As if 16 & Pregnant and my 7^th grade health class didn’t give me enough reasons to never produce offspring, turns out there’s a bunch of other aspects of pregnancy that scare the hell out of me. Maybe I’m biased since I’ve never had much of an interest in having kids, but just consider this a fair warning from one female to another: if you don’t want to deal with the following, not to mention the actual raising of a human child, USE PROTECTION. Moving on.

1) Morning Sickness

One of the first things many think of when they hear the word “pregnancy” is morning sickness. “Oh, that’s nothing,” you may say. “I spent a whole night vomiting after Bobby’s house party, I can deal with a morning or two.” Oh, really? Morning sickness, which occurs in over half of all pregnant women and is often due to increased estrogen levels, doesn’t always stick to the morning. In fact, the nausea may last throughout the day and, in severe cases, excessive vomiting can lead to dehydration, weight loss, heartburn, flatulence and a host of other lovely side effects. This “extreme” morning sickness is called hyperemesis gravidarum and can land one in the hospital. Not so easy to deal with anymore, huh? Read More »

When I started writing this column back in February the across the United States, many states were reevaluating their legislation around reproductive health. We’re nearing the end of the year and yet issues surrounding reproductive health are continuing to pop up. Access to abortion, distribution of Plan B, and issues around birth control are still coming up across they country.

In New Jersey, students at Ramapo College are petitioning around the access to Plan B on their campus. They believe there should be less restrictions on how it is accessed to ensure students are able to gain access to the pill within the recommended 72 hours. Our friends at Jezebel then took a look at how easy it is to access Plan B on different college campuses. Read More »

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There are a lot of decisions to be made in a long-term relationship — whose friends to hang out with more often, if and when to cohabit, whose place to crash at more often, and what you’d both like the future to look like. Once sex enters the relationship – whether if it’s on the first date or on the first night of marriage, there comes a whole new set of decisions to make.

For most couples, I think it’s fair to say that the go-to contraceptive plan usually involves condoms and some form of birth control (we were always told that two methods are better than one). Once that decision has been made and acted upon, the following months of getting-to-know-each other getting it on are usually passion-filled and use enough latex to make David Suzuki’s earth-loving head explode.

But regardless of what we’ve been taught, and regardless of how much we know we should be using condoms every single time no matter what, there does typically come a time in which the “should we go bareback” conversation will inevitably arise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of safe sex, and I would never suggest going condomless outside of an LTR or without a backup form of birth control, but let’s be real here – it feels better and it’s just so much more convenient.

Yeah, I went there. Read More »

If there’s one way to complicate a friendship, it would be to add sex to the mix. This “hook-up culture,” as it has been so nicely labeled by middle-agers, seems to be the norm on college campuses everywhere. Students are much more likely to have a few drinks and go home with a friend, than go on a “real” dinner-and-a-movie date.

In a way, it kind of makes sense. There aren’t many people that we trust more than our friends, and when you spend a lot of time with a person of the opposite sex, it’s easy to let the hormones kick in and go with the sexy flow. It’s easy to have sex with a friend – someone who may have even picked up on your likes and dislikes from your previous trysts.

With a friend, sex kind of feels natural — something that was “a long time coming.”  And this is the part where I make the blatant statement that everyone with a FWB doesn’t want to admit – believe it or not, having sex with someone on a regular basis, even when you don’t put a “label” on it, is still a relationship.

Maybe not the kind of relationship in which you call each other late and night just to say “I love you,” or the kind where you bring them home to your parents  — but it’s something. You’re still single when you have a FWB, of course, but if sex is happening on a regular basis, your partner deserves the exact same courtesies that a boyfriend or girlfriend would.

I have a rule, and not to push my beliefs onto others, but it’s something that I feel pretty strongly that all people should follow: if you’re having sex with someone, they deserve to know if you start f**king someone else. Read More »

Bethenny Frankel from The Real Housewives of New York City has recently received a lot of flack for losing 29 of her 35 pounds baby weight in just less than three weeks. She gave birth to her premature daughter, who was born at just about 4 pounds, on May 8th, and has since reverted back to her original pre-baby 122 pounds body. To be honest, when I first read this about Bethenny (I had no idea who she was) I was shocked to find out that she lost more than 3/4 of her weight in less than 3 weeks. I understand that she was already pretty small (a size 4) before she got pregnant and she had been healthily monitoring her weight while she was pregnant….but her baby, Bren, was only four pounds when she was born! What does that say about her ‘actual’ eating habits when Bethenny was carrying this baby?

The problem with ‘celebrities’ (the term used very loosely) shedding the majority of their baby weight rapidly right after they give birth is that they give an extremely unrealistic perception of baby weight loss to the general public and to the women who emulate to look like these women. Given their status and fame, ‘celebrities’ are guaranteed the opportunity and time to work with a personal trainer, have chefs cook their foods, consult with a nutritionist and happily maintain the facade that they really didn’t do anything but “eat healthy” and “exercise” to lose weight after their pregnancies. While that is partly true, we often forget that these ways of weight loss are not meant to be completed in a span of three weeks but rather a longer and more tedious time frame where it’s not merely losing the baby weight but also trying to maintain the healthy fluids that are meant to be beneficial for the babies.

I do understand that the pressures of the industry do provoke even D-List celebrities like Bethenny to look fit, but it’s one thing to be fit and in shape just for yourself, but another thing to possibly endanger the life of your baby for the sake of looking skinny. Bethenny herself has clearly stated from the past that she’s struggled with healthy weight loss and nutrition since she was a kid and even has written bestseller books chronicling how to maintain a svelte figure. I do admire Bethenny’s endurance in keeping up with her weight (she says she lost almost 25 pounds of her baby weight just via C-Section), but when ‘celebrities’ send out these type of messages, they must stress the importance of healthy weight loss and eating right.

We often forget that while we look up to celebrities for their physical attributes, most of the times, they have many more resources than us in looking good. Yes, do stay slim and in shape, but maintain it in a healthy manner.

[It's pretty obvious that the average CollegeCandy reader has some very strong opinions. Opinions that she likes to share with everyone on the site. We love a strong woman (unless she happens to be charging at us with her fists raised), so we thought we'd give her a real forum to discuss her thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Every Friday I'll be featuring a hot topic (like banning 21st birthday shots) and leaving it up to you, the readers, to duke it out. So, read it and get your debate on in the comments section below!]

This week, under the category of “news that made me say WTF!” was this little story about students at Georgetown University taping their mouths and chaining themselves to a statue in front of the school in protest of the fact the Georgetown doesn’t provide or help to provide contraceptive options like condoms to it’s students. The school, a private Catholic university stands by the religious policies of the Catholic church under which it was founded and refuses to provide any contraception that prevents the creation of life. Let the debate begin!

OK, let’s go ahead and get this out before the NYC-liberal-arts-student part of me literally explodes – SERIOUSLY! Are you freakin’ kidding me?! Georgetown, a major university, which does not require it’s students to follow Catholic doctrine, is still, in this day and age, refusing to hand out condoms!? Are you gonna provide daycare, Georgetown?

Ah, I feel better now.

But honestly, there are a lot of good reasons why Georgetown should step up and help with the sexual health of it’s students. To begin with, Georgetown is located in Washington D.C. where officials have declared a citywide HIV/AIDS epidemic. That means that, completely outside of the pregnancy prevention argument, Georgetown is refusing to help it’s students protect themselves from devastating, life-changing illness. And yes, students at GU could just go around the corner to the drugstore and buy their own condoms, but as many many schools have found out, it’s a lot harder to get students to do that (when you’re this close to getting it on in your dorm, that CVS might as well be China). Read More »

Question for Tuffski?! Email her at TuffyLuv@collegecandy.com and perhaps get an answerino.

Dear Tuffy Luv,
My best friend got engaged on Valentine’s Day. I want to be excited for her big moment, but I can’t help but feel like she’s making a gigantic mistake. She’s only known him since November (he was a mutual friend of the guy she was sleeping with at the time) and has a long history of rushing into relationships with really sketchy guys. Every relationship she gets into, she seems to fall head-over-heels for the guy and turns a blind eye to all of his problems until after he breaks up with her, at which point she realizes what a jerk he was for cheating/abusing her/lying/etc.

Her fiance has never abused or cheated on her, but a couple of months ago they had a pregnancy scare and he threatened to kill himself. I don’t think either of them are mature enough to get married, and if they do, I think it will end in divorce. They plan to get married in Summer 2013 after she gets her bachelor’s degree, so there’s time for her to realize it won’t work on her own, but I don’t think she will. Should I raise the issue with her? I love her and just want her to be happy, but she’s so ecstatic about the engagement and the guy that I’m afraid speaking up could end our friendship.

–Friendo Read More »

Got a health question? Don’t trust those “Doctors” at the University Health Center? Are you scared of Web M.D. because it always tells you you’re gonna die? Ask a real doctor, like our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin. She’s here every Thursday to answer whatever you throw at her – even the aftermath of HPV– so ask away. Leave your question in the comments or send it over to us. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: Will taking Plan B multiple times affect the ability to get pregnant later down the road? My boyfriend and I are talking about having a baby sometime in the future but I have taken Plan B more than once in the past… Have my chances of becoming pregnant been reduced?

A: Don’t worry, sweetie. You’ll be just fine. Thank God for Plan B.  While multiple pregnancy terminations may have some fertility implications (mostly because of scar tissue on the cervix or in the uterus), Plan B does not abort a pregnancy in the same way something like mifepristone (RU-486) does.

Plan B consists simply of high doses of progesterone, a hormone your body naturally makes every time you ovulate.  Progesterone floats around your body regularly, and when you get pregnant, progesterone levels go WAY up. So it’s not like you’re taking some chemotherapy drug that might hurt your system. Read More »

Throughout the years, MTV has thrown some bizarre ideas for reality shows our way.  Some catch the attention of the nation while others fall through the cracks.  While watching MTV (daily) I find myself screaming at the TV, “WHAT is the point of this show??”  Entertainment value, usually.  That is if you can call watching guys pick a date based on the underwear a girl has in her drawer, entertainment. (Thanks, Room Raiders).  However, what about the shows that may have actually been created for a real reason?

Let’s rewind.  Teen Mom.  Yes, like most people, I am obsessed.  I am still trying to figure out what Catelynn has that I don’t (besides braces, a trailer, and a 1995 JCPenny homecoming dress) that makes Tyler choose HER over me.  SO unfair.  But back to my point: as I watched the finale of Teen Mom last week and gear up for tonight’s reunion episode with Dr. Drew, I’m really starting to wonder what MTV was trying to do with this show.

Was it for entertainment value? Sure, listening to Gary recite a definition of the word “empathy” during the finale was extremely entertaining, but teen pregnancy is a huge issue; is MTV trying to take a stance? Are they trying to educate teens about the horrors of teen pregnancy? Maybe trying to prevent it? You would think by airing this show, MTV could position themselves as advocates to prevent teen pregnancy and use the show as an education tool, while also providing entertainment.  Read More »