Les Bonnes Choses

If you have some OTC medication nearby, I'll bet you five to one that it says somewhere on the label that it is not suitable for pregnant or lactating women. I'm sure that new or expecting mothers among my diverse readership would agree: two pink lines on a pee stick signal at least a year of sucking it up as you endure headaches, allergies, colds, flus and a host of other uncomfortable plagues* without the benefit of any pharmaceutical relief. The alternative, I suppose, would be to go into your local GNC or Sangsters and pick up some herbal remedy. But those bottles of valerian root or mosswort don't carry those same warnings only because they aren't regulated in the same way; in any case, if it's a placebo effect you're after, sugar pills are much cheaper, especially if you swipe all the Rockets candy from your kid's hallowe'en sack.

No, I think that there's a huge opportunity out there for somebody to make a pile of cash by figuring out how to make mommy-safe versions of common OTC medications. Someone could probably retire comfortably on hemorrhoid ointment.

While I'm suggesting lucrative pharmaceuticals, here's another awesome idea out of pregnancy lore: As a woman gets closer to giving birth, her body releases chemicals that make her more flexible. Rebecca complained of her hips feeling like they were falling out of their sockets. My ligaments, on the other hand, have all but ossified. Whatever is going on with expectant mothers' joints, somebody ought to bottle that stuff up. They could call it Liquid Yoga. I'd buy it. My buddy A says that the yoga in his workout DVDs kicks his ass, so he'd probably buy it too.


*Currently, there are no FDA-approved medications for the treatment of frogs, locusts, or rivers of blood