Amphibious midwifery

I was inspired by the Guardian's free wallchart today to look up midwife toads (actually a type of frog). It turns out they are so called because the male carries the fertilised eggs on his back and subsequently wraps them around his legs to protect them from predators until they hatch into tadpoles. Er, maybe it's just me but that doesn't sound THAT similar to the duties of your average human midwife...

Speaking of which, having just read Misconceptions, Naomi Wolf's book about the medicalised, interventionist and downright inhumane model of antenatal care and birth in the USA, I am even more grateful for our cheery, practical midwives and their non-judgemental care so far. And especially for our specialist nurse from the regional cleft lip/palate team, who visited us at home and provided all the information and reassurance we could possibly want, including encouraging me to go ahead with the planned home birth if I want to. So now we just need to convince the obstetrician (although to be honest he is a lovely man too and I'm sure he won't be aggressive with his 'hospital care is best' agenda if we are really keen on home birth.)

Weeks: 25+1

Sauce for the gander...

Given the recent suggestion that older fathers are more likely to produce autistic children, should the US be consistent and prosecute any man who is so selfish as to inseminate his partner once he hits forty?

Pre-pregnant or sub-human?

OK, so the poem reading wasn't THAT bad. And they gave me a box of chocolates for my trouble which is more than I'm usually paid for poetry-related activities. In a way it was a pity that we only had 20 minutes, because it meant that I couldn't fully engage with the startling suggestion one of the students made, that male poets write about abstract concepts while female poets write about feelings. I don't know what evidence he was drawing on, but I think this view often has more to do with prior beliefs about men and women than anything in the poetry. If you expect male-authored poetry to be philosophical, abstract and rigorous and female-authored poetry to be emotional, concrete and woolly, then you will easily find examples to support you. But there are just as many counter-examples.

Even more proof that anti-woman sentiment is far from dead, and is in fact being written into law: the pregnancy police are watching you. This very disturbing article suggests nothing less than a return to state-sponsored biological tyranny the likes of which feminists thought they'd shaken off 40 years ago. We all want healthy children, but viewing women only in terms of their baby-making function, and criminalising them for failing in it, is hardly the way to ensure the best future for our society.

Weeks: 23+6