“Could a new drug prevent premature births? - Times Online” plus 4 more |
- Could a new drug prevent premature births? - Times Online
- Money before baby? - Boston Globe
- Experts still see life in health care stocks - Dubuque Telegraph Herald
- Reyes readies for college 18 years after abandonment - AZCentral.com
- Mini mum's miracle baby: 3ft 9in woman defied doctors who said giving ... - Daily Mail
| Could a new drug prevent premature births? - Times Online Posted: 30 Aug 2009 01:54 PM PDT |
| Money before baby? - Boston Globe Posted: 30 Aug 2009 02:15 PM PDT It would be easier if I knew I didn't want children, if, like some women I know, I could simply laugh, "Oh, I can barely take care of myself!" But I do want to be a parent. I also, however, don't want to become obsessed. It's way too easy to play out various scenarios in my mind: I could support all three of us on my freelancer's salary! Devin will make a great stay-at-home dad! Maybe we'll have octuplets and get our own reality show to pay the bills! (Um, I'm kidding about the last one.) When one friend, a 40-something mom of two, assures me that babies aren't really that expensive -- "just don't skimp on diapers" -- I take that nugget and savor it like a fine wine. See, it's possible! Then I remind myself that her youngest daughter just turned 20. Times have changed. (In fact, a new government report estimates it costs something like $292,000 to raise a kid to age 17.)  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Experts still see life in health care stocks - Dubuque Telegraph Herald Posted: 30 Aug 2009 08:03 AM PDT |
| Reyes readies for college 18 years after abandonment - AZCentral.com Posted: 30 Aug 2009 01:39 PM PDT On the first day of her life, she was dumped in the trash. Her story of abandonment helped create a state program that provides a safe alternative for unwanted newborns, a haven where scared mothers can drop off their babies. But for Esperanza Reyes, that narrative was never her own. The young woman who started life as Baby Hope, a name given to her by hospital workers, did not know abandonment. She knew only familial love and acceptance. The girl was about 3 hours old when paramedics found her May 7, 1991. It was trash day. Neighbors had stuck their barrels out along 30th Avenue in southwest Phoenix for curbside pickup, one of the few services this part of the city seemed to get. The sidewalks were dirt. There were no nearby parks. It appeared this clump of unkempt homes was left to fend for itself. It was an unusually hot week for early May. The afternoon temperature would hit 99 degrees, but at 5 a.m., it was a comfortable 70 degrees. Roy Grammer was on his way to his job as a carpenter for the city of Phoenix. As he pulled out of his driveway, he saw a man motioning frantically toward a barrel. "I thought, 'I need to go over there,' " he said. The baby was buried under 18 inches of trash but was crying loudly enough to be heard. "It sounded like a cat, is what it sounded like," Grammer said. He flung open the lid and backed up, expecting a cat to jump out. Nothing. So he peered inside. Someone had just dumped grass clippings in the bin. Grammer dug through it. "All of a sudden, I started seeing something moving," he said. It was an arm, with wiggling fingers, about 18 inches into the can. Grammer pulled away more grass and saw that a live baby had been placed in a large shopping bag that had been converted into a wastebasket. The baby was surrounded by trash - Grammer vividly recalled dirty underwear and a hair-spray can. "She was new," Grammer said. Although he had three children of his own, this was the first time Grammer had seen a placenta. He wrapped the baby in his sweatshirt and placed her on a mattress someone had left near the bin. He went to a nearby pay phone and dialed 911. Paramedics took the baby to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. Grammer said he acted on pure instinct. "All I did was what any normal human would have done," he said. He also figured he'd never see the child again. The story of the abandoned baby captured the city's attention. It was on the front page of the newspaper the next day. Television news crews staked out the hospital, where officials gave updates on the infant's condition. She was fine, they said. She weighed 4 pounds, 9 ounces, and one spokesperson said she was "behaving like a little angel." Nurses dubbed her Baby Hope. People sent toys and clothes to St. Joseph's. And at least 30 people had contacted the hospital, wanting to adopt the girl. Officials said they would probably place her with foster parents, who might have the option of adopting her. Shrine omenRaymond and Elizabeth Reyes had become foster parents after finding out they couldn't conceive children. They adopted Ramon, a developmentally disabled child, in May 1983. About seven years later, they thought about adopting a daughter. They let the state know their wishes. Raymond worked as a garbage collector for Tempe. While making his rounds in the Victory Acres neighborhood, he saw a discarded shrine. He inspected it and found a brittle picture of a saint. He took it to his mother-in-law, who identified it as St. Teresa. She gave the picture back to him, telling him that the saint would bring them their daughter. Elizabeth had seen the story of Baby Hope on the news. She hoped against hope that maybe she would be chosen to adopt the baby. Then the phone rang. Baby Hope would be placed with them. The Reyes family was told to come into the hospital through a back way, Elizabeth said. "We had to run away from the reporters there," she said. Hospital officials "told us not to say anything." They named her Esperanza, the Spanish word for "hope," and raised her in their modest home, next to a freeway wall in Guadalupe. A couple of years later, the Reyeses called Grammer at his southwest Phoenix home. Was he the Roy Grammer who had found the baby? Come meet us at this restaurant. Grammer met a 2-year-old girl in a holiday dress. And he met her parents. They vowed to stay close from then on. "She's a strong kid, and she's got the best parents," said Grammer, who has since moved to north Phoenix but stays in contact with the Reyes family. He has them over for swimming parties. They bring him homemade tamales. Esperanza sent him a Father's Day card that he cherishes. He attended her quinceaera, the traditional 15th-birthday celebration. Grammer said he marvels at how she has grown and at the Reyeses' instincts as parents. "They may not be the richest people. They may not have the fanciest clothes," he said. "But I'm going to tell you, as far as I'm concerned . . . nobody in the world could have done a better job with her than they have done." Grammer said he might have waited for "some right time" to tell Esperanza the story of how she was found in the trash. But it seemed the Reyeses made the right choice by telling her from the start. "These people have just good everyday heart and common sense," he said. "They were up front with her from the get-go, and I think she's turned out exceptional." All her life, Esperanza has known that she was rescued from a trash bin and came to be adopted by a Guadalupe family. As she matured, the story took on a new meaning. "I started seeing how much of an effect it has had on me," she said, sitting in the living room of her home. "Not in such a negative way, but more in a positive way." The realization came slowly during adolescence, when Esperanza started learning about what motherhood means and started thinking about what would prompt a woman to throw away her newborn. "I just started thinking, like, I was possibly a mistake, I guess," she said. "I started thinking about it a little too much, overthinking, wondering why she did what she did . . . "Then I started realizing that God has a plan for us all, and this is the best choice for me. I'm surrounded by a wonderful family that loves and adores me, and I wouldn't ask for more than I already have." Esperanza is 18, the age that health officials target to spread the word about the safe-haven law. She's about the age of the University of Arizona student who earlier this year gave birth to a baby, then hid it in a bag stuffed into a laundry basket. She can imagine how she would feel if she found herself pregnant. "Very scared," she said, "and just not sure who I would go to and who would help me." She doesn't think she could abandon a newborn, but she acknowledges, "In that situation, I really wouldn't know what I would do." Safe-haven lawTales of child abandonment seem to come in waves. And in November 1997, there was a wave. Within one week, two mothers abandoned newborns. Baby Jasmine was left outside a child-care center in Phoenix. Baby Rachel was found in a dumpster. Again the issue of child abandonment was the talk of the city. A reporter tracked down the Reyes family and updated Esperanza's story. She was 6. It put a face on the problem and showed what could happen if the babies were rescued. It resonated with a state lawmaker in Tucson, Ruth Solomon. She decided to make Arizona one of the first states with a safe-haven law, providing a place for mothers to leave their unwanted newborns without penalty. It took three years of trying. Solomon had to fight off opponents who thought the program, novel at the time, would encourage young women to be promiscuous and dump their babies. Arizona's safe-haven law passed in 2001. "It's worth the effort if we saved one baby," said Solomon, who left the Legislature in 2003, "and we've saved many." Esperanza's mother said she reflects on her daughter's fortune every time she hears about an abandoned baby. "I get flashbacks when they do babies like that," she said. On a living-room wall, Elizabeth has hung a framed tribute to her daughter. There are press clippings about the rescue as well as photos from her appearances on television talk shows and religious stations. But to Esperanza, it's almost like Baby Hope was another person. "It's not a huge issue for me," she said. "(It's not) that it's traumatized me or scarred me completely to the point that I just break down all the time. "It's something that just, it happened and it's there. I look back at it sometimes and question little things, but it doesn't make me cry anymore." She did cry during her middle-school years. A lot. Alone in her room, not letting her parents know. But it wasn't caused by an unlocked memory or buried trauma. It was more typical: She was getting teased. "They'd call me 'trash,' and make fun of it," she said. 'Took care of it'Although she remembered being teased by a lot of people, her mother remembers it was just one boy, and that Esperanza stood up for herself. "She took care of it," Elizabeth said. Her daughter got off the school bus, then turned and shouted at the boy to come out and meet her. He chickened out and got off at a stop a few blocks away. Esperanza joked that the boy is probably in prison now. "It's sad, but it's true," she said. Esperanza got over the taunting by the time she started attending Marcos de Niza High School in Tempe. She wrote about it in essays every year, she said, the amazing story practically ensuring a high grade. Esperanza will be the first person in her family to attend college. She has abandoned thoughts of attending school in California or at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff for now, since those plans met resistance from her protective parents. "She said she wanted to go to NAU," Elizabeth said. "I said, 'ASU is right there. You can go there and (live at) home.' " Esperanza shook her head. "She's going to think I'm her baby forever," she said. Esperanza began classes at Mesa Community College last week. She plans to enroll at Arizona State University when she decides on a major. "I had a few classes where just being in them intrigued me," she said. "Then I experience something else and I change my mind again." She also likes creative writing, although she has resisted her mother's pleas that she start writing her own life story. "I don't think (my life) is interesting enough to write about it," she said. She expects someday it will be. But when that time comes, the story of her birth and miracle rescue will be just the first chapter. "I don't want it to be the main interest in my life," she said, "or why people know me. . . . I'm more than just my past."  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Mini mum's miracle baby: 3ft 9in woman defied doctors who said giving ... - Daily Mail Posted: 29 Aug 2009 02:59 PM PDT By Laura Topham Last updated at 12:47 AM on 29th August 2009  Miracle mother: Karina with her 5ft 9in husband Paul and their daughter Freya who she risked her life to have Karina White is often stopped by strangers as she pushes her daughter's pram through the streets near her home. Given that she can barely peer over the top, passers-by are usually concerned that a baby has been left in the care of a young child. It's only on closer inspection that they realise Karina is actually a mature woman. She just happens never to have grown taller than an average six-year-old. Karina is 3ft 9in and one of the smallest women in Britain ever to have given birth. More than that, the 33-year-old risked her life to become a mother, having defied doctors who warned her pregnancy could kill her. They simply did not believe there was enough space within her tiny body to carry a baby virtually to term. But she was determined to become the first woman with her condition to successfully give birth. Today, she and her husband Paul could not be happier, and they pay little heed to the astonished looks she attracts as she wheels their daughter around their home town of Bolton in Lancashire. 'Of course, people stare at me and Freya,' says Karina, whose limbs and body are in perfect proportion - giving her a doll-like appearance. 'But I don't care, they can look as much as they like - I want to show my gorgeous daughter off to the world. 'Children often shout "look at that little mummy" and people are always asking how old my little sister is, by which they mean Freya. 'Sometimes people approach, worried that I'm too young to be looking after a baby, then get embarrassed when they see my face up close and realise their mistake. 'I'm not embarrassed at all, though. I'm just incredibly happy to have Freya and that she is healthy. My size doesn't matter to me and it doesn't matter to Freya.'  Eye to eye with her baby: Most prams were too high for Karina - this one came from Germany Indeed, it is because of Karina's full and active life that she and Paul - who is 5ft 9in - are astonishingly unconcerned by the likelihood that Freya has inherited Karina's rare condition, Spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia Congenita. Yet at one year old, Freya is only just reaching the size of an average newborn.
'We always knew it was a possibility, but we don't care at all, and I hope Freya doesn't in the future - Paul and I think Freya is absolutely perfect,' says Karina. 'Everyone's different and I don't see being short as a disability. Although I was bullied at school, I've always enjoyed my life, held down a job and had no reason to complain.' Karina's parents, who don't have the growth condition, found out Karina was affected when she was three years old. Her mother had noticed the slow growth and curved spine by the time Karina reached six months, but it took two-and-a-half years for her worried parents to find a doctor who would investigate - then tests revealed the genetic glitch that prevents proper bone growth. Although Karina was in and out of hospital during childhood - for operations on her hips and cleft palate, as well as frequent monitoring and measuring - she was able to live a full life with her normal-sized brother and sister, attending mainstream schools then finding work as a seamstress and a shop assistant. But doctors told Karina's parents that she would never be able to have children because they were convinced pregnancy would kill her, and when Karina was approaching her teenage years they broke that news to her. 'I was 12 when I heard how dangerous having children would be for me and that it was highly unlikely I'd ever be able to bear a baby,' she recalls. 'At that point, I didn't mind too much as I was only a child myself and couldn't contemplate having my own family.  Baby on board: Karina was often mistaken for a pregnant child when she was carrying Freya 'I didn't think I'd ever find a husband anyway - I was only used to sniggering and name-calling from boys. After school, I went on a couple of dates, but I felt very self-conscious and it didn't work out.' But then, at a Christmas party in 1995, friends introduced Karina to Paul, who works for an electronics company, and everything changed. 'We connected instantly and spent the whole evening chatting. I knew I'd finally met someone I could trust and we started dating. He is three feet taller than me, so people stared even more when we were together. But he didn't mind, so I didn't either.' Paul proposed on Karina's 21st birthday two years later and they began discussing starting a family. 'Until I met Paul, I'd always just accepted that I couldn't have children. But once I met him I started thinking how wonderful it would be to have a family. 'I knew Paul was really keen, so I had to explain it was probably impossible for me. He said he loved me and wanted to be with me whether or not we were able to have a baby.' Refusing to give up hope, Karina went to her doctor to discuss the possibility. She discovered that medical advances meant tests could now determine how her body would cope with pregnancy. For three months, she underwent a series of assessments, such as lung tests, to see how much extra strain they could handle, and scans to see how much room there was in her body for a baby to grow. Doctors feared that Karina's size meant her back wouldn't be able to cope with the weight of a bump, and recommended adoption instead. But then, three months later, test results showed Karina could attempt pregnancy under close observation, although there were still risks and carrying the baby to full-term would not be possible. There was also a 50 per cent chance the baby would inherit her condition, which raised ethical questions. 'We were elated. We didn't focus on the risks - only on the fact that doctors had said pregnancy was possible,' says Karina. 'Doctors said there was no way of knowing whether the baby would have my condition or not. Paul and I discussed the possibility and although it had been hard for me as a child to be so small, it would be much easier for our baby growing up because she would have someone her own size around - me. 'People also told us that schools are more tolerant nowadays and there is less name-calling. Ultimately, I am a really happy person and we knew our child would have a happy life, too.' The couple waited until they were married before trying to conceive. They wed in June 2005, with Karina wearing a specially-made gown and a pair of size 13 children's shoes studded with crystals. Then, in summer 2007, they began trying for a baby - and she became pregnant within months. 'When the test came back positive we were absolutely thrilled. Suddenly we were on the way to what we both wanted so badly,' says Karina.  Happy family: Paul and Karina have no regrets about having Freya who has inherited her mother's growth problem 'I was obviously worried because nobody could predict what would happen - no woman with my condition has ever tried to have a baby before - but I passed all the checks, so I put my faith in the doctors. 'My parents were really anxious because they had been told pregnancy would kill me. I explained that modern medical care was much better and that I'd had a battery of tests, which convinced them to support me. 'Paul was very calm and said we would deal with each day as it came. I actually felt quite safe, as I would be closely monitored with fortnightly hospital appointments and frequent scans. 'The first scan was at just eight weeks and even then there was life showing - a little peanut-shaped mass. It took my breath away.' At first, the pregnancy went much easier than she had feared - the hormones actually lessened her lifelong arthritis pains. But the bump was much more visible because of Karina's height - and by 20 weeks it was already almost as big as her. As she continued to expand, Karina found herself increasingly becoming the focus of unwanted attention. 'People would literally stop and stare when they saw me, because it looked so strange. Some mistook me for a pregnant child. I am used to people gawping at me, but it did get too much at times. 'I wanted people to ask me so I could explain, because I have nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes they'd come up to me, realise I'm an adult, then get even more confused.' Karina focused on preparing for the baby's arrival. 'Finding maternity clothes was a nightmare - I made most of them by buying size 14 dresses and shortening them,' she says. 'We needed a specially adapted nursery where I could reach everything, so we arranged a changing mat on the floor instead of a table and bought a Moses basket low enough to allow me to get a baby in and out of it. 'None of the small prams we found had a low enough carriage, so we imported a special one from Germany - the only one I could see over the top of.' From the later scans, it became clear that the baby was smaller than normal and would probably have the same condition as Karina - although blood tests after birth would be the only way of knowing for certain.  Devoted: Karina has overcome bullies who mocked her size and will help her daughter if she suffers the same Yet even with an abnormally light baby, carrying around a bump so proportionally huge was exhausting for Karina. 'I barely slept at all for the last six weeks. My bump was so heavy that Paul had to help me in and out of bed and even turn me over. I couldn't dress myself, as I couldn't reach over my bump and I struggled to walk. 'The weight was just too much for my back and ankles.' At 31 weeks, doctors decided to admit Karina to hospital because they knew a premature birth was imminent. At 33 weeks, on August 17 last year, her waters broke as the baby had become too large for her body to cope with. Because Karina's pelvis is too small for her to give birth naturally, Freya was delivered by an emergency Caesarean. 'I was scared by the C-section because nobody knew how it would affect me. The doctors must have been nervous too because they were in unknown territory and operating on a miniature scale.' Thankfully the Caesarean went well and Freya was born, seven weeks premature and weighing just 3lb 8oz. She was rushed to an incubator, however, as she had breathing problems and a cleft palate. 'She was absolutely tiny when she was born - but so beautiful,' says Karina quietly. 'We couldn't hold her for a few weeks, which was upsetting, but Paul and I stayed by her side. My parents were elated - and incredibly relieved that I was all right. 'Freya needed medical care, even when she finally came home in November, but she is getting stronger all the time. She will have her cleft palate repaired when she is 18 months old and able to cope with the operation.' Blood tests are expected to show Freya has the same condition as her mother, though doctors say she could grow taller than Karina. Paul had already adapted their home for Karina by lowering the bathroom and kitchen fittings, and setting up remote controls for the lights. He has now begun further adjustments for Freya. 'Paul has made a low wardrobe that she'll be able to reach and we are trying to work out what to do about the bath - he lifts me in and out of it, but obviously a girl won't want her father doing that. 'Freya is getting heavier now - 12lb 8oz - so I soon won't be able to lift her myself, but we will work around that. 'She is easier for me to cope with than an average-sized baby would have been. It is obvious from her size that she will be small like me - but it won't be a problem for her. 'People might stare at us and think we look strange, but I know I can make her happy.' With such extraordinary courage, it's hard not to feel this remarkable woman will be as good as her word. Share this article: This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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Karina White risked her life to have a baby against medical advice. If she had died the baby would have either died too or been motherless. Why don't people think about what is best for the child before they breed?
- Vincent Packham, Blackpool, Lancs, UK, 29/8/2009 01:53
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