Articles
C-Sections Can Increase Premature Babies’ Risk of Breathing Problems
Contrary to popular belief, cesarean section appears not to be the best way to deliver preterm babies who are small for their age, according to research...
Deep Fear of Childbirth Drives Some C-Sections
The mere idea of pushing a fully grown baby into the world the natural way can give even the bravest expectant mother pause. But a small number of women are so...
Too Many C-Sections: Docs Rethink Induced Labor
The rise in cesarean-section deliveries in recent years has been characterized by some as a key indication of the overmedicalization of childbirth. While the...
The Risks of Early C-Sections
Cesarean sections were once a measure of last resort, a final attempt to save both mom and baby if things did not go well during delivery. That was almost...
Too Many C-Sections?
A picture of a laughing, blond two-year-old hangs on one wall of the office of Claudio Giorlandino, president of Italy's National Commission on Maternity and...
Study Reports Success in Discouraging Elective Pre-Term Deliveries
To discourage planned early deliveries, hospitals are banning moms from scheduling births before 39 weeks without a medical reason. And it's working. Several...
The Connection Between Dirty Diapers and Childhood Health
Cesarean sections and breast feeding can have lifelong effects on a baby’s health, and researchers may have uncovered why. It’s all about the bugs. Or, to be...
Midwives Say Birthing Centers Could Cut C-Section Rates and Save Billions
Most women still give birth in hospitals, but midwives hope to change that
World Prematurity Day: 5 Ways to Reduce Preterm Births
To mark the second annual World Prematurity Day, there is both encouraging and discouraging news about premature birth trends.
Midwife Mania? More U.S. Babies than Ever Are Delivered by Midwives
In other developed nations, midwives are routinely tasked with bringing new life into the world. Not so in the U.S., where delivery is largely presided over by...
Are Cesarean Sections Contributing to Childhood Obesity?
The obesity epidemic is claiming children at ever younger ages, and the latest research adds to the evidence that weight issues may begin as soon as birth. In a...
Beyoncé’s Baby: C-Section? Natural Childbirth? Why We Care So Much
Celebrity babies are big business. They and their stylishly pregnant mothers who precede them set trends, which is why the much heralded arrival of Blue Ivy...
Midwife Q&A: Are We Having Babies All Wrong?
Ina May Gaskin started delivering babies in 1970 while on a hippie cross-country trip known as "The Caravan." She had no medical training, just a masters degree...
Too Many Women Dying in U.S. While Having Babies
Amnesty International may be best known to American audiences for bringing to light horror stories abroad such as the disappearance of political activists in...
The Trouble With Repeat Cesareans
For many pregnant women in America, it is easier today to walk into a hospital and request major abdominal surgery than it is to give birth as nature intended...
The Labor Market
Expectant parents, spare a thought for Mrs. Jacob Nufer, who in 1500 found herself in agonizing labor. More than a dozen midwives of the Swiss town where she...
Womb Service.
Long before she even met her husband, and well before she decided to become pregnant, Euna Chung made a firm decision about how she would deliver her children...
Iran's Caesarean Section Craze
As my pregnancy more visibly progresses, the question I'm asked most frequently by relatives and total strangers is not whether I'm having a girl or a boy, but...
Medicine: Too Posh To Push?
Actress Elizabeth Hurley had one. So did supermodel Claudia Schiffer. Ex-Spice Girl Victoria Beckham and singer Toni Braxton had two each. TV mom Patricia Heaton...
The Battle Over Birth
Esra Erkal-Paler is used to being in control. As a London-based corporate affairs director for a global cosmetics company, she runs a team of five people. When...
