A Lincolnshire woman has had triplets, two years after the birth of her first daughter from the same set of eggs, making them quadruplets, doctors said.

Experts at Nottingham's Care Fertility Clinic described the latest births as "most unusual".

The Baxter family, from Grantham, said they were "gobsmacked" by the arrivals.

"It is most unusual to see a set of triplets born from frozen embryos after a successful previous pregnancy from the same batch," a Care spokesman said.

The babies' mother, Helen Baxter, had frozen her remaining embryos after falling pregnant with Alice, now two, and then doctors defrosted them and put three back.

Alice now has sisters Niamh and Maisie and a brother, Noah, who were born in January.

We run a big unit and we have never seen anything like it before in... 15 years Ken Dowell, Care Fertility Clinic

"We were gobsmacked," Mrs Baxter said. "It was a complete shock. We never imagined that we would end up with three babies from that same batch.

"We went through the first cycle of fertility treatment and they harvested nine eggs from me, of which eight were fertilized.

"We put two back in and we got Alice.

"When we went through the cycle again they put three back in."

Mrs Baxter said: "We have had to buy a new car obviously to accommodate everybody. We have had to go out and buy three of everything - which has been a bit of a shock."

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The world's smallest-ever surviving baby boy - just 9 ounces when he was born - is eight months old now and doing well, Sky News reported Friday.

The tiny child - smaller than a can of soda - was born after just 25 weeks.

He was so little at birth that a tape measure laid next to his body was wider than his limbs.

Doctors in Germany were convinced he would not survive, but refused to give up hope.

Now, eight months after his birth, doctors have finally released a picture of the baby, confident he is strong enough to make it through.

The child is the smallest baby boy ever to survive. There have been three girls who have weighed less at birth. The most premature baby to survive, a girl born in Miami in 2004, is believed to have been born after 21 weeks.

Experts on medical ethics advise doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb.

The baby in Germany was delivered by Caeserean section at the University of Medicine at Goettingen in June 2009.

A spokesman for the university told Sky News Online that doctors were "extremely proud" of the boy and the parents were overjoyed.

"This was an incredible fight for life," the spokesman said.

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After a steady 15-year decline, the percentage of U.S. babies not born in a hospital rose slightly in 2005 and remained stable in 2006, according to a government report released Wednesday.

Even so, the proportion of out-of-hospital births is still less than 1% - a far cry from the 44% in 1940, the authors write in National Vital Statistics Reports.

In 2004, out-of-hospital births represented 0.87% of total U.S. births, rising to 0.9% in 2005 and staying at that level in 2006. That year, 38,568 births occurred out of a hospital, including 24,970 at home and 10,781 in a free-standing birth center.

"I don't really know what caused that little jump," says lead author Marian MacDorman, a demographer with the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "I guess we'll keep monitoring it."

The proportion of out-of-hospital births in 2005-2006 varied among states, from more than 2% in Vermont and Montana to 0.2% in Louisiana and Nebraska. Factors such as weather, proximity to a hospital and attitudes toward home birth among women and local doctors might play a role in state-by-state differences, MacDorman says.

Besides state differences, there were also ethnic differences. The increase in home births occurred only among non-Hispanic white women, MacDorman notes.

While midwives attended the majority of home births in 2006, more than a third of babies born at home were delivered by "other" birth attendants, such as a family member, emergency medical technician or taxi driver.

Physicians delivered only 7.6% of babies born at home in 2006, compared with 21.6% in 1990. In 2007, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, citing safety concerns, issued a policy statement opposing home birth. The following year, the American Medical Association passed a resolution supporting the OB/GYNs' position.

In 2006, birth certificates in 19 states — representing about half of all U.S. births — asked whether a home birth was planned or unplanned. In those states, which the authors note are not representative of the entire U.S. population, about one in six home births, or 17%, were unplanned. They likely were emergencies that might have involved rapidly progressing labor or other complications.

Even including emergency home births, babies born at home still were less likely to be low birth weight, a multiple or premature, the authors write. That suggests pregnant women are being screened to see if they are low-risk candidates for home birth, according to the report.

"Could more women deliver at home? Absolutely," says co-author Eugene Declercq, a professor of maternal and child health at Boston University. The question, Declercq says, is whether they want to. The proportion of home births in the USA is comparable to that of other industrialized countries except for the Netherlands, the authors write, where about 30% occur at home.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Pregnancy food cravings are a commonly experienced symptom of pregnancy.

While some women crave salt, others long for sweets; yet others salivate at the sight or smell of pickles!

If Halle Berry famously craved pickles and foot massages during her pregnancy and supermodel Heidi Klum wanted ice-cream, then Angelina Jolie wanted dark chocolate bars with cinnamon and Mexican chili and Nicole Ritchie apparently had all her pregnancy food cravings in the middle of the night!

Similarly each pregnant woman one comes across will probably have a similar story about their unusual cravings at some very unusual times!

What causes the cravings? It is thought by scientists that some pregnancy food cravings could be due to hormonal factors while others could be due to actual nutritional requirements.

Women require more number of calories to be consumed when pregnant and in the event it is likely that they may be attracted to calorie laden items such as cakes, sweets, fried food etc. So if a woman has a high sodium requirement she may crave salted snacks such as chips and pizzas etc.

What causes the aversions? On the flip side of the coin are pregnancy food aversions. Certain bitter foods taste even bitterer and a pregnant woman may develop an aversion.

Some favorites may become unpalatable; even cause her to become nauseous. This may be the body’s protective mechanism kicking in.

For instance, a woman who usually enjoys her drink may find she is averse to beer, wine etc when pregnant. This may be the body’s instinctive way of avoiding any damage to the growing fetus.

There is also the fact that a woman’s sense of smell and taste are altered during her pregnancy. Owning to this, she may develop these pregnancy food cravings as well as aversions.

What is Pica?

This is a rather unusual condition that pregnant women experience during pregnancy, when they have the craving for strange and inedible stuff, such as paper, chalk, soap, wood, dirt, clay paint chips, toothpaste, broken crockery, cigarette butts, baking soda, laundry starch etc. This is a potentially serious condition and can be toxic or even fatal in very rare cases.

Even the more common or garden varieties of pregnancy food cravings, such as fried and/spicy food that so many of us probably experience, may not be a good idea to give in to.

It is important to eat health and nutritious food when pregnant, which imparts nutrients to the mother and her unborn baby’s development. This is not necessarily high calorie food, which may actually end up being unnecessarily accumulated in the body as fat and may be very difficult to dislodge when the baby arrives, also fried food may be more difficult to digest, causing problems such as heartburn.

Acid reflux is another problem that pregnant women face and in the event limiting spicy foods or pickles is a good idea, lest they add to and compound the problem. Rule of thumb should be, Indulge the craving, so long as it is healthy for you and baby.

We had been told that childhood obesity was highly pernicious and would lead to our children leading shorter lives than us; however now according this report, this fight against obesity needs to start even before birth.

This is a view that is more cautionary than existing anti child obesity programs, which are currently in place, most notably that of the first lady Michelle Obama that is aimed at kids aged 8 and above.

A new study found that efforts to prevent childhood obesity should begin before birth and that this was particularly apposite for minority children.

Childhood obesity, the study found, begins earlier than we thought; in infancy or earlier. Factors such as poor feeding habits, inadequate sleep as well as having TV sets in the bedroom are responsible for childhood obesity.

According to the researchers, the prenatal stage up to age 5 is very important for obesity prevention, and this is particularly true for minority children. The study found that those women who were overweight during their pregnancy and/or those who had gestational diabetes increased the risks related to childhood obesity.

The factors that were seen to contribute to childhood obesity were being born small, gaining excess weight after birth, starting solid early (before 4 months of age) and getting less sleep.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Legendary film maker Ron Howard is making a behind-the-scenes return to TV in NBC's Parenthood, years after finding fame on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days. Married for 35 years, Ron and Cheryl Howard are proud parents to four children - daughters Bryce Dallas, 29, twins Jocelyn Carlyle and Paige Carlyle, 24, and son Reed Cross, 22 - and grandparents to 2 1/2-year-old grandson Theo. Ron opened up to Parade about how he has grown since becoming a father and the profound experience of being a grandparent.

On his personal growth since having children: "Humor is unavoidable. It might not feel funny in the moment, but more often than not there's a light at the end of the tunnel and you can personally look back and find the laughs in being a parent. I felt pressure about being a father, more pressure than I would have ever imagined -- trying to do it right, to be what I should be to my kids. At the same time, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I think I've probably learned more and grown more because I'm a father than for any other reason."

On preparing for the twins: "When we had our first child, it was very manageable. But then we found out that Cheryl was going to have twins and she was in a bed for three or four months and she was going crazy. For the first time in my life, I had to take a lot of extra responsibility at home. At the same time I was trying to get ready to film Cocoon. I had a few times when I had to ask myself, 'Can I do this? Will I be able to do this?' And I suddenly realized that I could handle it. I think that was a watershed time in my life both as a parent and as a person."

On being a grandpa: "My daughter Bryce has a son who's almost three. And I love being with him. I didn't remotely understand how profound the experience of being a grandparent is until you become one. It's interesting, when you become a grandparent you start bumping into other folks who have had that experience. And there's this sort of wink and a nod like it's sort of a club or something."

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Tiffani Theissen makes a rare appearance in formal attire, Rebecca Gayheart is nearing the end and keeping it comfy in loose-fitting jeans, Bethenny Frankel is seen in black and white, and Claudia Schiffer brings out the warm tones and stripes her bump.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

If one child has food allergies, how can a pregnant woman help ensure her next child won't be affected too?

By avoiding exposure to the food her child is allergic is to - starting in the third trimester and continuing into the second year of life, say researchers from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, Australia.

Seven out of 10 babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures had no food allergies vs. 45% of babies whose moms did not follow the doctors' advice, says pediatrician and study leader Velencia Soutter, MD.

That means eliminating the offending food not only from the diet but also from the environment, she says.

"Take peanut allergies, for example. If someone eats a lot of peanuts in your house, there is going to be aerosolized peanut protein in the environment. You need a clean household," Soutter tells WebMD.

Soutter says she undertook the study because "parents of kids with food allergies came to us asking, 'What can we do so this doesn't happen again?' They were desperate."

The study involved 274 pregnant mothers of children with peanut, egg, or milk allergies.

"We didn't tell them what to do, but gave them a lot of advice about how to avoid the food [their child was allergic to]. We started in the third trimester so everything would be in place when the baby was born," she says.

The women were also encouraged to breastfeed, which has been shown to protect against the development of allergies in some studies, Soutter says.

About two-thirds of the women followed their advice.

At 1 and 1/2 and 3 years of age, the babies were evaluated for symptoms of allergic disease and given skin prick tests to determine if they showed susceptibility to the same food allergies as their older siblings.

"The results were dramatic," Soutter says.

Thirty percent of babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures had one or more food allergies vs. 55% of babies whose moms didn't take those avoidance measures.

Babies born to mothers who took avoidance measures were less likely to develop symptoms of asthma: Only 11% exhibited symptoms by the age of 3, compared with 43% of babies whose mothers didn't avoid the offending foods.

Robert Wood, MD, director of the division of pediatric allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, tells WebMD that pregnant women should not feel guilty if they do not want to follow avoidance measures.

"I explain to my patients that exposure [to food allergens] in pregnancy seems to be a risk factor in some studies, but the results are not consistent. We don't have the answer," he says.

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PregnancyWeekly.com

Women whose water has broken early may want to wait at least 18 months before having their next child, new research shows.

Known by doctors as preterm premature rupture of membranes, this complication, in which a woman's water breaks before her pregnancy has reached full term and before labor has begun, occurs in up to 5 percent of pregnancies, Dr. Darios Getahun of Kaiser Permanente Southern California Medical Group in Pasadena and colleagues note in their report.

The complication accounts for one in every four premature births, they report in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, and puts mother and fetus at risk of infection.

While the reasons why some women's water breaks early are "elusive," Getahun and his team say, there are likely many factors involved. Women who have had the complication previously, they add, are known to be at greater risk in subsequent pregnancies. And the risk is also known to be higher for black women compared to whites.

To investigate whether the length of time between pregnancies might also influence this risk, the researchers reviewed data from the state of Missouri on nearly 200,000 women who had two or three children between 1989 and 1997. Around 3 percent of black women and 1 percent of white women's water broke early during their first or second pregnancies.

Among white women whose water broke early, 6 percent had the complication in their subsequent pregnancy, compared to 2 percent of women who hadn't suffered premature membrane rupture.

The rates for black women were 10 percent and 4 percent, respectively. This translated to a nearly nine-fold increased risk of subsequent early water breaking for white women, and a seven-fold greater risk for black women.

The risk was even further increased if a woman got pregnant again within 18 months, and was particularly high for African-American women. For example, a black woman who got pregnant again within three to six months would be nearly nine times more likely to have the complication than a woman who waited at least 18 months.

The risk of early water breaking for white women who got pregnant again this soon was tripled.

This suggests, the researchers say, that the complication may be related to inflammation, and that a longer interval between pregnancies is needed to allow for full recovery. "We think that it might be a chronic inflammation that may persist from one pregnancy to another pregnancy," Getahun told Reuters Health.

Women whose water has broken early should be watched closely in subsequent pregnancies, he added, so that if infection does develop they can receive prompt antibiotic treatment, which could help prevent the complication from recurring.

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