#vizoftheweek 3: What It's Like - Bed Rest

Bed rest is a type of restriction placed to treat or prevent health conditions, most commonly in pregnant women. It is often used as an attempt to delay preterm labor or health issues. Most people have heard of bed rest, but unless they or someone they are close with have experienced it, they are often unaware of what it entails and what it is like. The term <strong>bed rest</strong> is actually an umbrella term for restricted activity. There are varyious levels of restriction that can be placed, from moderate - where the individual is allowed to move around and sometimes even leave their home, but they cannot engage in exercise or any time of overexertion -  to the most strictest version - where the individual is to lie completely dormant and is catheterized.

So, what is bed rest like? It is often likened to imprisonment, especially as individuals are allowed certain privileges, like being allowed to go the restroom, to take a shower during strict bed rest or being allowed to go to a desk job during a light bed rest. Many individuals have gone to YouTube or support groups to share tips of how to “do your time.” It has also been compared to being bedridden. Lying dormant for days, weeks, or months leads to muscle atrophy, bone loss, risk of psychological problems, and social isolation.

What's worse is there is no research evidence showing its benefit. Meanwhile "the practice continues [as a just-in-case measure] despite a growing body of medical evidence showing that bed rest offers little to no benefit to pregnant mothers or their fetuses. The treatment has not proved effective in treating preeclampsia, preterm birth, low infant birth weight, high blood pressure or a shortened cervix. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, a nonprofit organization of women’s health-care physicians, now advises that bed rest 'does not appear to improve the rate of preterm birth, and should not be routinely recommended.'” - quote from The Atlantic

As a way to keep my mind off of worries and to see what the affect bed rest has on one person's community, I tracked the activities I engaged in during  my first month on bed rest. I continued on bed rest from May through August; however, the data visualized encompasses one month of that time. This week is a little different, though, as this visualization is a video data story. Let's take a look at one month of bed rest looks like:

Video Creator: Kukhyoung Kim. Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Things to Do Next:

• Read more on the topic:
  • NPR: Rethinking Bed Rest for Pregnancy
  • The Atlantic: Bedrest is Bunk
• Learn how to clean and structure data in the Data Hygiene and Data Prep in Tableau workshops
• Reach out to dataCAVE@uta.edu for data visualization support and collaboration.