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An eight-year-old dog has touched the hearts of Argentines by saving the life of an abandoned baby, placing him safely alongside her own new puppies. The country's media are calling him "the miracle baby". He was born prematurely to a 14-year-old girl in a shanty town outside the capital, Buenos Aires. She is said to have panicked and abandoned the boy in a field, surrounded by wooden boxes and rubbish. Then along came La China, the dog which somehow picked up the baby and carried him 50m to place him alongside her own puppies. The dog's owner heard the child...

New Focus on Children at AIDS Seminar By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN Published: August 6, 2008 MEXICO CITY — The global response to the AIDS epidemic has short-changed children, health workers at the International AIDS Conference said here on Wednesday. Although governments and donors provide large amounts of money for H.I.V. treatment in the developing world, too little of that money reaches children, said Linda Richter, a psychologist in South Africa who delivered the first plenary lecture on children in the history of the conference. She also said that despite increased efforts to reach pregnant women, too few of them were...

London: A British mom has managed to retain her size zero figure – despite giving birth to 13 kids, with the 14th on its way. The 37-year-old Joanne Watson, in her first trimester, loves being pregnant and always manages to get back her 7st 5lbs ideal weight after giving birth. "I''m lucky because I always sail through my pregnancies and have no symptoms whatsoever at the moment," Mirror quoted her as saying. Joanne, who is 5ft 2ins, said: "Some people say I'm mad. But we're as thrilled that we're expecting for the 14th time as we were the first time....

"Cities across America are applying to participate in the fall 2008 nationally coordinated 40 Days for Life campaign – a focused initiative that promises to be the largest and longest coordinated pro-life mobilization in history," said David Bereit, national campaign director of 40 Days for Life. "Abortion claims more than 1.2 million innocent lives in the United States each year," he added, "and in 2008, the stakes for our nation are higher than ever. People of faith and conscience are approaching this challenge with a heightened sense of urgency." 40 Days for Life is a community-based campaign that features 40...

There are four things in America for which there is little forgiveness. The first is killing your wife, as O.J. Simpson discovered. The second is allegations of child molestation, as Michael Jackson found. The third is being old, as John McCain is rapidly discovering. And the fourth is having too many children, as I have found. Looking down at primitives with "too many" children is one of the last acceptable prejudices in the West. With our ninth child expected imminently, God willing, I find myself pitied and pilloried wherever I go. "Wow, that's a lot of kids," is a refrain...

"One morning in 2006 Kimberly, then a 38-year-old New York therapist, was getting her three children ready for their day at preschool. She was cooking breakfast for her two daughters and one son when her husband, Ken, called out from another part of the house, telling her there was a morning show segment on that she should watch. Kimberly (who did not want her last name used) turned on the television in the kitchen. As the camera panned across a group of youngsters and infants visiting the show's studio with their mothers, she moved closer to the screen -- and...

Bo(woof) In Commentary: Cuteness comes in many forms, although I believe the cutest is of the canine form. So what makes you feel warm all over (besides me peeing on your leg)?....http://boknowsonline.com/2008/05/29/q-t-piis/

Abortion is back in the news yet, understandably, many women still find it difficult to talk about. Here Lucy Cavendish – who has been through it twice – offers a candid view Virtually every woman I know of my generation has had an abortion. The problem is that no one talks about it. It is hidden away as if it were a dirty secret. This week, however, every time I've opened a newspaper or turned on the radio, abortion has been the topic du jour. First, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries called for the legal limit for terminations to be...

Breastfed babies are more intelligent than those weaned on formula milk, according to the most comprehensive study conducted on the issue. Doctors followed nearly 14,000 children over six and a half years and found that those who were breastfed fared significantly better in IQ tests. At the age of six and a half, children who had been exclusively breastfed scored 7.5 points higher in verbal intelligence tests and 5.9 points higher in overall IQ tests. Teachers also rated the breastfed children higher at reading, writing and solving mathematical problems. The finding, which confirms earlier research, raises the question of whether...

A young Iraqi girl holds her new Beanie Baby, donated by children of North Hills Christian School in Salisbury, N.C. Soldiers of Company D, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, distributed the toys to children from the Oman and Nassir schools in al Buaytha, March 24. Photo by 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs. FOB KALSU — Iraqi school children in Al Buaytha received toys from children their age from halfway around the world, March 24. Soldiers of Company D, 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Why doesn't the Democratic Party hold a primary among its superdelegates to reach a quick decision between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton? That idea was proposed publicly Wednesday by Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, because he believes Democratic chances in November will be hurt if the nominee isn't decided until the party's August convention. Bredesen himself is a superdelegate and undecided in the presidential race. The national convention will have almost 800 superdelegates — elected and party officials — whose votes for a presidential nominee are not bound by the results of any primary or caucus.

He rocks out in his diaper and delivers a hit Beatles song

Why Do We Love Babies? Parental Instinct Region Found In The BrainWhy do we almost instinctively treat babies as special, protecting them and enabling them to survive? (Credit: iStockphoto/Aldo Murillo) ScienceDaily (Feb. 27, 2008) — Why do we almost instinctively treat babies as special, protecting them and enabling them to survive? Darwin originally pointed out that there is something about infants which prompts adults to respond to and care for them which allows our species to survive. Nobel-Prize-winning zoologist Konrad Lorenz proposed that it is the specific structure of the infant face, including a relatively large head and forehead, large...

CHAPEL HILL - A professor's comments on Down syndrome and abortion angered some students on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus this week. Professor Albert Harris told students in his embryology class Monday that he thinks fetuses with Down syndrome should be aborted. In his lecture notes, he wrote: "In my opinion, the moral thing for older mothers to do is to have amniocentesis, as soon during pregnancy as is safe for the fetus, test whether placental cells have a third chromosome #21, and abort the fetus if it does. The brain is the last organ to become functional." Harris, who has...

Babies reveal natural gift for numbers 09 February 2008 From New Scientist Print Edition. They may seem to just eat, cry, sleep and poo, but 3-month-old babies may already be aware of how many animals are dangling from their mobiles. Véronique Izard at the University of Paris-South in France and her colleagues have discovered that babies have brain circuits dedicated to noticing quantity, adding weight to the argument that humans possess an innate sense of numbers. Izard had already shown in adults and 4-year-olds that numbers seem to be processed in a particular part of the brain, and separately from...

*Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas, Texas is a fairly famous institution and for a variety of reasons:* *1. John F. Kennedy died there in 1963* *2. Lee Harvey Oswald died there shortly after* *3. Jack Ruby-who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, died there a few years later..by coincidence* *'On the flip side, Parkland is also home to the second busiest maternity ward in the country with almost 16,000 new babies arriving each year. (That's almost 44 per day---every day)* *A recent patient survey indicated that 70 percent of the women who gave birth at Parkland in the first three months of...

A controversial new anti-illegal-immigration ad by GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul has sent his libertarian supporters into high dudgeon, but it's getting rave reviews from border-security hawks, including some Homeland Security officials.st nations."Eastern

Life is stressful enough. Thought I toss in something completely silly and shallow to lighten things up if but for a minute. With all the anticipation for their birth's, which of the following (or someone not listed here) has the prettiest baby. Suri Cruise. Shiloh Jolie-Pitt Dannielynn Birkhead

Six- and 10-month-old babies are much more capable judges of character than previously thought. Not only can infants pick out a good Samaritan, they tend to identify with them, according to a Yale University study published in the journal Nature.

Experts Urge Complete Global Access To Iodized Salt; Prevents IQ Loss And Brain Damage In Babies ScienceDaily (Dec. 13, 2007) — World experts in iodine deficiency today urged renewed international commitment to help prevent loss of IQ due to fetal brain damage by facilitating access to iodized salt for the final 30 percent of world households that don't yet have it -- most of them found in just 20 countries. At United Nations Headquarters, New York Weds. Dec. 12, the Network for Sustained Elimination of Iodine Deficiency and other issue stakeholders mark a major public health advance achieved in two...

Spartans did not throw deformed babies away: researchers Mon Dec 10, 1:22 PM ETAFP/File Photo: The statue of King Leonidas of ancient Sparta stands over the battlefield of Thermopylae, some... ATHENS (AFP) - The Greek myth that ancient Spartans threw their stunted and sickly newborns off a cliff was not corroborated by archaeological digs in the area, researchers said Monday. After more than five years of analysis of human remains culled from the pit, also called an apothetes, researchers found only the remains of adolescents and adults between the ages of 18 and 35, Athens Faculty of Medicine Anthropologist Theodoros...

I need to ask for you guys to put someone in your thoughts and prayers. Someone I work with at a site, a young black woman with 2 little boys under 4 was diagnosed with skin cancer when she was pregnant with the second boy last year. Because she's so dark, the skin changes had gone undetected for years, and they got worse when she got pregnant the second time. Even the Drs were baffled with her skin problems at first, and she got lots of wrong diagnosis' and treatment, up until about a month before the baby was born...

Help Arrives for Homeless Newborn Triplets, MomTuesday, November 13, 2007 GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Offers of help are pouring in for a homeless Michigan woman who recently gave birth to triplets. "We have received hundreds of calls," said Janie Bergeron, who directs Green Gables Haven, a Barry County shelter where Monica Roberts, her babies and her mother are staying. Bergeron's staff is working overtime this week to return telephone messages. "There are literally hundreds of people we're trying to call back," she told The Grand Rapids Press for a story published Tuesday. Invitations to take in the 33-year-old mother and...

PARENTS of sick children in Britain will be allowed to use IVF to create "spare-part babies" under controversial laws published yesterday. The legislation will dramatically relax rules on IVF clinics creating "saviour siblings" who can help cure their older brothers and sisters of medical conditions such as leukemia. Experts said that one day they could create a "designer baby" with kidneys perfectly compatible with a sibling suffering renal failure. More immediately, saviour siblings could give umbilical cord blood or bone marrow to family members in the hope of treating conditions such as sickle cell anaemia. The Government's Human Fertilisation and...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- From the first prenatal visit to delivery, the average U.S. cost of having a baby averaged roughly $7,600 -- for an uncomplicated birth. A report by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality -- a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services -- said the total, in 2004 dollars, includes payments for hospital childbirth, prenatal office visits, prescription medicines and other services.

It’s been a few weeks since September 12th, so if your early-pregnancy test colors positive, go claim your car, fridge or computer. Russia ’s imploding population has birthed schemes to nudge couples to conceive. September 12th was proclaimed the Day of Conception in the Ulyanovsk region of Russia . Pairs who “give birth to a patriot” nine months later on June 12th, Russia Day, win cash, cars, and other goodies. Prizes to procreate - how grim. One would think making babies would be reward enough. But Russia’s population dearth reflects negative 21st Century attitudes toward children. Between poverty, immorality, avarice...

Podcast Show Notes Hillary's $5,000 baby bond is a poorly conceived idea that won't encourage savings and passes the cost on to the babies who get it. Yeah, Washington DC is the one teach kids about savings and financial discipline. Other news: Not only did a company owned by the Samueli family get a $4 million earmark thanks to Congressman Pete Vicsclosky (D-IN) (whose district the company has ties to other than giving contributions to the Congressman) but they're being very about what they're spending the money on. Excuse me, we're taxpayers and have a right to know. (Hat Tip:...

The advertisement in the "Miscellaneous" column of the Bristol Times & Mirror newspaper was poignant. "Wanted," it read, "respectable woman to take young child." It was a sadly common request in Victorian Britain, where life was particularly hard for unmarried mothers. The ad had been placed by 25-year-old Evelina Marmon, who two months earlier, in January 1896, had given birth in a boarding house in Cheltenham to a little girl she named Doris. Evelina was a God-fearing farmer's daughter who had gone astray, left the farm for city life and resorted to work as a barmaid in the saloon of...

Industrialized nations fret about their declining population, but the more pressing problem is that developing nations can't control their growth. Anew divide is opening between shortsighted industrialized societies and the world's poorest countries. It's all about babies. In Japan, in Russia, in Germany and elsewhere in what development gurus like to call "the global North," panic has set in about fertility declines, and couples are exhorted to have and are rewarded for producing more children. Economic growth demands it. Bigger retirement bills come due every year as populations age. A shrinking labor force spells disaster. So fascinated are we in...

Motherless Squirrels' Nest Found On Downed Tree Limb LAKE CITY, Fla. -- At first glance, the scene appears normal: a Chihuahua mother appearing to cuddle with her pups as they nurse. A closer look at the days-old babies reveals they aren't canines, but four tiny squirrels, reported WJXT-TV in Jacksonville. A Columbia County family said its dog's maternal instinct kicked in when 10-year-old Mimi laid eyes on the baby squirrels. Mimi took the motherless squirrels in as if they were her own, making for one mix-and-match family. Their eyes are still closed, but their tails are a dead giveaway that...

Britain's most prolific surrogate mother is expecting again - and this time it's tripletsBy JAMES MILLS - More by this author » Last updated at 00:42am on 6th September 2007  After eight surrogate pregnancies in little more than a decade, you might think that Carole Horlock would have tired of giving birth. But Britain's most prolific surrogate mother is expecting again - and this time it's triplets. Miss Horlock, who will be 41 next month, is eight weeks into the pregnancy for a married woman left infertile after cancer. Scroll down for more...   Carole Horlockwith the surrogate son...

ST. PETERSBURG - Most of the 35-member team that helped bring the Byler sextuplets into the world during three hectic minutes held hands with Karoline and Ben Byler before the Caesarean section delivery. Then they prayed. Ben Byler said that was the most memorable moment in the Saturday night births of the couple's five sons and daughter at Bayfront Medical Center. They were the first sextuplets born in Florida and the 14th in the United States. "Thanks to the Lord above," he said Sunday morning. "It's sunk in now, and there's a lot of relief, except for this one. We've...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 200,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Baby blankets bring daddies and their newborns together through scent before they can meet in person Local knitter Lisa Akers was looking for a way to share her knitting skills with people in need. She started the Blankets for Deployed Daddies program to provide baby blankets to deployed soldiers who are expecting a newborn during their deployment. These blankets are specially designed to hold the father's unique scent as a way to introduce the baby to the father as early as possible. Volunteer knitters around the country are producing these blankets for expectant families. Created from a cotton blend yarn,...

Pregnant with her first child, Kandice Odom was feeling stressed. "My feet were swollen, I would get dizzy easily and it was hard for me to focus or concentrate," recalled the 22-year-old Jersey City resident. Then, after a routine doctor's visit into her sixth month of pregnancy, things got a lot more complicated. Odom's blood pressure was dangerously high and she was immediately referred to high-risk specialists at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center. A decision ultimately was made to deliver her baby by Caesarean section. Simone Marie Gilliard was born June 24 weighing just 2 pounds. "She was so small....

Most little girls play with dolls when they're young, miming the age-old role for women: marrying and building a family. And, for some, there is a stigma around women who don't want to have children. Old stories and fairy tales paint single women without children poorly -- as spinsters or witches. It seems odd that these stereotypes would continue to live today, suggests Madelyn Cain, author of "The Childless Revolution: What It Means To Be Childless Today." Making The Decision Despite the potential negative reaction from friends and families, many women, such as teacher Samantha Henderson, make the decision to...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 — Hoping to halt the growing number of injuries to infants and toddlers, the Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory Wednesday warning parents never to give cough and cold medicines to children under the age of 2 unless instructed to do so by a doctor. The warning is part of a broad reassessment by the agency of the safety of the popular medicines, which have been blamed for hundreds of adverse reactions and a handful of deaths in children under the age of 2. The F.D.A. will convene a panel of independent experts on Oct. 18...

Population levels across many parts of the developed world are declining, but this is particularly noticeable in former Eastern Bloc states where the number of children being born has plummeted within a generation.

A grisly case in Maryland has the pro-abortion movement distressed that a state law banning the murder of an unborn baby could be used against a woman accused of killing her unborn baby. This is what unintended consequences sound like to the abortionistas. First, here are the preliminary facts in this gruesome case. As of this writing, four pre-term infant bodies have been found at the Ocean City, Maryland, home of Christy Freeman, according to published reports. Police made this discovery after Freeman had been taken to a hospital bleeding heavily, and doctors found a placenta and an unevenly cut...

Babies not as innocent as they pretend By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/07/2007 Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected. Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life. Until now, psychologists had thought the developing brains were not capable of the difficult...

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota, June 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Minnesota couple welcomed the birth of all six of their sextuplets at St. Luke’s Hospital in Minneapolis yesterday,although the couple’s and their childrens’ story would have been far different if doctors had their way. "The babies arrived sooner than we'd hoped for, but we are optimistic," father Ryan Morrison said in a statement. "Brianna is doing well. Thanks to all who are praying for our family. We are very happy to be parents." After 22 weeks, Brianna Morrison gave birth to four boys and two girls just before midnight Sunday. All six...

WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty. This particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition. I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from...

CBNNews.com - JERUSALEM, Israel - Shevet Achim, a non-profit Christian organization based in Israel, has been saving the lives of babies and children who would otherwise die without critical heart surgery. Since its founding in 1994 by Jonathan Miles, Shevet Achim (Brothers United) has provided medical care for Palestinian children. In more recent years they've been able to transport children with critical heart conditions from Iraq to hospitals in Israel, as Iraqi medical centers aren't equipped to perform these complex procedures. Reading profile after profile and seeing photos of the children evoke a profound sense of humility. If a picture...

After months of giving ambiguous signals on abortion, Rudolph W. Giuliani is planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days, despite potential consequences among some conservative voters already wary of his views, aides said yesterday. At the same time, Mr. Giuliani’s campaign — seeking to accomplish the unusual task of persuading the Republican Party to nominate an abortion rights supporter as its presidential candidate — is eyeing a path to the nomination that would try to de-emphasize the early states in which abortion opponents wield...

Is it significant that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the federal ban on a controversial abortion procedure also happen to be the court's Roman Catholics? It is to Tony Auth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He drew Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. wearing bishop's miters, and labeled his cartoon "Church and State." Rosie O'Donnell and Barbara Walters hashed out the issue on "The View," with O'Donnell noting that a majority of the court is Catholic and wondering about...

This is why presidential elections matter even if and when you don't particularly like one candidate or the other. The re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 begat the nomination to the United States Supreme Court of Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Justice Alito's ascenion to the High Court last year begat today a landmark abortion ruling that anti-abortion advocates have pushed to get for years. You can spin this any other way you want but in the end it comes down to a simple matter of personnel. Justice Alito was willing and able to go in the law...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

Stretched hospitals separate mums and babiesBy Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent, Sunday Telegraph (UK) Last Updated: 11:54pm BST 14/04/2007 Newborn twins and triplets are being separated from their mothers and sent to different hospitals as neonatal units face growing shortages in specialist care for premature babies. Sarah Skates and Andy Scrace were separated from their twins, Kiera and Cameron It means that most hospitals have no choice but to send families in three or four different directions, says one expert. Neonatal units surveyed by Bliss, the premature baby charity, were full-up and unable to take new admissions for an average of...

Around 1980 my Dad showed me a book someone gave him as a crank gift, its title was 'Everything I know about Women' and every page was blank. I had to laugh because it was so true for me also. I know nothing about 'them' although a few have come into the sphere of my life here and there during my journey into the unknown. My POV is from the place of a 52 never married bach. The torment I suffered at the hands of Women is way to intiimate for this forum, but for some reason I still love...

Hoping to have a baby? Try ice-cream ICE-CREAM can help a woman conceive, according to new research. A study found the more high-fat dairy products a woman consumed, the lower was her risk of ovulation- related infertility. Those who ate ice-cream two or more times a week had a 38 per cent lower risk than those who did so less than once a week. The study, published today in the journal Human Reproduction, found that weight-watching women who replaced high-fat dairy products with skimmed milk or yoghurt could increase their likelihood of being infertile by more than four-fifths. Dr Jorge...