As a concrete researcher, I must say that one of my very very pet peeves is when the term concrete and cement are used intermittently. THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING!! #boxing
@JRae: Cement is a binding agent. Concrete is a mixture of water, cement, fine aggregate (sand), and coarse aggregate (gravel), with admixture. Cement is an ingredient of concrete. Like eggs are to cake. #boxing
In short, cement is the powder that you add to your water and aggregates to create a hardened product that is concrete.
So let's hope that you are driving on a concrete pavement and not a cement one, because if that would be the case - you'd be driving on a nice grey powder. #boxing
If you want to keep 15 cats and live in a town, keep them indoors and off your neighbor's property. As long as you scoop the litterboxes daily all should be fine and no one will ever know how many cats you really have in there.
And yes, I speak from experience. No further details will be disclosed.
So in the interest of making abortion harder to access ([jezebel.com]), some people are holding up legislation that could prevent the actual deaths of actual infants? Because what, if it's not a choice, it's okay? GUESS WHAT? THIS IS A CHOICE. THIS IS A CHOICE YOU ARE MAKING TO MAKE IT HARDER FOR LOW-INCOME WOMEN TO HAVE PRENATAL CARE.
It always cracks me up how Ireland does well at boxing in the olympics. We can't play most sports, we can't manage our economy, but we sure as hell can drink and fight. Well done us.
Oh, and we can play a hell of a rugby match too... though I probably shouldn't tempt fate a week and a half before the first autumn international.
@onthecornerofparkerandwoolf: Hurling and its female equivalent, camogie, are insane. They essentially just involve running around a pitch beating the shit out of people with sticks. But we probably oughtn't take too much national pride in being good at a game that we invented and only we play (on the other hand we don't call the All-Ireland final a 'World Series', tee hee).
@rah29: i know-- i lived in ireland for a while, and there was a hurling pitch not to far from my apartment. i love watching it on tv, but i hated having to walk past practice to get to the store. #boxing
Her father said "you could write 10 pages" about what he had to do to get her into the Irish Amateur Boxing Association.
I'm from Texas and we're prone to exaggeration down here and I had to chuckle at this bit because I know I would have said "You could write a freaking novel..." I love that her dad was so precise in his measurement of how many pages could be written. #boxing
@Triana Orpheus: Since i'm in the mood to split hairs, he just said that he could write 10 pages, not that he could only write 10 pages, for all we know he was refering to the 10 pages of introduction to the 2 volume complete works. #boxing
Dear pro-lifers.
Would you like to save the babies? Then please redirect all funds spent on harassing women/spreading misinformation/threatening abortion providers to prenatal care.
K?
Much Love.
Snark. #boxing
So Katie Taylor** can fight with the men. She can sit in the same room of the pub as the men. But, oh Ireland, won't you give her her reproductive freedom too?
**I love learning about badass women. It's almost a fixture here on Jez: Meet the fierce lady you weren't aware of a moment ago! #boxing
I love that those women have to hold signs proclaiming they stole from a child on her birthday. They should have to do that every year on her birthday. Stealing from kids...nice. #boxing
I had my son at 35 weeks (after being put on bed rest at 32 weeks because I was having Braxton Hicks contractions). I have awesome health insurance, was eating right, exercising, seeing the doctor, etc. I was baffled as to why I gave birth early. When I asked my doctor he said it could be any number of things. Needless to say it wasn't the definitive answer I was looking for.
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.
Oh, and, be happy we're in America. Viability is defined as about 22 weeks here. In Europe and Asia, it's several weeks more than that. Maybe the fact that we have a lower threshold at keeping babies alive has some influence on the prematurity rate. Not sure if that's taken into account.
@DoctorJezebel: It's not that euro docs are incompetent, they just have the option to think about ACTUAL viability and not keeping all kids alive at all costs (quality of life? What?)
@Kali Mama: Agreed. A 23 weeker who is very likely to develop retinopathies, brain bleeds, etc. causing CP-- you'll see them in the fancy wheelchairs moving vaguely spastically. It's sad, and traceable to this insult. I think the '22 week' thing demonstrates the fact that we can do something for kids that age. Now at what point do we go up and say "we can build a NICU for infants 27 weeks+" and exclude anyone younger. It's hard to set criteria for 'actual' viability, but I totally agree with your point.
I'm not sure that I understand Neergaard's statement that "different factors fuel prematurity in rich countries and poor ones." That's followed in the AP article with a discussion of the superior medical technology in places like the US. Premature infants have better chances of survival in rich countries, but that has nothing to do with women giving birth prematurely in the first place. I know that they don't understand the causes as well as they'd like, but it seems pretty clear that poor women without access to adequate medical care, regardless of whether they live in a rich or poor country, are at a higher risk of giving birth prematurely. So, um, how about some freaking healthcare reform already?
@theKP: The implication is that some of the factors that contribute to premature births in rich countries (older mothers and multiple births, both ostensibly due to access to fertility treatments) are not issues in poorer countries. Because we in the US also have shitty access to healthcare, we share lack of prenatal care as a contributing factor with poorer countries.
@theKP: There are many women who are not poor who also have an increased risk of premature births. African American women have an increased risk of premature births regardless of income level.
@yvanehtnioj: Thanks, that helps me understand what she was talking about. My first thought was to wonder whether enough people were using fertility treatments for it to account for the high rate of premature births in the US, but now that I think about it, I know quite a few people who have used IVF to have children. It's really freaking expensive, so as much as the cost would seem prohibitive, people are willing to find ways to pay for it. So maybe it really is prevalent enough to account for a statistically significant number preemies in the US.
@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.
@curiousgeorgiana: I would if I had a time machine and could go back in time to your infancy, and also if biting premature babies wasn't so socially unacceptable.
My twins were born at 28 weeks and we did kangaroo care every day that they were in the hospital (one for 6 weeks, the other for 7)... we would sit in the NICU's LazyBoy recliners and hold the babies on our bare chests. I loved it and would suggest it for all new parents, not just preemies.
BTW - mine were early because of HELLP syndrome. It sucked.
@Theacracy: Mine was on time, but we both had a difficult experience. We did kangaroo care while in NICU also and I found it to be an amazing experience. My baby's dad felt like it really helped bond them, and I agree; not everyone is able to have that breastfeeding thing, and I think the kangaroo cuddle is just as good! :)
So, at first I was like--wouldn't 36 weeks (9 x 4 = 36) be 9 months? Then I remembered to add the extra days for non-February months, which is about two and a half. So that means that 38-39 weeks is "normal," except that from what I understand (by people who are part of the natural birth movement, and are thusly biased) the 9 months timeline was basically what some guy in the 19th century decided was a normal timeline of pregnancy, and it makes a number of assumptions about women's bodies that aren't really accurate (like the 28 day cycle). And some people take 41 weeks (my mom with my brother) and some babies are like "get me outta here." So wouldn't the term "premature" need to be decided on a case by case basis? Because what was healthy as hell for me would have been premature for my brother (who was born bright blue like an alien with a whole in his heart, which has never healed and that's why he's a republican).
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?
@Cimorene: Pregnancy and timing are really weird, but I think it might be more accurate to say that they're talking about babies born before they're developmentally ready.
@Cimorene: There are other problems related to premature birth besides low birth weight. Respiratory problems, multiple kinds of organ system problems, jaundice, anemia, you name it.
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.
@Cimorene: My mother was encouraged to have a c-section with me but after I was born, the doctors conceded that I wasn't actually overdue (i.e. I just took a little longer to reach the right size.) My mother was glad she refused to have one.
@katekate is squared: Just want to poke my head in here and say that earlier than 31 or 32 weeks doesn't always mean serious problems. My nephews were born at 29 weeks and 30 weeks and they had no serious problems. They are 5 and 8 years old now with no consequences from their early births. Lucky, I know-- but it's important to note that under 32 weeks is not necessarily a tragedy.
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In short, cement is the powder that you add to your water and aggregates to create a hardened product that is concrete.
So let's hope that you are driving on a concrete pavement and not a cement one, because if that would be the case - you'd be driving on a nice grey powder. #boxing
11/04/09
11/03/09
If you want to keep 15 cats and live in a town, keep them indoors and off your neighbor's property. As long as you scoop the litterboxes daily all should be fine and no one will ever know how many cats you really have in there.
And yes, I speak from experience. No further details will be disclosed.
Gretchen #boxing
11/03/09
I would like to go home now. #boxing
11/03/09
That hotel in Vancouver really needs to add complimentary yogurt to really rock my world. #boxing
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Oh, and we can play a hell of a rugby match too... though I probably shouldn't tempt fate a week and a half before the first autumn international.
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I'm from Texas and we're prone to exaggeration down here and I had to chuckle at this bit because I know I would have said "You could write a freaking novel..." I love that her dad was so precise in his measurement of how many pages could be written. #boxing
11/03/09
11/03/09
Would you like to save the babies? Then please redirect all funds spent on harassing women/spreading misinformation/threatening abortion providers to prenatal care.
K?
Much Love.
Snark. #boxing
11/03/09
**I love learning about badass women. It's almost a fixture here on Jez: Meet the fierce lady you weren't aware of a moment ago! #boxing
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11/03/09
sidenote: seriously! I was just in Dublin and wft! with abortion being illegal. crazytown. #boxing
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But that's probably from spending too much time in New York. #boxing
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.
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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?
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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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