Several weeks ago, I had written about a gentleman who named his daughter after the Republican presidential and vice presidential candidates. A new trend has developed; this one is also associated with the American presidential elections.

Mothers in Kisumu, Kenya, have celebrated the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States by naming their newborns after he and his wife Michelle. Kisumu is a village in Africa close to where Barack’s father was born.

The day after the elections, there were 15 children born at the local hospital. Five of the male children were named Barack and three of the female children were named Michelle. Many of the mothers interviewed said that they hoped to honor the couple, but they also hoped that their children would be inspired to succeed in life because of their names.

I am deeply touched that women in another country have chosen to name their children after our president elect and his wife. While I think that their intentions are admirable, I guess I wonder – will these children face ridicule because they are named after an American couple? I have never been to Kenya, and so I don’t know if these names will “stand out” from the names that other children have been given. Then again, if the naming trend continues, their names won’t “stand out” anyway.

I wonder what will happen to the babies Barack and Michelle as they grow. Will they spend their lives explaining their names to people? What happens if they meet people who do not support the political ideals of their namesakes? I think of the man I mentioned at the beginning of this blog post who named his daughter Sarah McCain. What happens to her now that the candidates that she was named after lost their bid for the White House?

We’ve had several posts on autism and vaccination in this blog. Many of us parents have divergent points of view on this matter.

A special on autism has been featured on Good Morning America, presented by Dr. Timothy Johnson, medical editor at ABC News. These stories are also now available online as short, easy-to-digest video clips available on the website of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

One news video gives an overview of what is officially known as Autism Spectrum Disorder. Then there are a couple of interviews of celebrity parents who have children with autism. Among these are actors Didi Conn, Joe Mantegna, and Ken Reibel. Every parent interviewed agreed that it is very difficult to live with autism yet they also give some messages of hope to other parents in the same situation. Didi’s message is “don’t be afraid of the “A” word.”

Of course, an autism spotlight program wouldn’t be complete without touching on childhood vaccines. Here we can hear both sides of the argument and inform ourselves. Didi Conn asked some interesting questions at two health experts. Finally, the program also presented and discussed autism treatments and research advancements.

It’s many mothers-to-be’s worst fears come true: a Fullerton, Calif., woman gave birth in the most unlikely of places on Tuesday ? her front lawn.

Thirty six year old Jessica Higgins was reportedly on her way home from the shopping mall when she went into labor and gave birth to her daughter Mary Claire, six weeks prior to her due date. Her two-year-old son was sleeping in the backseat of the car.

Higgins dialed 911 when she got home, but when police arrived she had already given birth and was standing in the driveway holding the newborn. The baby was 5 lbs. 11 oz.

Nicole Kidman has given birth to a baby girl, Us Magazine reports. The actress delivered 6-pound, 7-ounce Sunday Rose Kidman Urban on Monday morning.

It is the first child together for the Oscar-winning actress and her country music singer husband Keith Urban, 40. Kidman has two adopted children ? Connor, 13, and Isabella, 15 ? with her ex, Tom Cruise.

After the birth, Urban wrote on his Web site: “Earlier this morning, Nic gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Sunday Rose Kidman Urban. We want to thank everybody that has kept us in their thoughts and prayers. We feel blessed and grateful that we can share this joy with all of you today.”

People magazine reports that Jessica Alba and husband Cash Warren are the proud parents of a baby girl.

Honor Marie Warren was born June 7 in Los Angeles. She is the couple’s first child.

Alba, 27, and Warren, 31, married in a quiet ceremony on May 19 at the courthouse in Beverly Hills. The couple met while working on Fantastic Four, and became engaged last December.

Alba recently told Fit Pregnancy that she plans to walk the line between tough and nurturing when it comes to her parenting style. “I don’t want to be my child’s best friend. I want to be a mom,” she said. “But I do want my child to come to me when they have problems and need to talk, so it’s going to be about treading that line.”

Congrats to the new parents!

In April of this year, almost 500 children were taken from their mothers and their Texas ranch home. The authorities were acting on anonymous complaints from a pregnant teenage girl who claimed to live at the ranch, and accused her middle-aged husband of abusing her. The police made the decision to raid the ranch, the home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The police found plenty of evidence of polygamous marriages to very young girls, some as young as 12, pregnant teenagers, and children who didn’t know what crayons were.

Abusing young teenagers is utterly heinous and I hope that the men responsible end up in jail for a long time. The police found no evidence of abuse of young children, and nothing so far has suggested that the babies and toddlers taken from their mothers were in any danger – at least nothing that warranted a mass removal of every child in the compound.

I miss my son when he goes to the park with his dad for an hour. I can’t even begin to imagine the distress of these mothers, not having any idea when – or if – their children would be returned to them,

On Monday, after months of separation from their children – many of them babies, and most of the children were under 5 – the Texas supreme court ruled that there was no evidence of immediate danger, and the raid was unlawful. The children have been ordered to be returned to their mothers.

With conditions attached – the children may not leave Texas, the parents must be photographed and agree to cooperate with any further investigation, and must attend parenting classes. The parents must also allow the children to undergo psychiatric or medical exams if required.

The children are being collected, and are returning with their mothers to the ranch where they previously lived. Some commentators are criticizing the courts decision to let the children return, knowing they would go back to the ranch. But where else would the mothers, unfamiliar with the outside world, and many alienated from their own families, take them?

I hope that, after two months separation from their children, the Texas authorities can now do something to help the women at the ranch. Hopefully they can take more appropriate action to help these families leave the ranch to start life outside if they desire, and remove and punish their abusers, and perhaps that would be some compensation for those separated mothers, babies and children.

Here’s an incredible story of a miracle baby girl born in Australia this week.

Ectopic pregnancies, where a baby starts to grow inside a fallopian tube instead of the womb, usually end in miscarriage, or are terminated because of the risk to the mother. An ectopic pregnancy can irreparably rupture the fallopian tube, requiring a hysterectomy, or can even be fatal to the mother.

For this mother, her baby daughter didn’t just start to grow in her fallopian tube, she started to grow inside her ovary. This kind of pregnancy is incredibly rare, and usually impossible for the baby to survive.

Little Durga – her name means “goddess” was born healthy and well, weighing 6 lb 3oz, at 38 weeks. And what is incredible about this case, is that her mom, and her doctors, had no idea until Durga was delivered by cesarean section.

The hospital reports that Durga and her mom are both doing well.

Doctors say that it is unheard of for a baby that begins developing in an ovary to reach full term, and are astounded that her mom’s ovary didn’t break. Truly a miraculous case!

Miracle Baby Born in Australia

In a package offered by congress and approved by President Bush to help the U.S. economy, approximately 117 million families will receive tax rebates that will hopefully give the country’s economy the stimulus it so desperately needs. Rebate checks will be between $600 and $1,200 and in some cases more depending on the amount of children within the family.The rebate breakdown is as follows: individuals will receive $600, working couples will receive $1,200, and couples with children will receive an additional $300 per child. The package will also help businesses. Business owners, including small business, will be able to increase the percentage amount of write offs for equipment and plant purchases.

The approved package gives a lower dollar amount in rebates to families, but includes almost 30 million families that would have been left out of the original package proposed. With the lower dollar amounts, more working families will be able to receive the rebate.

Although an exact date has not been specified as to when the checks will be printed and mailed, don’t expect a check within days. Congress is asking that it happen immediately, but since the stimulus package is not expected to go in front of President Bush until February 15, it looks to be like weeks before receiving your check.

Source:

Congressional Leaders Announce Rebates for 117 Million Families, ABC News

Here`s a riddle:
Two babies, a boy and a girl, were conceived 3 weeks apart and shared their mother`s womb for almost nine months and were born just a minute apart. Are they twins or are they not twins?

According to the Daily Mail and FoxNews, these UK-born babies aren’t actually twins because they weren’t conceived at the same time. The older sibling had a ?real? twin embryo which was lost just before the detection of the third younger embryo.

As a mom of twins (identical) who has done extensive reading on this topic, I would tend to disagree with this report. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a twin as ?either of two offspring produced at a birth? Another definition is that twins are 2 individual human beings who shared a uterus during pregnancy. Another term used for twins, triplets, etc. is multiple birth (vs. single birth), which literally means giving birth to multiple babies in one go. There is no mention whatsoever that they should have been conceived at the same time.
Non-identical or fraternal twins develop from 2 different eggs fertilized by 2 different sperms.
Usually, conception/fertilization occurs at around the same time. However, there are rare cases when the following could occur:

1. Superfecundation – 2 eggs are produced in 1 ovulation cycle are fertilized at different times (e.g. 2 sexual acts in closely succession) to produce 2 babies.

2. Superfetation – 2 eggs are produced in 2 different ovulation cycles and are fertilized at different times (e.g. 2 sexual acts weeks apart) to produce 2 babies.

These unusual occurrences have actually resulted in fraternal twins with different fathers! The case of the Mullineux babies in the UK is superfetation.

So what`s the answer to the riddle? I would say these 2 babies are twins. Before the days of ultrasound, they would have been labeled as twins and nobody would have known any better. So what do you think?

Lance Cpl. Maria Frances Lauterbach, the 20 year old Marine that has been missing since early December has reportedly been found dead in the backyard of a comrade she had accused of rape. Maria had been set to testify about an unclassified “incident” on the Marine Lejune base in North Carolina when she turned up missing. Maria was around seven to eight months pregnant when she went missing, and was reported to the police by her mother.
After some light digging in a fire pit behind the household of Marine Cpl. Cesar Armando Laurean, detectives found what “appeared to be burnt human remains,” Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson said Friday night. A person close to the case said that the suspect had left a note insisting that the woman had killed herself.
“We think we have found what will (contain) the skeletal remains of Maria Lauterbach,” Hudson said. There was a tarp being placed around the location at the fire pit early Saturday morning as forensics investigators began to excavate the site for any remaining clues as to the identity of the murder victim, though officials are fairly certain they belong to Maria. Maria’s remains were found due to a tip by another female former Marine that left authorities to assume that she was dead. A source told The Associated Press that the witness is Laurean’s wife.

Laurean is still at large and according to the witness, he had given his wife a note that said Lauterbach had cut her own throat and that her death was a suicide. In this letter he also reportedly stated that he had nothing to do with her death or her whereabouts.

Lauterbach had claimed that her superior office, had sexually assaulted her and she was worried that the investigation was going nowhere according to court documents. When she turned up missing immediately prior to her testify date authorities moved in to interrogate the officer but he had declined to meet with any investigators. Laurean reportedly disappeared from the base that Friday, and according to Paul Chiccarelli of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service said that Laurean was not considered a flight risk.

A key witness to the case had reportedly stated that Lauterbach had been dead for some time before authorities found the remains in Laureans’ backyard. Laurean continues to be at large and upon confirmation of the remains positively being affirmed as belonging to Maria Lauterbach, investigators will begin searching for Laurean as the key suspect in question to this sad murder case.

For more information and source please visit:
http://www.koat.com/news/15028898/detail.html?rss=alb&psp=nationalnews

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An Indonesian woman had a 15-pound, 2-ounce baby right before the New Year, according to French news service AFP. That’s not even the heaviest baby of 2007: A Russian woman had a 17-pound baby last fall. They’re both petite according to the Guinness Book of Records, which says the heaviest newborn ever weighed in 23 pounds, 12 ounces back in 1879 in the United States.

The Indonesian mother reportedly had gestational diabetes, which can lead to high birth weights. This form of diabetes usually develops in the second or third trimester, and affects about 4% of all pregnancies annually in the United States, according to Diabetes Self-Management magazine. While gestational diabetes usually disappears after birth, it can recur during future pregnancies, and women who have had it can be at higher risk for Type 2 diabetes.

In a story first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, Ari Derfel of Berkeley, California, saved all of his trash for a year to see how much he actually generated. Final tally: 96 cubic feet. He has plans to donate it to a sculptor once the experiment is over.

In his own words from his blog http://saveyourtrash.typepad.com/, “I started the project for my own edification – my own learning, my own discovery, my own experience.” Project Trash Retention called for him to keep every piece of garbage including tissues, receipts, food wrappers and plastic bottles to show that when we dispose of something, “There’s no such thing as ‘away.’”

In addition to learning just how much trash he accumulates, the experiment taught him to observe his life in a different light. He is a much more positive person than he was a year ago.

Source: USA Today and The San Francisco Chronicle

Santa Claus used Chad McMaster to deliver the gift of a liver transplant to his grandmother Patricia Middleton. She suffered with chronic liver disease for many years before finally needing the transplant. According to his grandmother, Chad was a perfect match out of all of the family members who volunteered to be donors.

During the operation, 55 percent of his liver was removed. The procedure took place in early December and Patricia will spend the winter adapting to the new organ.

The liver is the second most transplanted major organ. The kidney is the first. There are many criteria used to determine who is eligible to receive a liver transplant, but those with a status 1 ranking are at the top of the list. These are patients who have a life expectancy of less than 7 days if they do not receive the transplant. Currently, the success rate is over 95 percent for these procedures and there are about 17,000 people on the waiting list.

Source: Foxnews