Jayplay ran an article Thursday about the experimental male contraceptive pill H2-gamendazole ( Balancing the burden of birth control). The social and cultural issues raised in the article are significant, and I don’t disagree that male contraceptives would be a revolutionary advancement. But asking whether male contraceptive pills are good is premature at this point: The first issue should be the health of the user, and the article did not fully address that.

via kansan.com

A baby born with two faces has been praised as being in good health, and is now being worshipped as a Hindu goddess. Indian couple Vinod and Sushma Kumar last month gave birth to one-month old daughter Lali - with the girl born with two faces. Technically, the girl has two sets of eyes, mouths and noses but however appears in otherwise good health according to Doctors. Her family says that Lali eats with both mouths, and also blinks in time across all four of her eyes. Doctors say the rare condition is known as craniofacial duplication - where most facial features are duplicated, except for the ears.

via scopical.com.au

Infants born prematurely are much more likely to die during childhood and, if they survive, they're much less likely to have children of their own in adulthood, according to the largest study of prematurity undertaken. Researchers already knew that premature infants faced many neurological and developmental problems, but the new findings, released today, indicate that the spectrum of problems is even broader than suspected and persist throughout the child's lifetime. The study, conducted using Norwegian data, suggests that, as the percentage of premature infants who make it through their first year continues to grow because of advances in neonatology.

via mercurynews.com

Babies born to mothers who undergo severe stress during pregnancy are likely to face a higher risk of developing brain disorders like schizophrenia, says a new study. Researchers at the University of Manchester studied data from 1.38 million Danish births occurring between 1973 and 1995. They found that the risk of schizophrenia - a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder - and related illnesses was around 67 percent greater among the offspring of women who lost a relative during their first trimester, reported the online edition of BBC News.Read the rest of this entry »

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The NHS is spending £350m a year to provide maternity services for foreign-born mothers, £200m more than a decade ago, the BBC has found. Immigration has raised the birth rate so fast that some units have closed, so that midwives could be moved to areas of urgent need. A unit in Ascot, Berkshire, shut for two months in 2007 because staff had to be transferred to Slough. The NHS says it is working to "build in" the extra capacity needed. Other maternity units have turned expectant mothers away because they could not cope with unprecedented increases in the local birth rate.

via news.bbc.co.uk

Bucking the trend in many other wealthy industrialized nations, the United States seems to be experiencing a baby boomlet, reporting the largest number of children born in 45 years.
The nearly 4.3 million births in 2006 were mostly due to a bigger population, especially a growing number of Hispanics. That group accounted for nearly one-quarter of all U.S. births. But non-Hispanic white women and other racial and ethnic groups were having more babies, too.

via news.yahoo.com

Being a woman appears to be a major risk factor for lung cancer.

A 10-year study using computed tomography (CT) screening found women had twice the risk of developing lung cancer from using tobacco that men did.

This trial was part of a larger study, the Early Lung Cancer Project (ELCAP) in New York, which found annual CT screening for both men and women could more easily detect early tumors and reduce mortality rates than conventional screening methods.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Women who have their first baby by Caesarean section are at significantly higher risk of losing their next baby to an unexplained stillbirth before going into labor, according to a new study.

An expert not associated with the study, published in The Lancet medical journal, said the research is important because it suggests hospitals that tend to do a lot of Caesareans might need to consider strategies to reduce them.Read the rest of this entry »

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Little Dillon Servia was born at Mercy Hospital of Folsom shortly after midnight on Tuesday, earning him the title of the Sacramento region's first baby of 2008. Dillon arrived at 12:02 a.m. at Mercy Hospital of Folsom and is the first child born to mother Lori Servia.

Apparently, Dillon wasn't eager to leave the comfort of his mommy's belly, as he was nine days late.

via msnbc.msn.com

Since the introduction of IVF in 1978, the number of multiple births has almost doubled. Does this mean that twins and other multiples have lost their "specialness"?

Twins have been revered and feared throughout history.

Every culture has its twin myths. Voodoo practitioners in Haiti believe twins have magical ability and share a single soul. Some Native American tribes considered them unlucky.

via news.bbc.co.uk

In a troubling reversal, the nation's teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials and reviving the bitter debate about abstinence-only sex education.The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.

via edition.cnn.com

In a troubling reversal, the nation's teen birth rate rose for the first time in 15 years, surprising government health officials and reviving the bitter debate about abstinence-only sex education.The birth rate had been dropping since its peak in 1991, although the decline had slowed in recent years. On Wednesday, government statisticians said it rose 3 percent from 2005 to 2006.

via news.yahoo.com

Magnolia bark extract contains chemicals that kill bacteria that cause bad breath (halitosis), a new study shows.

Those compounds are called magnolol and honokiol, according to the study, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In lab tests, magnolia bark extract killed virtually all of the oral bacteria it encountered.

via medicinenet.com

In the second of a series on Japan's population crisis, the BBC's Philippa Fogarty looks at the reasons behind the country's low birth rate.
In January, Japanese Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa visited the city of Matsue to talk to party members about the falling birth rate.

Arresting the decline would be difficult, he said, because "the number of birth-giving machines and devices is fixed".

via news.bbc.co.uk

An Indian girl who had surgery to separate her from her partially developed twin is out of intensive care and recovering well, her doctors say.

Lakshmi Tatma was joined at the pelvis to what was, in effect, a headless, undeveloped twin.

A team of surgeons in the southern city of Bangalore operated on Lakshmi for 27 hours last week to separate her spinal column and kidney from her twin's.

via news.bbc.co.uk