I'm a 49 year old childless woman. I might have been fertile at one time but I am not anymore. I look at people with children and think they must have a lot of guts, to have babies in a world like ours. And then there's the chaos of childrearing, the diapers left by the side of the road, the screaming brats in the grocery store, the traffic jams ( Read more... )

Awaken the mother mind within every one of you human beings... We must feel what is going on in the world. It is said by the Zulu people that women think with their pelvic area, where children grow and are born...we must think that way. We must awaken the mother mind in us.
--Credo Mutwa
( notes )

It's generational. I'm not the only one. This makes me feel better. We live in Interesting Times indeed.http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/many-gen-x-women-overworked-and-in-debt-take-

August 1, 2011 - Health care reform requires new insurance plans to fully cover women's preventive care, which now will include free birth control, yearly wellness visits, breastfeeding counseling and equipment, and screening for gestational diabetes, domestic abuse, HPV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and HIV ( Read more... )

( notes from Stansbury's week 10 6/12/2009 lecture, there will be a week 11 lecture as well )

The rate at which U.S. women are having babies continued to fall in 2009, pushing the teen birth rate to the lowest level in the nearly 70 years reliable data have been collected, federal authorities reported Tuesday.

( Read more... )

( in women AND in men )

postpartum depression is common
new neurobiological model to explain:
decr estrogen-->incr MAO-A binding-->low mood & risk for depression
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2010;67:468-474.
( notes )

( notes from final quiz and Midwife's Kitbag lecture )

It's graphic, and it happens pretty fast. There's no wailing or gnashing of teeth. Then the baby elephant looks dead, isn't breathing, you get to see how the mama elephant revives it. Pretty amazing. Here's where you'll find the video.