Shout Outs
Gland Larceny: When Testicle Thefts Took Chicago by Storm
Two decades into the 21st century, male and female genitals mark the new frontier of human organ transplantation. But testicle transplants remain off limits, except in extremely rare cases, for bioethical reasons. A century ago, however, rejuvenation-minded surgeons embraced the idea with gusto. If a pair of testicles makes a guy masculine, why not three?
Americans Fell for a Theranos-Style Scam 100 Years Ago. Will We Ever Learn?
Randy Dotinga Randy Dotinga is former president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, a non-profit association of freelance writers and non-fiction authors. He has been a freelance writer since 1999 and specializes in health/medicine, politics, books, and the odd and unusual. You can follow him at @rdotinga.
VOX: Meghan Markle’s postpartum privacy could be good for moms
Blaming Women for Infertility in the 1940s | JSTOR Daily
Infertility is notorious for its impact on mental health, with many people who are unable to conceive reporting shame, anxiety, and depression. Today, most medical providers assure patients that they’re not to blame for difficulty getting pregnant. But in the 1940s, blaming women for infertility was fairly common medical practice, as medical writer Randi Hutter Epstein explains.
The People Building Their Lives Around Their Menstrual Cycles
F or the past five months, 27-year-old Sara Robbert has been tracking her menstrual cycle – in a graph-ruled notebook, scribbling down a sentence each day about how she feels. Every 28 days or so, she has a new set of data points, which she mentally adds to an ever-expanding portrait of her own emotional and physiological patterns.
Welcome to NYT Parenting. Here’s Why We Won’t Say ‘Natural Birth.’ (Published 2019)
It’s imprecise and can make families whose births are deemed not “natural” feel shame. We are thrilled to introduce our website, NYT Parenting. Our goal is to provide a trove of evidence-based, useful guidance to parents and people who are thinking about becoming parents.
Honey, the Baby Is Coming; Quick, Call the Photographer (Published 2012)
Lynsey Stone does not set foot in the shower without placing her cellphone on a nearby ledge, lest she miss an urgent text from a woman in labor. She schedules vacations 10 months in advance to ensure they do not conflict with due dates, and on family outings she and her husband leave their Granbury, Tex., home in separate cars, in case she needs to race to the hospital.
Nine ways hormones affect your health & wellbeing
YOU might think you control your own behaviour, but actually much of the time your hormones do. Even the tiniest swing in hormones, down to a billionth of a gram, can have a dramatic impact on the body and affect your behaviour, metabolism, sleep, mood, immune system, puberty, sexual experience, and how you eat, grow, hate, love, and think – to name but a few.
Hormones and Health: What to Know About Cortisol, Serotonin, Dopamine, Estrogen, Progesterone, and Testosterone | Everyday Health
Hormones are vital chemicals that enable daily bodily functions, reproduction, movement, and more. Learn about cortisol and stress; serotonin, dopamine, estrogen and women; progesterone and pregnancy; testosterone and men’s health.
How hormones went from theoretical to overhyped in one century
From metabolism to sex drive, hormones come in tiny packets that pack a powerful punch, and yet there is a lot of misinformation about these chemicals. So Randi Hutter Epstein, a doctor and medical writer, decided to set the record straight. The result is her book Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything.
Randi Hutter Epstein’s “Aroused”
Randi Hutter Epstein is a medical writer, lecturer at Yale University, Writer in Residence at Yale Medical School, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is the author of Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank (2010) and the new book, Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything .
AROUSED | Kirkus Reviews
One of history’s most prolific inventors receives his due from one of the world’s greatest biographers. Pulitzer and National Book Award winner Morris ( This Living Hand and Other Essays, 2012, etc.), who died this year, agrees that Thomas Edison (1847-1931) almost certainly said, “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration,” and few readers of this outstanding biography will doubt that he was the quintessential workaholic.
Spring 2018 Announcements: Science
There’s no end to meditations on and investigations of humankind’s big questions. Examinations of the self, human nature, and our place in the universe abound in these notable spring science titles. Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything Randi Hutter Epstein.
10 Women Changing the Way We See the World
These are the women who run the labs, university departments, and technologies companies with a drive that shows the next generation of leaders how it’s done.
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Getting Carsick As An Adult Is A Real Thing, According To Doctors, & It’s More Common In Women
There’s nothing like a good road trip. Snacks, music, great company, and maybe a dog or two, all cruising along together – love it. But a good road trip can easily turn south if you get carsick. This is doubly frustrating if you were always the kid…
The Family of Surgeons That Got Famous by Secretly Using Forceps
Forceps were a vast improvement on previous emergency-childbirth practices, which were more or less limited to breaking the mother’s pubic bone, performing a Caesarian section (procedures that could save the fetus but often killed the mother), or stabbing or cutting the fetus in utero (which invariably killed the fetus but sometimes saved the mother).
Elisabeth Bing Dies at 100; ‘Mother of Lamaze’ Helped Change Childbirth (Published 2015)
Elisabeth Bing, who helped lead a natural childbirth movement that revolutionized how babies were born in the United States, died on Friday at her home in Manhattan. She was 100. Her death was confirmed by her son, Peter. Ms. Bing taught women and their spouses to make informed childbirth choices for more than 50 years.
13 Facts About Ovaries
Ovaries are only about the size of large grapes, but they’re one of the most important organs in the female body. Their primary responsibilities include producing eggs and secreting sex hormones that promote fertility. In this way, the future of humanity depends on them. Read on to learn more about these tiny but mighty organs.
Honey, the Baby Is Coming; Quick, Call the Photographer (Published 2012)
Lynsey Stone does not set foot in the shower without placing her cellphone on a nearby ledge, lest she miss an urgent text from a woman in labor. She schedules vacations 10 months in advance to ensure they do not conflict with due dates, and on family outings she and her husband leave their Granbury, Tex., home in separate cars, in case she needs to race to the hospital.
You Really Can Run Through Your Whole Pregnancy, So Why Does Everyone Say You Can’t?
If you want to feel social judgment smack you like a wall of icy wind, try doing something outrageous as a pregnant person, like buying a bottle of wine or surfing. Outsize reactions to your belly-button piercing reveals a lot about how society…
It’s not labor, it’s bliss!
On a morning last December, Stephanie Benelli was floating on a cloud of strawberry-colored mist. The mist turned orange, then swept over her, bringing her even deeper into a relaxed state. Was she getting a massage, or perhaps enjoying an aromatherapy session? Far from it.
Complex truth of pregnancy remains shrouded in taboos
There is a certain image of pregnancy visible in the advertisements around us that depicts soon-to-be mothers as clean, pastel-coloured and happy. It all seems very far from what I imagine, which is a bit more along the lines of the famous scene from Aliens with John Hurt, where an alien comes ripping out of his stomach.
CBS 2 HD News Investigates: Drinking While Pregnant
NEW YORK (CBS 2) – It has long been taboo, but now is a growing trend: moms to be drinking for two. And believe it or not, some doctors say drinking alcohol while pregnant might not be so bad. The question then becomes how much is too much?