Kourtney Kardashian calls Ok! fake

It's not everyday that I want to give mad props to Kourtney Kardashian. For those of you who may have forgotten, she gave birth to her first son Mason in December. Kourtney has come out with guns blazing, stating publicly that the Ok! magazine cover which features she and her new son with an accompanying story about her post-baby weight loss secrets is all talk and no truth.

Kardashian told WWD that not only was she never interviewed for the Ok! story in the first place, the photo that appears on the cover is actually a photo taken seven days after Mason's birth by Albert Michael of StarTraksPhoto.com. The cover image has been touched up to make Kardashian appear thinner on OK’s cover than in the original photo, which first appeared as part of the Jan. 11 issue of Life & Style.

As the original image (on the left) shows only Kardashian's upper body, Ok! clearly took it upon themselves to reconstruct the lower half of her body for the cover photo. Kourtney even tweeted about the retouch:

"One of those weeklies got it wrong again...they didn't have an exclusive with me. And I gained 40 pounds while pregs, not 26...But thanks!"

I'm really happy that a celebrity actually has admitted to the absolutely ridiculous body abominations that are regularly appearing in the tabloids. It's bad enough that new mums feel that they have to compete with celebrities to drop their baby weight, but when the post-baby bodies that are slapped around the weeklies are also being re-touched (and literally fabricated) to the hilt, it makes you realise that it actually is impossible to achieve the body shapes featured in the magazines.

Good on you Kourtney for coming clean!

Looks like the secret to post-baby weight loss isn't diet and exercise. It's Photoshop

Another one bares her bump

So, you might not know who this lovely lass is but she's the latest wife of Flavio Briatore, the same man who inexplicably has gotten with the hottest women in the world, including Heidi Klum (he is the father of her daughter, Leni). Anyway, his new wife, Elisabetta Gregoraci, 28 (and 30 years younger than Flavio), the former Wonderbra model recently posed preggo and in lingerie for Italy's Chi magazine.

Gregoraci said she decided to pose in order to 'stand up for other mothers'...um, whatever that means.

More things you don't need

Just when you thought that manufacturers couldn't come up with anymore ridiculous products for this generation of mums-to-be....Then there was Ritmo, a prenatal music player described as an 'advanced sound system for you and your baby'. Basically it's a soft belt with speakers that you wear around your belly so you and your foetus can listen to the same music. While there has been a lot of buzz lately about the premature babies gaining weight by listening to Mozart, there is little evidence that foetuses will become smarter or more coordinated as the makers of Ritmo seem to claim. "There is no evidence that playing music for a baby to hear before birth boosts either music ability or intelligence,” says, Tracy Dennis associate professor of psychology at Hunter College.

Verdict? Save your money and worry about improving your baby's intelligence after its born.

Thumbs down.

Octomum flaunts her post-baby bod

Wow! So we all know that Star isn't the most reliable of sources but in this cases, pictures don't lie. Nadya Suleman (aka Octomum) is looking unbelievable since giving birth to her babies just one year ago. She claims there was no plastic surgery involved and apparently has no stretch marks in spite of going from 270 lbs to 120 lbs post-birth. Can't say I love the idea of parading around in a bikini for a crappy tabloid photo shoot but if she really did it without surgery, well...dang!

WTF?

So it comes to my attention that Lionsgate Films has acquired the films rights to the classic pregnancy guide, What To Expect When You're Expecting. I don't know about you, but I think this is very strange and wonder if anyone at Lionsgate has even looked at the book. It's basically a list of everything you shouldn't do during pregnancy, replete with long lists of ways in which a woman can potentially kill her foetus.

Alli Shearmur, Lionsgate president of motion picture production, said:“‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ is a brand that knows no boundaries, and millions of readers can attest to the warmth, wisdom and humor of its voice.”

Uh, humour? Warmth? Are we talking about the same book? I think Heidi Murkoff relishes in scaring women into thinking that even looking at certain foods will result in the termination of their pregnancy.

Thumbs down.

South Korea abortion debate heats up

If there is one thing I love about being in the US, it's being able to read the New York Times in its paper form and not staring at the 'pages' on a screen.

Anyway, I was intrigued by an article about abortion in South Korea, an issue that has rarely come to the fore as a topic of public interest. Abortion, whilst illegal in all but exceptional circumstances, has long been practised by obstetricians and gynecologists on the sly for cash payment for willing patients considering abortion is not covered by health insurance. In the face of an impending fertility crisis, abortion is coming under closer scrutiny as government officials worry that more aborted foetuses will put the nation at risk. According to the NYT:

"For decades, the South Korean government tended to look the other way, seeing a high birthrate as an impediment to economic growth. In the 1970s and 1980s, families with more than two children were denounced as unpatriotic, with official posters in South Korean villages driving the point home. Until the early 1990s, men could be exempted from mandatory army reserve duty if they had vasectomies."

With medical professionals now banding together against illegal abortions in light of their own guilt surrounding their participation in performing the procedures, there is increasing concern that women who are forced to have unwanted babies will either travel abroad to have an abortion or abandon their babies. Cash bonuses are now available for families with more than two children as well as greater financial aid for single mothers in need and vouchers for couples seeking help at fertility clinics.

Not unlike Costello's urge for Australian families to have one baby for mum, dad and the nation, South Korea looks to be on a dangerous road where women's reproductive rights are infringed upon. Whereas a foetus was just a foetus, now a foetus is implicitly a son or daughter.

Too many ultrasounds

A recent Canadian study suggests that women with uncomplicated pregnancies are having too many ultrasounds. According to the study, out of 1.4 million cases of pregnancies studied from 1996 to 2007, 37 percent of the pregnant women were having three or more ultrasounds. 20 percent of women were having more than four tests.

How many ultrasounds have you had in a single pregnancy?

Love you, want to be you

And more from the annals of 'must be nice':

Leap Year actress Amy Adams is rocking her first pregnancy with a custom wardrobe from style queen Carolina Herrera. Herrera has been reworking her current collection to suit Adams and let me tell you, it sure beats shopping for maternity at Target.

Oh no you didn't!

Oh no you didn't!

Guess who is launching two new maternity lines?

The Kluminator's newest project is pregnancy fashion. She's designing two lines for A Pea in the Pod and Motherhood Maternity named Lavish and Loved *groan* respectively.

Heidi explains the cheeseball names thus: "I chose to call my collection for A Pea in the Pod Lavish because there is no grander name to express everything you want to give yourself and the child growing within you," Klum said in a statement. "For Motherhood Maternity, Loved is a celebration of new life and the love around you and your baby."

Wonder what Christian Siriano thinks considering the Project Runway contestant just launched his own line of maternity wear called Fierce.

Babies, breastfeeding and parenting gadgets

The recession getting you down? Well, we can all be thankful for one thing: economic hardship is a prime time for encouraging mothers to breastfeed. "You can save $1,000 to $3,000 a year just by breast-feeding," says Gina Cicatelli Ciagne, director of breast-feeding and consumer relations for Lansinoh, which sells breast-feeding accessories.

Speaking of breastfeeding, has anyone out there used one of those monitors that reminds you when you had your last feed? Well, I came across this new fangled device from Itzbeen called the 'Baby Care Timer' which is "a multi-purpose nursery tool that helps new parents remember the basic details of baby care. The ITZBEEN™ has four timers that count up with the touch of a button, and a host of other helpful features, all designed with the needs of a new parent in mind."

Sounds pretty impressive, eh?

But considering these hard economic times, is $24.95 money well spent on what appears to be a machine from the future?


Do you need all these bells and whistles and beeps to keep track of a baby? I mean it's a baby, not a bomb. The company claims it's made with the 'sleep-deprived' 'frazzled' parent in mind. Sure, it's rough to be awake for the first five years of your kid's life but again, parents get tired, because that's part of the deal. Besides, babies are pretty good at telling you what they need. Crying, after all, is one of the most strategic adaptive mechanisms that has told mothers and fathers since the beginning of time that a baby needs something.

What ever happened to good old fashioned parental instincts!?

Hooray for homebirth

Well, hell has frozen over.

Just when I thought that the fight for homebirth in Victoria was stuck at the corner of 56th and Never Gonna Happen, Health Minister Daniel Andrews just announced that the State Government had allocated $400,000 for midwife-led home births through Casey Hospital in Berwick and Sunshine Hospital in Melbourne's west. A regional health service will also participate, but the Government has yet to decide which one.

For women who have relatively uncomplicated pregnancies, this is fantastic news and as long as the trial works over the next year, the project will be expanded throughout the public health system. While undeniably this is no good for women who may want to have a homebirth following previous caesareans (VBACs) or who are considered to be 'high risk' (e.g. obesity, 'older' mums), the fact that the State Government has actually listened to the enormous amount of feedback provided by homebirthing mums and midwives is astounding and shows real promise for a health system that can provide high quality care for women who don't want to birth in hospital.

Yay!

The charmed life isn't always so charmed

Lily Allen's angsty lyrics about heartbreak and deadbeat boyfriends may have made her an international success but in a candid interview, she talks for the first time about her widely publicised miscarriage:

"I couldn't even compute the emotions going through my head, but I was having to put out a press release about my miscarriage... I had this public sympathy for about five days and then everyone was on my case again and I didn't know what was happening to me… I just didn't deal with it at all. I didn't even start beginning to deal with it until the baby's due date. Then it just hit me like a house collapsing. I have therapy on and off but at that time it really helped me. Then I started to deal with it and move on. I still get sad. I still think. I don't mark (what would have been) my baby's birth but it's always there. […] I've had really bad, unbelievably awful times, but if I hadn't had them I wouldn't get the happiness I've got now. I'm very grateful because I could have turned down a very different path. It could have been awful. It really could."

Although I said in an earlier post that miscarriage isn't a news item (and it isn't), I think it's a great step forward for famous women to acknowledge that the a celebrity life is not always happy or easy or glamorous. On the same note, Sarah Jessica Parker spoke to Parade magazine and acknowledged that post-baby weight loss is very hard for 'real' women. "I hear a lot of actresses pretend they don't have help, and that can't be true," she says." It's really unfair to working women in America who read celebrity news and think, 'Why can't I lose weight when I've had a baby?' Well, everyone you're reading about has money for a trainer and a chef. That doesn't make it realistic. They don’t have the kind of help that I have if I need it," Parker tells PARADE. "I’m allowed to be a working mother because frankly, I can leave my child with someone I trust and love and a lot of mothers can’t do that."

Wrapping up the post-baby bloat

Christmas may have come early for this (former) Girl Next Door but Kendra Wilkinson is dead set on dropping her baby weight in record time (surprise, surprise). In the latest edition of Ok!, she vows to lose the 55lbs she gained during her pregnancy. “I used to have some sexy abs, but I was like, ‘There they go,’ ” Kendra gushed to OK!.

Let's hope Kendra takes it easy. She had a caesar (again, surprise surprise) and we all know you need to wait about 6 weeks until getting back on the treadmill.

Hi honey, I'm home.

Hello everyone! I bet you were wondering where in the blaze I've been. Well, after a long and crazy year of blogging, it came time for me to take a little break from the business for a while..

So I jetted off to South America to do some trekking in Patagonia for a few weeks, chilled out (literally) near some glaciers, hung out with penguins, and travelled to the southern most city in the world. Hopefully, I haven't lost too many of you in my absence but I'm revitalised and ready for another holiday season of blogging from the frontlines in Chicago for the next month.

So to kick off my first blog post back from holidays, I was surprised to read The Army general of U.S. forces in Northern Iraq has banned pregnancy among military personnel in his command, even among married couples. Basically, if you get knocked up on deployment you will be court martialied. Ouch.

In other news, Tom Brady and Giselle Bundchen have named their new baby Benjamin.

Not to mention talk of placenta smoothies and placenta holiday revenge...

But if you are really stumped on what to get your childless friend for Chrissie this year, how about Yotaro, a Japanese baby simulator?

Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a stuffed animal bear with a 'baby' face projected on it

Miscarriage is not a news item

There must be something wrong with me this week *feels forehead*

First, I feel sorry for Kourtney Kardashian, and now I feel sorry for Celine Dion.

For those of you that aren't with it, Celine announced her second pregnancy a few weeks ago after many years of unsuccessful IVF cycles. Turns out she has had a miscarriage, which for non-famous women is bad enough, but when you're famous and you already jumped the gun and did the big tell-all, the whole backtracking and justifying can make a terrible situation even worse. What makes me enraged is that 1) Celine Dion's miscarriage has become a 'news' item and 2) all of the headlines (544 of them to be exact) in the last two days are referring to her 'failed' pregnancy with a good dose of underlying moralising given that she is in her 40s and her husband, well, he's much older.

In case everyone in the world has forgotten, miscarriage is a natural part of reproduction. It happens and even though I will never forgive Celine for bringing 'My Heart Will Go On' into the world, give the woman a damn break. After all, this exact situation is what supposedly drove Lily Allen into a serious depression following the media explosion surrounding her miscarriage last year.

Birth in the TMFI generation

Um, overshare much? Minnesota gal, Lynsee (is that a postmodern spelling of Lindsey?) and her partner Anders decided to livestream the birth of their child, Solveig. Sorry, but I don't really see the point. Why on earth would you have any desire to potentially show off your lady purse to a bunch of strangers?

"We wanted to share this experience," Lynsee said. "If I were in a classroom, I'd be teaching about development. It was a way for me to teach… A way for me to use myself as a textbook."

Again, thanks but birth isn't the 9pm news.

Weight gain is a sisterly affair

Oh how quickly things change. It was only 4 days ago that Kourtney Kardashian was blabbing about how much she loved being pregnant, how gaining weight was totally natural and how excited she was about becoming a mother.

Well, the honeymoon is over and Kourt has had it with the pregnancy pounds. "I gained three pounds since yesterday!" she complained to E! News. "I weigh myself every day," she explained. Her pregnancy total as of Monday night: 26 pounds.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that her sisters, Kim and Khloe are both dieting with Quick Trim and have been for the past few months? Kim thinks so:

"She is anxious to get on the same plan as us. She sees a definite difference in weight loss from us. I feel like I am in the best shape of my life right now."

The research on body image states unequivocally that sisters are the extremely important when it comes to female body image. Most women compare their bodies to their sisters and eating disorders are known to run in families, particularly in households where teenage girls are competing to be the best and the most beautiful. It doesn't surprise me that Kourtney is having a hard time gaining weight. How horrible would it be to listen to all of the praise heaped on to your sisters for their weight losses and you continue to pack on the weight?

Maybe, for the first time ever, I actually feel a bit sorry for old Kourt.

Kourtney Kardashian: Motherhood is totally hard

For someone who is famous only for having a marginally famous father, Kourtney Kardashian has sure been making the tabloid rounds blabbing about how much she loves being pregnant.

"I'm totally excited to gain weight, and I'm embracing it," she tells Life & Style. "I run around naked all day at home! I like that my body is changing. It's a beautiful thing." I suppose that I should be happy that Kourt is 'embracing' her preggo bod but nothing about her seems particularly genuine and it seems like this baby is more of a publicity grab than anything.

This is my favourite part of the article:

"Scott (her partner) and I have been going to different parenting classes," Kourtney tells Life & Style. "They made me nervous at first, putting all kinds of information into my head, but they're helpful. They're a fun thing for Scott and me to do together."

God forbid information gets into your pretty little head, Kourt.

Birth: Live

Lynsee, a 23-year-old teacher in Minneapolis, is expecting her first child any day now. And she's decided to share the whole experience with the world through a web cast from the the Twin Cities’ Moms Like Me website, which will broadcast the birth from the hospital as it happens. Only Moms Like Me members will be able to leave comments during the event, though anyone with an internet connection will be able to watch the live feed.

“We wanted to document the pregnancy and create a one-of-a-kind memento for our baby to have forever,” Lynsee told the website's partner KARE-TV 11, which is also following her pregnancy (she requested that I not publish her last name, for privacy reasons). "You'll be at some of the doctor's appointments... You'll be there in the delivery room, tastefully, but you will be there.’’

Apparently, Moms Like Me reps claim that this is also about trying to direct more traffic to their website in the spirit of TLC reality programmes.

Would you broadcast your birth? It's not like you can log off in the middle of a contraction. And seriously, why on earth would you want to share your lady purse with the rest of the world.

Sounds a little too much like Balloon Boy and his attention-seeking parents.

Scary.

Happy Halloween!