A Biologist's Mother's Day Song

This may be the nerdiest, most awesome Mother's Day tribute I have ever seen. A couple of days late, but too hilarious not to post ;)

Up

Have you read about how a bunch of scientists, engineers, and a couple of balloon pilots got together and re-created the flying house from the Pixar movie, Up? The whole thing was filmed as part of an upcoming National Geographic Channel series called How Hard Can it Be?, and they broke the world record for largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted while they were at it. The photos are amazing.

Two Days in The American Museum of Natural History

We live a fifteen-minute walk away from one of the greatest museums in the world. Sometimes you just have to go two days in a row to soak in the awesomeness. And we still barely scratched the surface. Here are some highlights...

Happy days.

Joyfully exploring, creating, experimenting, imagining,

running, giggling,

seeing, learning, doing.

Being.

Jane Goodall on Motherhood

Last night, J and I watched a recent episode of 60 Minutes online, and we were spellbound by this profile on Jane Goodall. I never realized that she had no scientific degree (not even a bachelors degree!) when she first set out to study Chimpanzees in Africa at the tender age of 26. One of the reasons that she made her incredible discoveries was that she was unbound by academic/scientific convention! So cool.

I thought I would post this web extra from the 60 Minutes website that shows Goodall talking about how motherhood affected her interactions with and understanding of animals.

Doesn't she have the most wonderful face?

Bronx Zoo

Yesterday we visited the Bronx Zoo for the first time and it was wonderful!  Here are some of our favorite highlights:

Rainy Afternoon At the Museum

What better thing to do on a dreary, rainy day off than go to the American Museum of Natural History?  Taro really wanted me to experience the special exhibit of butterflies that is currently showing (he and the Kiddo have already been once before), so that is just what we did today!  Here are a few highlights...

It was amazing, beautiful, magical, fun.  The butterflies were flitting all over, even coming to rest on us from time to time!  

After enjoying the extent of this tropical paradise on Central Park West, we spent the last few minutes before the museum closed checking out some of the Kiddo's favorite exhibits, including this one of a nursing zebra baby:

Good times.  How did you start this first week of May?

The Benefits of Breastfeeding: New Study Reveals Positive Health Results For Mamas

Image Via WeHeartIt.

Printed in The New York Times today, April 22, 2009 (online, here):

Breast-Feeding Benefits Mothers, Study Finds
by Roni Caryn Rabin

Most doctors agree that breast-feeding is best for babies’ health. Now a large study suggests that the practice benefits mothers as well: women who have breast-fed, it says, are at lower risk than mothers who have not for developing high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular disease decades later, when they are in menopause.

The benefits increase with duration of past breast-feeding, the study found. Women who had breast-fed for more than a year in their entire lifetimes were almost 10 percent less likely than those who had never breast-fed to have had a heart attack or a stroke in their postmenopausal years. They were also less likely to have diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol.

The study found that even those postmenopausal women who had breast-fed for just one month had lower rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, although the risk of heart disease after such limited breast-feeding was comparable to that among mothers who had never breast-fed.

The research, which is to be published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, analyzed data on some 139,681 women who had enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national study of postmenopausal women.

Women who reported a lifetime history of more than a year of breast-feeding were 20 percent less likely to have diabetes, 12 percent less likely to have hypertension, 19 percent less likely to have high cholesterol and 9 percent less likely to have had a heart attack or a stroke by the time they enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative.

The new study’s chief author, Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said of breast-feeding, “We’ve known for a long time that it’s important for the baby’s health, but we now know it’s important for mothers’ health as well.”

Other experts cautioned, however, that while the study demonstrated an association between breast-feeding and health benefits, there was not necessarily a causal relationship. Women who breast-feed may simply lead more healthful lives than those who do not, these experts said, noting that the new analysis might not have been able to account for all the differences between the two groups.

Breast-feeders “may be healthier women who take better care of themselves,” said Dr. Nieca Goldberg, medical director of the N.Y.U. Women’s Heart Center.

“This is a nice association,” Dr. Goldberg said of the findings, “but we don’t know from the study what the physiological mechanism is.”

If there is such a mechanism, Dr. Goldberg suggested, it could lie in oxytocin, a hormone crucial to milk production. Oxytocin is known to relax blood vessels, she said, and may make them more flexible and more resistant to the buildup of plaque.

Breast-feeding is also known to play a role in healing after pregnancy, by causing uterine contractions that help restore the uterus to its original size more quickly. Further, women burn extra calories when making milk, helping them eliminate fat stores accumulated during pregnancy.

Other recent studies have suggested breast-feeding may also reduce the risk of osteoporosis and both breast and ovarian cancer, as well as Type 2 diabetes.

Conversations on Birth

In the wake of yesterday's New York Times article about home birth, the topic of home birth has taken the blogosphere by storm.  Of course, many of the natural-birth activism/midwifery blogs are all over it, but because this was such a high-profile news piece I have noticed conversations sparked in less-expected corners of the internet.  Places like a Glamour Magazine sex-and-relationships blog, a pop culture site, and a home decor site.

I am glad to see much-needed attention being given to the issue of birthing options, and conversation is a good thing.  However, I have been appalled by some of the ferociously hostile words coming from women aimed at women who choose to have home births.  Take for example an excerpt from a post that went up on Jezebel today, authored by someone not at all keen on the concept of being subjected a home-birthing neighbor's supposed "caterwauling":

"...if you choose to give birth at home in the apartment above mine, you have to accept my choice to leave a steaming bag of dog poo in your mailbox."

These vitriolic comments are not coming from people within the medical establishment, in fact their comments betray an outright ignorance of medical fact to go along with their bile.  Take for instance these words from popular decor blogger Decorno, who envisions hospitals to be havens of happy hour, apparently:

"This kind of back-to-roots childbirth business is a load of crap.  To my future baby: Momma will have you with some drugs in her. Deal with it. Immediately following birth, she will ask the doctor to grab her compact and her Chanel lipstick and will re-apply before ordering a cocktail. You will not be born in an inflatable pool, nor in Queens. These will be the two ways in which I reassure you that I actually love you. Welcome to the world. Love, Your Mother. Now hand me my cigarettes..."

That one is so out there you actually have to kind of smirk.  And indeed, I realize that Decorno was probably shooting for laughs when she wrote that.  And it's not that I don't have a sense of humor -- one of the reasons I frequent Decorno is the always cheeky wit -- what gets me is that this woman is so anti-home-birth that she didn't even read the Times article before she got her panties in a wad and posted negatively about it on her blog!

Granted, everyone has a right to blog what they choose to blog on their own blog.  And everyone has a right to form their own opinions about this and any other important topic.  But what disturbs me is the utter irresponsibility of people like this as women, basically hating on other women's right to give birth outside of a hospital setting.  I just don't get that.  And what's with the viciousness?  I can't help but be sad, thinking about how threatened most people are by the idea of really talking about the female body, reproduction, and the natural processes surrounding the way we all arrive on the planet:  birth.

UPDATE, 11:39 pm:  After posting this and leaving what I felt to be an incredibly respectful and generous comment on the Decorno post quoted above, it seems that Decorno and her readers now find me "humorless."  What do you think?

Photo of my home birth, by Liz Rubincam.

Home Birth in the New York Times

Today's New York Times features a huge article about home birth, featuring beautiful photographs by my dear friend Liz Rubincam (who also photographed the Kiddo's birth!).

I am elated to see so much space devoted to this topic, and I have to say that the overall angle of the article puts the home birth movement in a favorable light and provides a relatively in-depth look at what is a growing trend in Manhattan.  I urge you to read the article and the accompanying online features including the slideshow (which features additional great quotes and home birth stories) and reader forum, which has already logged 234 comments since yesterday!

Chime in here, too of course :)  Let me know what you think about the article and/or home birth by leaving a comment on this post.

Photos by Liz Rubincam for the New York Times.

Funny Find of the Day

Food Chain Friends stuffed animal sets.  Available here. Found here.

Drug Pushers

Nicole over at Bellies and Babies just posted an excellent critique of the lucrative epidural industry.

Did you know that the average medicated hospital birth costs $7,500 - $12,500 (or as much as double that for cesareans)?

Or that in America, an epidural costs anywhere from $800 to $2500, depending on the hospital and community?

Are you aware that The United States spends more money on birth ($50,000,000,000/year) than any other nation in the world (without getting better results)?

Did you know that many pharmaceutical companies offer incentives and bonuses for the 'top sellers' in any given hospital or practice?   Nicole offers up these infuriating facts and goes on to say, 

"In fact, my OB told me that one such rep offered a new plasma TV to the OB with the most medicated births in the first month of the new year from the hospital I was planning on birthing at. As I have said time and time again, the majority of hospital policies are based on financial goals and protection from litigation."

The piece is a must-read.  While you're there, bookmark the site!

For Fashionistas of the Future

Found here.

Science on Our Side

I was pleased to see the following two items in the New York Times yesterday:

Breast-Feeding Tied to Intelligence

and

Mother’s Touch Helps Cut Newborns’ Pain

Read all about it!