Month: June 2017

Larissa Waters wears a lot of hats.

She’s a trained lawyer. She’s an Australian senator representing Queensland. She’s a card-carrying member of the Australian Greens party. And just as important, she’s a mom.

Waters gave birth to her second daughter, Alia Joy, in 2017. Fortunately, the Australian parliament allows moms to bring their infants to work, so Waters was able to return to her parliamentary duties with 10-week-old Alia in tow.

In fact, in 2016 the Senate decided to legally allow women to breastfeed in Parliament. But it didn’t happen until this year, when Waters became the first woman ever to breastfeed her baby in the Senate chamber.

That was noteworthy enough. But Waters further normalized this thoroughly natural process in June 2017. She had a motion to move. And her baby was hungry.

That’s all it took for Waters to become the first woman to breastfeed her baby while giving a speech in the Australian Parliament.

Waters wasn’t trying to make any statement. She didn’t mean to take on the role of an activist, at least not in this case. She told Buzzfeed News that she chose to give the speech while breastfeeding because “black lung disease is back among coal miners in Queensland and Alia was hungry.”

Waters made a brief speech calling for action on the subject of black lung disease, an illness caused by long-term exposure to coal dust. Black lung was virtually eradicated from Australia in the 1960s, but a boom in coal mining in that nation has brought it back. Waters felt that her speech in favor of addressing the re-emergence of black lung was deeply important.

Of course, so is feeding a hungry baby.

Waters’ feeding of her baby was received in the chamber with smiles and nods of approval.

That’s a good sign for a legislative body that in 2015 ordered Liberal MP Kelly O’Dwyer to “express more milk to ensure she did not miss votes in Parliament,”

the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Of course, there’s a big difference between making the rules and enforcing them. Just by being a mom, Waters is testing Parliament’s resolve to make the chamber more family friendly. So far, it seems to be working.

So just how long do we have to wait for common-sense family rules in other democracies? Waters may be more than a senator and a mom. 

She might be the tip of the spear, signaling a change to a more family-friendly approach to governing all over the world. Here’s hoping.

Last week, a source told People that Kim Kardashian would use a surrogate for her third baby.
Kardashian and her husband, Kanye West, currently have a son named Saint West and a daughter named North West. Those two were delivered traditionally, and by all accounts, the pregnancies weren’t easy.

Kim suffered from preeclampsia, a condition that affects 5 percent of women. This caused severe pain during both pregnancy and childbirth, and for the health of the babies, Kim was forced to deliver early.
“My mom was crying; she had never seen anything like this before,” Kim wrote on her blog.
“My delivery was fairly easy, but then going through that—it was the most painful experience of my life! They gave me a second epidural but we were racing against time, so I just had to deal.

“They say that this is what some women died from as a result of childbirth back in the day, without proper care. I’m so thankful that my doctor was able to catch this and address the issue immediately.”

Doctors told the reality star that she might need a hysterectomy after her second pregnancy.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case, but the severe health effects led Kardashian to make a difficult decision.

But when the news of a possible surrogacy hit the internet, the reaction wasn’t entirely positive. Twitter users criticized Kardashian for her decision—which was, by the way, her decision.

In many ways, Kardashian’s current saga shows the stigma that still surrounds surrogacy.

Surrogacy isn’t new; in fact, the Bible references a surrogate in the book of Genesis. However, gestational surrogacy, in which a couple’s embryo is implanted into a surrogate with no genetic relation, has only been possible since 1985.

Controversy has always surrounded the technology, especially in cases where a mother is technically capable of bearing a child. Surrogacy can create some ethical dilemmas, and critics often focus on these issues.
For instance, couples must carefully determine whether the surrogate will have any rights to see the child, and whether the child will know the identity of the gestational mother.
Those are important questions, but they’re considerations for the individuals involved—just as surrogacy is a personal medical decision.
From 2004 to 2008, approximately 5,000 children were born through surrogacy, and while exact statistics are difficult to find, rates appear to be rising. One big reason: Surrogacy allows women to add to their families without undergoing high-risk pregnancies.
For people like Kim K, a surrogate isn’t simply an option; it’s the only way to safely build a family.

“My advice to anyone going through this or anything difficult during pregnancy is that all you can do is be hopeful, get the best information out there and just be prepared,” Kim wrote on her blog. “The more information you have, the better you know how to handle it!”
That’s great advice. Let’s hope the internet listens.

Every parent thinks that their child is gifted.
In a sense, they’re all correct—after all, kids are amazing.

But if you’re wondering whether your child is naturally brilliant, science could help answer that question. Here are a few curious (and scientifically plausible) ways to determine whether you’re raising a little Einstein.

1. They’re your firstborn.

A study published in the Journal of Human Resources makes the case that firstborn children typically perform better than their siblings at an early age. As a result, firstborn children might be more successful later in life.

Some research has “found that parents changed their behaviour as subsequent children were born. They offered less mental stimulation to younger siblings [and] also took part in fewer activities such as such as reading with the child, crafts and playing musical instruments.”

2. Their mom is smart.

Moms, pat yourselves on the back; genes related to cognitive capabilities appear to be carried on the X chromosome, according to a study from the University of Ulm in Germany.

A separate study from the Medical Research Council also found that the mother’s IQ was an excellent predictor of her offspring’s IQs. On average, children had only about a 15-point difference from their moms.

3. The baby was born in the country.

More importantly, the mother spent most of her pregnancy away from urban pollutants.
“A mother’s exposure to urban air pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) can adversely affect a child’s intelligence quotient or IQ,” writes the National Institutes of Health.

“The study…found that children exposed to high levels of PAHs in New York City had full scale and verbal IQ scores that were 4.31 and 4.67 points lower than those of less exposed children.”
The researchers noted that the decrease in full-scale IQ was similar to what scientists would expect to see with low-level lead exposure. More research needs to be completed to verify the findings, but if you’re pregnant, it’s probably not a bad idea to get some fresh (unpolluted) air every once in a while.

4. They have big heads.

Yes, we’re serious. According to research from a British health resource group called UK Biobank, babies with larger-than-average heads are more likely to graduate with degrees.
Those big-headed tykes also scored higher on verbal–numerical reasoning tests.

“These results demonstrate substantial shared genetic aetiology (set of causes) between brain size, cognitive ability and educational attainment,” wrote the researchers in a study published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Remember, while a child’s makeup is important, functional intelligence isn’t all about hitting the genetic lottery.

Only about 40 to 60 percent of intelligence is hereditary, and your parenting will make a big difference in your kid’s academic performance. Experts recommend focusing on the process of learning, rather than praising kids for their natural ability.
For more on that concept, check out this excellent piece by Carol S. Dweck for Scientific American.