Favorites from this week
Having an incredibly restorative weekend after a particularly difficult week. (This picture articulates all of my feelings.)
Thanks to you all for the comments, personal and public, after Saturday's post. Here's some great stuff that was covered in the news this week....Outcomes of Care in Birth Centers: Demonstration of a Durable Model - Susan Rutledge Stapleton, et al. in the Journal of Midwifery & Women's Health, Jan/Feb 2013.Also known as the National Birth Center Study II, and covered here by the ACNM. Wonderful news in the world of midwifery, advocacy work for low-intervention birth, and progress toward women-and-baby-centered birth care."...Discussion: This study demonstrates the safety of the midwifery-led birth center model of collaborative care as well as continued low obstetric intervention rates, similar to previous studies of birth center care. These findings are particularly remarkable in an era characterized by increases in obstetric intervention and cesarean birth nationwide..."...Women Shooting on the Front Lines - James Estrin at The New York TimesAn awesome interview with photographer Lynsey Addario regarding her coverage of women soldiers in Afghanistan."...Q. When I heard about the lifting of the ban on women in combat, I thought about your coverage of female soldiers for The Times, and also about the interview we did about women covering conflict after you were freed from captivity in Libya. What was your reaction to the announcement?
They’re at bases all across Afghanistan, and they’re playing different roles – from black ops pilots to doing triage in forward-operating medical centers. They’re engaging women in villages of Helmand that are covered with landmines. They are getting shot at. They are dying, and they are getting injured.Everyone can fight about whether women should be on the front lines, but the fact is that they are out there. So, at some point, you have to acknowledge it and compensate them for it or at least give them the dignity of saying “O.K., you’re out there, and thank you for it.” Instead of saying, “No, they’re not allowed,” but really, they are..."...Teenage Girl Blossoming Into Beautiful Object - The OnionAh, sarcasm, truth."...Calling the transformation both delightful and stunning, friends and family members confirmed Tuesday that 17-year-old Ashley Parker was blossoming into an absolutely gorgeous object.According to Parker’s relatives, in the span of 14 months, the high school junior underwent a staggering metamorphosis from a young girl with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations into a truly stunning commodity.“Ashley has really developed into quite a striking assemblage of physical attributes that are found to be sexually attractive in our culture,” said Parker’s uncle Keith Hayes, expressing astonishment at how his niece had steadily matured from a precocious youth into a shapely, ravishing thing devoid of intellect and personality. “It’s hard to believe that she used to be that little girl [capable of subjective experiences] that I remember. Now look at her—she’s such a lovely vessel for displaced sexual frustration and voyeuristic lust, just like her mother.”“Seems like just yesterday she was this creative 7-year-old kid, pretending her Barbie was the first woman president,” Hayes added. “My, they grow into little more than consumer goods so quickly.”..."...Dutch guys giving birth.An interesting look at simulated labor, with a focus on muscle contractions as pain (which is not the case for everyone). I love how the midwife works her butt off to help them focus and get through each contraction. ...Pro-choice on Amtrak: The time I told a group of anti-choice teenagers about my abortion - Michelle Kinsey Bruns at FeministingWithout personal stories, arguments for an against are de-personalized and less tangible. Thanks so much to Michelle for sharing her story."...There was so much more I wanted to say—and there were places where I misspoke or oversimplified, in my rush, in my anxiety. I wanted to tell them that of all the cities in America, New Orleans is one where the reality of lives lived with one foot poised at the edge of the abyss should be plainly apparent to even the most privileged eyes. I wanted to say that New Orleans is two-thirds black, and black women have a fourfold maternal mortality rate over white women in this country. I wanted to talk about the recent Turnaway Study from ANSIRH, showing a rate of domestic violence among women who were turned away for abortions much higher than among those who got the abortions they sought, the implication being that pregnant women often stay in abusive relationships—a thing that I had intuited to be true when I was very, very young.I wanted to say that even if a person who wants an abortion is not healing from a health emergency or a broken life, she has every right to exercise control over the use of her body and the direction of her future and it is a sin to suggest otherwise. Lastly, I wanted to return to the idea of not having the resources to continue a pregnancy, by saying that on the other hand, there are some women, including me, who actually never wanted children at all, and that is just fine..."...New Vaccine Schedule Released - Todd Neale at MedPageTodayA very difficult demand on time for all practitioners is to stay on top of the latest evidence and guidelines. Here's an update."...The new schedule, which reflects recommendations adopted by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), was approved by the AAP, the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).In a separate publication in the Annals of Internal Medicine, ACIP also released the adult immunization schedule for 2013, which was approved by the AAFP, ACOG, American College of Physicians, and American College of Nurse Midwives.Both schedules can be accessed through the website of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report...."...