Category archive: birth

May 18, 2012

DT Friday Freakout White Babies Edition

You know, it's been a busy, even crazy week, and my eye is kind of hurting because I swim with only one eye open, when I should really just get a pair of goggles? Anyway, this week's freakout is...
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May 4, 2012

DT Friday Freakout

Some headlines and such from the worlds of science, politics, and parenting, all rolled up into one, weekend-ruining Freakout, a public service of Daddy Types: Yeah, but the problem as always, is the last mile: "1 sperm has 37.5MB of...
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May 3, 2012

That Era Of Casual Abandonment Of Newborn Babies

There are a lot of things I disagree with George Will about, not the least of which is the way his political ideology rewards him for tossing off a phrase like "this era of casual destruction of pre-born babies." But...
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April 20, 2012

Some Headlines Can't Be Beat

Sarah Palin's New Grandchild Here Six Months Early [wonkette]...
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April 2, 2012

The Invisible Cost Of Free Shipping

It's Monday before lunchtime, and Mac McClelland's account of being a warehouse wage slave is already the most depressing thing I'll read all week:The gal conducting our training reminds us again that we cannot miss any days our first week....
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March 20, 2012

'The State Department Says The Donor Determines Citizenship'

I'm kind of amazed by this story. Maybe it's the way it's written. The State Department's regulations do not consider kids conceived in vitro and born outside the US to US citizens to be eligible for US citizenship themselves. The...
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March 13, 2012

Infa-Print

So awesome. Also, mazeltov all around, print nerds. The things print nerds notice [printresting]...
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February 7, 2012

'Like The Kill Shot In A Korean Movie'

Basically, I'll follow Tom Scocca wherever and whatever he writes, so if he's going to do a no-holds barred account of the deeply weird moments of the childbirth process as part of Deadspin's Blood Week, I'm there. He says the...
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December 31, 2011

The Dudela Abides

Oh wait, no, maybe this parody posting for a "dudela" on UrbanBaby should be the craziest, last post of the year:A DUDELA? IS THAT LIKE A DOULA? Yes, think of a dudela as being a doula for the mother's partner....
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December 30, 2011

Fetal Cube, By Telstar Logistics

Tomorrow's another travel day, and in case this is the last DT post of the year, we've gotta end big: I've been trying to test or rent one of them Nissan Cubes for a while now. Anyone out there love...
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December 22, 2011

And They Shall Call His Name Emanuel. And His Jesus.

Let's put this story from the northern Brazilian state of Para into chronological order:Claudioner Assis de Vasconcelos, director of the hospital in Anajas where she gave birth, told Brazil's O Povo newspaper that the mother came in because she was...
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December 2, 2011

DT Friday Freakout: Lead Juicebox Edition

Here to ruin your weekend, a healthy dose of freakout headlines from the worlds of parenting, science, health, education, and safety: Not to freak you out or anything, just that Consumer's Union really wants something to be done about all...
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November 17, 2011

Keith Haring Maternity Ward Frieze, Woodhull Hospital, Brooklyn

Not that they should anyway, but there's a reason people don't choose their hospital for delivering the kid based on the street cred of the artist who did the maternity ward murals. I'm sure that occasionally bums out the...
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October 31, 2011

No More Babies, Please, We Have A Winner

Thanks to all the folks who entered last spring's the United Nation's 7 Billionth Baby! Contest. Because she was born close to midnight and within arm's length of this large UN-prepared photo-op backdrop,Danica May Camacho of Manilla, Philippines turns...
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October 26, 2011

Baby Ajax, Ed. 1

Congratulations to Bushwick artist Marni Kotak on the successful realization of her performance piece, The Birth of Baby X, at Microscope Gallery yesterday. A video of the work and related ephemera [i.e., the placenta] will remain on view as scheduled,...
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October 3, 2011

The Birth Of Baby X, By Marni Kotak

Suddenly, I feel as if the entirety of the over-emphasis on art here on Daddy Types, indeed, the blog's entire existence to this point, has all been in unconscious preparation for this moment, this post. Beginning this week, Microscope Gallery...
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September 27, 2011

Quick, Catch! Homebirthing Q&A For Dads

Natural Papa has a quick Q&A about dads and homebirth with Lome Aseron, an East Bay dad whose two kids were both born at home. It all looks like good, basic advice, but this still totally blows my mind:5. What...
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September 23, 2011

Haus Birth

Looking through designer Erik Brandt's blog for more work like the one he did above, for this Supergraphics show, I spotted his post of how their daughter was born rather quickly, in the bathtub, with the midwife on the...
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July 28, 2011

4th Proudest Day Of His Life

Passed a brand new Honda Odyssey, still with the paper tags. Bet that guy hasn't felt this excited since his third kid was born....
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July 11, 2011

The Sun Never Sets On Rupert Murdoch's Vast Criminal Empire

The phone hacking scandal and subsequent investigation coverup involving Rupert Murdoch's News International and British police targeted not just celebrities, and the families of murder and terrorism victims, but the royal family, and now, it turns out, former prime minister...
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What To Expect When You've Got Gestational Diabetes In Texas

Large birth weight is a typical complication of gestational diabetes [GDM], a condition which affects around 200,000 pregnancies annually in the US. According to the NIH, physicians generally screen for GDM at around 24-28 weeks, earlier if there are more...
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May 27, 2011

Birth Announcement Lets Everyone Relive The Magic Moment

When the aperture is fully dilated, you can see the babies head! Cardnetics Iris Mechanism business and greeting cards [cardnetics via boingboing]...
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March 28, 2011

Yoko Ono Birth Announcement

While in Tokyo in 1963, pioneering performance and Fluxus artist Yoko Ono sent out this little, 3-card set of poems, art works and photographs to let friends back in the US know of the birth of her daughter Kyoko....
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March 13, 2011

We Are Our Kids' First Immune System

One in 4 women have the Group B Streptococcus bacteria naturally occurring in their digestive tracts and/or vaginas. One in 200 women who test positive for GBS between 35 and 37 weeks of pregnancy and who are not treated with...
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February 13, 2011

Your365? Has Disney Baby's Bedside Partner Our365 Visited You In The Hospital?

Alright, after a weekend off, I am ready to take a more level-headed look at this Disney Baby thing. The world's obviously not going to end when Disney characters start appearing on newborn gear and clothing or nursery walls or...
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November 24, 2010

Ausgezeichnet! Der Bebe Gebirthin' Auf Street View

As it happens, I've been spending a lot of time lately looking at the just-launched German cityscapes of Google Street View. I've been doing this primarily for aesthetic reasons--I really like the way Google pre-emptively blurs out the houses...
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October 25, 2010

The Snow Baby

Admiral Robert Peary's wife Josephine accompanied him on several of his early expeditions to Greenland, including the one where he pretty much swiped Ahnighto, the massive meteorite fragment which had been the Inuit's primary source of iron for centuries,...
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October 18, 2010

Pennsylvania Maternity Wards On The Frontlines In The War Against 'Poppy Seed Use'

Thanks to Pennsylvania's mandatory drug testing of mothers about to give birth, state officials took custody of a newborn after her mother tested positive for poppy seed bagels. In lieu of any information about what other states might require drug...
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September 13, 2010

Swing Of Fire

You know, to look at the extraordinarily detailed patent diagrams for George and Charlotte Blonsky's centrifugal birthing table [patent no. 3,216,423, granted Nov. 1963 that's a fence surrounding it by the way. It's a birthing cage.], you'd just have...
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September 3, 2010

DT Friday Freakout

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...
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August 12, 2010

Anchor Babies, Terror Babies, All These Brown American Babies Look Alike

First the good news! American OB/GYN's are winning the War On Terror! Turns out there aren't waves of jihadi women sneaking across the border to have their Terror Babies in the US, so they can take them home to Jihadistan,...
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July 28, 2010

Don't Bring A Penis To An Obstetrician Fight

No one becomes an obstetrician so they can interact with more men. So what do four of the whiniest OB's imaginable really think about dads in the delivery room? Thanks to the lack of nametags at Esquire's open bar, now...
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April 21, 2010

Dude Becomes Dad While Dodging Volcano

BoingBoing's original headline for this story was something like, "Help Bennett Get Out Of Volcanoland," but since there's nothing anyone can really do, and since he's apparently on his way back from London via the rest of Europe and Mexico...
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April 15, 2010

Last One Out

So weird to think that because they can't build a bunch of condos, the hospital's bankrupt and closing. Anyway, the NYT has the story on the last baby born at St. Vincent's in the West Village. If only the reporter...
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March 11, 2010

Majority Of 2010 Births To Be Minorities

Unless you've been wearing your white, pointy hood backwards, there's no new news to see here. I just wanted to write that headline. Minority births on track to outnumber white births [washingtonpost.com]...
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January 31, 2010

DT Friday Freakout: Weekend WTF Edition

What's the hype from the worlds of science, medicine, safety, and parenting this week? British newspapers totally make up scientific stories and then try to pass them off as the research findings of whatever hapless scientist is unlucky enough to...
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January 4, 2010

While A Party, This Ain't, In Fact, No Disco

Congratulations to the Wary Meyerses whose kid finally arrived--11 pounds! While they were waiting, the DIY design gurubloggers whipped up a little outfit for him out of leftover hospital gowns, and they turned the standard-issue plexi hospital bassinet into...
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December 2, 2009

Mazel Tov, Give That Kid A Camera!

Max promptly sneaked out of the delivery room, through a hole in a fence, and started taking pictures of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Congratulations to Jake and Karen!...
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November 23, 2009

DT Friday Freakout, Meet DT Monday Meltdown

Yeah, the weekend slipped by with nary a Freakout to be had. Fortunately, these crazy stories from the worlds of science, safety, and parenting can still ruin your Thanksgiving holiday: By now it's [week-]old news that in addition to all...
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October 28, 2009

Socialist Canadian Hospital Bassinet Impresses Some

DT reader and comrade to the North Cameron and his wife just welcomed their second kid--mazeltov/omedetou!--and all are doing well. Or as well as can be expected for people trapped in the socialized medical hell of Canada, where Cam...
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October 13, 2009

Don't Throw Rama From The Train

A 30-year old woman suddenly gave birth in the toilet on a train in northeast India, and the baby fell down the chute, out the trapdoor, and onto the tracks. So the mother raced out of the bathroom and jumped...
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September 21, 2009

Home Birth A Plenty Valid Excuse For Not Blogging

Congratulations to Jason & Meg, who have the best reason of all not to blog for a little while: their second kid and first daughter, Minna, was just born at home [!] in Manhattan. It's the wave of the future,...
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September 19, 2009

Maybe Because She Wanted A Show On E!

Welcome to the world, Montana Tessa Newsom! A confirmation message has been sent to your email address. Click on the link to activate your own Twitter account!...
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August 11, 2009

Twitter's Dad

Looks like the guy who helped conceive Blogger and Twitter is getting ready for his own v2.0 to drop. Good luck, kids, don't sell this one to Facebook, either!...
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August 6, 2009

DTQ: How Much Did Your Kid Cost?

Ever since reading Sarah Wildman's article about getting blindsided by a $22,000 hospital bill for the birth of their child, after they'd been paying $126/month for a carefully researched maternity care rider on their high-deductible, high-copay insurance policy, I've wondered...
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Grilled Placenta With Peanut Sauce And Rice Vermicelli

Wait, is the annoying, new dad, placenta-schlepping, Time Magazine column-having Joel Stein related to the annoying, peanut-allergy-denying, yuppie-parent-blaming, Los Angeles Times column-having Joel Stein? Why would anyone take a single piece of food-related advice from that guy? Does the placenta...
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August 3, 2009

Welcoming Your Little Bundle Of Joy And Hospital Bills, Holy CRAP!

Wow, last time we heard from Sarah Wildman, she was writing an incredibly insightful article for the New York Times stuffed with the wisdom of hard-found parenting experts on how parents in these New Depressionary times really might not need...
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July 30, 2009

Wienermobile Crashes Into, Breaks Heart

So did you realize that anyone can invite the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile to his event, and they'll come? With at least three months advance notice and a bit of "Oscar Mayer relevance," even a dadblogger organizing a fundraiser can...
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July 7, 2009

DT Monday Mommy Mailbag Meets Tuesday Turf War: Our365

The publicists were off for the holiday, because I didn't get any seriously biased mommy marketing pitches until today. And the one I got bears looking into:Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY), the leading Internet-based social expression and personal publishing service, today...
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June 2, 2009

American Dude Delivered By Midwife Suddenly Can't Get A Passport

I was just filling out the application for K2's passport--and renewing the kid's--when I caught this crazy passport thread and started pulling. Apparently, the State Department has flagged people who were delivered by at least 200 midwives around the country...
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May 26, 2009

Tanzanian Maternity Ward

Wow, I couldn't bring myself to read this weekend's New York Times article yet about the crazy-high mortality rate for mothers and babies alike in Tanzania. But I just scrolled through Beatrice de Gea's photo essay of the Tanzanian...
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May 14, 2009

Misemono: Meiji-Era Sideshow Pregnancy Dolls

In the late 19th century Meiji Era, a newly reopened Japan rushed to modernize and catch up to the West. One often-overlooked field which Japan had dominated since the 18th century was the creation and presentation to the paying...
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April 30, 2009

Living On The Earth [While Mostly Naked, And With A Kid]

As soon as I saw the cover of Alicia Bay Laurel's Living on The Earth at the library sale, I knew I was buying it, and as soon as I opened it and found out the whole thing was...
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April 17, 2009

Things I'd Rather Not Be Recorded Saying, Vol XII

Especially if there's a chance they release the 911 call to the media:"I didn't know my wife was pregnant," Ryan said of his 27-year-old wife, already a mother of three.Couple unaware of pregnancy gives birth at home with help of...
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DT Friday Freakout: Spawning Season Edition

Sun's out, it's getting warmer, it looks like a great weekend--for random and preliminary medical research news to undermine your confidence in the way you're parenting! Since April is Autism Awareness Month, we'll start there: Were you aware autism is...
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March 26, 2009

Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead.

Come for the caffeine, stay for the heartwarming words of advice from the adorable great-grandfather on a bicycle. And the caffeine. Coca Cola, yo te amo. [youtube via sullivan]...
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March 19, 2009

DT Xingqi-wu Xitstorm

I know today's only xingqi-su, but it's xingqi-wu in Asia, isn't it? Here are a couple of stories that make you say Wu Tang Fung, if you know what I mean: After that consumer activist group announced they had "found"...
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March 17, 2009

Sudden Birth: Berkeley's Finest Cops Are Also Berkeley's Worst Actors

Unlike most of the digitized educational films in the A/V Geeks' vast library, Sudden Birth was almost certainly not rescued from a school dumpster. The training film was commissioned by the California Peace Officers Association in 1966 so that,...
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January 11, 2009

Placenta Jars? Somebody Korean's Got Some 'Splainin' To Do!

So the eyebrow-raising Korean birth customs didn't start with gold-plating umbilical cords or turning them into personal seals. Korean royalty used to [still does? I don't know] place a prince or princess's placenta in a placenta jar, then bury...
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January 7, 2009

Study: Elective C-Sections Increase Risk Of Complications

A new study of over 24,000 full-term births found that the risk of complications increased 20-100% with scheduled [repeat] C-sections, depending on how early they were scheduled [i.e., 37-39 weeks]. The research was conducted by doctors at the University of...
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January 2, 2009

Turns Out Babies Are Born Inflight All The Time

It's only on slow news days that they get worldwide media attention. Here is a roundup of news, background, and data about babies born on airplanes: In 2007, a British woman gave birth at 25 weeks on a flight from...
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Waitaminnit, That Baby Born On The Northwest Flight Is NOT Canadian

OK, so on New Years Eve, an 8.5 mos pregnant Ugandan woman--and US resident--was on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Boston. By the time flight attendants called for any doctors traveling onboard to help with a medical emergency,...
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December 12, 2008

MIFF MUFFered MILF

Would you be surprised to learn that Debra Pascali-Bonaro's documentary, Orgasmic Childbirth, won the Audience Choice Award at the 2008 Motherbaby International Film Festival in Bermuda? I think, based on whether you knew of the existence of the Motherbaby International...
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I'll Have What He's Having: Orgasmic Birth

From the New York Times comes [sic] word that next month ABC's 20/20 will air Orgasmic Birth, a documentary by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, who is a birth educator, doula and, it's safe to assume, orgasm advocate. Finally, someone who will stand...
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December 4, 2008

HOV-2.5

Call me naive, but wasn't the Big Dig supposed to elminate Boston's traffic woes and turn the entire region into a garden-filled, driving utopia? Apparently not, because suburban guys driving their wives 25 miles into town so they can give...
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December 2, 2008

This Just In From The Baby Came Early Department

In, or out, really. Wow. The Guardian has a transcript of a 999 call where a woman gives birth by herself. All in all, a good argument for cordless phones. Unpublished 999 call transcript | Birth [guardian.co.uk via waxy]...
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November 26, 2008

Stan Brakhage, Father Of 'The Birth Film'

Experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage is probably not remembered best for being the film teacher of South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker["We need a montage!"]. And he's also not known for what may be his greatest contribution to the...
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November 19, 2008

JFK: President Elect, New Dad

I never realized that JFK Jr. was born a few weeks after JFK won the election. Life photographer Al Fenn had a series of crowded candids with the president-elect and new dad in the hallways of Georgetown Hospital in...
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November 16, 2008

Friday Freakout: Argentine Time Edition

The wife's in Argentina, and I hear everything starts late in there. Though I also accept that it's hard to ruin your weekend with alarming parenting news and way-too preliminary research findings if I'm only getting the post out on...
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November 12, 2008

Hey, Neighbor! We Heard You Had A Baby!

The NY Times' Julie Scelfo reports that thanks to Ricki Lake's documentary about having her baby in her bathtub in the West Village, home births are all cool now in the city. And not just among "hippie freaks or religious...
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November 10, 2008

Adbusters Get Mad About The Childbirth Industrial Complex

There's your argument against national health care right there, in the pages of the culture jamming magazine, Adbusters. Writer Shonagh Strachan sounds like she had a pretty horrible time of it giving birth in Dublin, Ireland a few years ago....
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October 20, 2008

Kaleidoscope-ic, Man: Phillips dePury Tries To Bogart My Toyage

Ceci n'est pas un toy. Ceci n'est pas un dollhouse. Ceci n'est pas a house at all. Because if it were any of that, would it be being auctioned off at Phillips dePury this Saturday? Bien sur que non....
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October 18, 2008

Orbit On The Office: "$1200? That's What I Spent On My Whole Bomb Shelter."

In this week's episode of The Office, Michael's throwing a baby shower for Jan's anonymous sperm donor baby. It's pretty hilarious front to back, but Dwight's test drive of the Orbit Baby System just might be the best stroller...
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October 6, 2008

You Take A Seat, I'll Take That Sweet Berceau De Maternité

No, the other one. Let's face facts: France is a nation in love with crazy bassinets, so it's no wonder that French "families who demand design" would choose a shagadelic, egg-shaped bassinet that matches their Seat Altea XL over...
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August 30, 2008

Feet Shirt

Why should delivery room nurses and their paperwork have all the fun? Congratulations to Andy, Erin and Elsa, and welcome, Astrid!...
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August 4, 2008

Cord Blood Banking Is Utter Waste Of Time, Money, Say Cancer-Loving Baby Haters

The Boston Globe's Beverly Beckham went to the "Ultimate Baby Shower," at the Wellesley Club, and all she got was seriously pissed at how the whole thing was actually a PowerPointy sales pitch by the umbilical cord blood banking company,...
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July 14, 2008

True Story: They Give Birth Standing Up In Panama, Peru

If only I hadn't let my National Geographic subscription expire thirty years ago, I totally would've known this already: some of the indigenous people in Central and South America have a tradition of giving birth standing up or sitting....
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July 4, 2008

DT Friday Freakout: Mom & Apple Pie Edition

Scientists and researchers are always coming up with something for parents to celebrate. Here are some freakouts as American as gatekeeper moms and McDonald's apple pies: Actually, this one doesn't have to be a freakout. A psychology study by researchers...
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June 27, 2008

"Please Wait In Father's Waiting Room"

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } waiting, originally uploaded by superbomba. you've come a long way, daddy. via fffound, thanks andy...
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June 2, 2008

NYT: C-Section Now, See Your Insurance Jump And/Or Disappear Later

Some insurance companies consider Caesarean deliveries to be a pre-existing condition, since they increase the likelihood of another C-section. The result is higher premiums or denial, but only for individual policyholders. So a giant, multi-tentacled, unaccountable bureaucracy wants to dictate...
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May 14, 2008

Some Old French OB: Seeing Your Kid Born Will Make You Crazy, Divorced, And Sexless

Michel Odent is a crazy old conservative hippie of an obstetrician who may be influential for bringing water birthing and low-intervention home birth to France in the Seventies. He's also an insufferable crackpot who makes sweeping, off-the-wall scientific pronouncements based...
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May 13, 2008

Totally Tubular: Japanese Hospital Bassinet

DT reader Goemon sends along this shot of a sweet, plexi hospital bassinet from Tokyo. That tubular steel is pretty nice as-is. Those dainty-colored wheel covers could use some reworking, though. Previously: Sweet plexi hospital bassinets I have loved...
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May 9, 2008

Check Out These Vintage Hospital Symbols

.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } IMG_6581.JPG, originally uploaded by crabstick. E. Christopher Klumb & Associates designed a symbol and signage...
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April 13, 2008

Letterpress Baby Card From Zeichen Press

Though it's pretty damn funny on paper [heh], I think the Daddy Types demo would do well to stay away from Zeichen Press's "I'm glad you're having a baby and I'm not." card. The "Hey! I WASN'T BORN YESTERDAY!...
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April 3, 2008

DT Link Round-Up: Imagine All The People Edition

Seems that even when I'm on the road, the browser tabs just keep filling up with interesting stuff. And how: The Birth Tour 2008 is coming to a yoga center near you: "What is THE BIRTH TOUR? Imagine a room...
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February 26, 2008

DT Followups: Outsized Efforts Edition

Here are some follow-ups to recent posts on DT: From the NYT report that after spending several years and millions of dollars, Korean scientists have developed space kimchi:Ordinary kimchi is teeming with microbes, like lactic acid bacteria, which help fermentation....
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February 19, 2008

Swedish Scientists On Eczema Cause: Smells Like Floras

A study at Sweden's Lund University shows that infants who have an imbalanced intestinal bacterial flora a week after birth are more likely to develop eczema.The composition of a child’s bacterial flora is dependent on the mother’s microflora, since...
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February 18, 2008

King & Queen Of Detroit Give Birth To Crown Prince Of Metric System

High five to Jim and Wood. Their new kid arrived [finally!] to convert the narrow-minded holdouts of our nation to the miracle of the metric system. His name: Gram Woodward Griffoen. Right now, they're glad they didn't take my suggestion...
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February 11, 2008

I Think I Know Where One Of Those Sumi Ink Club Mobiles Is

Warning: convoluted, punk hipster ramble, combined with 80's and 90's flashbacks, ending with very slightly relevant payoff but realistically, probably none at all ahead: So there was an outlaw outdoor concert on the banks of the LA River last November...
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January 7, 2008

Wayne Miller's Family In The Family Of Man

I made a mental note a couple of months ago to look up Toni Frissell's photos in The Family Of Man, the landmark photography exhibition Edward Steichen curated at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. The show featured...
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Home And Mostly Settled

We're all home and chill now. I had rambling philosophical post almost done about the differences between the first and the second time you have a kid, what you know, what you know you don't know, etc. Then I was...
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January 3, 2008

Sweet, Sweet, Unbuyable Plexi Hospital Bassinet Returns To Taunt Me Once Again

They say it's different the second time, but delivering a kid any time is still a mindblowing experience. And the slight covetous twinge that comes when you set the kid down in the insane stainless and plexi bassinet you...
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Hmm, Just Gonna Drive The Wife To Her Unusually Conveniently Timed Dr's Appt.

BRB? No idea. well, some idea....
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December 20, 2007

The Dad In The Yuppie Bubble

He did not have me at "Mies van der Rohe townhouse," but I must admit, I am falling in love with JD's Detroit. If I were a young artist I'd bail on NYC and make a beeline for that place,...
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December 6, 2007

Someone At The Times Style Section Just Learned About Push Presents

It's ok, I'd never heard of a push present until about six months after the kid was born, and I'd been working on one. A Bundle of Joy Isn't Enough? [nyt]...
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November 9, 2007

Honor Thy Godfather--Or Else: The Cosa Nostra Fifth Commandment

A police raid on the house of the new head of the Sicilian Mafia netted a list of the ten commandments of Cosa Nostra--oh, and the head of the Sicilian Mafia, who looks more like [F. Murray] Abraham than Moses....
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What The Heck? Salt Lake Nights And The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby Jeon Hong

A Utah policeman pulled over a speeding car, found a guy driving his wife to the hospital, snapped on the rubber gloves, and delivered the kid himself. Fine. But this makes no sense at all: Young Jeon and his wife,...
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November 7, 2007

They Hate Us For Our BebeSounds Inflatable Birth Announcements

Whatever top secret military contractor developed the inflatable, lit-from-within, figurative nylon balloon technology that makes these 6' x 5' BebeSounds Inflatable Birth Announcements possible deserves every tax dollar they were awarded in their no-bid, sweetheart contract. Do they have...
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October 31, 2007

Le Premier Cri, Or Out Of Africa's Cervix

Why why why? I love the French. I love France. I lived and worked there. I set and shot my first movie there. I drive a Citroen, for Pierre's sake. And yet, when something as hippy-dippy ridiculous-sounding as Le...
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October 8, 2007

Diddy? You Bet He Did.

Out with the Brady Twins, in with the Diddy Triplets. So it turns out P. Diddy's newest latest kid was born four months before his last latest kids, but he only found out for sure this summer when the paternity...
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September 12, 2007

City of Sound: A Birth, In 13 Places, On One New Dad's Architecture Blog

One of my favorite architecture and urban space bloggers, Dan Hill, of City of Sound, is a new dad [mazeltov, Celia & Dan, hi Ollie!]. [Which means he helped put on the awesome NYC symposium/happening Postopolis! in May just weeks...
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September 4, 2007

YouTube Is The New Birth Announcement! Omedetou!

For families who are spread out across the globe, why NOT use YouTube to share the video of you waiting to hear about your kid's birth [down the hall, around the corner, in the shoe-free zone of the Japanese hospital]?...
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August 24, 2007

Go, JHPIEGO, Go! Midwife Training In Afghanistan

Afghanistan has the second highest rate of mortality for pregnant women and newborns in the world. Women have a 1 in 9 chance of dying during or after birth, and children of those women have only a 1 in 4...
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July 31, 2007

Freebirth!

Unassisted childbirth advocate Laura Shanley and midwife Mairi Breen-Rothman will be discussing the "over-medicalization" of childbirth and the issues, advantages, and challenges of giving birth at home--and taking your requests!!--live today at 1pm EST on the Washington Post's website....
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July 23, 2007

Whoa, Check Out This Calligraphy By Betsy Dunlap

Now don't take the complete absence of any mention of calligraphy and the near-complete silence on the subject of birth announcements as a sign that I don't appreciate a good, handwritten announcement. On the contrary, I'm probably just too...
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July 17, 2007

Stranger Pregnancy: Seattle Writer On Wanting To Knock Her Boyfriend Up

Writer Jen Graves takes a long, circuitous, and self-involved look at pregnancy in the way that only someone writing for the Seattle indie paper The Stranger could. The gist of the piece: an unexpected pregnancy and an even more unexpected...
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June 13, 2007

Damien Hirst's Caesarean Birth Paintings

Lost in the wilfully delusional hype over the 1,100 carat diamond-and-platinum skull sculpture that Damien Hirst is purporting to sell for $100 million is the rest of his exhibition at White Cube, his longtime gallery in London. The show,...
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May 24, 2007

Maurice Sendak Watches The Learning Channel

NOW I remember why I had this Maurice Sendak interview sitting open in my browser tabs for three days. I guess when I said Sendak was weird, I meant perceptive, while simultaneously making me realize how weird I am. Because...
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April 23, 2007

Q: Who Cleans Up Your Home Birth Bathtub If You Don't Have An Assistant?

Lessee, 3pm, that means it's lunchtime on the Coast. Sorry. Because she was concerned with the increasing frequency of Caesarian births at hospitals these days, Ricki Lake produced a documentary about the Delivery Industrial Complex which debuts this weekend at...
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April 2, 2007

Wha? What's The Delivery Date Over/Under?

We're out in Salt Lake City for a few days; I've got a speaking gig at the University of Utah, and there's a confluence of cousins in town at the moment, so the kid's getting some face time, which is...
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March 28, 2007

"I was like really high up, so the baby landed right on the seat."

Said Lisa Tauer, 28, a manager at Fashion Bug in Ashland, WI, who was talking about the front seat of their Dodge Neon, where she was perched as her husband Jereme, 29, was driving to the hospital. Jereme Tauer said...
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March 10, 2007

"Are You Unexpecting?" "Yes, Yes I Am."

The kid smacked her head on the corner of the coffee table this morning. After sweating for months--years, really--through the crawling, the cruising, the toddling, the walking, the running, all her phases, trying to keep her from smacking her head...
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Mayo Clinic Researchers: Cell Phones In Hospitals No Big Deal

From the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings:Use of Cellular Telephones in the Hospital Environment JEFFREY L. TRI, MSEE; RODNEY P. SEVERSON, CBET; LINDA K. HYBERGER, MA, CCRC; DAVID L. HAYES, MD OBJECTIVE: To determine whether cellular telephones used...
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March 4, 2007

Sweet Tibetan Sheepskin Yakskin Baby Sling--And Birthing Center Vs. Delivery Room

This shot, titled "Father & Son," was taken in Amdo, Tibet, by Brooklyn photographer Raul Gutierrez, and it shows, among other things, an awesome sheepskin baby sling a yakskin robe being used as a baby sling [thanks for the...
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March 2, 2007

More News From The "Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time" Department

You take an ad from an idiot, you suggest live on the air of your cable news program that your female guest come to your office to pose for nude photos. Everyone makes choices that, in retrospect, look a less...
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February 12, 2007

London Preschool Admission Antics In Place For >100 Years

So supposedly, London's private preschools are a madhouse to get into, but not like New York's. It's not based on the parents, or some gnomic playdate/audition; it's first-come-first-served from the moment of birth. Only now that the numbers are so...
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February 6, 2007

"We've had people die here, but we've never had people born here."

So says Steve Callendar, Vice President of Resorts Casino in Atlantic City, while on his way to double down on his company's Bus&Breakfast! Nursing Home promotional budget. Seems a penny slots customer, one Nyree Thompson, gave birth in the casino...
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February 2, 2007

Telly Has Four Mamas, Four Hot Mamas

I wasn't going to post this 1975 video of Telly Savalas--it outcreeps anything from William Shatner's spoken word song oeuvre--but then a BoingBoing reader named Jon added the following explanation of the weird beer goggles camera effect, and well,...
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January 23, 2007

DIY Stem Cell Harvesting, In 22 Easy Steps

Feeling a little out of place in the delivery room? Looking for a meaningful way to contribute? Well, suggests Atilla Csordas in his 22-step, fully illustrated [!] tutorial, there's always prepare to harvest the stem cells from the amniotic...
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January 8, 2007

Dad Again Again, By Michael Lewis

Fortunately for fans everywhere, writer Michael Lewis and his wife Tabitha Soren decided to have a third kid. And fortunately, Slate decides a five year gap in Lewis's Dad Again column needs even less explanation than that season of Dallas,...
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January 1, 2007

A Soldier Dad's Journal To His Son

First Sgt. Charles King didn't take leave for the birth of his first son, Jordan, his fiancee, Dana Canedy writes, because he refused to come home ahead of any of the young soldiers under his command. [He did take two...
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December 20, 2006

I like 'em fat like that, too!

Let the cats all criticize, Joke about my baby's size; She's reet with me Because you see: I like 'em fat like that. When she bounces down the street, She's a whole heap o' honey, and ain't she sweet? Feels...
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Hey Baby, What Say You And Me Make A Tax Deduction Together?

I was having a hard time parsing this NYT article about the correlation between the number of kids born in the last week of the year--between Christmas and New Year's--an increase in the value of dependent-related tax deductions.In the last...
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November 7, 2006

Whoa, Lu/Yao-Liu Woe

So two families in Guangxi are suing a hospital for mixing up their babies 15 years ago. The Lu family ended up getting divorced, their kid was so different from them, which makes sense, because he'd been switched at birth...
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October 27, 2006

Your Daddy's The One Laying There On The Grass

Congratulations to Arizona Cardinals QB Matt Leinart for making it to Los Angeles in time for his ex-girlfriend Brynn Cameron to give birth to a son, Cole:Coach Dennis Green said Leinart was excited about becoming a father. "He'll whip out...
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October 18, 2006

Libertée, Egalitée, Maternitée

Vivent les poitrines de la République! Marianne, breastfeeder of the nation, by Daumier [via musee d'orsay] What with all the guaranteed maternity leave, subsidized childcare--including government-subsidized daycare or tax credits for nannies--government bonus payments for having multiple children, and...
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October 17, 2006

Nineteenth Century Funerary Photographs

One of the scenes that stays with me from Daniel Raeburn's New Yorker essay about how he and his wife dealt with the stillbirth of their daughter was the photographs. A nurse had assumed they would want to take...
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October 16, 2006

"Cute Kid. What'ser Name?" "Travesty."

Uh-oh, the impossibly biased liberal media in Pelosi-land, that liberal hippie hotbed of San Francisco, is at it again, trying to brainwash everyone with their views of families and parenting. What're they up to this time? ABC News anchor and...
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October 9, 2006

The History Of Obstetrics, As Told Via Jettas, Apgars, Forceps & C-sections

From The New Yorker:Finally, at four-thirty in the afternoon, the contractions began coming five minutes apart, and they set off in their Jetta[1], with the infant car seat installed in the back. When they reached the hospital admissions desk, Rourke...
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October 4, 2006

#300MM: Obscure, Inacurrate Algorithm Makes Sweet Publicity Hook For Baby Food Company

Gerber staked an early claim to the 300 millionth American hoopla, and is holding some sort of contest or promotion with big prizes for someone. I have no idea, but I'm sure Google will help you. They're basing the whole...
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September 27, 2006

Gastroschisis And Omphalocele Turn Out To Be Quite Different

The death of Rev. Run's daughter soon after her delivery by C-section last week might tee up debates somewhere about reality television and what point you stop the cameras--and about the ethics of hyping a show around a celebrity pregnancy...
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Anna Nicole Has Two Baby Daddies

And one of them is her lawyer. The other is the friend-with-benefits who was told early on that he was the father. This important news brought to you courtesy of Larry King and Gawker. I suspect this will be the...
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September 19, 2006

FLASH: Everyone Who Should Has Now Spawned...

...And we've started on the next batch. At least that's the message I got when I read that Vice Magazine co-founder and skank-in-chief Gavin McInnes and his wife have had a lovely, be-goggled baby girl. Congratulations and welcome to Sophie...
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September 15, 2006

That's Almost A 15-lb Baby Right There

Great name, Stephon Hendrix Louis-Jean. GIANT baby, 14 lbs 13 oz. No hospital diapers fit; he's already in 6mo clothes. When added with the siblings' respective birthweights--9 lbs, 8.5 lbs x 2, 12 lbs--Mrs. Louis-Jean has carried herself 53 lbs...
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September 1, 2006

Outraged Yet? Links From All Over

Over at BoingBoing, Xeni's all freaked out. You'd think she'd never seen a fully illustrated, nothing-left-out, 1971 Danish sex-ed book for preschoolers by Per Holm Knudsen before. [attention t-workers: that first link starts with an illustration from the book;...
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August 31, 2006

What's In Your Hospital Dadbag?

When we went to the hospital Sunday night before the kid was born, I actually brought my laptop--and a speakerphone. See, they had just released all 5,200 designs for the WTC Memorial competition, and I was maybe gonna be interviewing...
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August 16, 2006

Lennart Nilsson's A Child Is Born, And That NOVA Episode You Remember

In the mid-1950's, Swedish photographer Lennart Nilsson pioneered the use of endoscopy to take pictures inside the human body. Starting in 1965, his unbelievable photos of in utero fetuses and zygotes were published in magazines all over the world, and...
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August 15, 2006

It's A Myracle! With A 'Y'

21-year-old Kenyetta Biggs didn't tell her family she was pregnant, then she gets in a wreck on the way to the hospital and ends up giving birth in her car, which is partly submerged in a canal. And yet she...
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July 25, 2006

Get The Damn Epidural, Woman! Bos. Ped. Not Feeling Your Pain

Some women don't want to get epidurals, and the good Dr. Darshak Sanghavi just can not wrap his pediatric head around that fact:But is the shunning of obstetrical anesthesia about something more than natural versus modern? The vocal minority who...
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July 5, 2006

Daniel Raeburn's NY'er Essay, "Vessels," Now Online--With A Followup

In the two months since it was published, I've probably received 300 requests from people looking for a copy of "Vessels," Daniel Raeburn's extraordinary New Yorker magazine essay about his and his wife's experience with their stillborn daughter, Irene. So...
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May 31, 2006

No Mystery Here: Water Birth Photoset on flickr

Congratulations to Joshua and his parents, who all met face to face during Joshua's water birth in Michigan. The whole thing--or pretty much the whole thing--is presented in all its demystified glory in his parents' flickr photoset, mysticism_now. While I...
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May 30, 2006

Wow, The Only Thing Slate Left Off Is The Pick-up Lines

If you can get past the story of an STD surge at Florida retirement communities, the last Human Nature column in Slate before a two-month hiatus is a fertile field of pregnancy- and kid-related science findings from all over. Guess...
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May 25, 2006

NJ Woman Defies Blackout To Avoid Having NJ Baby

We knew we were going to have the kid in DC [where my wife's doctor was], not NYC, but we were in NYC regularly until a couple of weeks before the baby came. On the last trip, we half-joked about...
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May 9, 2006

Adam Sandler & Mark-Paul Gosselaar Pull A Kobe & Shaq

Never mind that they haven't done a project together before; Adam Sandler and Mark-Paul Gosselaar are the Big Daddies of Comedy in our hearts. And they both became fathers to baby girls Sunday, which is so funny, because I was...
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May 4, 2006

Congratulations To Jack White For Daughter, Consistency

Jack White, of the White Stripes Whites, and his wife Karen Elson had their daughter. And they named her Scarlett. See, it had to be a red name? But Ruby was never an option? because Jack used to date Renee...
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That Stainless Steel & Plexiglass Bassinet From The Hospital

If your kid is born pretty much by the book, and you're in a hospital in the US, chances are he's going to spend most of his time in one of these: a sweet, sweet molded plexiglass bassinet that rides...
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May 1, 2006

Double Teaming In The Delivery Room: Shaq & Kobe Both Get Kids On Monday

Kobe Bryant sank the winning shot for the Lakers Sunday, then his wife gave birth to their second daughter Monday. [Which means he's going to miss game 5 of the playoffs Tuesday in Phoenix. Apparently, the only jobs that involve...
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April 30, 2006

What? There Are Only 727 OB's In Japan?

I knew Japan had an alarmingly low birth rate, and that the kinds of gender inequities women face in the workplace, particularly after getting married and/or deciding to have children, are huge. But apparently, they're also closing maternity wards and...
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April 29, 2006

Daniel Raeburn Writes About His Stillborn Daughter In The New Yorker

In this week's New Yorker, Daniel Raeburn tells of Hemingway once boasting that he could write an entire novel with only six words: "Asked to prove it, he took a napkin and wrote, 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn.'" At...
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April 20, 2006

No Word Yet On Whether She Had An Epistemology

From The Sun, via the NY Post, via Gawker [Moratorium's still in effect; I'm merely reporting on the reporting, see? Huge diff.]: Cruise stroked Holmes' face and held her hand to help her stay silent during the birth of their...
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April 19, 2006

Two Placenta Recipes From Vice Magazine

If including the source in the headline is not warning enough, I'll put it more bluntly: Daddy Types, LLC and daddytypes.com [herein "Daddy Types"] is in no way responsible for the content that appears on third-party sites, and by clicking...
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Brooklyn: Great Place To Conceive, Wouldn't Want To Deliver There

I'm reading along in the NY Observer about how all the Park Slope baby boom is actually born in Manhattan, because that's where the "roving Starbuck's carts" [Lenox] and hydrotherapy-enhanced birthing centers [St Luke's] and cushy birthing suites are [NYU],...
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April 13, 2006

Give Back The Van: Missouri Couple Fakes Sextuplets For Loot

Two lessons to learn from the Missouri couple who claimed they were having sextuplets--hell, they claimed they had them, but had to put them in hiding in a NICU somewhere because some crazed family member wanted to kill them: When...
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April 10, 2006

Happy Hour At The Martins' House: Gwyneth Has Baby

Congratulations to the Chris Martins, who had their baby boy over the weekend in New York. On the strict advice of their nanny "not mak[e] him the kingpin" of the house--and just in time for Passover--they've named him Moses. Well,...
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March 26, 2006

[Almost] Everybody Loves The Scheduled Inducements

Scheduling a birth, either through inducing labor or through C-section is increasingly popular. Doctors love it because it helps them sleep at night (Pitocin was apparently first used heavily to help OB's avoid the night shift). Pregnant Steelers fans love...
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March 22, 2006

"Any Kids?" "Not That I Know Of."

When they're considered at all, it turns out fathers are little more than speed bumps to be driven over and ignored on the way to a smooth and uncontestable adoption. That's more or less my takeaway from the NY Times'...
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February 27, 2006

One Is Black, And One Is White. Life's An Eskimo Pie, Let's Take A Bite!

l-r: Remi, Kian, Remee, and Kylie. In a story that has rocked the British tabloidscape, a teen dad has named one of his twin daughters after himself. Oh, and in other news, the kid's white. The two bi-racial parents...
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February 7, 2006

Congratulations, Tracey & Jon Stewart [Again]

The lack of a new Daily Show last night was not a sign that the show had gone into yet another of it's weeklong vacations. Turns out Jon Stewart and his wife Tracey had their baby daughter Saturday night. The...
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January 21, 2006

Scheduled C-Section: That Is SO L.A. [Times]

The LA Times has a long article on the increasing popularity of C-sections in general and scheduled C-sections in particular. Although the complications, risks and benefits of various types of birth are still being studied, the Times generally makes the...
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January 3, 2006

Oops, Unfire Your Doula; That Study's About Pushing, Not Coaching

You know that recent study that showed coaching a woman during childbirth wasn't really all that effective? Never mind. According to the NYT interview with the lead researcher on the study, Dr. Steven L. Bloom, the study showed that it's...
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December 30, 2005

New Study On Birth Coaching: Eh

According to a new study of 320 first-time mothers published in the Jan. issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, there are only minimal measurable benefits to coaching during labor: final stage pushing only lasted an average of...
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December 27, 2005

Regarding The Fate Of Mrs. Rod Stewart's Placenta

So new parents Rod Stewart and Penny Lancaster kept her placenta in the freezer until they could get a tree to plant on top of it. Once grandma Lancaster got a walnut tree, they took it out back, dug a...
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December 21, 2005

Was It Good For You, Too? Orgasmic Childbirth

Now, for your clueless male convenience, all those mysteries--pregnancy, childbirth, the female orgasm--are wrapped up in one, convenient package called childbirth. Is it true? Is it just propaganda from the anti-epidural lobby? Or just one more lifechanging thing you're not...
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December 1, 2005

Congratulations, Ben Affleck! Jen, You Can Pick Up Your Crowning Earrings At The Nurse's Station

The Garner-Afflecks have had a baby girl, Violet Ann Affleck [family names], thanks, apparently, to the magic of Pitocin. Garner was induced a week ahead of her Dec. 8 due date, presumably so Violet could make the deadline for the...
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November 22, 2005

In Other Baby-Birthin' Data News

Just-released studies show that premature births were up 2% in 2004, due, researchers said, to the increased incidence of fertility treatments, which often result in multiple and/or pre-term births. Also up: C-sections. Some doctors say it's older women not wanting...
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November 16, 2005

No, I Was Not Aware: Prematurity Awareness Day Was Nov. 15th

The way I see it, if I'm only a day behind Eric Snowdeal on being aware of Prematurity Awareness Day, then I'm still doing alright. Not great, but alright. Turns out Prematurity Awareness Day was yesterday. If you didn't know...
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November 8, 2005

Epidurals: Needle In, Dad Out?

Danny Gregory got the automatic boot from the delivery room when his wife Patti was having her epidural. In our case, the topic never came up; I stayed through the whole thing, including the part where the hippie anesthesiologist stuck...
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The Peanut Archives Arrives

Trust me, I'm not spoiling it for you when I tell you this is the installment of The Peanut where Danny Gregory's wife finally gives birth. Great stuff:I feel tremendously guilty, darting between both sides of the room, splitting my...
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October 30, 2005

Congratulations, Heath Ledger! [PS: Did You Get The Bag Clips?]

Seems that Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams had their baby Friday evening in NYC, so congratulations all around. They named the kid Matilda Rose Ledger, which has Australian fans all excited because apparently "Waltzing Matilda" is "the unofficial song of...
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October 24, 2005

Congratulations, James Joyce. Now About The Manbreasts...

The latest installment of Lens Observance, the NY Times' "picture = 1,000 words" feature, is of 32-year old James Joyce [please, people, let's leave the man in peace; I'm sure he's heard them all by now.], who's beaming at the...
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October 12, 2005

I Didn't Know There Were Any J-People In Arkansas

I thought they were all in NYC and San Francisco. At least that's where the two J-families WE know live. But congratulations to Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar down near Little Rock, who just had their 16th kid, a girl,...
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October 6, 2005

Bay Area Man Catches Triplet In (Not A Daddy Type) T-Shirt

The excellently named Biko Eisen-Martin, a history teacher at Berkeley High School, saw a woman in pain at the entrance to the BART station, went to help her as everyone else passed by, and ended up delivering the first of...
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September 26, 2005

Other Daddies Typing, vol. 3

In the whirlwind logistics of getting out of the house in the morning, disaster strikes: Duckies, Bobo, and Pillow don't make the trip. But is it Jason's fault? [hint: if you find yourself quoting George Bush in your explanation...
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September 15, 2005

Introducing DR Newswire: Giving Birth To Marketing Synergy Since 2005

Move over, PoshTots.com. I have seen a birth-timed-product promotion so audacious, I will break my own pledge to keep this site Britney-fetus-free. Britney Spears invited Us Magazine to her c-section [the kid's initials are P.M.S., but whatever, mazeltov.], which takes...
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September 13, 2005

Congratulations, Seal, Heidi, And PoshTots.com

Because what could be cuter than a baby Seal? A baby Seal with a supermodel mom, that's what. The Klum-Samuels report that the baby is a boy, born Monday at--did I call it?--Cedars-Sinai. [um, no, I did not. UCLA. but...
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September 10, 2005

Just Tell Them You're On Seal's List

While the sexually stunted dads look for ways to get out of the delivery room, the NYT's Jodi Kantor reports that there's a line waiting to come in. She writes about the practice of packing the delivery room with friends,...
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September 5, 2005

Evacuation Babies

It's too early to know if there'll be a baby boom from thousands of "we may never make it out of here, baby" hookups on rooftops in Louisiana. But reports of babies born along the evacuation routes of Hurricane Katrina...
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August 29, 2005

Slate On The Hot Topics: Circumcision & Delivery Rooms

Slate's columnists weigh in on two topics that have lit up the ol' weblog here the last few days. First, normally, I'd rather have the tip of my penis cut off than agree with Christopher Hitchens on anything, but when...
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August 26, 2005

'Oral Suction, Or In Hebrew, Metzitzah B'peh'

Remember that Orthodox mohel who got in trouble with the 'oral suction' phase of that circumcision, not because he developed his bris pictures at Eckerd's, but because the kid got herpes and died? Yeah, well that's still going on, apparently,...
[read the full post...]

Congratulations, Jason Goldberg!

If you're a Jason of a certain age, and you had so many Jasons in your class every year growing up, you had to be Jason G, or Jason K, you'd probably develop both a healthy ambition and an appreciation...
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August 23, 2005

Get Out Of The Delivery Room With A Note From The NYT's Doctor

Sure, honey, I'll go into the delivery room with you--if you want me never to be sexually attracted to you ever again. That's the somewhat dire subtext--um, no, actually it's the text-- of Dr. Keith Ablow's column in The New...
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August 14, 2005

Making The NICU More Baby-Friendly

The NYT Magazine profiles the efforts of Harvard child developmental psychologist Heidelise Als to help premature babies by making the NICU more supportive of kids' brain development, not just their phsyical survival. What that involves: making the NICU more womb-like,...
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August 5, 2005

Sheesh. Brain-Dead Cancer Mom Gives Birth At 24 Wks

Man, this is just gut-wrenchingly sad, with just a sliver of happiness. A 26-year-old Arlington, Va. woman lost consciousness early in her pregnancy--tumor. Brain-dead. Cancer, racing through her body. Her husband and doctors decide to try to keep her heart...
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Meet Bellevue's Male Midwife

Steven Jennings runs Bellevue Hospital's birthing center and is one of its 13 midwives, which some people, including a lot of other midwives, find a little freaky [even if the know they shouldn't]. They seem to get over it, though....
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August 3, 2005

NY Observer Birth Announcements

Time was when your average New York overachiever could rest easy, knowing that when he finally decided to tie the knot, his marriage would probably be announced in the New York Times. Of course, the Times is packed every weekend...
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June 24, 2005

New Study: Home Births As Safe Or Safer Than Hospitals

Trading in its old-fashioned, written format, the NYT posted a 1-minute video report on a massive, new study of thousands of home births in the US and Canada. The result: for low-risk women, home births required far fewer medical interventions...
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June 22, 2005

Pre-Natal Classes: Do You Want To Talk About It? No?

While searching around for dads and postpartum depression, I came across this study from Birth (Sept. 2000) which looks at how men approach prenatal classes and how the classes, in turn, affect their perspective on the kid's birth and afterwards....
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June 8, 2005

Chris Martin's Picks: Music To Give Birth By

Even though she's now a total groupie, following the band around on tour, Apple has apparently not heard her dad's new album. Answering a shameless reporter's question, Chris Martin replied, "She prefers an Icelandic band called Sigur Ros to Coldplay....
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June 3, 2005

Yes, We Deliver

One of the best things about living in NYC is that you can get almost anything you want delivered to your home. And that includes babies. The NY Times reports that the small midwife community in the city is keeping...
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May 29, 2005

Giving Birth in England: Whum, Bum, Thank You, Mum

You'd think that giving birth in country that gave the world Laura Ashley, and that practically invented flowery wallpaper borders--and which has a national health care program--would be a comfortable, frilly, positive experience. And you'd be wrong. The Sunday Observer...
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May 12, 2005

Home Birth: The Flash Movie

Talk about your involved dad. In the credits of his Flash movie (actually it's more of a slideshow) documenting the home birth of his son Jude Roman, Daniel Fairbanks's line reads "web design, art direction and baby maker." And while...
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May 8, 2005

Free TiVo for your Baby

Sound like a fair trade? Have your baby at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas over the Mother's Day weekend, and TiVo will give you a free box and lifetime service. All they apparently ask in return is to just put...
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May 4, 2005

Put. The Scissors. Down.

According to a newly published study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, episiotomies provide "no benefits and actually cause more complications." "'The evidence is clear: Routine use of episiotomy is not supported by research and should stop,' said...
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May 2, 2005

"I can see her subdomain!"

Megablogger Matt Haughey is blogging his daughter's birth for friends and family. Friday, he got her little subdomain all set up: fiona.haughey.com His wife's due date was Sunday, and things started picking up a bit in the wee hours this...
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