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Comfort Essentials & Summer Tips First-time mom-to-be Deanna Moran found the New York humidity to be uncomfortable and overwhelming during her summer pregnancy . "You are always hot and no matter how high the air conditioning is turned up it just is never good enough," she said. Like the over 1 million expectant moms last summer, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, Moran found that being pregnant during the hot and sticky days (and nights) of summer had its downsides. But Dr. Sara DuMond, a mom and pediatrician in South Carolina, says that there's a definite plus to carrying during this time. "Delivering in a warm weather month means that both mom and baby will be able to get fresh air, which can be vitally important," DuMond says. With a little preparation and these simple tips, you'll be able to keep your cool -- and enjoy! -- your summer pregnancy . Tips for a Cool & Healthy Summer Does just thinking about venturing outsi...

It's the final countdown -- fast approaching single -digit weeks -- before you get to meet your baby and coo over those tiny fingers and toes. Unfortunately, tiny isn't the word that comes to mind these days. The homestretch can be, well, a stretch. Itchy bellies, achy backs, swollen ankles, hemorrhoids -- you name the annoyance, and some expectant mom probably feels it. The real remedy, of course, is childbirth. But since that option is still a bit premature, we asked an obstetrician, a midwife, and a family practitioner to share their best trade secrets for surviving the common aches and pains of the third trimester. Our experts: Owen Montgomery, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia; Stephanie Lowell, a certified nurse midwife in Phoenix, Ariz.; and. Bruce Bagley, MD, a family-practice physician in Latham, N.Y., and former president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Make sure to talk...

The following is from Adam O'Riordan’s short story collection , The Burning Ground. The Burning Ground is a collection of eight stories about men haunted by their past: from a painter tormented by memories of a lover to a father trying to rekindle a relationship with his son. Adam O’Riordan’s poetry collection In the Flesh won the Somerset Maugham Award , awarded to the best writer under the age of 35. He is an academic director at Manchester Metropolitan University . Alannah would always come at two o’clock as she had on her first visit. But they never talked about how they might exist outside of the confines of the studio. Then at Easter a fortnight passed without her visiting. He had delayed his own trip to see his sister in Harrogate. By the third week, when two o’clock came he was pacing the studio, snapping the slats in the battered brushed-metal blind, peering down on to the parked cars on the street below. He had first met Alannah and her husband at the same party. He had...

In our new series Pregnancy Diaries , we ask expecting women to jot down every pregnancy-related detail of their lives for a week. (Special thanks to New York mag and Refinery29 for the inspo.) Work-related conundrums, struggles with IVF, and a whole lot of nausea, ahead. For our eighth entry, we have a 33-year-old part-time publicist from Connecticut who’s 25 weeks along. She and her husband of almost eight years have a “spirited” two-and-a-half-year-old girl, and don’t know the sex of baby number two.  How long did it take you to conceive?  It took just a couple of months to conceive baby #2. My cycle has tended to fluctuate month-to-month since having my daughter, so it was a bit of a challenge to track accurately. We’ve been incredibly fortunate and have not experienced any fertility issues to-date. Any other details relevant to your pregnancy? Our daughter was born three weeks and one day early, and I gave birth less than three hours after my water broke. This is known as precipit...