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The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby

The inside scoop for when you want more than the official line

Having a baby is one of life's most joyous-and overwhelming-events. The choices you make now will affect your baby's health long after it is born. How should you change your lifestyle now that you are pregnant? How can you be sure that your baby is developing properly? What should you expect at each doctor's visit? And how on earth will you survive labor?

Now thoroughly updated with more than 200 pages of new and completely revised material, including week-by-week pregnancy tips, The Unofficial Guide?TM to Having a Baby gives savvy parents-to-be like you a foolproof appraisal of what works and what doesn't-revealing things even your doctor won't (or can't) tell you, with unbiased recommendations that are not influenced by any company, product, or organization.
* Vital Information that other sources can't or won't reveal-including the very latest research on prenatal and genetic testing.
* Insider Secrets on how to weather the physical and emotional highs and lows of pregnancy, with tips on health, exercise, sex, and career management.
* Money-Saving Tips that help you save on baby gear and maternity wear.
* The Latest Trends in new childbirth methods, including Doula care, pain management, and alternative birthing options.
* Handy Checklists and Charts to track your baby's development, identify potentially dangerous medications and drugs, and record the milestones in your pregnancy.

Like a good obstetrician, The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby respects the intelligence of the mother-to-be. This mammoth tome is probably the best reference book on the market, giving nonjudgmental and fairly exhaustive information on such hot-button topics as whether to drink coffee during pregnancy and the relative safety of birth centers. The book lays out as much information as possible and leaves the decision-making to the parents--a surprisingly rare gambit in the bossy world of pregnancy books, which all too often insult the mom-to-be with sweeping dicta unsupported by hard science. Also like a good doctor, the book knows its limits, referring to other sources well and often.
The book's tone can be impersonal, which seems natural considering that it was put together by two authors, a team of editors, and a panel of birth experts including a doctor, a nurse, and a nutritionist. For color commentary, 150 new parents were consulted, but their voices are not the book's strong point, offering such pallid advice as, "A good-quality stroller will see you through all your children, whereas a cheapie will cost you again and again." The book's "Unofficial" moniker seems to refer more to the guide's commitment to laying out all the alternatives than to an irreverent stance. (Those looking for in-the-trenches attitude and tried-and-true advice might turn instead to Vicki Iovine's superb The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy or Ariel Gore's The Hip Mama Survival Guide.) While the book's hesitance to pronounce on emotional topics is largely laudable, in some cases it backfires. In 818 pages, the authors devote just a few paragraphs to single-mother and lesbian pregnancies--though, to be fair, a resource directory is offered. Overall, though, this guide fills a much-needed information gap in the pregnancy book market.

Tilly Losch,” circa 1935, by Joseph Cornell, Construction, 10 x 9¤ x 2D inches ©The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York City

May 17, 2005
A Critic Takes On the Logic of Female Orgasm

By DINITIA SMITH

Evolutionary scientists have never had difficulty explaining the male orgasm, closely tied as it is to reproduction.

But the Darwinian logic behind the female orgasm has remained elusive. Women can have sexual intercourse and even become pregnant - doing their part for the perpetuation of the species - without experiencing orgasm. So what is its evolutionary purpose?

Over the last four decades, scientists have come up with a variety of theories, arguing, for example, that orgasm encourages women to have sex and, therefore, reproduce or that it leads women to favor stronger and healthier men, maximizing their offspring's chances of survival.

But in a new book, Dr. Elisabeth A. Lloyd, a philosopher of science and professor of biology at Indiana University, takes on 20 leading theories and finds them wanting. The female orgasm, she argues in the book, "The Case of the Female Orgasm: Bias in the Science of Evolution," has no evolutionary function at all.

Rather, Dr. Lloyd says the most convincing theory is one put forward in 1979 by Dr. Donald Symons, an anthropologist.

That theory holds that female orgasms are simply artifacts - a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life.

In that early period, the nerve and tissue pathways are laid down for various reflexes, including the orgasm, Dr. Lloyd said. As development progresses, male hormones saturate the embryo, and sexuality is defined.

In boys, the penis develops, along with the potential to have orgasms and ejaculate, while "females get the nerve pathways for orgasm by initially having the same body plan."

Nipples in men are similarly vestigial, Dr. Lloyd pointed out.

While nipples in woman serve a purpose, male nipples appear to be simply left over from the initial stage of embryonic development.

The female orgasm, she said, "is for fun."

Dr. Lloyd said scientists had insisted on finding an evolutionary function for female orgasm in humans either because they were invested in believing that women's sexuality must exactly parallel that of men or because they were convinced that all traits had to be "adaptations," that is, serve an evolutionary function.

Theories of female orgasm are significant, she added, because "men's expectations about women's normal sexuality, about how women should perform, are built around these notions."

"And men are the ones who reflect back immediately to the woman whether or not she is adequate sexually," Dr. Lloyd continued.

Central to her thesis is the fact that women do not routinely have orgasms during sexual intercourse.

She analyzed 32 studies, conducted over 74 years, of the frequency of female orgasm during intercourse.

When intercourse was "unassisted," that is not accompanied by stimulation of the clitoris, just a quarter of the women studied experienced orgasms often or very often during intercourse, she found.

Five to 10 percent never had orgasms. Yet many of the women became pregnant.

Dr. Lloyd's figures are lower than those of Dr. Alfred A. Kinsey, who in his 1953 book "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" found that 39 to 47 percent of women reported that they always, or almost always, had orgasm during intercourse.

But Kinsey, Dr. Lloyd said, included orgasms assisted by clitoral stimulation.

Dr. Lloyd said there was no doubt in her mind that the clitoris was an evolutionary adaptation, selected to create excitement, leading to sexual intercourse and then reproduction.

But, "without a link to fertility or reproduction," Dr. Lloyd said, "orgasm cannot be an adaptation."

Not everyone agrees. For example, Dr. John Alcock, a professor of biology at Arizona State University, criticized an earlier version of Dr. Lloyd's thesis, discussed in in a 1987 article by Stephen Jay Gould in the magazine Natural History.

In a phone interview, Dr. Alcock said that he had not read her new book, but that he still maintained the hypothesis that the fact that "orgasm doesn't occur every time a woman has intercourse is not evidence that it's not adaptive."

"I'm flabbergasted by the notion that orgasm has to happen every time to be adaptive," he added.

Dr. Alcock theorized that a woman might use orgasm "as an unconscious way to evaluate the quality of the male," his genetic fitness and, thus, how suitable he would be as a father for her offspring.

"Under those circumstances, you wouldn't expect her to have it every time," Dr. Alcock said.

Among the theories that Dr. Lloyd addresses in her book is one proposed

When I was pregnant with Amelie I said I would give breastfeeding a go and if it worked it worked, and if it didn't I had at least tried. I didn't realise how passionate I would become about the subject and how determined to succeed I would be. Soon I'll have a new baby to feed, and I get to have that special relationship again, because there's no doubt in my mind that with the right support we'll succeed, however hard it may be.

worldbreastfeedingweek.org/

*Join the World in Breastfeeding Action this year!*

* Draw attention to the role of the Ten Steps in improving
breastfeeding rates.
* Renew action by health systems, health care providers and
communities to make breastfeeding the easy choice for women.
* Inform people everywhere of the risks of artificial feeding, and
the role of breastfeeding for children’s development and lifelong
health and the health of mothers.
* Enable mothers to enjoy full support for breastfeeding in health
care systems and beyond.

WBW 2010 Rationale

* Health care facilities play a vital role in the establishment of
breastfeeding.
* The Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding provide a supportive
pathway enabling women to achieve their breastfeeding intentions
and guiding the training of healthcare workers in breastfeeding
support.
* World Breastfeeding Week this year commemorates the 20th
anniversary of the Innocenti Declaration that called for
implementation of the Ten Steps in all maternity facilities.
* During these 20 years, more than 20,000 maternities, or about 28%
of all maternities in the world, have fully implemented the Ten
Steps and have been certified by the Baby-friendly Hospital
Initiative (BFHI).
* During this time, rates of exclusive breastfeeding have increased
significantly.
* However, reduced BFHI programming worldwide, inadequate training,
and weakened compliance with the Ten Steps in accredited
maternities are contributing to stagnant or declining exclusive
breastfeeding rates in many settings.
* It is time to revisit this approach and to determine where we must
go from here.


10 Steps to Successful Breastfeeding

1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is
routinely communicated to all health care staff.

2. Train all health care staff in skills necessary to
implement this policy.

3. Inform all pregnant women about the benefits and
management of breastfeeding.

4. Help mothers initiate breastfeeding within a
half-hour of birth.

5. Show mothers how to breastfeed and how to maintain
lactation, even if they should be separated from their infants.

6. Give newborn infants no food or drink other than
breast milk unless medically indicated.

7. Practice rooming- in - allow mothers and infants
to remain together - 24 hours a day.

8. Encourage breastfeeding on demand.

9. Give no artificial teats or pacifiers (also called
dummies or soothers) to breastfeeding infants.

10. Foster the establishment of breastfeeding support
groups and refer mothers to them on discharge from the hospital or
clinic.