Jezebel 
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New York, 1:53 PM
Sun Nov 8
25 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/04/09
The only reasons I could think of were work stress and the fact that I'm over 30. I guess with the next pregnancy I'm just going to take it super easy.
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@Lymed: Yes, that's an important point, and I can see that I was overgeneralizing. Not all premature births are the result of inadequate neonatal care; they can happen even with the best of doctors and monitoring. The list of risks also include women having children closer than two years together, which isn't related to income level (although I guess it could be if the women are getting pregnant due to lack of affordable birth control). But I do wonder whether the statistic about African American women is unrelated to class. The article didn't say whether they had investigated whether the higher rate in African American communities had any correlation to income level (At least I don't see that, but maybe I missed it?). I wish I could figure out if they checked whether the rate of premature births among African American women was higher than white women of their same class level, or if the higher rate of premature birth among African Americans is the result of the disproportionate number of African Americans who are below the poverty line. (I know the "African Americans are more likely to be below the poverty line" generalization gets thrown around a lot, but if my college sociology classes drilled anything into me, it's that class and race are interrelated in this country.) Not getting prenatal care can obviously be the result of a lot of things, not just poverty, but pregnant women without health insurance are a lot less likely to get it.
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BTW - mine were early because of HELLP syndrome. It sucked.
10/04/09
10/04/09
So is this study determining what constitutes premature by looking at things like health and birthweight, or is it just that all babies born before 37 weeks are preemies, even if they're healthy? Is there such thing as a healthy baby born before 37 weeks? Or is it a study of babies who could have used the extra week or five in utero to finish getting pudgy?
10/04/09
10/04/09
While I can see your point about the cutoff for premature birth potentially being arbitrary, it really isn't. 34-36 weeks is considered "late pre-term," and that accounts for most premature births. Fewer than 31 or 32 weeks means a baby will have serious problems.
There are hallmarks of development for fetuses just like there are for children, and that's where these timelines come in.
Now, the issue I think you're kind of getting at is that it's sometimes hard to pinpoint the conception date, so maybe we're just off by a week and that 36-week "preemie" is really a 38-week full gestation baby or something.
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10/04/09
Seriously though, it still shocks me that this is as much of a problem. Is it maybe because it's not totally clear why it happens?
10/05/09
10/04/09
I have no major health problems as a result of the amazing preemie care I received. I was in the hospital for 4 months before my parents got to take me home. I can't imagine what challenges there are for premature babies born in areas where hospitals are not close or not even available.
10/04/09
The last one by a full six weeks. And yes, a lot of this has to do with shitty prenatal care. She goes to the doctor like she's supposed to, but the doctor's don't really seem to care.
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Have you read the book Pushed? You'd probably find it useful and interesting. It's all about the C-section rate in the US and history behind that movement.
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10/04/09
SEVENTY.
What the holy fuck, right??
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I also wouldn't be surprised if it has something to do with the number of ob/gyns dropping the ob part of their practice. Perhaps fewer doctors delivering babies mean those that do feel a need to schedule the births.
10/04/09
It's crazy, but a lot of doctors really DON'T think we are capable of delivering babies. My friend had a cesarean with her first and it was only when she was pregnant with #2 that she learned WHY (and a total bullshit reason involving an induction with pitocin and then a bad midwife). Her first doctor told her she wouldn't be able to deliver vaginally. Her new midwife helped her have a succesful VBAC -- with no pain meds.
10/04/09
08/28/09
Before the invention and ready availability of modern science/medicine, the infant (and mother!) mortality rate was much higher and women had WAY more kids (200 years ago it was common for women to give birth to A DOZEN children within her lifetime, many of which would not survive to adulthood). Children were a practicality, they assisted in the running of the household and the family business. There was no birth control, no choice over when to get pregnant. It just happened as a natural course of a sexually active adult life. They weren't precious little miracles to be doted endlessly upon. In fact, childhood as we understand and practice it was invented during the Victorian Era.
I'm not saying that there isn't a strong emotional bond between mother (or even father!) and child, but Roiphe and her camp need to realize that they are operating under very specific cultural circumstances that allow this connection. If you had this sort of bond with 12 children and had to watch 9 of them die before the age 10, you would go insane with grief. Modernity plays a huge role in this supposedly transcendental bond.
08/28/09
08/28/09
It's wonderful that mothers today, in many parts of the world, have the opportunity and means to deeply bond with a newborn infant, dote upon them, and feel as intoxicated as they do. But it isn't some timeless thing - it's a tradition that has a short history and is pretty much rooted in wealth.
Things change - motherhood is not the same for all people right now, and it won't be in the future, either.
08/27/09
I do think feminism puts too much emphasis on work. Work is just not that important. Your company won't remember the job that you think is so crucial this week, that you're killing yourself over. It all filters into a bunch of numbers on a financial spreadsheet eventually. (Doctors exempted.) Even if that's not the case, you have to be seriously vain to think there aren't others who could do your job.
Family trumps all for me. Of course, those of you who disagree are perfectly entitled, I just don't get you.
08/27/09
"One day you'll be gone, and I'd rather be remembered for my awesome kids than any work of programming brilliance, literature or legal accomplishment."
So we are supposed to believe our own existence is meaningless, because, really, we're so humble, and selfless, and could not possibly think our literary our humanitarian accomplishments were meaningful.
But are you what your parents (okay, mother, let's be real), should be remembered for? Do you in some way legitimate her existence in a way she couldn't have done for herself?
You say that you want to be remembered for your kids. What if your kid, in all seriousness, becomes a murderer or a rapist? What if your kids hates you, or you don't have a great relationship with him? What if your kid is a vain, cruel person?
I just don't get why it seems better to you to be remembered for your kids, than for yourself. Chelsea Clinton turned out to be a great kid, but I see nothing wrong with remembering Hillary Clinton for herself, and not because she procreated.
And ya know what? You say anyone can do my job? That's probably not true, but I'm sure the percentage of women who can get pregnant and raise a kid is just as high as the number of people who can do my job.
And feminism isn't all about work, btw...but that is a whole different lecture.
I may have kids someday, but it'll be because we want a family, and not because I think having kids validates my existence.
08/28/09
08/28/09
I consider my work to be one of the most important things in my life. I love it. I don't care that I won't be remembered. I am making small changes that might help others, and that is all that matters to me. That the trees I plant and take care of will grow, that the plans I help to make will pull rural farmers up from poverty and help them to make better lives.
Not all jobs are shitty office jobs, and not all shitty office jobs are meaningless. Without these people, we would have very, very different lives. Management is a huge deal. I don't think it's that "no one else can do [your] job", it's that people want to do something that makes them happy. By the way, other people can parent your kid.
08/27/09
Oh, Katie Roiphe. You only say that because you know you aren't fit to carry Edith Wharton's smelling salts.
Seriously, this is the woman who dismissed statistics about sexual violence because it didn't fit into her Ivy League, 25-year-old experience of the world. Are we really shocked that she would be myopic and hyper-judgmental when it comes to motherhood?
Please, I can only hope her child is so entrancing that she never puts pen to paper again, and spares the rest of us from her reactionary gibberish.
08/27/09
The other thing that bugs me about this: the idea that you have to choose one or the other. Just because Wharton didn't have both a baby and an acclaimed novel doesn't mean she couldn't.
08/27/09
But then that would require nuanced thinking, and we know that is a skill Ms. Roiphe has not been particularly gifted with.