With a long weekend, a hurricane, a roadtrip, and kids waking up at 6:30 when they're supposed to wake up at 8, you'd think nothing could ruin one's weekend any more. Well, the reporters of science, health, parenting, and education would beg to differ:
- A new NIH study of the soaring C-section rate found that the C-section rate is soaring. Half of women were induced, presumably with pitocin. And half the C-sections were women who'd been induced, but weren't dilated. Everyone talks about how C-sections are so costly, but isn't one health care system component's cost another health care system component's revenue and country club dues payment? [washpost; nyt; abstract]
- The NIH's Consortium on Safe Labor [NIH]
- A 2009 study of the Netherlands' well-integrated and well-supported system of 230,000 well-attended home births found that they were as safe as hospital births. [abstract: wiley]
- But by throwing that massive study into the statisticalizer with a 35-year mishmash of small, unrelated studies, Big Obstetrics was able to deliver a headline like, "Planned Home Births Associated With Tripling of Neonatal Mortality Rate Vs. Planned Hospital Births" [sciencedaily; full study: ajog]
- The Midwifery Lobby is not amused. [theunnecesarean.com]
- New dads get all hormonal, too, and damn good thing. [rebeldad]
- Wait, the FDA's on the verge of requiring a prescription for Nyquil and Robitussin?? Look, you can ban cough medicine for babies or you can ban cough medicine for parents, but you can't do both. Someone's gotta get some sleep around here. [reason]
- Germany's 3-year maternity leave policy is awesome if you like reinforcing traditional gendered breadwinner/caregiver roles. [a bunch of studies and comments on andrewsullivan]
- The CPSC and Health Canada looked into the matter very critically, and they have concluded that "Most babies exhibit diaper rash at least once in their lifetime." The fact that it happened to 5,000 of them while wearing Pampers DryMax in May is just a coincidence. [cpsc]
- Previously on the Freakout: Z Recs' epic Pampers rash-a-thon experiment [zrecommends]
