MetaFilter posts tagged with pregnancy

Bearing Witness

zarq — Tue, 21 May 2013 10:45:48 -0800

Private Ceremonies. "Most women don’t talk about their abortions and miscarriages. Virtually none go through the experience with a loved one at their side. The greatest gift an abortion counselor can give is to bear witness, to be with a woman as she goes through this private journey, to witness her strength and weakness, her grief, her relief, her pain." A first person essay from a former abortion counselor.

"If you had not chosen it, this state would be intolerable"

MartinWisse — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:48:48 -0800

"Oh, the indignities of pregnancy! They told me it would be beautiful and glowing. They did not tell me about farting loudly at bus stops." -- Sophia Collins writes about the horrible truth of being pregnant and why consent matters.
Rachel Coleman Finch concurs and explains why it made her more pro-choice: One of my mantras for getting through the hideousness that was my last pregnancy was "I consented to this".

Thank you mom for enduring having me

ichomp — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:47:24 -0800

"There's nothing ergonomic about being a parent." Writer Shawnee Barton talks about the non-Hallmark, less discussed aspects of being a mother: the physical changes that come from pregnancy and giving birth. "Turns out, we are all mama soldiers returning from the battlefields of life-creation. And like most stories from the frontlines, the physical scars inevitably stir genuine emotions and sentimentality that those greeting cards fall far short of replicating."

Miracle twins

CrazyLemonade — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:15:25 -0800

Amy and Katie, the twins born 87 days apart - after mother's contractions simply stopped.

How To Have The Best Pregnancy Ever

bq — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:25:21 -0800

a super helpful foolproof guide of dos and don'ts to help you navigate that bag of waters through the best pregnancy in the world.

The meanest PSA ever?

Stewriffic — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:20:08 -0800

New York City has announced a new teen pregnancy prevention campaign. Some are calling them the meanest PSAs ever.

Public service announcements that claim to be about "preventing teen pregnancy" are more frequently about shaming and stigmatizing young parents. This is not a way to encourage young people to take control of their reproductive lives, and it's certainly not a way to support young families.--Shaming Teen Pregnancy

Some are pushing back against stereotypes and misinformation. NYC teen pregnancy, previously

A hapless fool, a few steps behind the rest

MattMangels — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 22:51:24 -0800

Yahoo's Blow to Work-Family Balance: Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, the first pregnant woman to ever become CEO of a corporation, has ordered all telecommuting employees back to the office. (Previously on MeFi)

"My Baby, Not My Child"

lalex — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:40:31 -0800

Callie Mitchell, a 25-year-old student and photographer, documented her pregnancy and decision to place her child for adoption. Photographs.

"Teens don’t always know about their rights."

griphus — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 06:54:58 -0800

Teen Pregnancy down 27% in New York City over the last decade.

Abortion in America

Artw — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 07:22:32 -0800

The Geography of Abortion Access - Forty years ago Tuesday, the Supreme Court ushered in legal abortion for American women when it decided in Roe v. Wade. Today, states—particularly in the South and Midwest—are eroding that right by legislating hundreds of provisions intended to impede access with burdensome obstacles. To understand more fully the complex state of access to abortion services in America, The Daily Beast identified and confirmed the location of the country’s remaining 724 clinics and calculated the distance from every part of the country to its closest clinic. (more)

Undue Burden

zarq — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:31:43 -0800

Jennie Linn McCormack "isn’t the only woman in recent years to be prosecuted for ending her own pregnancy. But her case could change the trajectory of abortion law in the United States": The Rise of DIY Abortions. Single page version of the New Republic article (triggers print queue) Background A week after her at-home abortion, Jennie Linn McCormack was arrested. "McCormack ran afoul of a 1972 Idaho law that makes it a felony for a woman to perform her own abortion" (in a manner not sanctioned by the state.) "Not only does the law pre-date Roe v. Wade, it pre-dates RU-486." Her case was dismissed. The court ruled there was no way to enforce a law which forbids women from inducing their own pregnancies. McCormack then appealed the decision, claiming the law itself was unconstitutional. This past September, the US Court of Appeals Ninth District agreed. The decision is here (pdf). An interesting read. From the New Republic article, above: "Written by Democratic appointee Judge Harry Pregerson, the ruling describes in detail the difficulty poor women experience in obtaining an abortion in Idaho. These restrictions, he argued, essentially outlawed the procedure for them, potentially violating the “undue burden” test sometimes invoked by the Supreme Court. He maintained that, since it was so hard for McCormack to obtain a legal abortion, it was unjust to charge her for having an illegal one."
McCormack's lawyer then filed a motion "that, if successful, would halt prosecutions of all women and doctors in Idaho for illegal abortion, and overturn the pain-capable law." The case has been heard. A decision is pending. Editorial from one of the experts called by McCormack's lawyer in New York Times Opinionator: Can Neuroscience Challenge Roe V. Wade?

So That's How Babby is Formed

quin — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 07:22:30 -0800

Photographer Patrice Laroche has created an image series that answers, once and for all, how to make a baby. [sfw]

The sheer loathsomeness of nausea and vomiting does seem to serve a biological purpose.

purpleclover — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:40:29 -0800

The news that Duchess Catherine is expecting a baby set off a storm of tabloid squee, speculation on her maternity wardrobe, and, of course, a joke Twitter account (@RoyalFoetus: RT IF YOU ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO SERVING ME). But the reason the royal family announced the pregnancy so early, reportedly shy of 12 weeks, is not very funny. A Royal Spotlight on a Rare Condition:

It used to be a major cause of death in women until the 1950s when they introduced IV fluids. ... there are a lot of misconceptions about it. A lot of women are treated really badly. They’re treated like they’re faking it or that they just don’t want their child. We have a lot of women who have lost pregnancy after pregnancy, or who had abortions because they just couldn’t tolerate it.

Hyperemesis gravidarum is a condition that causes constant nausea and vomiting in pregnant women, resulting a greater than 5 percent weight loss, electrolyte imbalances, hospitalization, and sometimes death. (It's thought that Charlotte Bronte died of it in 1855. There were 159 maternal deaths per million births in Great Britain from 1931–1940; that number dropped to 3 per million from 1951–1960.) HG, which affects between .3 and 2 percent of pregnancies, is often described as severe morning sickness. The link between pregnancy and nausea was the subject of an early New Yorker article (link to abstract) by Atul Gawande:

The sheer loathsomeness of nausea and vomiting does seem to serve a biological purpose. The benefit of vomiting after eating something poisonous or tainted is obvious: the toxin is expelled. And the dreadfulness of the accompanying nausea deters you from ever wanting to eat anything like it again... In a famous 1992 paper, however, the evolutionary biologist Margie Profet made a compelling case that pregnancy sickness is actually protective. She pointed out that natural foods that are safe for adults commonly turn out to be unsafe for embryos. All plants produce toxins, and in order to be able to eat them we have evolved elaborate detoxification systems. But these systems don’t eliminate harmful chemicals completely, and embryos can be sensitive to even tiny amounts.

A weird sidenote: Margie Profet, a MacArthur Fellowship-winning biologist, also first proposed that allergic reactions were a defense against toxins (link to abstract) and that menstruation was a defense against pathogen-carrying sperm (link to abstract). She went missing for much of the '00s (previously). She has since reconnected with her family.

Not just another wondrous part of pregnancy

zarq — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 08:03:12 -0800

"Then one of the nurses calls me and says, “The doctor would like to know why you’re rolling around on a table full of semen.” And I say, “TELL HIM THAT’S NOT HOW I NORMALLY SPEND MY SATURDAYS.”
Author Pamela "Pamie" Ribon: "How I Might Have Just Become the Newest Urban Legend" Ms. Ribon has been seen previously on Mefi.

Pregnant man rage, cancer man chill

elgilito — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 05:34:29 -0800

Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) is a hormone produced during pregnancy and a marker in many pregnancy tests. After one man tested himself for pregnancy "for shits and giggles", his friend posted the surprising result in Rage Face form on Reddit... only to find out that elevated hCG levels in men are actually not lulzy (Reddit thread), resulting in an emergency visit to the doctor and a more thoughtful follow-up Rage Face comic.

What the ideal utopian world would be - with good beer

catlet — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 18:42:28 -0800

What is it like to be a woman in the Pacific Northwest craft beer industry? The 2011 documentary The Love of Beer offers a look into the lives of several women who work with beer: Tonya Cornett, the brewmaster of Bend Brewing Company in Central Oregon; Teri Fahrendorf, who started the Pink Boots Society, the US's first professional society for female brewmasters; Sarah Pederson, a beer retailer who owns a Portland tavern; and Lisa Morrison, known as the Beer Goddess, who hosts a Portland radio show and writes about beer.

the Contraceptive Choice Project finds that free birth control access significantly cuts abortion rates

flex — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 14:16:15 -0800

Free birth control cuts abortion rate dramatically, study finds: "When more than 9,000 women ages 14 to 45 in the St. Louis area were given no-cost contraception for three years, abortion rates dropped from two-thirds to three-quarters lower than the national rate." TIME magazine:

The findings come amidst contention over President Obama’s health-care law, which offers women FDA-approved birth control without a copay. As of August 1, contraception is covered for women signing up for new health insurance plans or renewing their existing plans. “[C]hanges in contraceptive policy simulating the Contraceptive Choice Project would prevent as many as 41% to 71% of abortions performed annually in the United States,” the study’s authors wrote.

previously - women's health care: now without co-pays

The Complicated Realities of Reproductive Choice

apricot — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:02:23 -0800

Knocked Over: On Biology, Magical Thinking and Choice “Spare me the self-help bullshit,” I snarled at my sister while I sat, snot-nosed and gasping, behind a gas station off I-88 on my way home from Iowa. “Life isn’t Eat, Pray, Love. If you try to turn this into a teachable moment I will fucking scream.”

Print Your Own Foetus

modernnomad — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 08:06:00 -0800

For US$1275, You Can Get a 3D Model of Your Foetus The result is a scale reproduction of your unborn baby, composed of an opaque white fetus encased in the mother’s clear, colorless abdomen. [via The Verge]

"I am lying awake in bed, trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion."

Kitty Stardust — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 13:54:13 -0800

"The only thing that makes my abortion decision different from anyone else’s abortion decision is that some people who are against abortion will think that my abortion is acceptable." Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker on what she's dubbed "The World's Shittiest Secret Society."

India's reproductive assembly line

latkes — Sat, 19 May 2012 08:42:25 -0800

If you asked me two years ago whether I’d have a baby and give it away for money, I wouldn’t just laugh at you, I would be so insulted I might hit you in the face,” said Indirani, a 30-year old garment worker and gestational surrogate mother.

it's a big cold world out there but warm & cozy in here

flex — Fri, 11 May 2012 08:30:45 -0800

Consumer Reports May 2012: What to reject when you're expecting (10 procedures to think twice about during your pregnancy; 10 things you should do during your pregnancy; 5 things you should do before you become pregnant). Mentioned in particular is the conclusion found in a federal study: Babies Take Longer To Come Out Than They Did In Grandma's Day."One big implication: Today's obstetricians may be rushing to do cesarean sections too soon because they're using an out-of-date yardstick for how long a 'normal; labor should take... The definition of a 'normal' labor — the range of times when a woman in labor reaches certain milestones — was laid down in the 1950s. Contemporary obstetricians still use that 'labor curve.'"

If only it were this quick.

gaspode — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 05:35:26 -0800

A short and sweet pregnancy [slyt] The impending arrival of a baby inspired this happy couple to track their pregnancy in a short time-lapse video.

Things I have learnt from and about IVF

escabeche — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:02:59 -0800

Things I have learnt from and about IVF. (apologies for linking to two long Crooked Timber posts in a week, but they're kind of on fire over there.)

Use Me As Your Body Pillow

the young rope-rider — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:00:16 -0800

"Every so often I notice that someone has found this site by searching "Pregnant Woman Porn" and I have no doubt that I am not what they are looking for. But it got me to thinking..."