A couple of breast-related news items caught my eye this week: A study led by a Harvard Medical School researcher found that women who had spent at least two years breastfeeding were 19 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who hadn’t breastfed at all. Results were independent of any of the […]
A new national study in this month’s American Sociological Review claims that “Adoptive parents invest more time and financial resources in their children than biological parents.” Indiana University sociologist Brian Powell, one of the study’s three co-authors, explains: One of the reasons adoptive parents invest more is that they really want children, and they go
Several New Hampshire lawmakers are sponsoring a bill to clarify the state’s policies on adoption by same-sex couples, and explicitly permit it in all 10 counties. Currently, adoption law allows a married couple or an unmarried adult to adopt. It does not specifically permit or deny it to two committed unmarried adults. This means that
While I’m on a roll with the entertainment news, I’ll pass on the tidbit that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are discussing having a baby, according to an interview in W magazine: “The two are considering having children, and go back and forth on the matter. ‘Ellen would carry,’ de Rossi offers. Counters DeGeneres:
Nothing like a little celebrity news now and then: Actor Sara Gilbert, best known for her role in the sitcom Roseanne, and her partner, television producer Allison Adler, are expecting their second child, AfterEllen reports. Gilbert is pregnant this time; Adler carried the couple’s first baby. Perhaps this will motivate the producers of ER, where
The Washington Post has a lengthy article on the child-custody case involving former partners Janet and Lisa Miller-Jenkins. (I’ve covered this case several times before.) The Post says: These lawyers . . . are debating questions so profound that the answers have the power to affect legions of families gay and straight: Who is a
If you’re trying to conceive, here is some new research you may want to discuss with your doctor: A study at the University of Pittsburgh found that women who conceive in summer have the lowest rate of preterm births (less than 37 weeks gestation), with the rates increasing steadily through fall, winter, and spring. Those
Two recent news items on fertility and pregnancy, for those of us creating our families that way: A new technique for screening eggs could boost IVF pregnancy rates. Using a method normally used in cancer research, researchers mapped the number of chromosomes in an unfertilised egg to predict which eggs will produce embryos least likely
An Ohio court ruled yesterday that a custody arrangement between two lesbian parents is valid despite the state’s constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. The couple had signed a court-approved joint custody agreement, and then split. One of the women refused to let the other have contact with their son, and claimed their agreement was invalid
Today is the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the United States. It is also Blog for Choice Day, so I’m going to venture a little off my usual topics in this post and talk about reproductive freedom as I see it.
