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  • 10
    Nov
    2011
    12:57pm, EST

    Placenta pills for postpartum blues: Gross or drug-free treatment?

    By Jane Weaver

    Some new moms are popping pills made from their dried, ground-up placenta as a way to ease postpartum depression, reports NBC's Renee Chenault-Fattah. Some placenta fans believe it also helps with breast milk production and regulates hormones.

    But while there may be nutrients in the placenta, Pennsylvania psychiatrist Dr. Deborah Kim says new moms need to seek a medically proven treatment for something as serious as depression.

    Watch the clip and let us know what you think. Would you try it?

    Some women believe consuming their own placenta can ward off postpartum depression. Psychiatrist Deborah Kim, however, tells WCAU-TV's Renee Chenault-Fattah there is no scientific evidence supporting these claims.

    Related:

    Placenta pizza? Some new moms try old ritual

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    25 comments

    Why is this considered so odd? I can't think of a single mammal that doesn't eat the placenta after giving birth. Why would we be any different. Plus it's not like anyone is just saying "Ya stick this gross, bloody thing in your mouth." It's in a pill.

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    Explore related topics: mental-health, pregnancy, depression, featured, womens-health, placenta
  • 29
    Jul
    2010
    6:31pm, EDT

    PSA: Meth is bad for pregnant ladies

    Hey! Did you guys know that meth is not good for pregnant women or their babies? We know. We'll give you a minute.

    Reuters Health reported on the study today. After treating three pregnant woman -- all meth users -- for uncontrolled high blood pressure, Dr. Ido Solt of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and his colleagues decided to study methamphetamine abuse in pregnancy. They compared 276 meth-using women to 34,055 non-meth-using women, all of whom delivered babies at a Phoenix hospital from 2000 to 2006.

    Solt and his team compared health factors such as preterm delivery and uncontrolled high blood pressure, and for almost every factor the researchers measured, the meth users and their babies fared worse. Shocking.

    To be fair, meth is a serious problem -- for teens, men and women, pregnant or not -- and drug use in pregnancy is nothing to be flip about. But in case you were considering methamphetamine abuse as a new hobby during your pregnancy, maybe don't? It's just science.

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    27 comments

    It's easy to pick on the people who did this study, but coming from L.A., I can tell you that Meth is a major social problem. That women will choose to take meth when they're pregnant shows how addictive this drug is, up there with alcoholism - ever seen alcoholic fetal syndrome? Not pretty. But we …

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    Explore related topics: meth, pregnancy, featured, drug-abuse, no-duh, obvs, melissa-dahl
  • 20
    Jul
    2010
    1:19pm, EDT

    White baby born to black parents

    A Nigerian couple just got quite a surprise: Angela Ihegboro gave birth to a white baby with blue eyes and curly blond hair, reports The Sun, a British tabloid.

    "Actually, the first thing I did was look at her and say, 'What the flip?'" says Ben Ihegboro, the baby's father, who came to Britain with his wife five years ago and now lives in South London with their two other children. He says infidelity is out of the question. "My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn't been, the baby still wouldn't look like that."

    The baby, which the couple named Nmachi, is not an albino, doctors say. Ben Ihegboro says his mother has a fairer shade of skin, "but we don't know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist. But even then, what is with the long curly blond hair?"

    It's an unusual case, but it's not unheard of. Skin and eye color are determined by melanin, and the amount or type of melanin is controlled by about a dozen different genes, as Bryan Sykes, an Oxford University professor of human genetics, told the tabloid. For the Ihegboros, Nmachi's blue eyes and blond hair must be the result of a trace of white ancestry from each of her parents' genes.

    "In mixed race humans, the lighter variant of skin tone may come out in a child -- and this can sometimes be startlingly different to the skin of the parents," Sykes told The Sun. "This might be the case where there is a lot of genetic mixing, as in Afro-Caribbean populations. But in Nigeria there is little mixing."

    Nmachi and her family have good company: In 2008, a set of twins -- one black, one white -- was born to a German couple (the mother is black, the father is white). Also that year, a British mixed race couple gave birth to their second set of twins with different colored skin. And just last week, the British tabloid the Mirror reported that a mixed-race woman gave birth to a set of twins -- she was so sure the babies would have different skin tones that she nicknamed them Salt and Pepper. (The mother is dark-skinned, and the father is white.)

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    230 comments

    We're all alike underneath our skin.....

    Show more
    Explore related topics: health, babies, pregnancy
  • 14
    Jul
    2010
    5:12pm, EDT

    Woman pregnant with two babies -- and they're not twins

    Utah resident Angie Cromar has a rare condition called uterus didelphys, which means she has a double uterus. And right now, there's a baby in both of them, each at different stages of development. One is five weeks and four days along; the other is six weeks and one day along, reports ksl.com, the website of NBC affiliate KSL-TV 5 in Salt Lake City.


    Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

    Although pregnancy in both uteruses is rare -- the chances are about 1 in 5 million -- this isn't the first recorded case. Nor is it the weirdest. In 1981, a woman with uterus didelphys became pregnant with triplets, two in the left uterus, one in the right. Babies on the left were delivered on the same day, two hours apart; baby on the right was delivered 72 days later. And in 1961, a woman with two uteruses, two cervices and two vaginas delivered two healthy babies. But even women without uterus didelphys can become pregnant with twins-that-aren't-twins. Last year, an Arkansas woman named Julia Grovenburg conceived while she was already pregnant, an example of a rare condition called superfetation.

    Discuss this story in the comments.

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    18 comments

    This story is biologically fascinating. I would NOT want to have two uterus' (uterii?); heck, the one I have now gets on my nerves lol. But what's with all of the comments regarding the paternity of the babies? That's not the point of the article!

    Show more
    Explore related topics: health, pregnancy, womens-health, melissa-dahl, curious-conditions

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