Times have changed since women going on birth control risked the pelvic infections of the Dalkon Shield or hormones dosed perilously high. Intrauterine devices (IUDs) have been redesigned to be very safe. The contraceptive sponge is almost risk free—though there are more effective ways to prevent pregnancy. Condoms are safe for everyone and are the only form of birth control that protects against sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). And the Pill is so safe and effective these days that it is available over-the-counter in some countries.

“The Pill is one of the most widely studied drugs; it has probably been studied more than aspirin,” says Anne Foster-Rosales, MD, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Golden Gate and a professor at the University of California, San Francisco.

The Pill can be good for you
“There are profound and considerable noncontraceptive benefits for most methods,” says Lee Shulman, MD, a professor at Northwestern University who is on the board of directors of the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals. Depending on the formula of the medication, the Pill can do the following.

• Help reduce menstrual bleeding for women at risk of anemia
• Reduce painful periods
• Cut back on the risk of uterine infection and ovarian cancer
• Treat PMS mood swings
• Help clear up mild to moderate acne

But birth control still has risks
Most side effects of the Pill are minor, such as breast tenderness, headaches, or nausea, and they often subside after a few months. But rare, serious side effects include blood clots, heart attack, and stroke. Women who smoke or have any sort of heart problems should not use hormonal methods of birth control. (It’s a good idea to ask to be screened for heart problems before starting one.) “It’s critical that women realize that whether it’s a birth control pill or baby aspirin, when they put a pill in their mouth there’s a risk,” says Dr. Schulman.

IUDs (intrauterine devices made of copper and/or plastic that provide years of continuous contraception) can spread an existing infection from the vagina to the uterus—which is why your doctor should test you for infections before the implantation procedure, and why IUDs are generally not recommended for those at higher risk for STDs, such as women with multiple partners. However, implanting a Mirena (one of two types of IUDs available currently in the U.S.) may actually help prevent infection by thickening the mucus that covers the cervix. (The thick mucus plugs the opening to the uterus and helps stop infections from getting in.)

Even with condoms, there’s a risk: A very small percentage of people are allergic to latex but can use polyurethane condoms instead.

Then there’s the risk that birth control won’t work…
All birth control methods have a failure rate—even sterilization. Unless your method is abstinence, there’s always a possibility that heterosexual sex could result in pregnancy. But the risk of failure per year is less than 1% for many methods, as opposed to the 85% chance of pregnancy if you don’t use birth control.

Pay attention!
The biggest reason for birth control failure is neglecting to use the method correctly or consistently.

Dear Yvonne,
I heard it’s possible for a woman to have an orgasm while giving birth. Is this fact or fiction?
-Anna Maria

Dear Anna Maria, 
Yes, females can indeed experience climax during natural childbirth, a reaction Dr. Danielle Harel coined an “unexpected birthgasm.” In researching this phenomenon, Harel learned some women have experienced a rather surprising orgasm at the moment of birth without sexual stimulation or fantasy. Understandably, given the circumstances, this response is not interpreted by these women as sexual. It has been speculated that one of the reasons for this reaction is due to the baby’s head putting pressure on the pelvic and hypogastric nerve system as it descends, inducing orgasm.

In learning about birthgasms, couples have actively sought to have a woman experience such a “passionate birth.” Research indicates that the primary factors that allow for such are that:

- The woman has a good sex life and understands everything that birthing entails.
- A woman and her partner incorporate massage, kissing and masturbation as part of the birthing experience.
- The woman is not given anesthesia during childbirth and uses sexual stimulation to ease contractions.
- The woman is in a safe, private environment for the birth.
- The woman’s partner is supportive, for example, he or she holds her. 
 
For information on how a woman can have an orgasmic pregnancy, please check out my newly released book “Your Orgasmic Pregnancy: Little Sex Secrets Every Hot Mama Should Know.”

Dr. Yvonne Fulbright

Nadia Molinari knew she would have to return to work eight weeks after her daughter was born, but she never imagined she would be paying more for child care than rent.

"There are weeks where I pay day care, put money toward rent and there's like $25 left over," said Molinari, 28. "I have a college degree. Why am I struggling so hard?"

As the economy goes south, child-care costs are projected to heap an even bigger burden on working families. Market rates for infant center day care have risen by 38% to about $19,200 in the past four years, state figures show.

RELATED: CITY'S HOUSING MARKET HAMMERED

Molinari pays $622 a month for a studio apartment in East New York, Brooklyn, $300 in college loans and $700 for day care for her 1-year-old daughter, Iylah Birmingham.

She takes home $500 a week as a procurement analyst for the city Education Department. Although she has had the job since December 2007, Molinari is considered a temp because of a hiring freeze.

She says she skips lunch so she can pack a good one for Iylah and make a healthful dinner.

"I was raised by a single mom who struggled to make ends meet, but me and my sister never knew that," she said. "I want better for my daughter, but I feel like I'm not giving her everything she deserves."

Molinari is among tens of thousands of city residents who qualify for a break on child-care costs but aren't getting any help. She is No. 32,909 on the city's voucher waiting list.

An Administration for Children's Services spokeswoman acknowledged the agency is able to fund only one-third of the families who qualify. Federal and state aid has dropped by $50 million since 2004.

"When the city was flush, they plugged the holes with a one-time fix," said Betty Holcomb, policy director at Child Care, Inc. "We think things are only going to get worse in the years ahead."

Families who don't qualify for city subsidies can face an equally difficult burden.

The income cutoff for a family of four is $47,700. A couple with two young children making about $52,000 can expect to pay more than $23,000 a year in child-care costs, close to half their income.

Most families look for cheaper alternatives, cobbling together a network of relatives or home-based day care providers. That can be a burden on family members and can affect the quality and consistency of care their children receive.

Mercedes Moreno is a financial education trainer in Manhattan; her husband, Mark, is an accountant. Together, they make about $95,000, but they can afford care for only one of their sons, 2-year-old Timo.

Mortgage payments of $3,000 per month for their Queens Village home, plus transportation and food costs, eat up much of their income. Moreno said she found a place she loved that could take both of her children, but at $2,000 a month it was too expensive.

Instead, her mother, an unemployed factory worker, halted her job search to take care of Moreno's 4-month-old child, Thaniel.

"It's not fair to her," said Moreno, 30. "I can't afford to pay her. She has bills. It should be easier for working parents."

MEREDITH KOLODNER

Tough talk about tough times: How parents can talk to kids about the economy

---

Their close friend recently lost his job in pharmaceutical sales, and several neighbors are reluctantly putting their houses up for sale. So Jen and Peter Singer decided to discuss the economy with their 10- and 11-year-old sons in much the same way as they talked about Jen's diagnosis last year with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

"We told them the truth," says Jen Singer, author of "You're a Good Mom (And Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either.)" "As a family, we are really feeling the pinch and we need to cut back, and we shared this with our sons. But we told them we don't have to sell our house and that we'll be all right. We don't want their fears to grow much bigger than the reality of the situation is."

RELATED: 10 MOST STABLE JOBS IN NYC

Kids may not understand the subprime and leveraged mortgages, but they know something's just not right with the world. Often, kids don't raise anxiety-producing concerns with a parent, says Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the NYU Child Study Center. Since your child may be stressing about your financial situation without you knowing it, now's a good time to open the lines of communication, experts say.

How much you share is obviously a personal decision, but parents should take into account the child's age. Generally, kids 6 and above are old enough to share in a family discussion of the economy.

Since young children - 6 up to tweens - are primarily concerned with how the economic situation affects them, be positive, calm and reassuring. The message that you want to send is that they will always be secure and taken care of, Gallagher says.

"Let them know about any possible changes that may occur, such as cutting back at Christmas or not taking a vacation," he says. "Tell them that you will always be able to make sure they are fed, clothed, have a school to go to and a place to live."

Even if your job is secure, your child probably knows someone at school whose parent is out of work. It's up to a parent to help your child stop stressing about the situation, and to understand that your family will survive the current economic woes.

"Reassure your child that you are all in this together as a family, and that you will be okay," says Susan Newman, social psychologist and the author of "The Book of No: 250 Ways to Say It - and Mean It." "Look at it as an opportunity. We have become a culture that just gives in to our children. The current economy is an opportunity for parents who have been saying yes to say no, and teach their children how to deal with disappointment - which, of course, they will face when they are older."

If your child is in elementary or even middle school, there is no need to go over your balance sheets or say you have X number of dollars in the bank. Put the discussion into terms they understand. When Craig Silverman, a retirement planning specialist at AXA Equitable Advisors, had a discussion with his 11-year-old son, David, he related it to illness.

"I explained that the economy has the flu, and the government is giving them medicine," he says. "I said that hopefully the medicine will work, but that we just have to be patient and wait."

No matter what the circumstances, now's the time to keep family life as normal as possible. Kids feel it when the house is a pressure cooker, so try to maintain family dinner hours and bedtime story routines.

It's not uncommon, when parents lose a job or a house, that they become so stressed out they pay less attention to the child. "Then in addition to the monetary loss, there is a relationship loss," Gallagher says. "Parents may stop providing time and support to their child, and they become less available to the child, so in some ways that is a double loss."

With older kids, you can segue into a discussion of the economy by watching and discussing the news together, or by reading news articles about it together. Some kids may just say they don't want to hear about it, and that they only care about whether or not they will still be able to go to college. Here, too, the reassurance factor is important. Your child should understand that you will work on getting them a good college education, Gallagher says.

With older kids, you can get into more of a discussion of the economy - and think of it as a learning opportunity for both of you.

"Talk to your teen about cycles, and how this is a cycle that will rebound and become a very opposite cycle, but that we don't know when," says Bonnie Harris, a counselor and director of a consulting business called Connective Parenting. "It's so difficult for most of us to understand how this happening. Explaining why the government didn't see this coming can be a little touchy, depending what your politics are. Above all, be very specific about what it means to you and how it will affect your own family. This is a huge concern for kids."

It's also important to be a good role model. Take your child to the store, ask him to help you find items for which you can use coupons, and tell him to shop for the sale items. Set a good example by being a saver, and by not making impulse purchases.

There is no time like the present to instill good saving habits in your kid. Jim Kaplan's 11-year-old daughter already has a brokerage account. He set it up for her when she was 10. "We talk about the different stocks and why it might make sense to hold on to something for a while," says Kaplan, who runs his own private wealth management firm. "This teaches her patience and a little bit about investing."

He believes the best way to get kids to learn about money and savings is to set up an allowance properly. He gives Emma a monthly allowance that has to cover everything from clothes to iTunes to the snacks she buys with her friends. "An allowance helps her to think more reflectively," Kaplan says. "It teaches her that if I spend my money on this, I might not have enough for that. It teaches her about postponing gratification, and she learns some budgeting skills, too."

If your child's feeling sorry for herself, sometimes it helps to present it as a larger picture, Newman says. Tell them that everyone's cutting back, which can take a little bit of the sting out of it.

"Kids, especially teenagers, don't want to be different," Newman says. "They want to be like everyone else."

ROSEMARY BLACK

A cesarean childbirth procedure developed in the UK takes a "woman-centered" approach and incorporates many important aspects of natural childbirth, according to a recent report.

"Vaginal birth has evolved markedly in the last 2 decades so that much greater emphasis is now given to the experience of the parents and to early bonding," Professor Nicholas M. Fisk told Reuters Health.

By contrast, cesarean birth has changed little, said Fisk. The emphasis is still on speed and resuscitation, even though these are not necessary in straightforward cesarean deliveries performed under epidural anesthesia rather than general anesthesia.

This led Fisk and his colleagues, from Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital and Imperial College London, to modify the obstetric, midwifery, and anesthetic practices of traditional cesarean childbirth "to emulate as closely as practicable the woman-centered aspects of 'natural' vaginal birth," they explain in the medical journal BJOG.

The "natural" cesarean allows parents to actively participate in and observe their child's birth, explained Fisk, who currently directs the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research in Brisbane, Australia.

At the start of the procedure, surgical drapes block the incision area from the parents' view until delivery of the infant's head. The field is then cleaned and the woman's partner may view the birth at that point.

The obstetrician then slows delivery so uterine contractions can help clear the infant's lungs, "just as happens at vaginal delivery," Fisk noted. The baby's shoulders are eased out "and the baby then frequently delivers his/her own arms in an expansive gesture."

The mother can then see the half-delivered baby, and watch the rest of the birth. The newly delivered infant is placed directly on the mother's chest for bonding.

The set-up maintains the option of immediate traditional c-section for babies showing unexpected distress, but babies are usually crying and squirming before delivery is complete, Fisk said.

He also noted that there were "very few negative reactions" among parents, and that hospital staff favored the concept.

However, evaluation of the procedure in clinical trials is necessary, notes the editor of the journal, since the current report doesn't included outcomes or safety data "to justify widespread utilization of this technique."

Joene Hendry

The 27-year-old woman and her husband already had three children — all girls. They badly wanted a boy, and she had not conceived in five years, so doctors gave her hormones.

The startling result was healthy septuplets — four boys and three girls — heralded by Egyptian doctors as a miracle. But debate persists about the ethics of fertility treatment in a nation where medical oversight is lax, incubators and neonatal respirators are rare, and many families face pressure to have a son.

In addition, Egypt faces concerns about overpopulation and cheap fertility drugs could lead to a wave of multiple births. President Hosni Mubarak warned in June that growth is hindering Egypt's economy, saying Egypt's population of 79 million — mostly crammed into the 3 percent of the country's area around the Nile River — will double by 2050.

For the mother, Ghazala Khamis, the most pressing question now is how her impoverished family is going to get by.

"I'm really scared," she said, lying in her hospital bed in this Mediterranean coastal city. "We live in a mud hut with only two rooms. I don't know how we're going to afford 10 children now."

Khamis' husband Farag Mohammed Ali, a 31-year-old farm laborer, can find work only a few days a week, she said. "I'm really worried about what the future looks like."

Much about the Aug. 16 birth, by Caesarean section, was stunning. The babies are large for a multiple birth, weighing between 3 pounds 3 ounces and 4 pounds 10 ounces each. The duration of the pregnancy was also the longest ever for septuplets — 34 weeks.

By contrast, the world's first surviving septuplets, born to the McCaughey family in Iowa in 1997, came at 31 weeks and the biggest baby weighed about the same as Khamis' smallest. There are two other sets of surviving septuplets, both born to Saudi women.

Khamis' doctors waited so long to deliver the babies because Egypt has only a few respirators for newborns, and none were available. So for weeks, doctors kept Khamis in Alexandria's Shatby Maternity University Hospital, letting the fetuses develop enough that their lungs could function on their own after birth. But the wait also increased the risk to the mother.

"We were simply blessed by God that no complication happened ... If there had been a complication, Ghazala would have died," Dr. Mahmoud Meleis, who performed the Caesarean section, told The Associated Press.

After their birth, images on television showed the boys — Mohammad, Kareem, Bilal and Yassin — and girls — Israa, Habiba and Do'a — lying side-by-side in two makeshift incubators, oxygen hoods covering their heads. Four were then whisked by ambulance to two other hospitals because there were not enough incubators at Shatby.

Except for the television images, Khamis has not yet seen all her babies; she has been able to hold and breast-feed only the three at Shatby. Though she was ready to leave days after the birth, she remains hospitalized because she has nowhere to stay in Alexandria, a four-hour drive from her farming village of Ezbat Emara.

Last week, baby girl Habiba and boys Yassin and Mohammed were resting in incubators at Shatby, tiny caps on their heads — red for the boys and lime green for the girl. All were breathing on their own, though Habiba and Yassin wore protective eye patches.

Some Western medical ethicists have questioned the use of fertility drugs by a young woman who already has three children, considering the risk of multiple births.

"This is a medical failure," said Guido Pennings, a professor of fertility ethics at the University of Ghent in Belgium. "You cannot take this risk because of the complications to the mother and the babies."

Pennings, who was not involved in the case, said Khamis' doctors should have been more careful in prescribing fertility drugs to a woman who had already demonstrated she was capable of conceiving.

"Twenty-seven with three children: That woman is fertile," he said. "Even if she had a period of infertility, that's an indication that you should be careful when you stimulate" ovulation.

Some Egyptian doctors are worried that the mix of cheap fertility treatments and Egyptians' eagerness to have many children could lead to more risky multiple pregnancies — which the country's health system cannot handle. Locally made versions of the drugs are government-subsidized and only cost about $7.50 a shot.

There is also pressure on women to produce a son as a point of pride and for financial reasons. Boys help families by working and earning incomes — often at a young age — and they ensure inheritance, since daughters and wives can only inherit a portion of their father's money, and if there are no male children, the bulk goes to the fathers' brothers.

"The important question to ask is why did she want to become pregnant after already having three children," said Hassan Sallam, head of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Alexandria.

"It's because she had three daughters and didn't have a boy. In many parts of Egypt, if she doesn't have a boy, it's as if she didn't have children at all."

Khamis sought fertility treatment five years after her youngest daughter, 5-year-old Rahma, was born because she was having trouble conceiving and wanted a boy, said her doctor, Abdel-Rahim Moussa.

He said he prescribed fertility drugs to stimulate egg production. After five injections, he recommended Khamis and her husband have intercourse.

The doctor said he was stunned when he later found nine heartbeats; he said he couldn't remember whether he did a sonogram to see how many eggs had developed before recommending the couple try to conceive.

"It's just so rare that all the eggs would get fertilized with regular intercourse," he said.

The doctor said he strongly advised Khamis to undergo fetal reduction, in which some fetuses are terminated to ensure the safety of the others and the mother. But he also told her there was the possibility of losing all the fetuses, and Khamis refused. Later, two of the fetuses were lost during the course of the pregnancy.

Emad Darwish, the hospital director, said Khamis should have received more counseling about fetal reduction. "I have performed several reductions and have never had a case where I lost all the fetuses. She needed to know that," he said.

Although Islam forbids abortion, Darwish said a recent religious decree by Islamic authorities at the country's main Sunni religious institution, Al Azhar mosque, allows fetal reductions due to the high risk to the mother and babies in a multiple pregnancy.

The real problem, doctors say, is a lack of guidelines in Egypt for fertility treatment and not enough facilities to deal with high-risk pregnancies. There are no restrictions on what fertility treatments or drugs can be given, and Egypt does little enforcement of pharmaceutical purity or standards.

Facilities for the septuplets' birth were poor. The Health Ministry sent incubators that were not sterile, there were not enough for all seven babies and there was no air conditioning in the operating room.

"There are just no rules or protocols for doctors to follow in this country," said Meleis. "Laws will be passed and they are not followed or implemented. No one had any idea what to do when it came to Ghazala's births — it sort of all just happened."

Sallam said he hoped the case would make doctors realize that "women can actually get pregnant with seven, eight or nine babies" and would open the way to discussion of fetal reduction.

"We need to tell people that it is safe and that it is OK religiously," he said.

Khamis, meanwhile, is pleading for help for her family. The Health Ministry has pledged milk and diapers for two years, but Khamis says what she really needs is an apartment in Alexandria to be closer to doctors.

In line with some Egyptian traditions, each of the septuplets was given a name on their birth certificates, then a second "nickname." The children were nicknamed after Mubarak and his family — in hopes of winning government help for the children, the mother's brother, Khamis Khamis said.

Surrounded by family in her sweltering room, a cockroach crawling on the ceiling above her head, Khamis raised her head from a pillow when news came that her husband had named the babies.

"They should have asked me first," she said after hearing the names. "I wanted one to be called Abdel-Rahim," after her doctor.

HADEEL AL-SHALCHI

A 61-year-old Japanese woman has given birth to a surrogate child, an obstetrician in central Japan said on Wednesday. She is believed to be the oldest surrogate mother yet recorded in Japan.

The woman became pregnant with an embryo created from the egg of her daughter, who has no uterus, and sperm from the daughter's husband, the maternity clinic involved said in a statement.

The clinic is run by Yahiro Netsu, who has defied longstanding opposition to surrogate births from Japanese obstetricians.

The clinic declined to confirm when the woman gave birth or to give her name, citing privacy concerns.

"The clinic hopes that Japan will hold forward-looking discussions on surrogate births and that it will take place in Japan without abuses," the clinic said.

Netsu helped eight surrogate mothers become pregnant and give birth between 1999 and 2008, said clinic spokeswoman Chihiro Netsu.

In four of the eight cases, mothers aged 55 to 61 gave birth for their daughters. The remaining four involved women giving birth for their brothers or sisters, she added.

Prior to this case, the oldest surrogate motherhood case known in Japan was a 60-year-old woman who became pregnant in the United States last year with an embryo created from donated egg and sperm.

Yoko Kubota; Roger Crabb

A 55-year-old Indian woman has given birth to quadruplets in the northern Italian city of Mantua, a local newspaper there reported Thursday.

The woman, who has lived in nearby Suzzara for 15 years, had gone home to India to be artificially inseminated after trying unsuccessfully in Italy, La Gazzetta di Mantova said.

"We have been waiting for this moment for 15 years," the babies' 38-year-old father Pabla Maghar Singh said. "We are really very happy."

The four boys, born a week ago, were named Manav, Manmeet, Roshan and Radveer.

They were born two months premature, weighing between 750 and 980 grammes (one pound, 10 ounces and two pounds, two ounces), and are in incubators at the hospital, but are doing well, the report said.

The mother works for a cleaning business, while the father is a metal worker.

Italy has the greyest population in the European Union, and a slight increase in birthrate from 1.19 child per woman in 1995 to 1.32 in 2005 is attributed mainly to births among immigrants. >>>>

Many people go to psychics for a handful of typical reasons. They want to know if they will get their dream job soon, or make a big move, or end up with the hunky new guy who seems shy but might just be The One.

Most of the subjects are personal, minor, and relatively inconsequential. If the information seems valid, then the client is happy. If none of it comes true, then the subject just chalks it up to a bad reading and only loses a few bucks. No real harm done.

But what happens when the psychic lies to the client (or is wrong), telling her information that is not true about something with real-world consequences?

Consider the case of Colleen Leduc, a single mother of an autistic eleven-year-old girl in Barrie, Ontario. On May 30, she left her daughter Victoria at her elementary school. Leduc was soon called back to the school urgently, and confronted by the principal, Victoria's teacher, and a teacher's aide (educational assistant, or EA). Puzzled and alarmed, Leduc asked what was going on. The group told her that they believed that Victoria was being sexually abused. They had contacted the Children's Aid Society, a case file had been opened, and her daughter might be taken from her "for her own safety."

Leduc was shocked by the explanation: "The teacher looked at me and said: 'We have to tell you that Victoria's EA went to see a psychic and the psychic asked her if she works with a little girl with the initial V. When the EA said yes, the psychic said, 'Well, you need to know that this girl is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'" The EA reported it to the teacher, who then went to the principal, and so on.

Because Victoria is autistic, the child couldn't speak for herself about the alleged abuse. Leduc didn't believe the psychic's allegations, and said they could not be true since her daughter did not even come in contact with any men of those ages. Furthermore, Leduc could prove it: Because of Victoria's disability, Leduc had equipped her daughter with a GPS tracking system and a continuous audio recorder. A review of the audio proved that at no point was Victoria sexually abused in any way by anyone.

The case was eventually closed, but Leduc was stunned that it had gotten as far as it did based on such dubious evidence. The psychic has not been identified nor arrested for providing false report of a crime. (For more on this, see www.WhatsTheHarm.net, a web site the tracks the damage done by psychics.)

If you believe that psychic information should be taken seriously, consider that at any time, you could suddenly be accused of anything from murder to rape to child molestation on nothing more than the word of someone who claims to get messages from supernatural sources. Psychic powers have never been proven to exist, much less provide reliable, valid information.

Some psychics are careful to claim that their readings are "for entertainment purposes only," tacitly admitting that their information should not be taken seriously. Most, however, are happy to do their work for paying clients and accept no responsibility for the truth of their information. If you consult psychics, the next time you meet with one, ask him or her to promise in writing that what they are telling you is true and accurate. I predict you won't get any takers. Ask yourself why they will take your money but not promise to give you the truth.

·                                 Top Ten Conspiracy Theories

·                                 Bad Journalism Encourages Psychic Detectives

·                                 Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena

Benjamin Radford