Strollerderby : fetus

Creepy Old Japanese Pregnant Dolls (with Attached Creepy Fetus Dolls!)

Cole Gamble — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Apparently used to teach 19th century Japanese midwives, these pregnant dolls not only included placenta and stretch marks, but also interchangeable fetuses of different stages. At least, I hope that's what they were used for. It's kind of weird for a novelty item.

Crocheted Doll Gives Birth

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They Say: We Don't Know How the Hell to Treat Pregnant Women

Madeline Holler — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:28:00 GMT

You already know this but a surprising number of medical professionals don't: pregnant women aren't just fat versions of average women (who, themselves, aren't just mini versions of men). Which means you can't necessarily medicate a pregnant women like you would any other woman, who you can't just medicate like any ol' guy.

That's before you even consider the consequences of passively medicating a growing fetus.

This, it turns out, presents a problem that researchers are only now beginning to look into. Given shifts in the pregnant woman's metabolism, among many other changes, it's any doctor's guess as to what and how much medication to prescribe to pregnant women who are battling cancer, depression, or the flu -- not to mention WMD-type viruses.

Here's an example of the problem the pregnant body presents: the American College of Obstretrics and Gynecology recommends giving patients amoxicillin during an anthrax scare. But how much? Who the hell knows!

From Time:

But an obstetrics researcher in Seattle recently concluded there's no way to give a pregnant woman enough of the antibiotic to be effective. Kidney function is so revved up during pregnancy that even in high doses, amoxicillin is excreted before it can work its magic. Think of it as trying to fill a bathtub with the drain open, suggests Jason Umans, an internist and maternal-fetal pharmacologist at Georgetown University. "In emergencies, you always hear, 'Treat the pregnant women first!'" he says. "The joke should be 'Yeah, how?'"

The good news a few dozen doctors, ethicists and government officials have launched a movement of clinical research they're calling the Second Wave (the first was when officials realized women are mini-men in terms of medicine, or, anything else). They're hoping to gather more data so that doctors no longer have to wing it with their expecting patients.

But what about the baby!!!!! Settle down, these, pioneer researchers say.

"Everyone thinks, Oh, my God, research on pregnant women! All kinds of ethical flags go up," says Ruth Faden, director of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University. "We don't have to start with high drama." There's enough "low-hanging fruit," she says, "that we could keep lots of medical researchers busy for a long time."

In fact, two-thirds of women take up to five drugs during pregnancy and through labor. But only a dozen are FDA approved for pregnancy and those are all stuff for the labor and birth like induction meds and the epidural. The ones for high blood pressure or diabetes are any doctor's educated guess.

What was your experience with meds during pregnancy? Did you and the doc just make it up as you went?

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Photo: Time.com

Sick in the Morning? Your Kids Will Thank You

JeanneSager — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:32:00 GMT

Who knew one day I'd do a happy dance over seven months of throwing up and two trips to the emergency room? According to a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics, moms should be embracing morning sickness - it means we're bound to pop out smarter babies.

Take that Ms. "Oh, I loved pregnancy, I never threw up, never even had an upset tummy."

The study was commissioned to look at the affects - if any - of anti-nausea drugs in pregnancy, and there's good news there too. Scientists found that mothers who took diclectin during their pregnancy to fight their morning sickness were not endangering their kids' mental acuity. That in and of itself is important news for doctors, who find that mothers who are suffering from morning sickness are loathe to take anything for fear of hurting their fetus.

But as Dr. Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk Program, at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and one of the study's authors, points out, morning sickness can have debilatating affects on a mother. See above - two trips to the ER and seven months of loafing about miserably sick (see also - why I'm only having one child!).

Whether parents took the drugs or not, the researchers found the kids coming out of cranky sick moms were scoring higher on tests of IQ (yes, I know, a very imperfect system) and mental acuity. This goes along with the good news that women who suffer morning sickness are less likely to miscarry and less likely to have babies with cardiovascular problems.

So moms, carry that barf bag proudly. You're baking a little genius in your oven.

Image: growinstyle

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You Are What Your Mother Didn't Eat

JeanneSager — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:34:00 GMT

My mother always told me I was made of spinach - because that's what she ate during her pregnancy. Constantly. To the point where my father threatened not to come home for dinner again, lest he be presented with yet another plate of green stuff coated in cream sauce or sauted in olive oil.

It turns out, I'm only partially right. A new study says the genes of a fetus can mutate in the womb, based on what a mother ISN'T eating.

We all knew pregorexia was bad for baby, but this study points out that it's more than a lack of development that's being caused but actual development in the wrong direction.

The study at the University of Utah looked at pregnant rats to find how a lack of certain nutrients in the womb can create risk factors for certain diseases down the line. A mother rat whose fetus did not get proper nutrition was born smaller than his counterparts but also primed for heart disease, diabetes and other diseases. The researchers hope that this study could hold the key to helping develop a regimen for mothers to prevent health problems down the road for their babies.

Some of this is pretty common sense - you have to pack in the nutrition when you're pregnant (and when you're breastfeeding, natch). But knowing which nutrients are most important could be a lifesaver for moms like me - the moms who threw up for seven months. Did you eat differently when you were pregnant?

Image: CafePress

There Oughta Be A Law (Really?)

Kate Tuttle — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:30:00 GMT

The state of Oklahoma is set to pass a law that would protect pregnant women against murder charges if they kill to protect their unborn child(ren). Legislators pushing for the bill (which passed the state's house this week and soon will hit the senate, where it is expected to pass) cite a case in which a Michigan woman, pregnant with quadruplets, killed her boyfriend after he punched her in the belly. The woman was charged with manslaughter; she lost the pregnancy as well.

Now, I don't know about you but I would have no problem using maximum force if someone threatened me while pregnant, or if they threatened one of my children. That said, I'm not sure a new law is needed -- I would use force to defend myself or my kids whether I was currently pregnant or not. The only purpose such a law could serve would be to make the Oklahoma legislature appear to care deeply about women facing domestic abuse while pregnant (which is a real problem), and to create a back-door justification for future legislation targeting women who do anything while pregnant that could be perceived as harmful to a fetus. So if you're comfortable with the idea of fining or jailing women for failing to take their prenatals, then you should support this law. Otherwise, it's really just a waste of lawmakers' time at best, a cynical and sneaky anti-choice move at worst.

Sadly, many women are beaten when pregnant (though it's not always or even often because they "refuse to abort their child," as argued by Representative Mike Thompson). I'm all in favor of toughening laws and procedures to help protect women from domestic violence. As for mistreatment that happens specifically to pregnant women, heck, let's see if we can rectify some of the worst abuses they face now, like expensive or nonexistent medical care, the inability to find a private health insurer who will cover them, or the lack of a federallly mandated paid maternity leave? Advocacy for those goals would help moms and babies more than this silly bill ever could.

So yeah, I'd probably kill to protect my unborn baby. But I'd fight any law -- like this one -- whose actual goal isn't to help pregnant women, but to hurt them.

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Proposed Anti-Octomom Law Stalls, For Now

Kate Tuttle — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:30:00 GMT

A Georgia state bill that would have imposed severe limits on IVF, promoted as a measure to prevent future "Octomom" situations, is unlikely to be passed this year, according to observers. The proposed legislation, which has been sent to a senate subcommittee for further study, would have required doctors and fertility clinics to fertilize no more embryos than they planned to transfer into a woman, and would have limited the number to no more than two or three, depending upon the woman's age. Proponents have suggested that this kind of legislation is sorely needed to protect both women and taxpayers from situations like Nadya Suleman's, in which the transfer of a large number of embryos resulted in a case of super-multiples with no visible means of support.

And we can all get behind that, right?

Well, not so fast. As Slate's William Saletan pointed out in a column this week, the bill, S.B. 169, is really a backdoor attempt to impose the same kind of "personhood" rights on embryos and fetuses that a state legislature in North Dakota recently passed. Under the guise of imposing sanity on the Wild West atmosphere still prevailing in some fertility clinics (and yes, Octomom is pretty much Exhibit A for what's wrong in that world), S.B. 169 would penalize all fertility patients, ban stem-cell research and declare that legally an embryo has rights that should be paramount (over the rights of living, breathing human beings).

Since the stem-cell and "personhood" issues are both facets of the whole reproductive freedom issue and most people have already made up their minds how they feel about them, I think it's most interesting to see how S.B. 169, if it ever were passed, would effect regular people seeking IVF or other fertility treatments. Under the bill's provisions, a mother could only have 2-3 embryos transferred, and due to the bill's "fertilize only as many as you transfer" language, she could not produce other fertilized eggs that could then be frozen and used in subsequent cycles (which is how nearly all current IVF patients proceed). This would vastly reduce the likelihood of success of each IVF cycle since not all fertilized eggs become transferrable blastocycts, and not all of those transferred blastocycts become implanted embryos, and not all of those embryos stick around long enough to become human babies; the more non-medical limitations placedon the number of eggs fertilized, the smaller the pool for even potential success. And given the cost of each IVF cycle, couples would quickly find themselves priced out of the fertility game unless they got very lucky, very early on.

As Saletan says of the bill's limits on egg fertilization:

How does this restriction "protect the mother" and "reduce the risk of complications" for her? It doesn't. If you wanted to protect the woman, you might limit the number of embryos that could be transferred to her womb, not the number that can be created in the dish. In fact, by limiting the number that can be created, you increase her risk of complications. The fewer eggs you fertilize, the lower your chances of producing an embryo healthy enough to be transferred and carried to term. That means a higher failure rate, which in turn means that women will have to undergo more treatment cycles, with the corresponding risks of ovarian hyperstimulation and advancing maternal age.

So why limit the number of embryos created per cycle? Because the bill's chief purpose isn't really to help women. It's to establish legal rights for embryos.

So don't be fooled. This kind of bill will no doubt make its debut in other state legislatures, particularly in states with a strong lobby against reproductive freedom and for embryo rights. If its advocates would come right out and say that's what they're fighting for, I'd have a lot more respect for them. Instead, by using impressive-sounding scientific language and making grand gestures toward women's health and taxpayer's dollars, they're trying to fool the public and use state legislative means to make an end run around Supreme Court precedent. As for women who only want a healthy baby or two, they become the innocent bystanders who stand to get hurt if bills like this pass.

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Doctors Call for Autopsies to Understand Stillbirth

JeanneSager — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:19:00 GMT

Thousands of pregnancies end every year in stillbirth - a baby dead in the womb sometime after the twenty-week mark or dead sometime during the birthing process.

It's heartbreaking for parents, but perhaps even harder for parents to take is the mystery. Of more than twenty-five thousand stillbirths each year, a full third are for unexplainable causes.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is calling for doctors to perform more autopsies on stillborn babies to unravel the mystery of stillbirth.

The goal is to reduce future stillbirths - or determine whether they can be prevented. The March of Dimes estimates stillbirth rates have dipped fifty percent in the last twenty years alone thanks to better technologies and healthcare practitioners' vigilance. They now know who has an increased risk of stillbirth - women thirty-five and older, women who suffer malnutrition and/or inadequate prenatal care, pregnant women who smoke and drink. They also have a host of causes for the two-thirds of stillbirths that are explainable - everything from placental defects to bacterial infection.

With the autopsies, they hope to rid the world of the other third. The question is how parents will take the suggestion from their doctor. Stillbirth is a traumatizing experience for parents, and the last thing a lot of parents want to do is turn their baby over to a scientist to cut, poke and prod.

Will parents be able to look past that and see the greater good? To see that they can make a difference for other parents in the long run?

Image: American Pregnancy Association

Texas Wants Women to Listen to Fetal Hearbeat Before Abortion

JeanneSager — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:27:00 GMT

Why Texas? Why?

Do you really think women who are headed in to have an abortion are all happy-go-lucky sorts who have no idea what they're getting into?

Because leading members of Texas' GOP are sponsoring a bill that would require women to sit through an ultrasound before an abortion, described in detail by the doctor, and (wait for it) require they listen to the fetal heartbeat. Oh, and if that's not enough, they must sit idly while a doctor lectures them with some good old-fashioned anti-abortion literature.

According to the bill, the "pregnant woman may choose not to view the materials or avert her eyes." How sweet. If that's an option, how about just skipping the whole charade and letting women get on with it?

Its supporters have made clear they are looking to reduce abortion numbers, but they're also being careful throw a little "we're helping to cut down on medical malpractice" spin in there.

"I think that this bill will protect women from being at the hands of a doctor who is not performing best practices," study author Republican Sen. Dan Patrick said. But he's certainly sticking with the party line - he goes on to say, "secondly, it may change the thinking of that woman if she decides to look at that ultrasound, to hear that heart beat."

This move is right up there with North Dakota's recent declaration that "personhood" is achieved at conception. Neither directly reverses Roe v. Wade, but they skirt the rights of a woman being trumped by that of an unborn fetus. As my colleague Kate recently pointed out, the right-to-life movement often neglects the idea that there is life AFTER birth.

The legislators who crafted this bill have no knowledge of a woman's mental or physical health when she walks into an abortion clinic. They have no idea whether she's been raped, had a condom break, gotten pregnant the day before her husband took off. But they are cocksure that listening to the heartbeat is going to change her mind; no matter the pain it inflicts.

Did these guys read the much-talked about Glamour piece on women who've gone through an abortion?

"In a perfect world, no woman would ever need to end a pregnancy," Liz Welch said just last month. "But in reality, one in three women will have at least one abortion by the time she is 45, and these women run the gamut of ages, races, backgrounds and beliefs."

So Texas, just to give you an update women might not feel guilty or even wrong for doing it, but it isn't an easy choice. They don't need to hear a heartbeat or be beaten over the head with literature and a detailed ultrasound description to know that.

Image: PatDollard.com

North Dakota Passes Law Establishing "Personhood" at Conception

Kate Tuttle — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:01:00 GMT

In the latest salvo against abortion rights, North Dakota's house of representatives this week passed a law defining a fertilized egg as having all the rights of a human being. The bil, which passed with a 51-41 vote, will now move to the state's senate for its consideration. If it is approved, legal challenges are expected that could end up in the United States Supreme Court -- a body that is now widely seen as having a five-justice majority willing to restrict abortion rights first enumerated in the 1972 Roe v. Wade ruling.

Dan Ruby, the Republican state congressman who sponsored the bill, says it's not intended to ban abortion, simply to define when life begins -- a question that has mystified thinkers for centuries, but apparently is obvious to the North Dakota Republican Party -- and to give that life "some protections under our Constitution."

This is hardly the first or the only legislative assault on Roe, and it certainly won't be the last. It is, however, part of an interesting new political/religious movement that uses the term "personhood" to attempt to define not only fetuses, but blastocytes (what's next, follicles?) as fully-fledged human beings deserving of all the legal status of a baby, child, or adult. The so-called "personhood movement" aims to roll back abortion rights by means of state legislative action, primarily working in states that outlawed or restricted abortion in the days pre-Roe, when each state had its own laws regarding reproductive rights. In defining even a fertilized egg as human, backers are not only taking aim at abortion but also at many forms of birth control, which operate by preventing fertilized eggs from implanting in the woman's uterus. It could also result in pregnant women being prosecuted for behavior said to endanger their fetuses.

I'm interested in this movement, and wonder when they will turn their attention to granting "personhood" rights to children who have already been born. One group of persons whose rights need protecting is children who are US citizens but whose parents are not -- an estimated 100,000 parents were deported over the past decade whose children, having been born here, should be enjoying all the rights of other US citizens, rather than left behind by their parents or forced to return to countries with fewer opportunities for them. And how about extending "personhood" rights to gay Americans who would like to marry and raise their children together, just as their straight friends and relatives do?

The religious right's emphasis on what happens before birth and after death is mystifying to me at times. I'd like to remind them that there's life after birth, and protecting those lives seems a much better use of everyone's time, energy, and attention.

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"Pro-Choice Women Shouldn't Cry Over Miscarriages"

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:30:00 GMT

Just in case your day is going a little too smoothly, let me share an article that will make your blood boil—particularly if you are one of the numerous women who has suffered the pain of a miscarriage and also happens to believe in a woman’s right to choose.

A guest blogger named Gina over at Mom Logic has written a gem of offensive inanity called “Pro-Choice? Quit Crying Over Your Miscarriage!” Here’s how Gina characterizes the pro-choice women who “break down in hysterics” over a miscarriage: “It's a baby when they want it to be, it's a bundle of cells when they don't.”

This is such a shameless confusion of the issue that we need to put Gina’s thinking in perspective with an extreme—but real-life—example: do I believe that a 12-year-old rape victim should be forced to keep her baby? Absolutely not. Would I be heartbroken if I lost the baby I was carrying, whom I had carefully planned my life around for years? Absolutely. These are two entirely different issues. One has to do with my belief in the universal right to reproductive freedom, which is essential to ending the oppression of women; the other has to do with my personal feelings about motherhood.

Many women who would not choose to have an abortion themselves (except perhaps in extreme cases such as rape or incest) respect other women’s right to choose—as do many men, who will never face the decision of whether or not to have an abortion. That’s why it’s called pro-choice, not pro-abortion. By Gina’s line of thinking, no one who wants kids—male or female—should support a woman’s right to choose.

Gina also writes of pro-choice women who have the gall to want kids of their own: “Suddenly the monthly visitor that they were relieved to get when they were 20, now, at 32, plunges them into the depths of depression.” Well, Gina, this is a little something called “family planning”: making life choices that give both you and your future children the best chances for happiness and success—and therefore, bettering the world. How could anyone take issue with women who were responsible enough to avoid pregnancies when they were too young to care for a child? If it weren’t for unplanned pregnancies, there would be no need for abortion in the first place.

Gina claims that she “respects women’s right to choose.” If she truly is pro-choice—which, by her own definition, means believing that all babies are nothing more than “a conglomeration of microscopic cells” until they are out of the womb—then I sincerely hope she never gets pregnant. It’d be pretty difficult to avoid things like smoking and drinking if you have zero emotional attachment to your baby.

Photo: Flickr/Steve Rhodes

New Risks Associated With Elective Deliveries

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

With induced labors up a whopping 125 percent since 1989, it’s clear that many preterm labors are not medically necessary. And this is particularly true around the holidays, when many parents schedule deliveries in time for a tax deduction or to fit in with a crazy travel schedule.

It’s understandable why parents have traditionally believed it safe to schedule a delivery anytime after the 34th week, since until recently obstetricians believed that everything except for the baby’s size was fully developed by then. But new research shows that those last weeks are more important than previously believed.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that “for each week a baby stayed in the womb between 32 and 39 weeks, there is a 23% decrease in problems such as respiratory distress, jaundice, seizures, temperature instability and brain hemorrhages.” Furthermore, it’s now clear that pinpointing the exact age of a fetus is very difficult; a fetus believed to be in the 34th week may only be in the 32nd.

Doctors must do their part to make sure parents know of the risks of an unnecessary preterm birth. The medical director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General Hospital admits that it’s simply easier and less time-consuming to “cave” to parents’ request for an elective delivery than to inform them of the benefits of waiting for a full term birth. And according to the March for Dimes, some obstetricians fudge the requirements to qualify parents for a "medically necessary" preterm birth.

But with increasing research like the above study, some hospitals are now wisely requiring parents to sign a consent form before scheduling a delivery before the 39th week. F. Sessions Cole, the director of newborn medicine at St. Louis Children's Hospital, urges parents to trust their babies. "The idea is that somehow, if you're in complete control of the delivery, then only good things will happen," Cole said. "But that's categorically wrong. The baby and the uterus know best."

Photo: mothering.com

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Most Tasteless Tree Ornament Ever

Miriam Axel-Lute — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 20:00:00 GMT

"Protect our troops - from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?"

I think it says something about the general state of the anti-abortion movement and who they have let speak for them that when I saw this unborn soldier ornament, I was fully prepared to believe that it was in fact being offered by a pro-life group in all earnestness.

In fact, as the site kindly explains in a "note to confused": "This is a real product, from a real site. The product is a satire, but it is also a real product - FOR SALE." Roger that. Ixnay on the free unborn soldier ornaments. And satire. Right. Of course.

Not a statement for the parental set to make though, I figure. Try explaining to your kid why this particular bit of satire is hanging on your tree between the snowflakes and little drummer boys . . . Ouch.

The only question is whether anyone who misses the satire is buying them in earnest. I guess they wouldn't likely be shopping at MissPoppy.com, purveyor of "the finest alternative Christian products to the saved and unsaved alike," including buttons that say "Jesus was so gay!" holy family rubber duckies, and bible tracts disguised as dropped wallets with cash sticking out.

(hat tip: Boing Boing, via Mind Pollution).

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Baby Born With Feet In Brain

Kate Tuttle — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:59:00 GMT

When Sam Esquibel was born in Colorado three months ago, doctors knew there was something going on. Ultrasounds had shown a mass in his brain, and he was scheduled for surgery just three days post-partum. But what the doctors found when they got inside his skull shocked them -- two tiny feet, a hand, and a thigh, along with several loops of partially-formed intestine.

Doctors removed the material (caution: the photo in this link may disturb some people), which could be the remains of a mostly-absorbed twin (also known as a fetus in fetu), but those typically occur in the abdomen. Or it could be a teratoma, a type of tumor that often includes hair, teeth or fingernails, though doctors say teratomas aren't typically as structurally complex as a foot or hand.

Whatever the reason, little Sam is just fine now, with nothing but a scar to remind him and his parents of the bizarre surgery in his first week of life.

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Bite Into A Fetus!

SunnyChanel — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:10:00 GMT

Are you planning a Pro-life bake sale, a OB-GYN potluck or just a baby shower with a questionable taste level? Well, then this is for you. A perfect way to delicously celebrate the not-yet-born is with this oh-so-odd fetus cookie cutter.

Now, I like a cookie as much as the next person, but even me and my cookie monsteresque ways would refrain from biting into one of these creepy concoctions. On the Broadstreet blog over at Salon.com, their “WFT” of the day was the discovery off this oddly off putting baking accessory. If you're more intrigued than off put, you can get your own for $9.99. The website that sells them is aptly named StupidToys.com and their pitch for the item is… “At last, EVERYBODY can have "one in the oven" with the deliciously disturbing Fetus Cookie Cutter!”

Now my appetite is ruined, and right before Christmas Cookie season. Damn.

Pregnant Women Compete in Marathon

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:50:00 GMT

Meet the Speed Bumps: a relay team of five women who are planning to beat the pants of off their competition in Ohio’s Road Runner Akron Marathon.

The only difference between this team and their 10,000 or so competitors is that the Speed Bumps will all be running for two. All five women are in or nearing their third trimester, with Kimberly Bucey (pictured) the farthest along at eight months.

All of the women got the OK from their doctors before agreeing to compete, but some of their husbands are nervous nonetheless. Naturally, the key to healthy exercise during pregnancy is to listen to your body’s cues (for instance, if you can’t catch your breath, your baby may not be getting enough oxygen), and this may be harder to do when you’re competing.

But the Speed Bumps are marathon buffs who are thrilled to be able to keep running during their pregnancies, and are confident they can do so in a healthy manner. “It’s great to keep running because it’s great to stay in shape,” said Monica Nowac, one of the Speed Bumps. “And it’s great to spread the word about staying in shape while you’re pregnant. To think anything else is simply archaic at this point.”

What do you think? Is "spreading the word" about exercise during pregnancy a laudable goal, or are those nine months when staying in shape should be the last thing you're worried about?

Photo: Ohio.com

The Panda Might Be Knocked Up

Jen Chaney — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:02:00 GMT

How much would it suck if human pregnancies worked like panda ones?

Mei Xiang, the possible panda mama at Washington D.C.'s National Zoo, might be pregnant. Zoo officials detected a rise in her progestin levels, which is a sign that she could be carrying another baby panda -- she gave birth to Tai Shan back in 2005 -- but not necessarily.

See, pandas can apparently have pseudo-pregnancies, which, according to this Washington Post story, involve "physical, hormonal and behavioral changes that mimic the real thing" even though no fetus has developed. So she gets to suffer from morning sickness, mood swings and all sorts of other unpleasantries for nothing? And no one can even tell she's pregnant so everyone just thinks she's Bitchy Panda for no reason? That's just not right.

To make matters worse, if she actually is with-panda, it's very possible no one will know for certain until she gives birth in mid- to late-July; apparently, panda fetuses develop so quickly that pregnancies often are not confirmed until the little one is almost here. Translation: No shower for Mei Xiang!

Still, the payoff is worth it. Look how cute Tai Shan was when he was a baby.

Image: Cottontimer.com

Cocktails Messing Up Male Junk

Madeline Holler — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:35:00 GMT

A dangerous cocktail is killing off sperm and causing malformed penises and it's not the kind of cocktail you stir and sip. It's also not the kind of cocktail you can avoid.

Researchers, who wanted to understand the rise in low sperm count and malformed male sex organs, are finding that endocrine-disrupting chemicals, which are harmless alone and in small doses, are killing off sperm and messing with development when mixed (in great quantities) in a developing fetus's environment.

The study, conducted on rats in Denmark, tested three chemicals already shown to be harmless individually: the drug flutamide and the pesticides vinclozolin and procymidone.

What they found was that prenatal exposure to a mix of the three chemicals significantly increased the number of baby rats born with malformed external sex organs and also developed some female characteristics.

The researchers say this cocktail effect should be taken into account before declaring individual chemicals as harmless.

France Says "Name Fetuses," Abortion Debate Stoked

Cole Gamble — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:10:00 GMT

France’s high court has granted parents the right to name and officially register their stillborn and miscarried fetuses. It’s a wonderful thing that parents in France have this opportunity to fully mourn their failed pregnancies, but I’d be remiss if I glossed over the whole abortion debate element. Now that fetuses can be named and officially recognized by the government, it stokes the fires of the “When Does Life Begin?” argument.

While it’s unfortunate that we have to discuss such private matters in such public forums, it will be interesting to see if anti-abortion activists over here run with this development. To use the court’s decision as a talking point, however, would require pro-lifers to embrace the French. I don’t want to profile too heavily, but I’ll bet among these activists there are many of those who emphatically cried “Freedom Fries” at France's measured stance during the build up to the Iraq war. Guess it’s time to mend some fences.

Wha? Smoking NOT Bad During Pregnancy?

Kelly Mills — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:02:00 GMT

I've often complained about how pregnant women are given all kinds of conflicting information and told not to do all kinds of things, even when the evidence against such things is dubious. There seems to be an all-or-nothing approach to pregnancy dangers, which makes it hard for pregnant women to engage in any activity without feeling guilty or anxious (I suppose it's practice for new motherhood.) However, even I was pretty floored by a new study by the London School of Economics that says smoking during the first four months of pregnancy does almost no harm to the baby unless it is combined with other factors, and even after the first trimester the impact on birthweight is negligible. Um, excuse me?

The study looked at birthweight, and the researchers basically said the greatest risks are to women of low socio-economic status, who combine smoking with poor diet and alcohol. They add that for middle-class women who smoke during the first four months of pregnancy, there is little risk to the fetus, and even after there is a very small effect on birthweight. Low birthweight is linked with developmental problems and mortality. One immediate criticism of the study is that smoking is also tied to other problems like miscarriage, SIDS, and respiratory problems, and the study didn't address this.

Of all the things in the world, few are tied so clearly to serious health problems as smoking, so I'm totally skeptical of this one. And before anyone launches into an account of how their mother smoked like a chimney during pregnancy and they are just fine, I should add that almost no study offers a guarantee of destructive health effects, but that doesn't mean risks don't exist for a large percentage of the population.

Yeah, Save the Babies, But What About Environmental Hazards For Moms?

Kelly Mills — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:31:00 GMT

I will admit that I did not go fully organic until I was pregnant, and all of the sudden became more conscious of the fact that what I put in my body went directly to the fetus I was boarding. Being a host made me care more about environmental hazards, because it wasn't just my health I was worried about anymore. And this is part of the point one writer makes when she calls attention to crap like phtalates in common products like cosmetics.

She points to a small sample study of umbilical cord blood that found, "an average of 287 contaminants in their cord blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides, phtalates and Teflon's PFOA chemical." And 180 of those contaminants cause cancer. Now, there were only ten samples, which isn't a nice big size for a study, but it certainly makes my eyebrows rise. While it's great to recall toys and set up organic nurseries, if we just pass on toxins to our babies through our own exposures, there's trouble. And, um, we might want to care about the actual health of moms and other adults as well, even if children make our concerns feel more imperative. Careful with that mommy makeover.

WTF of the Week: the Unborn Fetus-Soldier Ornament

Karen Murphy — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:07:00 GMT

This can't be real, can it? You'd be surprised...

"Protect our troops -- from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship? Show that you support the 'culture of life' by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans." - Christmas ornament, $14.95.

Oh, do follow the link to Miss Poppy (we're talking an actual store here, this is a real item for sale!) where you might want to pick up some gum ("every time you masturbate God kills a kitten").

[via Fussy and Jezebel]

Photo: Miss Poppy

Pregcellent: Finally, a Tolerable Timeline

Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 14:02:00 GMT

Join me, mamas-to-be, in a collective cringe at the pregnancy newsletters that arrive right on time in your inbox every Monday and refer to your fetus in fruit terms. I shudder to think of the embryonic nectarine that blows up to a monster grapefruit in a matter of days. Would you, perhaps, just like to know the facts? Possibly skip the paragraphs on why you shouldn't snort blow while you're growing a human brain in your belly and why more than one sheer slice of deli ham will cause something freakish to happen in utero? Maybe read up on your cell-dividing wonder in swanky British terms?

This pregnancy timeline courtesy the BBC is a straight-shooting, no judgement, week-by-week peek into what's happening with your foetus and what you can expect in your many ante-natal appointments while you're cheggers. Bookmark or simply print while you're stuffing your face with lunch meat, guzzling coffee and trying to fit your feet into flip-flops. And don't forget to delete those fruit newsletters.

Ahhh, much better, right?