Megan Mattiuzzo, a professional wedding photographer, had a baby last month. She wanted to document the wonder of her child's birth and she knew that if you want something done right, you do it yourself.
“I’m used to capturing moments that you can’t retake,” Mattiuzzo tells PetaPixel. “So when I found out I was pregnant, I knew that I wanted to capture my son’s first breath, first moments, seeing his face for the first time...
“Due to a failed epidural that was not 100% effective, I was able to feel the right side of my body and a spot on my left abdomen,” Mattiuzzo says. “When it was time to start pushing, my husband [Ryan]’s job was to hand [the camera] to me when it was time for the last push...
“I took the camera and tucked my chin to my chest, rested the camera on my stomach, pulled my head to the viewfinder, and started pushing,” she says. “I then saw a moment I will never forget… my son’s hair… then his head… then his body… all while shooting. It was the most amazing moment of my life.”
More at PetaPixel: "This Photographer Shot Her Own Childbirth"
Read the rest
Semi-identical twins -- a boy and girl who are identical on their mother's side but share only 78% of their father's genome -- have been identified in Brisbane, Australia. This is only the second known case, ever. From the BBC:
"The mother's ultrasound at six weeks showed a single placenta and positioning of amniotic sacs that indicated she was expecting identical twins," (said Prof Nicholas Fisk whose team at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospita cared for the children when they were born in 2014).
"However, an ultrasound at 14 weeks showed the twins were male and female, which is not possible for identical twins."
If one egg is fertilised by two sperm, it results in three sets of chromosomes, rather than the standard two - one from the mother and two from the father.
And, according to researchers, three sets of chromosomes are "typically incompatible with life and embryos do not usually survive".
The identity of the twins has not been revealed.
A scientific paper about these rare humans was published the New England Journal of Medicine: "Molecular Support for Heterogonesis Resulting in Sesquizygotic Twinning"
Read the rest
America has some of the weakest anti-pregnancy-discrimination rules in the world (the federal statute says that companies only have to give pregnant people lighter duties if they make similar accommodations for those "similar in their ability or inability to work); and this has produced an epidemic of workplace miscarriages among women who have frequently begged their supervisors for lighter duties, even presenting doctor's written notes with their pleas.
Read the rest
YO is an FDA-cleared sperm quality analyzer for your smartphone. It consists of a detachable mini microscope and light that clips to your mobile phone. You "acquire" a sperm sample, drop it into the YO Clip, and the app records a video of your sperm in action and analyzes the activity. Available in January, you can pre-order two tests for $50. I bet the app has social media integration so if you have strong swimmers, you can proudly share the proof with your friends.
"Extensive testing has been performed on the YO Home Sperm Test—over four years to be exact," Marcia Deutsch, CEO of Medical Electronic Systems, the parent company of YO Sperm Test and producer of commercial-grade semen analyzers for major labs, tells Fit Pregnancy. "The technology is able to read the sperm sample 99 percent of the time, as long as the instructions are followed. [If it can read the test] the results are more than 97 percent accurate based on FDA studies of 316 participants."
Because it's an over-the-counter product, Deutsch says the test can't reveal actual values, but rather gives a reading of "low" or "moderate/normal" based on World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for sperm motility (how well they move) and concentration (how many there are). The test reports a composite of these two parameters called "motile sperm concentration," or the number of moving sperm.
YO Sperm Test (via Uncrate) Read the rest
Having a baby requires adjustment for everyone in your home. This includes the cat. Now you can prepare your fur baby for a drooling hairless counterpart that will coo and wail in the dwelling where it was once the center of attention.
Tell Your Cat You're Pregnant: Baby and Toy Sounds for Preparing Your Cat for a Baby is a set of audio tracks of actual unpleasant baby sounds for your cat to experience, with titles such as "Loud Crying" and "Screaming." Also doubles as a contraceptive. Read the rest
Babypod is a wireless speaker designed to be worn by pregnant women in their vaginas so as to bombard their foetuses with music with minimal distortion. Read the rest
FakeABaby.com deals in faked ultrasound images, pregnant belly prosthetics, and other materials. One customer was a Wyandotte, Michigan 16-year-old who managed to trick her relatives, charitable folks, and her boyfriend, also 16, who thought he was about to be a father of triplets and says he "started looking for jobs the best I could." Read the rest
A surprising survey by Teenwise Minnesota found that bisexual females were five times more likely to have been pregnant than straight females. Questioning and gay males were four times more likely than straight males to report getting someone pregnant. Read the rest
A lovely orangutan kissed this 37-week pregnant woman's belly through the glass at England's Colchester Zoo. The woman's partner Jay Clarke writes Read the rest
Adela, who is 3 years old, concisely and accurately explains how babies are born.
An intrepid pregnant cosplayer had an inspired costume idea! It's from George Takei's Twitter feed, and a followup suggests that she's called Alison.
(via Wil Wheaton) Read the rest
Bars in Alaska have installed free pregnancy tests in their women's bathrooms in an effort to curb drinking among pregnant women. The tests are subsidized by the state of Alaska as part of a campaign to reduce fetal alcohol syndrome, which is more prevalent in Alaska than in any other state. Read the rest
At ProPublica, the story of a young woman who had a mental health crisis -- a psychotic episode -- and as a result, lost custody of her infant daughter. In the crisis incident, the mom became delusional and believed her child had been raped. The child had not been assaulted, nor was she ever harmed by her mom. Four years later, the mom is receiving effective treatment for her postpartum depression and psychosis, and capably raising a son. Yet, the courts in Kansas still won't give back her daughter, arguing she is unfit based an principle sometimes called "predictive neglect." Is this right? Read the rest
The average American woman weighs 166 pounds. New data suggests that the Plan B morning-after pill is less effective if you weigh more that 165 pounds, and won't work at all for women who weigh more than 175. What's more, writes Kate Clancy (an anthropologist who studies women's reproductive issues), the dosages for regular old daily birth control are set for average-to-low-weight women. If your BMI is over 25, the pill won't work as well for you. Read the rest
Yesterday, Miriam Carey died after being shot by police following a car chase between the White House and the US Capitol building. Carey is reported to have tried to ram through barricades at the White House, hitting at least one officer as well as a squad car. She then drove her vehicle into barriers in front of the Hart Senate Building before being fatally shot by law enforcement officers. She was unarmed. A child identified as her daughter — a little more than one year old — was in the car the whole time.
Today, news outlets are reporting that Carey had a history of traumatic brain injury and postpartum depression, the latter of which may have been severe enough to send her to the hospital at some point in the past year. Nobody knows what, if any, effect this may have had on what happened yesterday. But it's led to plenty of speculation, and the spread of bad information that stigmatizes women suffering from an incredibly common mental illness.
For instance, on NBC's Today Show this morning, psychologist Jennifer Hartstein declared that "postpartum depression has led mothers to kill their children" — a statement that conflates PPD with a different disorder AND overstates the risk that other disorder poses to kids.
Over the next few days, we're all likely to hear a lot of discussion about postpartum depression. As you absorb that news, keep the following facts in mind: Read the rest
