Birthweight link to lifespan and lifelong health. 'Why does one person die younger and another survive to old age? Lifestyle and genetic factors play a role, but' 'a better predictor of future health is our birthweight and what it tells us about our development in the womb.' 'The birthweight of a baby reflects how well it was nourished in the womb and the risk of chronic disease in later life. It is better to be 7lb (3.2kg) at birth than 6lb - better to be 8lb than 7lb. This implies that variations in the supply of food from normal healthy mothers to normal healthy babies have huge implications for the long-term health of the baby.'
[more inside]
posted by VikingSword
on Aug 25, 2011 -
55 comments
30 and Pregnant "How did this happen?" he said. I couldn't believe he didn't know. "We were so careful." I sighed heavily, twirling a piece of spaghetti around my fork, feeling overwhelmed that now I would officially have to come down on one side of the cloth versus disposable diapers debate.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero
on Jun 3, 2011 -
212 comments
Progesterone caproate injections have been used to reduce the likelihood of premature births in at-risk pregnant women for years. Up until now, the drug was custom-compounded by wholesale and specialist pharmacies, legally, but without federal approval. These injections cost between $5 and $15 a dose and were regularly reimbursed by insurance companies and Medicaid.
Last month, the FDA announced
their approval of a commercially produced version of the compound, to be marketed under the brand name Makena by a company called KV Pharmaceuticals.
No stranger to controversy and trouble, KV barely survived a rash round of
layoffs and wrongful termination lawsuits. Their former chief executive
now faces criminal charges surrounding the company's failure to notify the FDA that they were producing oversized morphine tablets.
(He could also do for a shave, it appears.)
Now, KV has announced that the new drug will be available at a cost of
$1,500 per dose,
bringing the total pregnancy term cost of treatment to $25,000-$30,000, from its former cost of $250-$300, a
100-fold increase—but it gets worse...
[more inside]
posted by disillusioned
on Mar 9, 2011 -
63 comments
"Nearly half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion.... At least half of American women will experience an unintended pregnancy by age 45, and, at current rates, about one-third will have had an abortion." Abortion is one of the most common medical procedures in the U.S., but it can be very difficult to get unbiased information about the procedure. From Jezebel:
The Girl's Guide to Having an Abortion.
posted by jokeefe
on Jan 16, 2011 -
104 comments
"Normal" human pregnancies last 40 weeks, right? Well, no; they can vary quite a bit by the mother's
race,
age,
number of previous children,
family history of delivering early or late,
home state,
work habits, and even
the fetus' HLA type. So where does that "40 week" thing come from?
Oh, dear. So check out this
super-nerdy pregnancy statistics website, from an engineer mom who is
collecting data from the public (see the
raw data and
auto-generated graphs, and
read the FAQ about the survey, with more cool graphs). Looking for
day-by-day probabilities on when that baby's due? This would be
your stats table with daily prediction (adjust dates at top of page as needed). Of course, you could always shut up your constantly inquiring relatives and friends
another way.
posted by Asparagirl
on Dec 16, 2010 -
45 comments
Abortion Drugs Given in Iowa via Video Link. "The situation has played out hundreds of times. From his office here, a doctor asks a woman on the computer screen before him one final question: Are you ready to take your pill? Then, with a click of his mouse, a modified cash register drawer pops open in front of the woman seated next to a nurse in a
clinic — perhaps 100 miles from this city — with mifepristone, the medicine formerly known as RU-486, that is meant to end her pregnancy."
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Jun 9, 2010 -
46 comments
This year's winners of the Ig Nobel prizes are a bumper crop of wild and crazy SCIENCE!, featuring sword-swallowing, knuckle-cracking,
benefits of cow-naming,
pregnant women NOT tipping over,
a household use for giant panda poop (take that,
Packham),
diamonds made from tequila,
a brassiere that can be used as TWO gas masks,
"Ireland's Worst Driver", Icelandic banks, Zimbabwean currency, and a 'Peace Prize' earned by hitting people over the heads with beer bottles (and comparing the effects of
empty vs. full bottles) (
related inquiry)
posted by wendell
on Oct 2, 2009 -
23 comments
Let's Panic About Babies! "Fortunately for everyone in the whole wide world,
Alice Bradley and
Eden M. Kennedy have created the only website that accurately explains the journey from morning sickness to third-degree tears to keeping that baby alive for a year–or more! LET’S PANIC ABOUT BABIES will serve as a salve to the mystery and degradation of this most female of challenges. Its authors may not have 'science' on their side, but what they do have is far more valuable: a heady mélange of female intuition, sentence-forming know-how, and the achingly vivid memories of their own gestational journeys and unending motherhoods. So join Alice and Eden as they tell you exactly what to think and feel and do on every one of your 2,681 days* of pregnancy. They know everything!
* 'Science' would tell you that human gestation is actually, on average, 266 days. This is one of many ways in which science is terribly wrong." [more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Aug 19, 2009 -
63 comments
Sixteen states already have
laws [PDF] related to
abortion ultrasounds . Eleven more states have recently introduced bills that demand that a woman who wants an abortion be forced to look at the ultrasound, while a doctor describes what she is seeing. All of these bills are because the legislators believe that adoption is the only choice a woman should make. This essay,
On Living Pro-Lifer's Choice for Women, explores the difficulties faced by birth mothers who choose that path.
posted by dejah420
on Mar 17, 2009 -
505 comments
Evangelicals are very good at articulating their sexual ideals, but they have little practical advice for their young followers. Social liberals, meanwhile, are not very good at articulating values on marriage and teen sexuality—indeed, they may feel that it’s unseemly or judgmental to do so. But in fact the new middle-class morality is squarely pro-family.
The New Yorker discusses the red-state/blue-state divide in attitudes about premarital sex, sex education, and teen pregnancy:
Red Sex, Blue Sex.
posted by Who_Am_I
on Oct 31, 2008 -
153 comments
Pregnancy Boom at Gloucester High As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town.
posted by swift
on Jun 19, 2008 -
209 comments
Wombs for rent: "Anand's surrogate mothers, pioneers in the growing field of outsourced pregnancies, have given birth to roughly 40 babies. More than 50 women in this city are now pregnant with the children of couples from the United States, Taiwan, Britain and beyond. The women earn more than many would make in 15 years."
posted by mr_crash_davis
on Dec 30, 2007 -
134 comments
Resolve.org is a site devoted to providing support, both emotional and practical, to people struggling with infertility issues. The immediately apparent benefits to visiting would be their informational documents and errata, but of at least equal value are the bulletin boards where you can talk with other people dealing with infertility, whether it's for the sake of venting, chatting or just to have someplace you can go where you don't have to hear the words "well, adoption isn't so bad..."
posted by shmegegge
on Sep 17, 2007 -
66 comments
The ethics of infertility: After taking fertility drug Clomid,
Ryan and Brianna Morrison conceived sextuplets. Their religious beliefs steered them away from undergoing a
selective reduction procedure in favor of bringing all six fetuses to term. Four of their newborns have died; the remaining two are in critical condition.
This mother of multiples says that while she's grateful that insurance and Medicaid covered her million-dollar hospital bill, her "quest to have a family resulted in a significant drain on society's resources."
posted by lalex
on Jul 2, 2007 -
136 comments
