The latest episode of The Handmaid’s Tale broke a lot of ground with its portrayal of a scene that was not only crucial for the series, but also a fantastic representation of a truly human experience. We spoke to the episode’s director about how she and star Elisabeth Moss brought that moment to life, and why it…
It’s a moment nine months in the making—although, in another way, it’s been in the works a lot longer than that. The most recent episode of The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t just a gorgeous hour of television, it’s done something few other shows or films ever have: It gave us the miracle of life, in all its pain and beauty.…
During childbirth, the vagina has to stretch to accommodate a head the size of a grapefruit. This, you may imagine, takes time. So if something goes wrong during labor and delivery has to happen fast, doctors or midwives might speed things along by artificially widening the vaginal opening. With scissors.
Is it cruel to have children when the world is so terrible? That's not a new question. And when a newspaper columnist in Michigan asked it in 1989, he came down on the side of no. The world of the future — the world of 2014, to be exact — was going to be just wonderful enough that having kids was a great idea. Was he…
Although the field of childbirth has remained pretty stagnant as far as fields of medicine go, it's been making some major strides in recent months. Though unlike other recent techniques, this newest one goes into action long before the mother's first contraction even hits; scientists can now create 3D virtual birth…
This birth assistant training aid appears to be a great training tool for birthing, and a great teaching tool. But dear god some of these images are terrifying, especially when it starts spewing out simulated blood and plastic babies.
Bringing a child to term costs more in America than anywhere else on Earth, according to today's New York Times.
So the Dutch have this experimental television show called Proefkonijnen (it translates to "Guinea Pigs"), where stuff like this happens. The U.S., tragically, has no such show.
Placenta - it's not just for shampoo anymore. There is a rising belief that eating a human placenta after child birth provides a nutritional benefit for the mother and possibly curbs postpartum depression.
An international team of doctors and scientists announced in 2010 that it had recorded the world's first video of childbirth using magnetic resonance imaging. Now, that footage has been released to the public. You have never seen childbirth like this.
MamAmor Dolls are the umbilical-intact, placenta-producing creation of Adriana Guerra, a doula in Canada, with three home-birthed children of her own.
Childbirth, though wonderful, can also be quite traumatic. That can be particularly true for the parents of premature infants, who often spend several weeks in a neonatal ICU while their children rest in incubators that, while life-saving are typically very impersonal, and serve as de-facto barriers between parent…
This Etruscan ceramic fragment is over 2,600 years old, and it's quite possibly the oldest depiction of childbirth ever found in Europe. It's a marvelous sight to behold, but the person who actually discovered it hasn't even seen it.
At first glance, there's no good reason why humans would evolve the ability to give birth to twins. Indeed, human reproductive systems make having even one child difficult. But twins are doing a big favor for their siblings' survival chances.
Darwin's frog, found in the forest streams of Argentina and Chile, has quite possibly the weirdest birthing method of any creature. Instead of hanging out in ponds, these little tadpoles help give new meaning to fathers with big fat mouths.
As someone sans womb, I'm not terribly qualified to opine, but my guess would be that a text message is the last thing you want to deal with while giving birth. Not so! At least, according to some doctors.
Patents! They are often completely fucking insane. But here's my question about this one, "Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force:" it'd work on helping me poop, too, right?
Many men might watch helplessly as their wives are about to give birth, but not Leroy Smith. As soon as Smith realized that the midwife wouldn't arrive on time, he calmly did a Google search on his BlackBerry.
People have posted videos of deliveries before, but this Lynsee girl has decided on a live video stream when she gives birth to her first child. I'm OK with over-sharing now and then, but this could be too much.
