As mothers, we talk about having and wanting choices on how we raise our children.

Some moms in Maryland want to have the option of delivering their babies at home and want the state to ease standards to do so. Supporters say the state places too many restrictions on obtaining a midwife. In Maryland, more than 500 moms delivered their babies at home last year.

My colleague Andrea K. Walker reports on this grass roots effort:

They are working with a Montgomery County delegate to introduce legislation that would open the door to more midwives delivering babies at home. ...

Heather Brown, 35, of Pikesville, delivered two of her babies at home, including a daughter born seven weeks ago. She said state officials need to be more open-minded about home births.

"It should be a valid choice for women who want to do it," she said. "It should be a woman's choice and not the doctor's and the medical establishment. It's not fair for the government to make it so difficult."

State health officials oppose loosening the restrictions, citing safety concerns. Currently, certified nurses or doctors must be present during home births.

But as the story points out, the majority of home births around the country are performed by other types of midwives, including certified professional midwives, who Maryland does not allow to deliver babies at home.

It's a fascinating debate, and I'm interested in hearing from moms who have delivered at home. Why did you choose a home birth vs. a hospital birth?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Expecting
        

Everyone is getting into the business of celebrating the Baltimore Ravens.

My colleague Andrea Walker at Picture of Health reports that Sinai Hospital will give away a $3,000 savings bond to the first baby born after the kick off at the AFC Championship game against the New England Patriots.

Good luck to all expected mothers who are due this weekend at the Northwest Baltimore hospital.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting, Sports
        

I am going to resist making sarcastic jokes or making harsh judgments about the latest pregnancy for the serial parents and reality show stars Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar.

If you haven't heard, the Duggars are having their 20th child.

I have caught their show here and there, and it's not clear to me what they do for a living. Do they live off income from the show?

If you could afford to have as many kids as you want, why not, right?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Expecting
        

The cover of the latest New York magazine shows a naked woman, strategically holding her pregnant belly.

That image has been done before ala Demi Moore's infamous Vanity Fair cover. But what's jarring is that the woman looks like a grandmother. The tagline reads: Is she just too old for this?

The article is long but I highly recommend it. It touches upon some issues we've discussed here.

When are you too old to have a baby? Why are women delaying parenthood? Is there ageism involved? Does biology determine our maternal fate?

Has reproductive technology helped women or opened a Pandora's box so to speak? Are older pregnancies only available for women with the financial means?

Here are some interesting facts that the author Lisa Miller points out:

The age of first motherhood is rising all over the West. In Italy, Germany, and Great Britain, it’s 30. In the U.S., it’s gone up to 25 from 21 since 1970, and in New York State, it’s even higher, at 27. But among the extremely middle-aged, births aren’t just inching up. They are booming. In 2008, the most recent year for which detailed data are available, about 8,000 babies were born to women 45 or older, more than double the number in 1997, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Five hundred and forty-one of these were born to women age 50 or older -- a 375 percent increase. In adoption, the story is the same. Nearly a quarter of adopted children in the U.S. have parents more than 45 years older than they are.

The baby-having drive in this set is so strong it’s recessionproof. Since 2008, birthrates among women overall have declined 4 percent, as families put childbearing on hold while they ride out hard times. But among women over 40, birthrates have increased. Among women ages 45 to 49, they’ve risen 17 percent.

Almost all my friends had their first child in their early- to mid-30s. So, I think many women can relate to the rationale offered by the older mothers interviewed in the story: They wanted to get settled in their careers, be financially stable, find the right man first, etc. Even now, at 33, I am still trying to figure things out: career, family, marriage, where to live, whether to buy a house, on and on.

But I have to admit that it was a little off-putting to read about women in their 50s getting pregnant because of reproductive technologies that make that possible.

I think of my parents who are approaching their 70s and wonder how long they'll be able to see Jake grow up. Imagine becoming a parent in your 50s and you'll be nearly 70 by the time your first child is off to college. Older parents in the article acknowledge that they may not be around when their children are adults based on the math.

The author addresses the arguments against old parents:

They rest on the assertion that people above a certain externally imposed cutoff should not have children because it is not natural—and nature is a historically terrible arbiter of personal choice. American states used to legislate against interracial couples on the basis that miscegenation was “unnatural.” Some conservatives continue to fight gay marriage and gay parenthood on the grounds that homosexuality is “unnatural.” Broad-minded people see these critiques for what they are: bias and personal distaste hiding behind an idea of natural law. And yet some of these same broad-minded people still feel comfortable using chronological age to sort the suitable potential parents from the unsuitable. That’s because those judgments, and the backlash they’re fueling, are a product of ageism, the last form of prejudice acceptable in the liberal sphere. Sitting so ostentatiously on the boundary between “youth” and “age,” 50-year-olds threaten an image we hold of good parents (i.e., the handsome, glossy-haired ones depicted in the house-paint ads). By acting young when they’re supposed to be old, they cause discomfort for the people around them. Parents like Kate Garros have felt this all too acutely. “If you don’t meet people’s expectations of what a mother looks like, they can’t hack it,” she told me.

Perhaps, at the end of the day, we should accept individual choice. If you have the means and could conceive when you feel you are ready and you happen to be in your 50s, well, then congratulations?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Expecting, Parenting in general
        

If you follow celebrity pregnancies, then you would think it's easy to conceive in your late 30s and 40s.

But no matter how good you look and feel on the outside, your aging ovaries tell another story, according to the New York Times.

Advances in beauty products and dermatology, not to mention manic devotion to yoga, Pilates and other exercise obsessions, are making it possible for large numbers of women to look admirably younger than their years. But doctors fear that they are creating a widening disconnect between what women see in the mirror and what’s happening to their reproductive organs.

While each woman’s window of fertility is different (there have been rare cases of women conceiving naturally in their 50s), most doctors agree that by the time a woman is 40, her chances of getting pregnant each month are approximately 5 percent.

The article interviewed women in that age group who are having trouble conceiving and are turning to fertility treatments.

Do you think women are getting unrealistic idea of conceiving later in life? Does the media fuel that idea?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Expecting
        

Labor is hard enough but imagine an earthquake hitting at a crucial moment during delivery.

That's what happened to a mother during delivery at Greater Baltimore Medical Center on Tuesday when a 5.8-magnitude quake shook Baltimore.

The Sun's Andrea Walker reports:

She had endured 33 hours of labor when her baby's head finally appeared Tuesday afternoon.

Then the floors at Greater Baltimore Medical Center started to shake, the blinds began to sway and the medical instruments commenced clanking on the table.

She heard someone outside the delivery room shout: "Oh, my God! I think it's an earthquake!"

The mother, Jennifer, safely delivered baby John, who was born at 8 pounds, 11 ounces, less than an hour after the quake.

The interesting twist to the story is husband, Tom, is an architectural engineer whose firm had designed the maternity ward where his wife was delivering.

"I was certain the building was sound and everything would be OK," he told The Sun.

Congratulations to Jennifer and Tom.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting
        

That is the headline of a New York Times magazine article telling the stories of pregnant women who choose to reduce twins to a single fetus.

For all its successes, reproductive medicine has produced a paradox: in creating life where none seemed possible, doctors often generate more fetuses than they intend. In the mid-1980s, they devised an escape hatch to deal with these megapregnancies, terminating all but two or three fetuses to lower the risks to women and the babies they took home. But what began as an intervention for extreme medical circumstances has quietly become an option for women carrying twins. With that, pregnancy reduction shifted from a medical decision to an ethical dilemma. As science allows us to intervene more than ever at the beginning and the end of life, it outruns our ability to reach a new moral equilibrium. We still have to work out just how far we’re willing to go to construct the lives we want.

It was eye-opening because I didn't know this could be done but also unsettling because of the ethical and moral concerns and questions this raises not only for women in this situation but for society as a whole.

What is it about terminating half a twin pregnancy that seems more controversial than reducing triplets to twins or aborting a single fetus? After all, the math’s the same either way: one fewer fetus. Perhaps it’s because twin reduction (unlike abortion) involves selecting one fetus over another, when either one is equally wanted. Perhaps it’s our culture’s idealized notion of twins as lifelong soul mates, two halves of one whole. Or perhaps it’s because the desire for more choices conflicts with our discomfort about meddling with ever more aspects of reproduction.

The author talks to doctors who are for and against twin reduction and women who have chosen to take this route.

No doubt that this story will produce a lot of chatter on the blogosphere and elsewhere.

It's a long story but worth the read. Please feel free to comment.

Posted by Hanah Cho at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Expecting, On the Web
        

Doctors at Johns Hopkins are studying how much exercise is OK for pregnant moms and their developing babies, according to an article written by my colleague Meredith Cohn.

Cohn writes that data from the study could help doctors customize workout schedules for pregnant women in various states of fitness.

Not too long ago doctors used to tell all women not to exercise when they became pregnant, but that advice has changed, said [professor and vice chairman of the department of gynecology and obstetrics for the Hopkins School of Medicine Anthony] Satin and Dr. Linda Szymanski, a fellow in maternal fetal medicine helping conduct the research. But there still is little data about what's too much for the elite athlete verses the couch potato and those in between. Satin said much is based on "opinion and common sense."

Doctors generally advise pregnant moms get 30 minutes of exercise a day.

But the advice is based on recommendations from government and groups such as the American College of Sports Medicine that non-pregnant people get such exercise. And it's filled with notes of caution for those who are just starting and those with certain conditions. The college suggests seeing a doctor first, starting slow and stopping when there's pain or bleeding — advice Satin doesn't dispute.

What kind of exercise did you get while pregnant? (I mostly practiced prenatal yoga.)

Posted by Hanah Cho at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting, Health
        

Are you expecting and have a ton of questions?

The University of Maryland Medical Center is hosting its first-ever live video chat with Dr. Ahmet Baschat, head of fetal therapy at UMMC's Center for Advanced Fetal Care. He will cover topics, such as twin pregnancies, complicated fetal conditions and other maternal/fetal issues.

The Web chat will be held at 1 p.m. Sept. 24. Submit questions ahead of time at www.umm.edu/webchat/.  

Posted by Hanah Cho at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting
        

Sinai Hospital is looking for mothers who gave birth there to share their labor stories for its Labor Day contest.

For mothers, Labor Day is that special day when they brought a new life into the world. Now, we want to hear from them in our unique Labor Day contest.

If your child was born at Sinai Hospital, whether it was 50 years ago or last week, you have a story to share. So tell us, in any format you want (video, photos or text), what made your Sinai Labor Day special.

Entries are due Sept. 30. Send your entry to eleis (at) lifebridgehealth.org. The first 25 participants will receive a Target gift card and two grand prizes will be awarded for the most creative and most moving labor stories.

For the rest of us whose children were born elsewhere, share your funny, quirky or unique birth story here. Mine involves my water breaking at Babies R Us of all places -- a week early.

Happy Labor Day!

Posted by Hanah Cho at 4:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

What factors did you consider when naming your child?

My brother-in-law and his wife, who are expecting a boy in November, are experimenting with different names for their first child. As far as I could tell, they are leaning toward unique monikers. We have voted on our favorites from their picks, and they have narrowed the group to three.

When E. and I considered names for baby J., we came to an agreement rather quickly. We never considered the Jr. option. We both liked classic boy names, and we narrowed them down based on how well it sounded with E.'s uncommon last name.

Continue reading "Baby names" »

Posted by Hanah Cho at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Expecting
        

After planning for a vaginal birth, I ended up getting a Caesarean section. It wasn't an ideal situation, but things happen in the delivery room that you can't anticipate.

I have always heard that once you've had a C-section, you must repeat it for subsequent births.

But that's not the case. Women can safely give birth the normal way later, called vaginal birth after Caesarean, or VBAC.

Last week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a new set of medical guidelines meant to make it easier for women to find doctors and hospitals that allow VBAC. The New York Times reports:

Women’s health advocates praised the new guidelines because they expand the pool of women considered eligible for vaginal births, but they expressed doubts about whether the recommendations go far enough to change a decade of entrenched behavior by doctors, hospitals and insurers.

Continue reading "Reducing C-sections" »

Posted by Hanah Cho at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Expecting
        

Throw this into the WTH (What the heck) category: If you're expecting and trying to buy a house, you will likely have a tough time getting a mortgage.

According to The New York Times:

Mortgage lenders are taking a harder look at prospective borrowers whose income has temporarily fallen while they are on leave, including new parents at home taking care of a baby. Even if a parent plans on returning to work within weeks, some lenders are balking at approving the loans. ...

So before some prospective parents start spending their Sundays at open houses, they should be prepared to deal with some complications. They may have to delay the purchase, deal with the banks’ bureaucracy (and requests for extra paperwork) or buy a home they can afford on one salary.

Is this reasonable? Has anyone faced this scenario recently?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Expecting
        

More women are not having children, according to a recent Pew Research Center report.

Nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s. The most educated women still are among the most likely never to have had a child. But in a notable exception to the overall rising trend, in 2008, 24% of women ages 40-44 with a master's, doctoral or professional degree had not had children, a decline from 31% in 1994.

The Pew Center points to several possible reasons why the childlessness rate among women are rising in general. They include less social pressure to bear children and more acceptance that having children is an individual choice.

Why do you think women are choosing not to bear children?

Posted by Hanah Cho at 1:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting, Parenting in general
        

I was fortunate enough to take six months off after J.'s birth, getting paid half of that time by using sick and vacation days.

But not all parents have that option. Under the law, workers are guaranteed 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family and medical reasons and not all employees qualify.

NPR says the United States is now the only industralized nation that doesn't offer paid leave for new parents, after Australia recently passed a law guaranteeing 18 weeks of paid time off.

The lack of paid leave doesn't only affect parents of young children. These days, more workers are having to take time off to take care of their elderly parents.

Why do you think the U.S. is behind on this issue? Is mandating paid leave the answer?   

Posted by Hanah Cho at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Expecting, Workplace
        

Former Ravens kicker Matt Stover -- now with the Indianapolis Colts -- is the subject of a nice piece by our Ken Murray today. In it, Stover talks about his dual life -- kicking for the Colts while still living in the Baltimore area, where he tries to carve out family time with his wife and children who are 14, 13, and 6.

The mention of the 6-year old made me smile, because in 2003, the Stovers were in a childbirth class with us at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

It was one of those "refresher" courses -- all of us had had at least one child already -- so the class was as much about helping siblings deal with a new arrival as it was about the mechanics of childbirth.

What struck me about the Stovers, and what still strikes me, is how they didn't call attention to themselves. I remember that when we went around the room to talk about ourselves, Stover said something about "not working right now." Well, it wasn't football season, so I guess that was right.

It wasn't until the second or third session of the class that my husband figured out who Stover was. "That's Matt Stover," he whispered urgently to me as we took our seats that day.

Of course, not being a huge football fan, I was clueless. My husband had to explain to me who this was.

"Go get his autograph," I said. (I know. Stupid. Now, I plead pregnant.)

My husband took umbrage at this. "No way," he said. "We're gonna be cool."

So we treated the Stovers like all the other parents in our class, and didn't say a word. Neither, apparently, did anyone else. And then we went our separate ways to give birth to our babies.

So I'm glad for any news about 6-year-old Joe. I'm sure my 6-year-old Sam wishes his dad well on Saturday, even though he's playing for another team.

(Photo by Baltimore Sun photographer Kenneth Lam)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Sports
        

Greater Baltimore Medical Center has released its list of most popular names for babies born at the hospital in 2009.

It's topped by William for boys and Mary for girls.

Other popular names among the 4,274 babies born at the hospital last year:

For girls: Madison, Olivia, Grace, Deborah, Sarah, Emily, Patricia.

For boys: Michael, Robert, John, James, Matthew, Thomas, David.

Check out the complete list for more.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

I was surprised to learn that moms-to-be are actually hiring baby planners to help organize all the stuff, and do all the "research" to buy the right stuff, that comes with a new bundle.

I guess that on one hand it's not really that different from having a planner for your wedding, or a coach for your parenting skills, or a college-prep specialist to counsel your teenager on how to handle college applications.

But on the other, there's a lot to be said for trusting your gut as a mom. Even before you're officially one. Throughout your life, many, many people will claim to tell you what's right for your child. But it's your opinion, and the father's, that's most important.

It doesn't need to be this hard, does it? Our moms and grandmothers would have laughed at the idea of paying someone money to make these decisions.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 1:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Expecting
        

Are you about to have a second, third, or-so-on baby? If you're delivering at a hospital in Maryland, chances are that your new bundle's older siblings won't be able to visit you and the newborn in the hospital.

As Kelly Brewington and Meredith Cohn report today, it's because of swine flu. (Isn't everything?) Hospitals want to protect their patients and the public at large, and even children who appear healthy are known spreaders of flu.

On the other side of things are moms like Kimberly Franklin, shown in the picture on the left, who would love for her 3-year-old to be by her side right after she has a scheduled C-section at St. Joseph Medical Center next week to welcome his new brother.

I would have been very sad if my daughter, then 2, hadn't been allowed into my room to see her new brother the day after he was born. I still remember how she charged into the room, newly confident in her role as big sister, and proclaimed: "I wanna pick him up."

Then again, I wouldn't have wanted to expose a vulnerable new baby to the flu.

(Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

Just when you thought you'd heard it all comes the story of an Arkansas woman who conceived a baby...after she was already pregnant with another. No, they're not twins, but separate pregnancies 2 1/2 weeks apart.

Fortunately, as a Greater Baltimore Medical Center fertility expert tells ABC News here, it's a rare case.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Health
        

If you are thinking of starting a family, you may want to head to Anne Arundel Medical Center tonight, where clinicians will be speaking about how to best prepare for a baby. They'll be available for questions after each speech. The event is free and will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the AAMC Clatanoff Auditorium.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Expecting
        

Salma Hayek got lots of support for breastfeeding a child that wasn't hers. But have you read Hanna Rosin's piece in the upcoming Atlantic magazine, on "the case against breastfeeding"? It's in the April issue of the magazine, but the controversy is already rolling along.

In the piece, Rosin, who breast-fed her three children, questions the notion that breastfeeding delivers all the benefits that popular science and lore say it does -- and whether it's become a modern shackle of domesticity for women, something like the vacuum cleaner once was.

The backlash has started already. Here's the case against the case against breastfeeding at Strollerderby.

And here's Rosin on the Today show:

Here's my perspective: I breast-fed both my kids for their first year. After I went back to work as a reporter, after about seven months each time, I pumped during the day. Toward the end of the year I gradually tapered off pumping and supplemented with formula, breastfeeding in the morning and the evening.

It wasn't as hard for me to accomplish as Rosin portrays, but I was lucky enough to have access to a room with a lock, blinds and a phone. With a hands-free pump with a quiet motor, I could actually interview people on the phone while I was pumping. And fortunately I was never caught out at a news event when I really needed to pump.

The thing that's sad, I think, is the mother-to-mother judginess that's crept into our modern thinking about every element of parenting, from how many activities your kid should have to whether they can eat candy before dinner. Breastfeeding has become a lightning rod for that kind of judginess, and a mom can feel it from the moment she becomes a mom.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
        

Today's Guest Dad is Tony Chen, who writes in Chicago for the web site/community Savvy Daddy. He has some observations on how life has changed now that his family includes two children.

Here's Tony:

Continue reading "Father's Day Friday: Reflections on having baby #2" »

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Even though breastfeeding is the recommended way to feed your baby, women still get heat in some places for doing it in public. That's become something of a hot topic again, since Salma Hayek was shown recently on Nightline breastfeeding a hungry baby while on a goodwill trip to Sierra Leone.

Then this post from breastfeeding123.com caught my eye; it's a pretend rant/campaign against public bottle-feeding. Tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but it makes its point. (Example: "Bottlefeeding Parents might try to argue that BIP is done for the baby who needs to eat, but that baby doesn’t need to eat! Bottlefeeding Parents are just doing it for the attention!")

I'd love to know what those of you who've fed babies either way have to say about it, and about Salma Hayek's nursing of a baby that wasn't hers.

(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
        

Your infant has been crying -- a lot. That's what babies do. But how do you know if your baby actually has colic? I asked Dr. Charles Shubin, director of pediatrics at Mercy FamilyCare, a division of Family Health Centers of Baltimore, to provide today's Consult.

Colic, Shubin explained, is not a defined medical disease but a diagnosis that's made when doctors and parents have ruled out other reasons for a baby's discomfort. But here are some of the signs he said might lead you to talk to your pediatrician about colic: Your baby is 1 to 4 months of age; she cries for long periods at a time, after you've tried feeding her, burping her and changing her to help; and the extended crying has something of a daytime pattern that often occurs in the late afternoon and early evening. "They cry continuously or a lot, or they're not well consolable," Shubin said.

What can you do if the doctor can't find a physical cause of discomfort and says your child does have colic? Shubin says some parents have had success swaddling the baby -- wrapping her tightly in a blanket like a burrito, which you might have done when she was first born. Vibrating baby chairs and swings might also calm the baby, but Shubin cautions that you shouldn't prop the infant on top of a clothes dryer -- the vibrations might be soothing, but the baby could fall off.

The good news is that time is on a parent's side. Most babies stop extended crying at about the time they learn to sleep through the night, around 4 months, Shubin said. If yours is still crying for hours every day much beyond that, it's time to talk to your doctor again.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, The Monday Consult
        

If you're expecting or just had a baby, you'll want to check out this piece from the Boston Globe that examines which is better for the environment -- disposable diapers, or cloth. The story may leave you more confused than ever, though, because it says it's far from clear that one has a better overall carbon footprint than the other.

There's a useful discussion among parents who have used both kinds of diapers here.

(Associated Press photo/Danny Johnston)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

Infertility is a growing problem that some of you have probably faced. So it may be no news to you that there's an emerging network of blogs dedicated to the quest for a positive pregnancy test, as our story says today.

It's an incredibly intimate subject, so the anonymity-yet-community of the blogosphere seems the perfect forum for sharing tips and travails about this. Have you visited infertility blogs?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Expecting
        

That's the message of this interesting (but -- warning -- long) Reason magazine piece about the coming "depopulation" crisis. It says, in essence, that after worrying about overpopulation for years, countries around the world now fear alling fertility rates (though not so much in the U.S.). In turn, gender roles in those countries are changing.

If we move to Europe to have our babies, the article says, the moms among us might get a lot of great bennies (time off, subsidized day care, etc.) ... but also, a not-so-subtle message to "return to home and hearth."

What do you think?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting
        

Need dinner delivery after your own delivery? Let's Dish!, the meal-assembly company, has an offer for new moms -- free delivery of its 8-meal DishDelivery orders for up to three months after a baby is born.

Details and rules of the offer are on the Let's Dish blog.

If you know someone who's expecting, a nice group gift might be to spring for the meals, then take advantage of the offer for free delivery of them. I know that when I had babies, all I really wanted was for dinner to be taken care of (and cleanup too!).

When my first was born, one of our favorite gifts was a big spiral sliced ham with biscuits, with a tray of fresh fruit. Whenever we were hungry and had a moment to eat, we'd grab it.

What food gifts have you received in the early days of having a baby that you liked best?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Food and Recipes
        

This ABC news piece brings some discouraging news for expecting parents: Just 16 percent of employers offer fully paid, six-week maternity leaves, according to a study by the Families and Work Institute -- compared to 27 percent a decade ago.

The study also found that despite technological advances that might make more working from home and job-sharing possible, employers aren't offering more of those options. One upside: employers are becoming more accommodating to mothers who need private spaces to breastfeed (or pump, I gather).

As our economic picture gets bleaker, I imagine it will be harder for some employees to feel they can leave their jobs for long to have a baby or care for a family member. In retrospect, I feel supremely lucky to have been able to take 6 months or so with each child. Yet I would love to have been able to take more time.

How much time did you take for your maternity leaves?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Work-life balance
        

Our expecting friend Amy asked an interesting question the other day that you may have missed:

Any suggestions on how to gently decline Mother's Day wishes when one is still about a month away from being a mom? I know folks have the best of intentions, and I am probably just being superstitious, but it doesn't quite feel right yet...

I never faced this one myself -- because my first baby was born in early spring, I wasn't pregnant on Mother's Day. But I'm sure many of you were. What did you say when someone wished you Happy Mother's Day before you were actually a mom?

I guess I would have done what I did when people meant well but had other kinds of unwanted things to say or do. Like touching my belly when I didn't really know them. Or saying I was obviously carrying a boy or a girl. Or telling me their delivery horror stories.

I'd just smile, smile, smile, until they stopped or went away.

Anyone have advice for Amy?

(Photo of Bono kissing Gwen Stefani's belly at the 2006 Grammy Awards, by Richard Hartog, Associated Press)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Expecting
        

Thanks for all the great comments, gear recommendations and other pieces of advice for Amy and other moms (and dads) to be. I'm sure we all appreciate them, with the possible exception of Amy's friends and relatives, who will now have to deal with a supersized registry of all your suggested items.

Even with all those recommendations I found myself wanting to know more about some of the gear (Lea Orlando, what's a bumbo seat?). So I'll do a little more research and save that list for later. Meanwhile, with your comments and some advice I've been thinking about, there's more than enough for a tip sheet on Things We Wish We'd Known before that first baby came.

Here goes. (Click below for the list and see why in the world Coco Chanel is pictured in her little black dress. ...):

Continue reading "Tip Sheet Thursday: Advice for the expecting" »

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Well, ladies, we can't say that on some level we haven't wished for this....

Did you see the pregnant man on Oprah yesterday? If not, you can catch up on Thomas Beatie's story here. Beattie says he is a transgender male from Oregon who kept his female reproductive organs. Because his previously-married wife could no longer conceive, he told Oprah, they had him artificially inseminated. The baby girl is due this summer.

The couple are also telling their story in this week's People magazine.

Obviously this is a very unique case, but do you think it will give men more awareness of what mothers go through to bear children?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Expecting
        

There's an interesting story on the Los Angeles Times web site today about parents wrestling with the circumcision decision. It's interesting to read the statistics behind the debate: In 1965, the story says, 85 percent of boys born in the U.S. were circumcised. In 2005, slightly more than half were.  

How did you make this decision for your son/s? And if you're expecting a boy, is this a topic of debate in your house as birth approaches?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

The Chicago Tribune reports that by tricking the body with medication, herbs, or pumping, adoptive mothers can breastfeed a child without giving birth. The newspaper included stories of mothers who made it work.

This Web site is dedicated to supporting the practice. Here's an older story about adoptive breastfeeding from the Web site of Mothering magazine.

Have any of you readers who've adopted tried to breastfeed? Were you successful? I'm interested in the pros and cons.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Adoption, Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

The Associated Press reports that because of concerns about a chemical used to make plastic baby bottles, glass bottles are making a comeback. But there are concerns about those, too -- they're breakable, for one thing, and more expensive.

Have you used glass baby bottles? Let us know the pros and cons, and if you have any local sources for them, please share in a comment below.

(Associated Press photo of Dr. Brown's Natural Flow glass bottles)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

You may have missed Amy's great comment over the weekend. She's an expectant mom who would like a blog category for moms to be. She rightly points out that she probably has more time now to read the blog than she will when her baby comes in June. And now's when she could use our help with the following:

I'd love to know of a local place to look for cribs and such so I don't have to resort to a chain. I'd love to know if any Baltimore moms use diaper services (I've had a hard time finding any on the internet) or use gdiapers to try to be a bit more green ...?

 Does anyone have advice for Amy? (She got two good tips under her comment already, but I know there's more intel out there.) Please give us some ideas for her crib purchase, which as we all know is one of the most important and nerve-racking a new mom will ever make. And I'd love to hear about cloth diaper services; I'd like to post more on green parenting later, but if you have any leads now I'm sure readers could use them. Meanwhile, there's now a new Expecting category along the right rail, where you'll find posts of use to families awaiting a new addition. Thanks for the idea!

(Sun file photo, 2006, of Graco Windsor Travel Lite Crib)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Expecting