Bethenny Frankel anoints herself Empress of Pregnancy Fitness

Sweet baby Jeebus. Why is that being a reality tv 'star' somehow qualifies you to write books about crap that you don't know anything about?

Case in point: Real Housewives of New York 'star' and celebrity chef Bethenny Frankel has said that she is writing a book called Naturally Fit Pregnancy. If you remember, Frankel was in the media recently for losing nearly 30lbs in 3 weeks following the birth of her first child.

Here's the thing: Frankel recently revealed that she has been anorexic and bulimic in her life. Her mother was also bulimic. I'm not sure that with (some might speculate) unresolved eating issues and who lost a ridiculous amount of weight following her first birth should really be giving advice to everyday preggo gals.

Besides, there's no such thing as 'naturally fit'. Women who are 'fit' working bloody hard to be 'fit'. Let's not kid ourselves here.

The new 'natural' caesarean

Maybe I'm missing something but does the idea of a 'natural' caesarean sound a little ridiculous to anyone else?

Thanks to an enterprising OB, Professor Nicholas Fisk, some women in the UK are experiencing slower, more pleasant caesarean births with the lights dimmed low, the opportunity to see their baby emerging from the womb and immediate skin-to-skin contact. The idea is to make a caesar more like vaginal birth.

"It struck me that all the effort was going into changing normal childbirth but that Caesarean section was still steeped in old surgical rituals,” says Fisk. “In some cases I was horrified; the baby would be dragged out like a tumour and passed to several medical staff before the mother. It was ripe for reform.”

Don't get me wrong. I think this is a fabulous and timely intervention, but perhaps the word 'natural' is somewhat ill-placed in describing this updated version of a caesar. I'm all for women feeling comfortable and having every opportunity to bond with their babies during surgical birth but let's not kid ourselves here. Surgical birth is surgical. Vaginal birth is vaginal. While both types of birth can be joyous experiences, dim lights and a dropped surgical drape do not change the fact that too many women in the western world are having caesars. Making caesars a little more pretty and a little less scary is good in the short-term but I bristle at the idea that a happier, healthier caesar will only encourage more women to think that a caesar is preferable.

Read more: The new 'natural' caesarean

Homebirth is 'old school'

Time magazine has a story about home birth in the US in the current edition. While seemingly praiseworthy of the move towards birth at home, I was annoyed to read this sentence:

"Old-school birthing is back in style, with well-read women forsaking obstetricians for midwives and epidurals for warm baths."

Referring to home birth as 'old-school' suggest that it's antiquated or primitive or that women are foresaking a 'modern' life. Silly women! The article devotes about one paragraph to the positive aspects of homebirth but the rest of the article basically reads like a cautionary tale to women who would 'dare' to deviate.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1830388,00.html

On giving birth

Interesting post about the closure of birth centres in the States from the Huffington Post;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louise-marie-roth/on-giving-birth_b_52048.html?view=screen