Giving Birth With Confidence

I’ve just come home from a whirlwind trip to Minnesota, my old stomping grounds where I lived for 18 years before moving a year ago to Ann Arbor, Michigan. Those trips “home” are wonderful – a good dose of ice and snow with folks who know how to handle it, and visits with friends who [...]

New York City’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, is taking a strong stand in support of breastfeeding. If his success banning smoking in restaurants and bars, and most recently banning use of trans fats in New York City restaurants is any indication, Baby Friendly is about to become the standard in the Big Apple.
Bloomberg announced this week that 2 million dollars has been [...]

The LA Times reports that studies publicized this month point to an advance in testing for genetic disorders with the use of a simple blood test on a pregnant woman. Genetic disorders like Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs disease soon may be detected by isolating fetal DNA in the mother’s blood, much less invasive [...]

Birth advocate extraordinaire Robin Weiss sent me a little article, the kind of birth story I wish we’d see more of. Actress A.J. Langer (best known as Rayanne on My So-Called Life, as well as a raft of other American TV shows) has given birth to her first child – a waterbirth at home, her [...]

A recent article in The Oregonian outlines a cultural phenomenon – the next new thing to feel pressured about in our modern society. Make no mistake, there will always be a “next new thing” related to health and choices we make about our bodies and our children’s bodies. (There’s a campaign going on in [...]