(MSNBC.COM) 14 May 2008:

Angelina Jolie confirmed that she’s having twins…after her “Kung Fu Panda” costar Jack Black spilled the beans in an interview with the TODAY show’s Natalie Morales.

Black made the announcement and Jolie confirmed the news:

“You’re gonna have as many as (the) ‘Brady Bunch’ when you have these,” Black joked.

“It’s confirmed? Is it two?” Morales asked.

“Yeah, yeah, we’ve confirmed that already,” Jolie responded. “Well, Jack’s just confirmed it actually.”

“Is that true?” asked a surprised Black.

“Yeah, you did,” said Jolie.

“Sorry!” said Black.

Jolie is keeping the sex of the babies private, but said that she may “possibly” give birth to the twins in France.

(The Mail) 25 April 2008:

Naturally conceived identical triplets are very rare; 200 million to one, actually. Carmela Testa of the U.K and her three new babies have beat the odds. She has three adorable baby girls  that were born a bit early but are fine now.

Testa said: “I found out at my 12-week scan I was having triplets.

“I knew they would be identical because there was just one placenta, so they were from the same egg.

“I was very shocked. They weren’t planned. I’m quite small – only 5ft tall – so at the unit they joked that out of all the midwives it would have to be me that gave birth to triplets.”

(TIMESUNION.COM) 22 April 2008:

Mail carrier Lisa Harrell of Albany, New York was in the right place at the right time this past week when she literally caught a baby that fell from the sky.

She doesn’t usually deliver to 306 Second Street in Albany until about 2 pm, but she happened to be at the address three hours early for a special delivery.

As she was delivering the package, she looked up and saw a baby in the window. As she rang the doorbell, something fell from the sky and struck her arm. Instinctively, she put out her arms and caught the projectile, which happened to be the baby she had just seen in the window.

“The baby fell right into my arms. Everything happened so quick,” said Harrell.

Her boss is hailing her as a hero but Harrell believes she was just in the right place at the right time.

(DAILY MAIL) 15 April 2008:

A top UK obstetrician has upset some with his views on childbirth. Dr. Michael Odent has been delivering babies for 50 years and has been present at 15,000 births. He doesn’t believe that men should be present at the delivery of their children. He thinks that not only do they hinder the women for getting at the task at hand, namely giving birth, but that the whole thing could cause the man to become emotionally disturbed.  He said,
“A woman in labor needs to be in a private world where she doesn’t have to think or talk. Yet, motivated by the desire to ’share the experience,’ the man asks questions and offers words of reassurance and advice.” He says he has watched women struggle to give birth and the minute their partners left the room, the baby came right out. The man’s anxiety can rub off on the laboring woman. He also points out that in the rest of the animal kingdom, no other male watches his sex partner give birth.

(NEWS.COM.AU) 24 March 2008:

A study of newlyweds published in the Journal of Family Psychology found that men who marry women who are better looking than them are happier than men who are better looking than their wives. In marriages where the wife is more attractive, both partners tended to be very content.

The study authors believe the reason for this is evolution. Women are less picky about their mates’ looks as long as he can make babies. Men, on the other hand, are hardwired to choose a partner who will pass on genes for health and beauty.

(NEWSOFTHEWEIRD.COM) 9 March 2007:

During the first days of the new year, Germany had itself a baby boom.  This is attributed to the government’s child-bearing incentives,  some as high as $33,000 US. The incentives were so lucrative, some moms who were due to give birth in December attempted to delay the birth of their babies until January 1, when the new law went into effect.  This is the opposite of babies due the first week of January in the US.  In order to take advantage of child tax breaks for the year 2006, some of the US moms wanted to have the babies BEFORE January 1.

(COSMOPOLITAN) January 2007:

There’s no conclusive hard data, but some experts believe that many babies resemble their dads in infancy to prove paternity and encourage the father to bond with the child.  “Dads are left out of the pregnancy process, so seeing features that look like theirs brings out their caretaking instinct,” says Nicholas Christenfeld, PhD., professor of psychology at the University of California at San Diego.

(MSNBC.COM) 22 January 2007:

Some British scientists propose offering rebates to women seeking infertility services in exchange for giving up some of their eggs to be used in stem cell research. So, if you are desperate to become pregnant and can’t afford the pricey treatment, your extra eggs can serve as a half-price coupon.

Proponents of human egg farming make a fairly straightforward case for why rebates or markets in eggs should be allowed. The core of their argument is that women, often college students, are already selling their eggs for cash to help infertile people who want to have babies.

Still, something clearly makes us uncomfortable with the idea because no one who argues for rebates or freewheeling egg markets ever refers to the women getting paid for their eggs as “sellers.” They’re always “donors.” Of course women who get paid $5,000 or get half-off on the price of a cycle of in vitro fertilization, which is worth at least that much, are, in truth, sellers. No amount of rhetorical evasion can change that reality.