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Matt Damon’s Wife Is Pregnant Again
Apr 27th
Matt Damon and his wife Luciana are expecting another baby, his rep confirms to UsMagazine.com.
His rep tells Us, "Everyone is excited."
Damon, 39, and Luciana, 34, are parents to Isabella, 3, and Gia, 21 months. Luciana has a daughter, Alexia, 11, from a previous marriage.
Damon -- who quietly wed Luciana at NYC City Hall in December 2005 -- has credited his kids with keeping him grounded in Hollywood.
“It's pretty easy to kind of lose your way... having kids is really helpful," he told Parade magazine. "They kind of disabuse you of the notion of your greatness pretty quickly. There's a routine that you get into with kids that precludes you from going back to your single days. I'm probably more boring than I used to be. I go to bed earlier and I get up earlier."
He said he hopes his daughters take after their mother. "My wife is a very wise and a very thoughtful person. Hopefully, they'll inherit that," Damon said.
Added the actor (who supports charities including One, which fights AIDS and poverty in third world countries): "From me, I hope they'll inherit a sense of social justice and a desire to continue some of those programs that I'm involved with. Maybe not those exact ones, but hopefully, something to further social justice."
SourceBabies Suck: A Look at Pacifiers
Apr 27th
Type "pacifiers" into Google and it immediately asks a common parenting question. "Pacifiers: Are they good for your baby?"
I thought no. Isaiah thought yes. And if he could type, he'd put that "yes" in italics and all caps.
From the moment my son was born, the one and only thing he asked of the world is that it give him something to suck. Isaiah sucked -- poorly -- on his thumbs and fingers and -- expertly -- on dirty laundry, stuffed sheep, our necks, other people's noses. If we had put lumber in his bassinet, he would have sucked it down to driftwood.
Like all newborns, he was a body led around by a mouth. "Sucking is a predominant activity during the first 6 months of life," as the infancy scientist Tiffany Field has written, "just as walking is the predominant milestone at 1 year." It starts early: Ultrasounds frequently capture fetuses sucking on their extremities; babies are born tattooed with sucking blisters.
Sucking was what Isaiah was born to do. So why did I feel wracked about giving him a pacifier? He wasn't wracked about taking it; he thought multicolored silicone was delightfully soothing. And it wasn't just me who felt uncertain about it. Even Google's algorithms knew we didn't know what to make of pacifiers.
Strangely, our contemporary anxieties about pacifiers likely have less to do with the actual objects -- recent research suggests they're helpful, not harmful -- than with their twisted modern history. We've inherited over a century of medical hysteria about infant sucking. No wonder pacifiers get us all worked up.
Psychologists immediately drew a parallel between sucking, with its world-obliterating intensity, and drug addiction; indeed, many concluded that all addiction was sublimated sucking. In 1925, the American psychologist James Mursell went so far as to argue that "the drive behind the smoking habit cannot be due to the specific effects of tobacco as a drug, for these are negligible in any case." The ultimate effects of alcohol and tobacco, he concluded, are "largely fictitious." Sucking was the true menace.
It's a fear that sounds at once far away and close by: Too much sucking is bad. For some reason. Really. Trust us.
Paradoxically, though, the bulk of contemporary research into pacifiers is not about their dangers. It's about their benefits. Premature infants who are given pacifiers mature faster and leave the hospital sooner: Non-nutritive sucking is now a standard part of preterm care. Pacifiers are highly effective pain relievers, dramatically reducing crying during painful procedures like circumcision. They -- somewhat mysteriously -- reduce the risk of SIDS: The American Academy of Pediatrics, in a highly controversial decision, now recommends pacifier use at night and during naps. The pacifier entry in a recent book on infant development includes this unconditional assessment: "Pacifiers provide comfort, promote physiological tranquility, and help in growth and development."
It's a confusing verdict: It seems unequivocal. Things can't be that simple, can they? And according to many doctors and lactation consultants, they aren't. This entry only tells half the story: The real problem with pacifiers is that they impede breast-feeding -- the flimsy, fake nipple confuses the infant and disturbs the natural rhythms of nursing. Weaning soon follows.
In fact, UNICEF/WHO's influential Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative requires that hospitals "[g]ive no pacifiers or artificial nipples to breastfeeding infants." It makes intuitive sense that pacifiers would disturb breast-feeding. But evidence for it is underwhelming. The best studies on the question conclude that pacifiers, at least if given 15 days after birth, have no effect on the duration or success of breast-feeding. Nipple confusion, for that matter, may simply be a myth. A recent review of the literature concludes that "[p]acifier use should no longer be actively discouraged and may be especially beneficial in the first six months of life."
But there's real reluctance to acknowledge evidence in favor of pacifiers. The current edition of "Breastfeeding and Human Lactation," the standard reference for lactation consultants, says, flatly, "Pacifiers undermine exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months." Negative studies are cited; positive studies are ignored.
Isaiah sucked on pacifiers compulsively for a few months. But after they began ruining his sleep -- he'd wake up when they fell out -- we broke him. And after a day, he hardly noticed. He didn't need to suck so much anymore. He'd changed. And we'd survived.
If pacifiers are benign, or even beneficial, it is hard not to feel that what permeates the contemporary pacifier debate is a fundamental distrust of parents: the fear that pacifiers will allow parents to detach themselves from their children -- to substitute a cold, industrial object for warm skin and sweet whispering and a steady heartbeat. But I'd like to think that while Isaiah used a pacifier, we had more of ourselves to give him: Screaming exhausts parental love; it doesn't strengthen it.
Of course, the current research on pacifiers might turn out to be flawed. Or maybe too many parents will rely too much on pacifiers. Or who knows. But until any of that happens, it'd be nice for parents -- at least for parents like myself, people who are instinctively, mysteriously allergic to the idea of pacifiers -- to be told that their decision might not much matter. For too long, how babies suck has mattered way too much.
SourceUSDA Cracks Down on Synthetic Fatty Acids in Organic Milk
Apr 27th
The Obama administration, continuing its crackdown on the $25 billion organic food industry, is moving to eliminate two synthetic additives widely found in organic baby formula and organic milk.
Most U.S. manufacturers of conventional and organic baby formula have supplemented their products with the fatty acids DHA and ARA for several years in order to make them more closely mimic breast milk. Some studies suggest the omega 3-fatty acid DHA and the omega-6 fatty acid ARA promote cognition and eyesight in babies.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which isn't challenging the safety of the additives, is responding to complaints from activists that the Bush administration ignored proper procedures when it decided to include synthetic versions of the fatty acids on a list of nonorganic ingredients that are nonetheless allowed into products that carry the USDA's organic seal.
Kathleen Merrigan, an organics expert and second-most powerful person in the Agriculture Department, said in an interview Monday that organic regulators in 2006 misinterpreted the federal guidelines and erred by not seeking public comment on the 2006 move.
The USDA plans to issue a draft guidance later this year that would give food makers a grace period to reformulate their lines. The public will have 60 days to comment, after which the USDA will issue a final decision.
"We don't want an industry that acted in good faith to be harmed," said Dr. Merrigan, who is the USDA's deputy secretary. "On the other hand, we have a rule to uphold," she added.
The largest supplier of these ingredients is Martek Biosciences Corp., Columbia, Md., which extracts DHA and ARA from microorganisms using the chemical hexane, a solvent long used to make cooking oils. Martek's process sparked a food fad about eight years ago by giving manufacturers an alternative to using fish-oil-derived fatty acids.
Martek spokeswoman Cassie France-Kelly said Monday the company's synthetic fatty acids are used in organic products offered by Abbott Laboratories' Similac infant formula brand, the Earth's Best brand owned by Hain Celestial Group, and Dean Foods' Horizon milk brand.
Ms. France-Kelly said banning synthetic fatty acids from organic products wouldn't have a material impact on the financial results of Martek, which gets most of its business from conventional brands. But she warned that such a move would make it difficult for organic brands to offer the essential fatty acids.
Dr. Merrigan is leading a push by the USDA to both promote and more closely supervise the organic industry. Among other things, the USDA is making plans to spot-check products for residues of banned materials.
SourceFetal Heart Rate Monitor Leads to Unecessary C-Sections
Apr 26th
My patient needed to be delivered. She had just developed eclampsia, a potentially fatal disease that afflicts women in the second half of pregnancy. She had suffered a seizure and dangerously high blood pressure, and was at risk for far worse, including a stroke. No one knows why this condition arises, but delivery sure clears it up in a hurry.
So we gave medication to start labor, and the nurses placed a fetal heart monitor.
Worn like a belt, but higher on the abdomen, the ultrasound monitor would play a crucial role in the hours to come. It prints a read-out strip of the baby's heart rate, and the pattern would guide us in determining whether the delivery would be natural or through cesarean section.
As I suspected, the baby's heart-rate strip showed worrisome changes soon after labor began, and I knew it would get worse as labor progressed. We would fight through the night to have a natural delivery. But ultimately that single heart-rate test, which is surprisingly unreliable, would be a key factor in whether my patient would get a C-section or not.
Nearly all American mothers are monitored during labor, and bad fetal heart strips are an important cause of high cesarean section rates. A recent report detailed the dizzying increases: Almost one in three babies was delivered by cesarean in 2007, the most recent year for which data are available. That rate has grown by more than 50 percent in a decade.
I have performed hundreds of cesarean sections during residency, and many were the result of bad heart-rate strips.
A jagged pattern indicating increases in the heart rate reassures us that the baby's brain is awake and alert, and that labor could continue. But a flat line or decreases in the heart rate after contractions make us think the baby is not getting enough oxygen and pushes us to do a C-section - delivering the baby through incisions in the abdominal wall and the uterus.
For the worst readings, we believed every second counted and rushed the surgery: If the baby wasn't delivered one minute from the first incision into the skin, we had moved too slowly.
The complication we feared most was hypoxia, the baby not getting enough oxygen during labor. Going too long without adequate oxygen could result in a serious permanent injury, such as cerebral palsy, or even death.
No test is perfect. But almost every time we whisked a mother back to the operating room, and I cut through skin, fat, fascia, and finally the muscle of the uterus, expecting a blue, floppy baby, the child I delivered emerged pink, healthy, and a little bit angry.
Were we saving lives and averting disaster? Or were we performing unnecessary surgery?
Fetal heart-rate monitoring is a screening test. Good tests get several things right; they are cheap, detect a possible problem when there is still time to act, and minimize unnecessary follow-up tests.
But fetal heart monitoring is an appallingly poor test. The test misses the majority of babies with cerebral palsy, the condition researchers hoped it would prevent. It causes increased rates of a painful and invasive surgery: cesarean section. Even worse, almost all women undergo continuous heart monitoring during labor, not just those at highest risk.
The odds of my patient's baby suffering from dangerous lack of oxygen were slim. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 1 of 500 babies with a bad strip had cerebral palsy. Moreover, it remained unclear if the condition had developed before labor, in which case cesarean couldn't prevent it.
A 2006 analysis by the British Cochrane Collaboration, evaluating all available research, found that fetal heart monitoring failed to reduce perinatal mortality - the risk of a baby's dying late in pregnancy, during birth, or shortly after birth - and increased cesarean section rates and forceps deliveries, compared with listening to a baby's heart rate intermittently.
As a medical student, I loved watching emergency cesarean sections. The baby's heart rate went down, doors swung open, residents rushed the patient down to the OR, and a frantic minute or two of surgery later, a screaming baby was out. The excitement pushed me to choose a career in obstetrics. I never questioned the need for the surgery.
Now, cesarean sections for bad tracings are one of the least satisfying parts of my job.
Steven Clark and Gary Hankins, two prominent obstetricians, voiced my frustration. "A test leading to an unnecessary major abdominal operation in more than 99.5 percent of cases should be regarded by the medical community as absurd at best," they wrote in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "Electronic fetal heart rate monitoring has probably done more harm than good."
Why do doctors cling to continuous fetal heart monitoring? An obstetrician will most likely point to the fear of being sued, but the complete answer is more complex. Our medical culture prizes technology and tests, even if they don't work and can cause harm.
"It's our bias that anything that can be quantified is an improvement," said H. Gilbert Welch, a professor at Dartmouth Medical School whose research focuses on harm caused by screening and over-diagnosis.
"I think we get in trouble when we start promising things to . . . well [patients]," Welch said in an interview. "It is not that hard to make them worse."
For three or four hours that night, I struggled with my patient's bad fetal heart strip. I wanted her to avoid a cesarean section. She had type 1 diabetes, and I expected her sugars to swing wildly after surgery, and her recovery to be slow.
To improve the strip, the nurses and I tried giving her oxygen, changing her position in the bed, even rubbing the baby's head through the cervix to wake it up.
Finally, at 3 a.m., I felt compelled to recommend cesarean. The strip continued to look bad, and my patient's labor progressed slowly.
We went to the operating room, and delivered the baby by cesarean. My patient's child greeted the world pink and well-oxygenated.
The test was wrong again.
Alex Friedman is a fellow in maternal-fetal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
SourceIt’s a Girl for Amanda Peet!
Apr 23rd
Why didn't Amanda Peet appear on the Late Show With David Letterman Tuesday to promote her new indie Please Give?
She just gave birth!
The actress, 38, and her husband, screenwriter David Benioff, welcomed their second child, Molly June Benioff, in NYC Monday, her rep told UsMagazine.com.
The two, who wed in 2006, have a daughter Frances, 3.
SourceCoping with Pregnancy at Work
Apr 23rd
From hiding morning sickness to breaking the news to your boss, here's how to survive pregnancy on the job.
- It's best to wait to share your pregnancy news until after your first trimester when your risk of miscarriage decreases.
- To help keep your pregnancy a secret, move the buttons on your pants so you can wear your old clothes for longer.
- Make sure your boss finds out first–and make it a formal meeting when you finally break the news.
- Remember, you have the right to keep working during your pregnancy for as long as you are able to perform the essential duties of your job.
- If you’re afraid of getting left out while on mat leave, get a coworker to copy you on important emails that you can check on your own time.
When it comes to telling your boss about your pregnancy, should you play the waiting game, or ’fess up right away?
Although some people believe you should break the news as soon as you know so your boss has more time to plan for your absence, others recommend waiting as long as possible so you don’t risk getting treated differently (or having responsibilities suddenly delegated elsewhere) just because you’re pregnant, says Dr. Marjorie Greenfield, author of The Working Woman’s Pregnancy Book.
“Some women also prefer to wait until after the first trimester when the risk of miscarriage decreases,” she says. “And if you’re going for genetic testing, you may want to wait until you’re done with any tests that might have you choosing to terminate your pregnancy–it’s devastating enough without having to tell everyone about it.”
If you decide to keep your pregnancy a secret for a while, here are a few strategies to try:
- Move the buttons on your pants, or invest in a Bella Band, so that you can continue wearing your old clothes for longer.
- Sometimes your growing breast are a bigger giveaway than a tiny baby bump–good-fitting bras and blousy shirt styles can help camouflage both.
- Sit by the door when you’re in meetings so if you have to leave abruptly (due to nausea or first trimester bladder issues), it’s not so conspicuous.
- And every time you take a trip to the loo, have another reason for getting up from your desk, says Dr. Greenfield. “Drop something off on someone else’s desk, or use the photocopier so you’re not just beating a path back and forth to the bathroom.”
Whenever you decide the time has come to “go public” about your pregnancy, make sure you tell your boss first so she doesn’t hear about it through the office grapevine, says Dr. Greenfield. “It’s very unprofessional if she finds out from someone other than you.”
When it comes to how you approach your employer, Dr. Greenfield says it’s usually best to make it a formal process. “Sit down with your boss, tell her when you’re due and share any ideas you may have for how you’re going to get work covered when you have to be out of the office. It shows you’re thinking about it and is a sign you’re committed to your job.”
Pregnancy can affect women very differently, so it’s hard to know how you’re going to feel as your pregnancy progresses. In the first trimester, you may feel tired and nauseated as your hormones kick in. “Some women feel horrible first thing in the morning, while others crash around 3 p.m.,” Dr. Greenfield says. It helps to plan the bulk of your workload around times when you know you’ll be feeling your best.
“Another option is to book a vacation around the eight- or nine-week mark, when morning sickness symptoms tend to peak,” says Dr. Greenfield. Or, if your job is flexible, arrange to work from home for a few days so you can rest when you need to and still get your work done.
When it comes to juggling work and your medical appointments, try to book the first appointment of the day. “Doctors are more likely to run on time for their first appointments,” says Dr. Greenfield. It’s best to try to avoid midday appointments–they tend to be the most disruptive to your work schedule. And if you find yourself logging a lot of hours away from your desk, do your best to make the time up while you can.
Many women worry about whether going on maternity leave will impact their jobs. “A lot of women are so identified with their work that they think they’ll still want to be involved when they’re at home with their newborns,” says Dr. Greenfield. “And then they commit to a lot more contact with work than they ultimately want.”
She recommends keeping your expectations of how involved you will be as low as possible, just in case you suddenly realize you want to focus all your attention on your new baby. “Don’t make too many promises about calling in every day or answering emails–you just won’t know how things will be until after the baby arrives.”
However, you may still want to stay on top of what’s going on in your industry to make it easier when you do return to work after maternity leave. “If you don’t want to get too left out, get a coworker to copy you on important emails that you can check on your own time,” Dr. Greenfield says. She also recommends having one point person who manages all communication with you instead of having multiple people contacting you every day. Step up your involvement with work closer to your return date: it’s important to find out what’s been going on so you’re not overwhelmed your first days back, she says.
It’s important to know that you have the right to keep working during your pregnancy for as long as you are able to perform the essential duties of your job: You can’t be fired or demoted because you’re pregnant, breastfeeding, or plan to become pregnant.
SourceMulti-vitamin during pregnancy ‘cuts chances of having an underweight baby’
Apr 23rd
Children who are underweight at birth are more likely to develop health problems including difficulty breathing and jaundice.
Experts believe that they could also be more likely to develop a number of major illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease, in later life.
But new research suggests that taking a specially created supplement could cut the risk of having a small baby in half.
The multivitamin also improved the health of the pregnant women, the study found.
The research team called for larger studies to confirm their findings.
But they said that if these were consistent with their results many pregnant women could benefit from such supplements.
Dr Louise Brough, from Massey University in New Zealand, one of the co-authors of the study, said: “It is especially important to have good nutrient levels during early pregnancy as this is a critical time for development of the fetus.
“Nutrient deficiencies are correctable and they may influence birth outcomes.
“Of course a good diet during pregnancy is important for a healthy pregnancy, but for those who do not have a good diet, multivitamin and mineral supplements will help to reduce the risk of deficiency.”
At the start of the study almost three quarters of the women, 72 per cent, had low level of vitamin D, while 13 per cent were low in iron and 12 per cent were deficient in thiamin, also called vitamin B1.
Those who took the supplement achieved better levels of all three than a control group given a placebo, according to the findings, published in the British Journal of Nutrition.
They were also 50 per cent less likely to have a child with a low birth weight.
More than 400 newly pregnant women started the study, carried out by the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at London Metropolitan University and the Homerton University Hospital (in East London).
But there was a high dropout rate and only 149 completed the study.
Half were given a multivitamin, Pregnacare, made by Vitabiotics, while the other half were given a placebo.
The researchers tested the women for nutritional deficiencies at the start of the study, and then when they were 26 and 34 weeks pregnant.
Babies are considered to have a low birth weight if they weigh less than 2.5kg (5.5lb).
SourceWinter and autumn babies are more prone to food allergies
Apr 22nd
Babies born in autumn or winter are more likely to develop a food allergy than those born in spring or summer, US researchers have found.
The Boston scientists believe the trend may be explained by a lack of the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D.
Vitamin D from natural sun exposure is needed for the healthy development of a child's immune system, experts believe.
And winter babies tend to get less sun, they explain in the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
The doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston reviewed all of 1,002 patients with food allergies who had been seen in three local hospital emergency departments over a period of six years.
They then compared the months of birth in patients with food allergy with those of patients visiting the emergency rooms for reasons other than food allergy.
From this a trend emerged - allergies appeared to be linked with season of birth, but only in the patients who were aged five or younger.
Of the children treated for allergy aged under five, 41% were born in spring or summer compared with 59% in autumn or winter.
The researchers acknowledge that other factors, such as infections, family history of allergies, maternal and infant dietary patterns, and exposure to indoor pollutants, may contribute to food allergies.
But they believe that vitamin D deficiency, and hence month of birth, "is a significant potential risk factor" in the development of food allergies.
Exposure to low vitamin D levels in the womb, immediately after birth and during early childhood may be key.
Previous studies have associated month of birth with other allergic conditions such as asthma, recurrent wheezing and dermatitis.
Dr Milo Vassallo, lead author of the study and a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, said: "Vitamin D helps the body fight infection and suppresses its allergy cells.
"When the body is faced with a molecule of food it has to decide if it's a friend or a foe. Vitamin D contributes to tolerance but reduced levels of vitamin D triggers intolerance in the body," he said.
But the researchers stressed the findings did not mean parents should not attempt to boost their child's vitamin intake to ward off allergies.
A spokesperson for the charity Allergy UK said it was an interesting finding but more research needed to be carried out in this area.
She said: "It is unlikely that parents will change the month in which their children are born, but it might give some clues about possible links to the effects that sunlight / vitamin D has on the immune system."
SourceHaving a baby when you’re over 40?
Apr 22nd
Lee Robinson wasn't all that excited about having a baby, It's not that she didn't want one, it's just that she and her husband, Claude, were happy with their busy lives in Thomson, Georgia, where she's a high school teacher and he's a caterer.
Life rolled merrily along until one day, at age 44, Robinson discovered to her great shock that she was pregnant. When not one but two pregnancy tests confirmed the news, she plastered herself to the internet to figure out how risky this pregnancy was for her and her baby.
What she found online wasn't comforting. A slew of statistics about the high risks of birth defects for the baby and pregnancy-related diseases for her scared the wits out of her.
"I'd be less than normal if I didn't think this was pretty severe, life-threatening stuff," Robinson says. "All kinds of things run through your mind."
These days, more women are finding themselves in Robinson's situation. The birth rate for women age 40-44 increased 4 percent in 2008 from 2007, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Contrast that to the birth rate for women below age 40, which went down as much as 3 percent from 2007 to 2008.
"Whatever can go wrong goes wrong at an increased rate for a woman who is older starting pregnancy," says Dr. Alan Fleischman, medical director for the March of Dimes.
So just how scary is it for a woman over 40 to have a baby? We asked physicians at the March of Dimes and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists to set the numbers out for us.
Higher risk of miscarriage
- At age 20: 1 in 10 women
- At age 35: 1 in 5 women
- At age 40: 1 in 3 women
- At age 45: 1 in 2 women
Noncancerous tumors called fibroids and endometriosis, the abnormal growth of the lining of a woman's uterus, can lead to a miscarriage.
Higher risk of any chromosomal disorder
- At age 20: 1 in 526 births
- At age 30: 1 in 385 births
- At age 40: 1 in 66 births
- At age 45: 1 in 21 births
Women are born with all the eggs they'll ever have. As a woman ages, her eggs also age.
Higher risk of Down syndrome
- At age 25: 1 in 1,250 births
- At age 30: 1 in 1,000 births
- At age 35: 1 in 400 births
- At age 40: 1 in 100 births
- At age 45: 1 in 30 births
- At age 49: 1 in 10 births
As a woman ages, the risk of delivering a baby with Down syndrome increases. Down syndrome is a genetic disorder often caused by an error in cell division. There are multiple types of Down syndrome, and the exact cause is not known.
Higher risk of gestational diabetes
- At age 20: 22 in 1,000 women
- At age 25: 36 in 1,000 women
- At age 30: 51 in 1,000 women
- At age 35: 67 in 1,000 women
- At age 40: 84 in 1,000 women
Pregnancy stresses the body, requiring the pancreas to produce more insulin. In older women, having a baby can trigger diabetes during pregnancy.
Higher risk of preeclampsia
- At age 20: 38 in 1,000 women
- At age 25: 37 in 1,000 women
- At age 30: 36 in 1,000 women
- At age 35: 39 in 1,000 women
- At age 40: 48 in 1,000 women
"Women as they get into their 40s may also have some hypertension already," Fleischman says. "And if they do, they have a higher risk of that being exacerbated during pregnancy."
Advantages of being an older mom
Working women who have children later in life are often able to spend more time with their families because they're in a better position to negotiate flexible schedules, according to research by Elizabeth Gregory, author of the book, "Ready: Why Women Are Embracing the New Later Motherhood," and director of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Houston.
"Women report that the clout they've established at work in the years before they have kids gives them a bargaining chip that they wouldn't have had" at an earlier stage of their career, Gregory says.
Plus, women who wait to have children make more money and are better able to provide for their families, according to Gregory's analysis of 2000 census data.
Gregory looked at women in their early 40s and found sizable salary differences based on when they'd had their children. She found that those who'd had babies in their mid-20s had salaries in the mid-$40,000 range, but those who waited to have babies until their mid- to late-30s had salaries that averaged in the $70,000 range.
The reason, she says, is simple. "Once kids arrive, it's much harder for women to continue to climb the career ladder, so if they start having babies earlier, they tend to get stuck down on the ladder," she says.
Last week, Robinson gave birth to a healthy boy named Price, and now she and her husband are thinking about having another child, even though she's 44 years old.
"It's really overwhelming to think I never thought I was going to be a mom," Robinson says. "We're both just absolutely in love with this little baby."
SourceThis Week’s Celebrity Baby Bumps
Apr 21st




