plus 4, Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey welcome a baby girl: A look back ... - Examiner

Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey welcome a baby girl: A look back ... - Examiner
Teen pregnancy target of YouTube ploy - canada.com
High blood pressure in pregnancy a heart risk - canada.com
Study to tell how medicines affect pregnancy - New Kerala
Commander softens punishment for pregnancy - Army Times

Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey welcome a baby girl: A look back ... - Examiner

Posted: 03 Jan 2010 11:57 AM PST

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Model Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey welcomed their second chidl this morning. According to McConaughey's website, the couple's daugher, named Vida weighed in at 7lbs 7 oz. Congrats to Camila and Matthew on their new bundle of joy.

Giving Heidi Klum a run for her stylish baby bump, Camila's maternity style is flawless and chic. Camila favors a boho-chic maternity look with flowy gowns and comfortable styles. While we're sure she'll regain her envious slim figure in magical hollywood time, here's a look back at some at her boho chic maternity looks.

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Teen pregnancy target of YouTube ploy - canada.com

Posted: 03 Jan 2010 07:47 AM PST

LONDON — They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but these days you can't judge a YouTube clip by its title either.

Type "Teenage Kicks" into the popular website's search engine and you'll find what looks like a home video, but is actually a warning from the British Health Authority.

The grainy footage appears to be a cellphone video of a schoolyard fight.

At least that's what you're supposed to think when you see the kids gathered around in a circle, yelling. But what that circle eventually reveals is a terrified young woman, lying on the grass, giving birth in the playground.

The caption: "Not what you expected? Well being a teenage parent might not be either."

As the teenage pregnancy rate skyrockets in Britain, health officials are attempting to crack down on the troubling trend.

In Leicester alone, the East Midlands community that launched the online campaign, one in 20 girls under 18 will get pregnant.

The numbers across the rest of the country aren't much better — Britain's teen pregnancy rate is double Canada's.

In Britain, 160 teens under the age of 16 get pregnant every week.

Sexually transmitted infections are on the rise too. From 2002-06, more than 11,000 teens under 16 were diagnosed with chlamydia, herpes, gonorrhea, syphilis or genital warts.

Trying to scare kids using a format such as YouTube websites that allows users to share videos is something of a last resort.

The website banned the video for a while due to complaints, but health officials behind the ad defend it.

"We spent a lot of time talking to young people about what would grab their attention. And they said, 'Make it funny or make it shocking,' and in preference make it shocking, so we've done exactly what the target audience asked us to do," said Tim Rideout, the chief executive of Leicester City National Health Service.

Rideout said he knows the film is hard-hitting, but he said he believes there needs to be more education on safe sex.

The Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health agrees. It's asking television regulators to consider relaxing the rules on condom commercials and for the first time, allowing ads for pregnancy advisory services, like abortion clinics. It would like the commercials to be shown during the day and early evening, instead of strictly after 9 p.m.

"This is about providing good medical care, providing accurate information to women, often at a very difficult time in their lives," said Dr. Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

A public consultation is now underway across the country. If changes are made, broadcasters could still tailor any advertising to the area it will be aired.

The YouTube video hasn't made it on TV in its entirety yet. British news channels that picked up the story haven't shown the end of the commercial, where you see the baby being born. About 500,000 people have viewed it online.

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High blood pressure in pregnancy a heart risk - canada.com

Posted: 03 Jan 2010 07:25 AM PST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who had an increase in blood pressure during pregnancy are likely to develop heart disease at an earlier age than women who maintained normal blood pressure while they were pregnant, Chilean researchers report.

Dr. Gloria Valdes of Pontificia Universidad Catolica, Santiago and colleagues studied 217 women with an average age of about 61 years, who underwent a coronary artery examination about 30 years after their last pregnancy.

As reported in the medical journal Hypertension, 146 women had had normal blood pressure during their pregnancies while 71 women had hypertension during at least one pregnancy.

About half of all the participants were found to have significant coronary artery disease. Valdes told Reuters Health that women with hypertensive pregnancies developed significant narrowing in their coronary arteries about three years sooner than women with normal blood pressure during pregnancy.

Furthermore, during 10 years of follow-up, there was a significantly greater increase in the number of clogged arteries in the hypertensive group (28 percent) than in the normal blood pressure group (22 percent).

"Gestational hypertension represents a positive stress test for future cardiovascular risk, which should prompt early management of cardiovascular risks," Valdes commented.

She added, "Obstetricians need to identify women with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease, as this doubles the risk of a hypertensive pregnancy."

SOURCE: Hypertension, April 2009.

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Study to tell how medicines affect pregnancy - New Kerala

Posted: 03 Jan 2010 09:05 AM PST

Washington, Jan 3 : For the first time a study has been launched that will gauge how exactly common medications affect pregnancy.

The FDA and a consortium of HMOs have launched a huge set of studies to find out how medications affect women during pregnancy.

"These data will guide regulatory policy and influence medical practice," Webmd quoted the FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg, as saying in a news release.

While many women do take some kind of medicine during pregnancy, but very few drugs are tested in pregnant women.

But now, the Medication Exposure in Pregnancy Risk Evaluation Program (MEPREP) has been launched.

The program is a collaboration between the FDA, Kaiser Permanente, Vanderbilt University (using Tennessee Medicaid data), and a consortium of HMOs called the HMO Research Network Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics (managed by Harvard University).

The study will analyze health care data on about 1 million U.S. births from 2001 to 2007.

The idea is to gather information on all medications prescribed for pregnant women and to look for health effects and birth outcomes.

"Results of these studies will provide valuable information for patients and physicians when making decisions about medication during pregnancy," said Dr. Gerald Dal Pan.

Until the data become available, women and their doctors will have to make their own decisions on whether a drug provides enough of a benefit to pregnant women to override concerns about possible risk.

To help women make these decisions, the Department of Health and Human Services maintains a web site detailing what is and isn't known about the use of medications during pregnancy.

--ANI

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Commander softens punishment for pregnancy - Army Times

Posted: 03 Jan 2010 05:23 AM PST

Commander softens punishment for pregnancy

The two-star general who planned to punish soldiers for getting pregnant backed down after meeting with Army Chief of Staff George Casey.

Maj. Gen. Anthony Cucolo, commander of Multi-National Division-North, met with Casey in Ramadi a day after making headlines with his General Order No. 1, which calls for disciplinary action against female and male soldiers for pregnancies.

During the meeting, Casey gave him "great guidance and great professional development," Cucolo told National Public Radio.

Cucolo told reporters he had never intended to court-martial soldiers. He wanted to make soldiers consider the void left by "anyone who leaves this fight earlier than expected" due to a "personal choice."

"I have not ever considered a court-martial for this. I do not ever see myself putting a soldier in jail for this," Cucolo said in a Dec. 22 conference call with more than a dozen reporters. "I wanted to encourage my soldiers to think before they acted and understand their behavior and actions have consequences."

In the same call, Cucolo claimed that he received no guidance from senior leaders before or after the order was publicized.

"Gen. Casey declined to discuss personal conversations with Maj. Gen. Cucolo," said Brig. Gen. Lewis Boone, an Army spokesman. Cucolo's previous assignment was head of Army public affairs.

The Army has struggled with balancing parenthood and soldier readiness ever since it added a significant number of women to its ranks, as far back as the first Gulf War. Reports from the 4th Infantry Division, for example, show that of 15,000 soldiers across its five brigades this year, it has redeployed 32 soldiers for pregnancy.

U.S. Central Command directives dictate that doctors report pregnant soldiers to their chains of command and that pregnant soldiers must be sent home within 14 days.

The removal of a soldier places a burden on the soldiers who remain, said Cucolo. Many women fill "high-impact jobs," such as piloting helicopters, running satellite communications and re-arming aircraft, he said.

Cucolo's order was enacted Nov. 4, and it applies solely to the 22,000 soldiers, including civilians and married couples, operating in Ninewa, Kirkuk, Tikrit, Salah ad-Din and Diyala provinces. About 1,700 of them are women.

Stars and Stripes newspaper first reported on the order Dec. 19. General Order No. 1 outlines the pregnancy policy amid other prohibitions — alcohol, drugs and pornography among them — and offers a range of punishments, including administrative or judicial action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Cucolo's order angered the National Organization of Women and a group of female Democratic senators who called the order "deeply misguided" in a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh and demanded it be rescinded.

They said they feared the policy could deter female soldiers from seeking timely medical care, "with potentially serious consequences for mother and child" and that "the threat of criminal sanctions ... goes far beyond what is needed to maintain good order and discipline."

"We can think of no greater deterrent to women contemplating a military career than the image of a pregnant woman being severely punished simply for conceiving a child," they wrote.

Seven soldiers have been disciplined under Cucolo's order. Four female and two male soldiers were given local letters of reprimand, which will not stay in their permanent files.

A married sergeant who impregnated a subordinate received the most severe punishment, said Cucolo, who placed a letter in the soldier's permanent file because he also violated adultery and fraternization policies.

In all, eight pregnant soldiers under Cucolo's command have been sent home: the four given letters of reprimand and four others who were not disciplined because they conceived before arriving in the war zone.

Cucolo said he is not considering making available emergency contraception, also called the "morning-after pill." Army policy, he said, is to redeploy pregnant soldiers from the war zone.

Army spokesman George Wright said Cucolo's order is "not an Army-wide policy," but that Cucolo was within his rights to tailor his General Order No. 1.

Cucolo said he consulted subordinates, commissioned and noncommissioned, male and female, and all supported it "100 percent."

"I was in a position where I could implement a policy where maybe we would save two or three or four or more of my soldiers and keep them in the fight," Cucolo said. "I have just noted the loss of incredibly talented soldiers, due to pregnancy, in past assignments."

Eugene Fidell, a military law professor at Yale and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, said he believed that the order is legal and that it exposes the intersection between "the needs for good order and discipline and society's expectations of privacy and personal autonomy."

"It's a reminder of the things that distinguish military service from normal life," said Fidell. "Things are different in the military."

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