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Scientists are finding out more and more about how important the womb is, when it comes to healthy babies.  A whole new school of thought has been raised about how critical the environment for the fetus is as it's growing inside a woman. Some even believe it's more important than the quality of the egg. Now it may even determine how old your baby gets, and how well he ages, according to newswise.com. New studies are finding that aging begins in the womb.  Now let me explain this. And the offspring of mothers with lower levels of oxygen in the womb - which, in humans, can be a consequence of smoking during pregnancy or of pregnancy at high altitude - aged more quickly in adulthood. The researchers found that adult rats born from mothers who had less oxygen during pregnancy had shorter telomeres than rats born from uncomplicated pregnancies, and experienced problems with the inner lining of their blood vessels - signs that they had aged more quickly and were predi...

It didn't happen with my husband (maybe because, 13 years ago, ultrasounds were milky and hard to see), but a new study has found that "s eeing their babies’ ultrasound images for the first time is a powerful moment for expectant fathers, and could hasten family bonding and provide an opportunity for promoting positive partnering and parenting," according to newswise.com. Today, with just about everything visible from your baby's nose to his toes, I'm sure it's a much more dramatic experience.  But when our son was in-utero, we could barely make out his head. (Even so, I have his 20-week ultrasound in a frame in our room and I feel happy every time I look at it.) It's all about being left out. “While all our fathers felt the mothers were receiving good care, about half of them felt excluded or ignored and wished that providers would offer them more explanation and opportunity to ask questions during the appointment,’’ says  Dr. Tova Walsh, a resea...

Maybe it was all those low-fat yogurts.  Or the diet soda.  Or maybe just the cutting out the M&Ms.  Maybe this explains why my son (who, granted was born at 8.15 pounds) now is considered underweight, at 12. A new study has found that bad (or good) eating habits start in the womb. According to Kristin Wartman at the NYT, "Babies born to mothers who eat a diverse and varied diet while pregnant and breast-feeding are more open to a wide range of flavors. They’ve also found that babies who follow that diet after weaning carry those preferences into childhood and adulthood. Researchers believe that the taste preferences that develop at crucial periods in infancy have lasting effects for life." So my trying not to gain too much weight in pregnancy resulted in my skinny son? Not so sure.  I did eat a wide variety of foods when I was pregnant.  But why does Phillip eat only white foods, to this day?  Pasta.  Rice.  Noodles.  Did I...

Now I know I must take responsibility for this.  Even though I tried not to, I took being pregnant as license to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.  As a result, I gained 50 pounds (that took nine months to gain and over two years to lose). A new study just out says that women who eat high-fat foods while pregnant may not only produce big babies, but actually change their offsprings' brains in the way they think about food. I'm in the stats for the first part -- my son, who was delivered at 39 weeks because of his size, weighed in at nine pounds (though the doctors, who actually set up a betting pool, were thinking a 10- or 11-pounder), but not the second.  This kid, at 12, doesn't even tip the scales at 80 pounds. The study, done by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, found that "exposure to a high-fat diet in the womb and after birth can permanently change the cells in the brain that ...

I knew it.  After my son was born I stopped working.  I felt lonely and depressed and put it down to being home all day with a needy baby, locked in the house (except for my morning run, which, thankfully, he didn't mind accompanying me on, in the jogger stroller -- not that he had any choice!). But over time, as he got more independent, learned to crawl, then walk, then amuse himself with Duplos and Legos, I was still depressed. It wasn't post-partum depression (well, maybe a little).  But it was because I had lost who I was. Before Phillip, and even after, my work was my life.  If I wasn't working, I didn't feel productive.  Or, worth anything.  Yes, the miracle of birth, yah, yah, yah, and I'd waited many heartbreaking years for this child.  But it just wasn't enough. Yesterday, in an op-ed in the Sunday Review, I finally saw why.  Writing for The New York Times, Stephanie Coontz revealed that studies have shown that women who stay at hom...