(NEWS.COM.AU) 4 February 2008:

“Some brides want bridesmaids to sign contracts promising not to put on weight or get pregnant before the big day, a survey has found. More than one in five women planning weddings would ask their maid-of-honour to sign a written bridal ‘pre-nuptial agreement’.

Almost half of those questioned said they would sack a bridesmaid who broke the contract.

The survey, commissioned by the UK magazine You & Your Wedding asked 1000 women what clauses they sought in a contract.”

(OK!) 19 December 2007:

If you haven’t heard that Jamie Lynn Spears, 16-year-old little sis of Britney Spears, is preggo, then let me be the first to welcome you to the planet earth.

Jamie Lynn is a star in her own right, with a hit television show on the Nickelodeon network. OK magazine broke the story and quotes Jamie Lynn as saying,

“It was a shock for both of us, so unexpected. I was in complete and total shock and so was he. I can’t say it was something I was planning to do right now, but now that it’s in my lap and that it’s something I have to deal with, definitely, I’m looking forward to being the best mom I can be.”

The question is, should Jamie Lynn be allowed to keep her job on the show, or should she be let go? Should she be used as an example of what not to do when you’re 16? Is it a bad thing that she’s so open or can teen girls learn from her mistake? Should her dilemma be used to shed light on the teen pregnancy issue? There’s so much more to this story than just another teen pregnancy.

(REUTERS) 19 April 2007:

A Montreal woman has frozen her eggs so they can be used by her 7-year-old daughter, who cannot have children because of a genetic condition.

Doctors at McGill University Reproductive Centre in Montreal, which has pioneered a freezing program for cancer patients and those who want to delay childbearing, say the decision by 36-year-old Melanie Boivin is unprecedented in North America and raises ethical questions.

If the girl chooses to become pregnant using her mother’s eggs, she will be giving birth to her biological half-sibling. Boivin will then become a mother and a grandmother.

(WEBMD.COM) 28 February 2007:

Unexpected new data link low-fat dairy foods to infertility and high-fat dairy foods to better chances of getting pregnant.

The findings come from an eight-year study of 18,555 married female nurses by Harvard researcher Jorge E. Chavarro, MD, ScD, and colleagues, published in the February 28 online issue of Human Reproduction.

Chavarro tells WebMD he was surprised to find that:

Women who ate two or more weekly servings of low-fat dairy foods had an 85% higher risk of ovulation problems than women who ate one or fewer servings each week.

Women who ate one or more daily servings of high-fat dairy foods were 27% less likely to suffer ovulation problems than women who ate one or fewer servings each day.

Fertility expert Celia Dominguez, MD, assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory University in Atlanta, notes that most of the women in the Harvard study were at near-normal weight. Since obesity is a major factor for women with ovulation, she warns overweight women against gorging on ice cream.

“Nobody needs to run off to eat Haagen-Dazs to get pregnant,” says Celia Dominguez, MD, assistant professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Emory University. ”But things like fat may not be as bad in a diet as perceived. We tell people balance is really important. I tell people to have some fat — no fat is no good — but balance is the key.”

(MENSHEALTH.COM) January 2007:

What’s the big deal with leaving the toilet seat up?  Let’s settle this once and for all.

The truth is that most women who make a fuss about whether the seat is up or down don’t really care about the seat. (Any girl who sits without looking gets what she deserves.) It’s just a symbolic gesture we use to gauge how considerate you are in general. If you take the time to lower the seat, you’ll probably also take the time to call if you’re going to be late, offer your jacket when it’s cold, or run to the store at 3 a.m. when we’re pregnant and hankering for butter pecan.

(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.

(REUTERS) 2 August 06:

A contestant on the “New Zealand Idol” reality TV show has been asked to leave the show — because she is pregnant.

“NZ Idol can be an intense experience and we do not wish to cause undue stress to Georgina and her unborn child,” producers South Pacific Pictures and TVNZ said in a statement.

What’s more shocking…the fact that women are still dismissed when they are pregnant, or the fact that there’s a ”New Zealand Idol”?

(REUTERS) 25 August 2006:

Attitudes to nakedness are, as we know, entirely different around the world. Mediterranean beachgoers think it odd if a woman is actually clothed at all while in the Middle East showing one’s hair can cause scandal. Tokyo was always thought to be at the more liberal end of this spectrum until the latest Britney Spears advertisement was about to be unveiled. Heavily pregnant and naked, reminiscent of that Vanity Fair pose by Demi Moore, officials decided that this might be “overly stimulating” for some of their customers.

All has not been lost as the posters have gone up with some airbrushing, and the logo “We apologize for hiding part of a beautiful image of a mother-to-be.”