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Well, of course! Who would go outside without one?
Artificial replicas of pregnant women’s abdomens, made of silica gel, have become hot sellers on the online shopping market, the China News.com reported on Monday.
Looking like the belly of a genuine pregnant woman, the imitations have variously been described as having “flesh color” and “human skin texture,” and as “highly comfortable,” by online shop owners.
There are currently three types of fake bellies being sold, each of which approximates a different period of pregnancy, corresponding to the second and latter trimesters and the final month.
Remember: don’t dress for the job that you have. Dress for the job that you want to have.
Link -via Oddity Central | Photo: China News
Takuya Iwamoto from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology created this virtual pregnancy outfit that simulates the interior kicking and wriggling experienced by expectant mothers. It also has an interactive feature that shows the virtual fetus on a video screen responding when the wearer’s tummy is stroked.
The device can replicate the 9-month long process in two minutes or it can be worn for a longer period to experience what it feels like day-to-day. To mimic the fetus, it contains a 4-litre bag filled with warm water. Kicking movement is recreated with a lining of 45 balloons that expand and contract.
I wonder if they’ll devise an outfit that simulates morning sickness and/or giving birth.
Strange things happen to your body when you are pregnant. Since new mothers tend to worry, experienced women and medical professionals tend to gloss over the things you shouldn’t worry too much about. Oddee tells you some of the things that might surprise you. For example:
Most pregnancies last for about 9 months and doctors are likely to induce labor if pregnancy goes on too long. That being said, it is possible to be pregnant for a whole year. The world’s longest pregnancy lasted 375 days, strangely, the baby was only a little under seven pounds.
It certainly puts a whole new perspective on being a few weeks late, doesn’t it?
If you are pregnant, ask your doctor before you start to worry about these weird things you just found out. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user ChepeNicoli)
Strange, but true. A recent study led by Shevach Friedler published in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility showed that laughter can promote pregnancy:
To test the idea, the research team had a medical clown visit their fertility clinic periodically over one year. Of the 219 women in the study, half underwent embryo transfer on a day the clown was at the clinic.
During recovery from the procedure, each woman had a 15-minute visit from the clown, who performed a specific routine created by Friedler – who has studied movement and mime – and a colleague.
The researchers found that, compared to women who came to the clinic on a "non-clown" day, those who’d had a laugh were more than twice as likely to become pregnant, when other factors such as age, type of infertility and the number of embryos transferred, were taken into account.
Shirley Sirivong was put on bed rest during her pregnancy and has to follow a strict diet for gestational diabetes. Her husband Gat took special care to liven up her dull breakfasts first by creating funny faces, and then more elaborate scenes with her food. This breakfast depicts the iPhone game Angry Birds. See 19 of the meals she took pictures of before eating. Link -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: Shirley Sirivong)
A creative couple used science fiction to tell all their friends (and now everyone on the internet) that they are expecting. Watch the video with a twist ending at Neato Bambino. Link
Remember the brouhaha over the story of a woman who didn’t know she was pregnant? Well this is sort of like the exact opposite: doctors performed a C-section to find that the woman wasn’t pregnant at all!
The woman reportedly appeared at the hospital with her husband asking for a C-section. A resident in charge made the pregnancy diagnosis and doctors agreed to surgery after trying to induce labor for two days. [...]
When they saw an empty uterus, they "closed her back up," Geszler told ABC News.
The medical condition is pseudocyesis (false or hysterical pregnancy) And yes, the woman can physically look pregnant, complete with extended abdomen and all.
Seahorses and a few related fish are the only species where the males can get pregnant. These males take eggs from females and nurture them in their brood pouches. Researchers have discovered that male pipefish, one of those related species, may selectively abort young resulting from mating with less attractive females. The above video, which is preceded by a commercial, describes the results of this study. From Scientific American:
“It’s almost as if he is saying, ‘Are these babies worth my effort?’ If he is not overly fond of the mother, the answer appears to be ‘No,’ and he invests fewer resources,” Paczolt said.[...]
The brood pouch can deliver nutrients to the developing embryos, but it can also take them away. If a male deems his mate to be unworthy of any of his efforts, noted Berglund, “he may even want to use the low-quality eggs as food for himself, to gain resources for future offspring with better prospects,” actually consuming the developing young by absorbing them.
Although the researchers are not exactly sure how or why the male fish decides to care for broods differently, they did discover a strong preference for bigger females. “The one trait in the pipefish that seems to stand out is the size of the female,” Paczolt said. “Males tend to seek out larger females to be their mates,” she noted, and broods from these large females were bigger and more likely to be carried to term.
Doctors told Belinda Waite of Bampton, UK that she had Irritable Bowel Syndrome. After she went into labor and three hours before her daughter was born, Waite was informed that she was instead pregnant:
Miss Waite was staying with her partner Wyane Boyles, 28, when she unexpectedly went into labour.
Their baby daughter Louise Boyles was born at home weighing 8lb 14oz by Wayne’s mum Syliva.[...]
On February 6th – the night before Louise was born – Miss Waite again went to hospital with pains throughout her body.
At 10pm doctors confirmed she was three months pregnant – in fact she was nine months pregnant – and Louise arrived four and a half hours later at 2.30am.
Link | Photo: Nick Irving/Daily Telegraph
Uterus transplants have been thus far unsuccessful because the transplanted uteri do not maintain a blood supply strong enough to keep a fetus alive. But now British medical researchers may have solved that problem. The Guardian reports:
They have worked out how to transplant a womb with a good blood supply which could mean it lasts long enough to carry a pregnancy to term.[...]
Their most recent study involved five donor rabbits and five recipients, which were operated on at the Royal Veterinary College in London.
Five rabbits received a womb using a “vascular patch technique” which connected major blood vessels, including the aorta.
Of the five, two rabbits lived to 10 months and examinations after death showed the transplants were a success.
Link via Discover | Image: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Stony Brook University primatologist Diane Doran-Sheehy discovered something intriguing about the sneaky mating behavior of female gorillas that may explain human monogamy: how female gorillas use strategic sex to her advantage!
Female gorillas use sex as a tactic to thwart their rivals, new research suggests. Pregnant apes court their silverback male to stop other females conceiving.
"It seems to us that mating is another tactic that females use to compete with each other – in this case to gain favour with another male," says Diane Doran-Sheehy, a primatologist at Stony Brook University in New York.
Her team chronicled the sex lives of five female western lowland gorillas and one silverback almost every day for more than three years. "We wondered if, basically, [pregnant] females can mimic [ovulating] females and dupe the male into mating with them and distract him from what those other girls are doing," Doran-Sheehy says.
This kind of competitive behaviour may even help explain how humans evolved into a mostly monogamous species, she says.
Ewen Callaway of New Scientists has more: Link
Previously on Neatorama: 30 Strangest Animal Mating Habits
This morning, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar announced they are expecting their 19th child in March. 42-year-old Michelle Dugger was surprised to find she is pregnant only eight months after the birth of her 18th child. The Duggars have a show on The Learning Channel (TLC) called “18 Kids and Counting”. Their first grandchild is due in October. Link -via J-Walk Blog
The stereotype has always been there, but a recent study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy provided a hard number to the startling phenomenon of teen pregnancy in the American Latino communities: 53% of young Latina get pregnant in their teens, twice the national average:
In 2007, the birth rate among non-Hispanic whites ages 15 to 19 was 27.2 per 1,000, and 64.3 per 1,000 for non-Hispanic black teens in the same age range. The teen birth rate among Hispanic teens ages 15 to 19 was 81.7 per 1,000. [...]
Three-quarters of Latino teens said their parents have talked to them about sex and relationships, but only half said their parents discussed contraception.
The survey also found that:
• 74 percent of Latino teens believe that parents send one message about sex to their sons and a different message altogether to their daughters, possibly related to the Latino value of machismo.
• Latino teens believe that the most common reason teens do not use contraception is that they are afraid their parents might find out.
Moni Basu of CNN has more on the findings: Link
Psst, parents: are you sick and tired of your whiny baby? Want to raise a tough kid that will take on real life and beat it so bad that it screams uncle? Here's the Neatorama guide on how to toughen up your child:
First of all, you've got to start right. Remember, whatever doesn't kill your offspring makes him or her tougher.
Melissa Williamson, 35, of Roanoke, Virginia, got the right idea - and from the looks of it, the noise is the last thing the baby has to fear: Link
Forget a cozy and cute playpen - be sure to awaken your baby's animal instinct by raising him in a cage. Better yet, an electrified one, like this piece titled Mama Tried by Jack Daws.
Next, surround your baby with weapons of all kinds. Like these stainless steel baby crib and stroller worthy of a lil' Klingon, created by Chinese artist Shi Jinsong - via Invizible Red.
Next, your kid needs street cred, and nothing spells bad ass like knuckle tattoos:
This one is done by Italian photography company LSD
s.l.r (Previously on Neatorama),
but you can get your own Baby
Tattoos
Daily ablutions is a necessity, even for tough kids. But don't coddle them with that no-tears shampoo. After decades of coddling young kids, even Johnson & Johnson got the message with their new shampoo: Nothing But Tears! (Previously on Neatorama)
All parents with tough kids know that pets are a must. But dogs and cats are for sissy kids. Tough kids play with ... cobra!
And
all that is for naught if you don't keep a meticulous record ... but who
needs a cutesy memory book if you can have this one: Baby's
First Tattoo: A Memory Book for Modern Parents
For years parents have been buying baby books to document all the precious moments in their new baby's life -- Baby's First Tooth, Baby's First Haircut, Baby's First Step. What have been ignored for too long are those "alternative" precious moments that really should be written down, celebrated, and remembered -- Baby's First Projectile Vomit, Baby's First Tantrum in a Crowded Grocery Store, Baby's 10,000th Dirty Diaper. Otherwise you might forget them and think of becoming parents once again.
How about you? Got any suggestions on how to raise a tough kid? Let's see 'em in the comments ... or my kid will go to your house and beat you up!
We posted about the surprising news that the octuplets’ mother already having 6 children. Today, more disturbing details are emerging about the woman:
The woman who gave birth to octuplets this week conceived all 14 of her children through in vitro fertilization, is not married and has been obsessed with having children since she was a teenager, her mother said. [...]
Little psychological research has been conducted on the reasons some mothers seem hooked on repeated pregnancies. David Diamond, a co-director for the Center for Reproductive Psychology in San Diego, said mothers can be drawn to repeat pregnancies for a number of reasons, with some finding the experience so satisfying they choose to become surrogates.
Diane G. Sanford, a psychologist and author specializing in women’s reproductive mental health, said while she doesn’t know much about Nadya Suleman’s background, women that have obsessive-compulsive disorder can become fixated on different obsessions.
"Her obsession centers around children, having children and being a mother," she said. "To what degree are her esteem and identity based on being a mom and why has this from a young age been such a preoccupation of hers?"
