if you eat ice cream, you'll get pregnant.

It's true, claims the new book "The Fertility Diet" put out by Harvard. Right, and I think I can get pregnant through my belly button...

invisible sperm and their trickery

It turns out we were wrong, sperm aren't tiny animals that battle their way through the fallopian tubes, fighting the woman's warriors sent out by her immune system. Only one brave sperm knight to conquer and be so honored with the fertilizing of the egg. It's so much less complicated than that. What is actually happening is the sperm have something like an invisibility cloak. This is in the form of a sugar glycoprotein that makes the cell undetectable by the always guarding immune system. So the sperm can sneak past as if it were part of the woman's body. This is a valuable adaptation and some cells, like cancer cells and HIV infected white blood cells have adopted it to achieve their much less valiant goal of destruction. I hope we can find ways to make organ donations invisible to the body by adhering these glycoproteins to the transplanted organ. Now that would be valiant.

From this article by the BBC.

why pregnant women don't tip over

From the NY Times:

"Pregnant women do not tip over, and researchers say an evolutionary curve has a lot to do with the reason why. During pregnancy, the abdomen grows by nearly one-third and the center of mass shifts forward considerably. That increases pressure on the spinal column, strains the muscles and generally reduces stability. Researchers looked for an additional mechanism, besides the woman leaning back, that might have compensated for the increased strain of pregnancy.

What they found, said Katherine K. Whitcome, a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard and the lead author of the paper, was evidence that evolution had produced a stronger and more flexible lower spine for women. After studying 19 pregnant subjects, Ms. Whitcome found that the lumbar, or lower back, curve in women extends across three vertebrae, as opposed to just two in men. And the connecting points between vertebrae are relatively larger in women, and shaped differently in ways that make the stack more stable and less prone to the bones shifting out of alignment or breaking."

Way to go scientists! Non-Related: I was watching a Carl Sagan video on YouTube about the human brain, and he said that the brain library contains 10,000 times more volumes than the gene library. YIKES! Billions and billions, right.

positions and reasons

From the precious book "Birth: An Anthology of Ancient Texts, Songs, Prayers and Stories" edited by David Meltzer.

"The Position of the Private Parts

At the beginning of the world it had been the Creator's intention to place both men's and women's genitals on their foreheads so that they might be able to procreate children easily. But the otter made a mistake in conveying the message to that effect; and that is how the genitals came to be in the inconvenient place they are now in.

(Translated literally. Told by Ishanashte, 12th July, 1886. Ainu/Northern Islands of Japan.)"

This was told to Basil H. Chamberlain, a British Japanologist active in the 19th century who did some of the earliest translations of Japanese haiku into English, like this one:

The old pond, aye! And the sound of a frog leaping into the water.

The Moirae

Imagine a birth in Ancient Greece in the 5th century BC. The Parthenon is complete and Athens is the most powerful political and cultural city-state in Europe. Democracy is becoming a solid practice and the power of the people is proving strong and effective. But in the aspect of birth, the people of Athens still leave it to the Gods. Moirae, or The Fate of the Three Sisters determines whether the baby will become a brilliant philosopher or a poor worker. Three days after a child is born, three goddesses enter the room to map out the little one's fate. Clotho spins life's thread; Lachesis measures it out; Atropos cuts the thread at life's end. Until the Moirae have decided a child is considered especially vulnerable. A lock of hair is given to the goddesses to insure a long and pleasant life. After the fate is determined, the baby is finally fully celebrated and a feast is had.

I think I love twins

Identical twins occur once every 400 births, non-identical twins (fraternal twins) occur once every 70 births, triplets once every 7,500 births, and quadruplets once every 620,000 births.

Nicky Owen from England gave birth to identical twin boys. Seven years later in 2003, she gave birth to fraternal twins. She herself is an identical twin.

The incredible odds of this happening are so very slim: 11,200,000 to one!

From an article in The Daily Mail that I found through my library database. It wont let me link it... But it's true, it really is.

size wise

The way things grow...

The average pregnancy will stretch the mother's skin an additional 1.5 feet by the 9th month!

At the end of a normal, full-term pregnancy, the uterine muscle is the largest muscle in the woman's body.

After the birth, the woman's womb will shrink back to half its pregnant size before the baby is one week old. By a month, it may be back to its normal size.

Human babies are born with only 25% of their adult brain size, compared with 45% attained by infant chimps. The human brain doubles in size during the first year of life.

Wowee.

part two: where do babies come from?

Here's the second installation on the topic.

Featuring: THE STORK!

The stork method of delivery is most definitely a popular myth in America. Dutch, German and Scandinavian mothers would tell this tale to their children as explanation for the presence of their new siblings. Since the women usually took a few days of bed rest following birth, they would also add that when the stork came it bit the pregnant mother in the leg, causing her to stay in bed. Storks are one of the strongest and most loving of all the birds. The English word stork comes from the Greek storge' meaning "strong and natural affection". These tenderhearts have been seen giving special care to the fragile members of their flock. The stork's migration sealed the deal. Before migratory patterns were recognized the mysterious absence was thought to be the period when the stork went to get the new babies.
I think I really believed this once. I remember driving in California and seeing so many seagulls. I must have thought they were storks because I just knew that they were going to delivery all the babies in the world, they were just hanging out by the beach having a vacation.

"We knew you had it in you."
-Dorothy Parker

smart babies drink breast milk

All issues of breastfeeding aside, the news is in!

BBC News has a new report out with the results of a study showing the effects breastfeeding has on IQ. There's a certain gene called FADS2 that breaks down fatty acids that prohibit brain development. This intelligence enhancing gene is present in the milk of 9 out of 10 breastfeeding women.

"The argument about intelligence has been about nature versus nurture for at least a century," said Professor Terrie Moffitt, a co-author on the paper. "However, we have shown that in fact nature works via nurture to create better health outcomes."

I think formula feeding most definitely has its place, sometimes being the only thing sustaining a new life. But it's also nice to know nature has proven itself once again as being superior to a deceptively marketed alternative.

world population clock!

At 8:31pm EST, the population of the world was estimated to be 6,628,876,289!

I've always wanted to know the estimated population at any given second.

NOW I KNOW!

I found this website that tells you exactly that.
It's incredible, and kind of scary, even if it's an only estimate.

When I finished this post at 8:42pm, the estimate was already at 6,628,877,872.
That's an increase of 1,583 people in only 11 minutes!!! Sheesh.

twilight sleep

Something especially horrible happened in the history of birth right around 1940. Male obstetricians were becoming more and more controlling of the process of birth and women wanted it their way; particularly those advocating women's rights. "Twilight Sleep" was brought to the market and almost instantly became the popular solution women were seeking. By becoming entirely sedated from a mixture of morphine and scopolamine, these new mothers felt they were taking control of their birth. It seems so backwards that being in the most passive position, sometimes even being strapped to the bed, felt like a gain of control. While the father was neglected and had no place in the delivery room for the process, the woman woke with a sleepy baby in her arms, both still doped up so that the baby could hardly breast feed, and recovery time was at least doubled. Sounds dreamy right?

twinsies times two

To have twins twice, none the less on the same day of the year is another fantastic statistic to be a part of. This has only been recorded twice in all of history, both instances happening fairly recently.

Laura Shelley gave birth to twins Melissa and Mark on March 25th, 1990. Then, in 2003, another set of twins Kayla and Jonathon were born, ON MARCH 25TH! That's two sets of twins on the same day of the year.

Caroline Cargado became the second case, with her twins Keilani and Kahleah on May 30th, 1996, then Mikayla and Malia in 2003.

What are the odds? I couldn't find any information about whether the women and their lovers were on fertility drugs, so I'm assuming the phenomenon of twinning occurred naturally, which happens about 15% of the time. Then, they could have had the twins on any of the 365 days of the year. So the chances are 15% of 1 in 365, which is a .041% chance; basically against almost all odds.

in my sleep..

I really want this blog to be about the most interesting, the most memorable, and the most powerful aspects of birth. So, I'm hesitant to include this post, but it was so affecting for me.

The other night I had this dream. I was in a place quite like my room now, with the light all brilliant and warm. I don't know who I was talking to, or maybe I was talking to myself, but I was explaining my hesitation to have children of my own one day. All of the things that are going on in the world are kind of discouraging, and I believe some gnarly things are going to happen in the dim future. This is coming from my most cynical and apocalyptic side, but I do think of it often. Then, after letting me ramble on, getting myself into a horrible tangle, the voice just pauses. Then it says:

YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT BRAVERY.

That was it. I woke up, and I still don't know what it means to me. It's true though, and I'm glad I remember now.

part one: where do babies come from?

Duh, doesn't everyone know. Yes, everyone does and they each have their own version of the answer to that mysterious question:

WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM?

Here's part one of the incredibly lengthy list of responses.

The Cuna people of Panama keep children sheltered from sex, telling them instead that babies are found deep in the woods cradled between the velvety horns of a deer. They also elaborate on the mystery of the ocean, saying that dolphins swim to the short and leave babies nestled in the warm sand.

High on the mountain Kilimanjaro, the Chagga are known to tell children that an animal brings the baby as a precious gift to the village. The baby lived in the forest as it grew inside of a beehive, the honey nourishing the little one until it was ready for delivery.

South Pacific Trobriand Islanders don't cloak sex in sweet stories of deer horns or beehives. They know that sex is involved in conception, but only half of the process. The copulation is thought only to prepare for conception. After love making, the woman goes into the ocean and bathes herself with the seaweed that is sacred to her. Only after she has her special salty bath will she possibly be with child.

From the lovely book "Mamatoto" published by Penguin.
There's more where this came from, so get ready to learn every possible place a baby could have come from.

the suckling..

Nursing was once so intimate, a real chance for precious mother-child bonding. From the book "Costume for Births, Marriages and Deaths" by Phillis Cunnington & Catherine Lucas.

a true medical mystery

Long ago, in August 1726, Mary Toft had an unfortunate miscarriage at her home in England. A miracle would change Mary's life the next month when she amazingly gave birth. Not to a child of course, but to a monstrous cat-like birth. Yikes! How could someone have given birth to a mystery cat creature with the spine of an eel? No one could explain it. In October, the first of 17 more animals would be born from Mary. What were these creatures? RABBITS!

Meet Mary Toft: The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits

This is a true story, documented thoroughly by respected physicians sent by King George I. In Mary's time, it was an accepted notion that a woman's environment, or even her imagination if vivid enough, could affect her offspring. Following the suggestion of her neighbors, a woman feeling feverish was holding a toad until it died to rid her of the fever. Her husband "requested" intercourse, and since she was still feverish she held the toad throughout. She then gave birth to a child with the face of a toad. In Mary's case, she claimed to have a recurring dream of being in a field and being approached by a rabbit that she followed but could never catch. "I must have made a burrough in my womb," I imagine her saying, coming off as a completely plausible explanation.

The physicians that came to document these miraculous births would observe that Mary was not with child, and when examining her closely, that she had not placed the rabbits inside herself. Mary would then cry out with pain and unbelievably birth a small rabbit. Her husband Joshua and neighbor Mary Gill were always present, being sure that the newly famed Mary was always receiving proper care. News of the extraordinary births spread throughout the town and many physicians were called to authenticate the claim.

Sir Richard Manningham was one of these doctors, and one of few skeptics of Mary's scandalous story. She was forced into isolation to be closely observed with no possibility of an assistant to sneak the rabbits in. After giving birth to 17 rabbits, when Mary entered isolation the births suddenly stopped. Sir Manningham promptly wrote a pamphlet titled, "An Exact Diary of What Was Observed Upon Close Attendance of Mary Toft, The Pretended Rabbit Breeder...". Mary was pressured to confess and eventually stated that it was her neighbor Mary Gill's idea. The Mary's got together and formulated the scam as a way to make enough money to live lavishly forever. Joshua was providing the rabbits, which many true rabbit breeders in the town admitted to later. Mary Toft would then kill the small rabbits, and in a savage and embarrassing act, secretly insert them into herself to "birth" moments later.

Mary was the hottest topic of the time, and even after her confession some physicians and most townsfolk believed the story to be true. The pamphlets are now collectors items, worth all the money Mary dreamed of. Imagine Paris Hilton going through such great measures to be gossiped about.... oh wait, isn't Nicole Ritchie pregnant??!

Read the Book: "The Girl Who Gave Birth to Rabbits" by Clifford A. Pickover (a self-proclaimed polymath....)

SUPER TUESDAYS!

It being Tuesday, you should know this baffling fact:

On average, there are 16% more births on Tuesdays than any other day of the week!

Why is this? Most scheduled caesarian sections are done on Tuesdays and the most spontaneous births also occur on this day. There's no particular reason for scheduling c-sections on Tuesdays, except for the contract signed by all obstetricians when they are licensed. It states:

In order to maintain the glorious statistic known as,
"SUPER TUESDAY"
all caesarian sections are to be scheduled on Tuesdays.

the very first...

I think it's most fitting to start with the fantastic legend of Agnodice. Though it is largely doubted and little known, the legend was once relied upon by women who were forbidden to enter the medical profession. Here's the story:

In the 4th Century BCE there lived a woman named Agnodice who wished to practice medicine in Greece. All females and slaves were never permitted to legally hold this position, but Agnodice had such a strong desire that she found a way around the law. By cutting her hair and wearing men's clothing she fooled the well known doctor Herophilus and went about her training. One day, she heard the moans of a woman in labor. When Agnodice approached, she was told to leave her be because she appeared to be a man. Agnodice knew she could help if she could only prove she was a woman too, so she lifted her garments. The woman then let the new doctor catch her baby, and with great success. Agnodice soon became well known amongst the women of Greece because of her tender ways and understanding. Her acclaim brought her much attention from the other doctors of Greece. Out of suspicion and jealousy, they accused her of seducing patients and took her to court. At the trial, many women who Agnodice had treated came to offer support. They spoke the truth about Agnodice and said they would choose her above any male doctor to treat them. Because of the overwhelming consensus of the women, the courts amended the law and allowed females to become medical doctors. Agnodice was then known as the first female doctor, specifically a midwife.

Hooray! Except, the legend is now thought to be false. The only account is based on the writings of Hyginus, and there are discrepancies about the facts. But, it's a lovely legend all the same and has allowed many women since enter the medical field.

yes!

This page is devoted to all things related to
:::BIRTH:::

rites
rituals
legends
histories
facts
fables

Because once, you were born too.