductive medicine, the department of Hegde fertility centre for the last 10 years. Today I would be speaking about the various aspects of fertility. So I will start from the basics to know what happens exactly and what are the problems that arise.

So here is a normal menstrual cycle of the female. There are certain things you need to know. What happens is during the onset of the periods, when the menstrual cycle starts, the eggs start maturing. Now, this egg grows in a wall filled substance which is called Follicle. So normally when the egg starts maturing, it reaches the complete maturity level on the 14th day of the cycle, an average of 12-16 days. As the egg starts maturing, the follicle size increases. Now when the maximum diameter of an egg is reached, the follicle burst and egg comes out. This process is called Ovulation.

If this ovulation happens on the correct 14th day of our cycle, over the next 14th day if there is no pregnancy then a girl will resume her menses which is a failure to conceive. If it happens regularly then the girl will have a regular menstruation cycle of 28-30 days. And if a girl is having the irregular menstrual cycle, then the ovulation is not happening correctly on time. So this is known as Ovulatory disorders. Now, what happens after the ovulation round.

Once the egg is released, it is caught by fallopian tubes. Fallopian tube has finger like projection and the eggs are normally kept on the last part of the tubes. Now when the couples meet, the sperm is released in the vagina. The sperms have basically the head, body and the tale. As I had mentioned earlier, once the ovulation happens, the eggs do not have any tale, so it needs a tube to collect it an d store it in the tube. The sperms will move into the uterine cavity and move into the fallopian tube and have to reach the other part of the tube. So at this point, the sperms will be reaching the egg.

There are certain criteria for normal semen. So when do we know that it is a fertile semen for which there are some criteria like the volume should be atleast more than 1.5 ml ejaculate.And the sperm count should be more than 15 million per ml of sperm. Because of the tale fraction of the mortality, there should be active mortality of the sperm for more than 30%. So when the sperm enters the egg, the process is called Fertilization. And the egg and the sperm will fuse to form an Embryo. The early embryo is called Zygote which is a single cell. So when this forms, the embryo has to divide. In that tube the embryo undergoes division. So in that cell, the embryo will divide into 2 cells, 4 cells, 8 cells. As the embryo is progressively dividing, the tube is going to push the embryo back slowly into the uterine cavity. During this process of egg maturation, the follicle growth, the ovulation, there is another process happening in the uterus.

So here is the uterus and this is the Uterine bed. So, as the follicles are increasing in size, so it produces a hormone called estrogen which is actually acting on the uterine bed. And the uterine bed is ready, there is an increase in thickness for an embryo to come here. And once the ovulation happens, there is a pregnancy favouring hormone called Progesterone which is increasing in the second half of the menstrual cycle. When this comes, there is a lot of blood flow coming to the uterine bed. So this is the time when the embryo is actually reaching the uterine bed. This process, when the embryo reaches the uterine bed and when the embryo sticks to the uterine bed, this process is called Implantation. Basically what is happening here is the blood collection between the uterus and the embryo. That is how the nutrients from the mother's body are transferred to the embryo which grows further and establishes a pregnancy.

So when the couples conceive, these are the things which have to happen in a natural way for them to conceive. Now what happens when they do not conceive when they try for more than a year after the marriage and still unable to conceive, so we evaluate the problems. Evaluation of problem depends on the steps which I have told.