Free Republic

WHEN the head of family planning in Shanghai said young couples should have more babies because the city was growing old, it sounded like a statement of the obvious. Yet within days there was a storm of comment on the internet and in state media as people asked whether this meant the government was preparing to relax its one-child policy. There are signs officials are rethinking the ban, which has prevented 400m births since 1979, because on present trends China’s population will begin to decline by the middle of the century. By then, India will have overtaken it as the...

SHE'S had six, possibly seven children, all to different fathers. Four were sent to live with their grandmother and at least one, police believe, has been murdered. Kate Elizabeth Hutchinson, 36, gave birth to her latest child in a Lismore psychiatric ward 10 days ago. The baby boy has since been removed from her care. Now, her estranged mother is begging authorities to stop her getting pregnant again. "Somebody, please, somebody has to do something to stop her from having any more babies,'' Helen Hutchinson said last week. "It's as much for her sake as it is for the children's....

New research shows babies have a handle on the meaning of different dog barks – despite little or no previous exposure to dogs. Infants just 6 months old can match the sounds of an angry snarl and a friendly yap to photos of dogs displaying threatening and welcoming body language. The new findings come on the heels of a study from the same Brigham Young University lab showing that infants can detect mood swings in Beethoven’s music. Though the mix of dogs and babies sounds silly, experiments of this kind help us understand how babies learn so rapidly. Long before...

Evian Roller Babies International Version

A WOMAN is soon to deliver a record-breaking 12 BABIES, it was claimed today. The teacher is expecting six boys and six girls, according to reports. She conceived the tots following fertility treatment, after suffering a number of miscarriages. British fertility experts confirmed the extraordinary pregnancy in Gafsa, Tunisia, was possible - but carried "colossal" risks. The mum - who has not yet been named - reportedly told doctors she was "feeling fine and looking forward to hugging her six boys and six girls".

Just when you thought you'd seen everything, a pair of scientists at Oregon State University has published a study arguing that any effort to limit carbon emissions must consider the impact of "reproductive choices" on the ecological equation. Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax make their case in "Reproduction and the Carbon Legacies of Individuals," published in the journal, Global Environmental Change. "While population growth is obviously a key component of projections of carbon emissions at a global level, there has been relatively little emphasis on the environmental consequences of the reproductive choices of an individual person," they argue....

NEW DELHI — Rights activists lashed out Friday at local officials who allowed hundreds of infants to be dropped from the roof of a mosque in western India in the belief that the fall — which ends when the babies are caught in a bedsheet — would ensure good health and prosperity for their families. The ritual at the Baba Umer Durga, a Muslim shrine, is believed to have been followed for nearly 700 years, and each year hundreds of people, both Hindus and Muslims, take part in the ritual. The infants, mostly under two years old, were dangled Thursday...

NICHOLASVILLE — A newborn baby that had just come home suffered cuts and puncture wounds Monday after a family dog snatched it from a crib and apparently took it into the woods, police said. Officials did not release the name of the infant or his parents, but they said the 3-day-old boy was in intensive care at University of Kentucky Hospital. The infant was snatched about 1 p.m. Monday on Beaumont Road north of Nicholasville, said Jessamine County Deputy Sheriff Anthony Purcell. The infant, who was taken home Sunday, was in a crib when a Native American Indian dog took...

HURLEY — The Cochran quadruplets have more than quadrupled in size. And they’re nearing their first birthday in a new house, where each eventually will have his and her own bedrooms. Mom Sandra and Dad Matt have been scrimping and saving since pregnancy to build the new home on a high school coach’s salary. They got it finished just in the nick of time, Sandra said, because the Cochran family, with a 4-year-old and four 10-month-olds, has outgrown the house trailer. The quads were born in August, and since they arrived home in the fall, they have slept in...

The prevailing view among parents, the general public and mental health professionals that infants as young as six months old "do not remember" traumatic events that happen to them or to their loved ones has recently been disproved, a professor of infant mental health said at a Jerusalem conference on Sunday.... [snip] ... Most professionals and parents have pooh-poohed this idea because infants and young toddlers do not have the verbal ability to describe the trauma, but it nevertheless is stored in their brains, she asserted....[snip]... People are wrong to assume that when traumatized infants grow up and don't speak...

WASHINGTON – Puzzling new research suggests women have a harder time than men looking at babies with facial birth defects. It's a surprise finding. Psychiatrists from the Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, who were studying perceptions of beauty, had expected women to spend more time than men cooing over pictures of extra-cute babies. Nope. Instead, the small study being published Wednesday raises more questions than it can answer. First the background: The McLean team already had studied men and women looking at photos of adults' faces on a computer screen. They rated facial beauty, and could do various keystrokes to watch the...

Last year, a young Chinese woman—let’s call her Dan Li—ran afoul of the Chinese government. She had become “illegally pregnant.” By the time the authorities found out, Dan Li was seven months along. Family planning officials tied her to a bed, induced labor, and, when the baby was born, killed the baby. What happened to Dan Li is an abomination—one, however, that tragically takes place regularly in China. But now, thanks to the U.S. Congress, you and I will be paying for it. Last March, without fanfare, Congress passed a bill providing $50 million for the United Nations Population Fund....

SAID AFTER HITLER: "When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church -- and there was nobody left to be concerned." (Pastor Martin Niemöller) WHAT WILL BE SAID AFTER OBAMA: "When the Liberals attacked the babies in the womb I was not a baby in the womb,...

"HAVING abstained from sex for four days, the young man walks in. Fifteen minutes later he is out, knowing that he may, in the near future, sire a child or two. What's more, he doesn't harbour any thoughts of ever learning the child's identity. A sleazy bordello? No, it's a sperm bank in Mumbai. And, constituting new breed of New Age donors are mostly medical students and young professionals between the age of 20 and 40. These are the 'genetically-sound' sperm donors of today who help an increasing number of Indian couples going in for artificial insemination. Shammi --- 25,...

A lot more parents are naming their kids after President Obama, but not enough for "Barack" to make the top 1,000 boys' names. But watch out this year. The Social Security Administration, which tracks the nation's most popular baby names, said today that "Barack" did set what is believed to be a record by skyrocketing more than 10,000 spots -- from number 12,535 in 2007 to 2,409 in 2008. It predicts that Barack will jump into the top 1,000 for 2009.

Born weighing 599 gm and 694 gm, the Mehra (name changed) twins were barely larger than a human hand at birth on January 21. They weighed less than one-fourth of the normal birth weight of 3 kgs because they arrived unexpectedly, three months earlier than when they were supposed to, on April 30. The babies were born after 25 weeks and four days of gestation. Full-term babies usually come after 38 to 40 weeks. The twins — the older boy weighing 599 gm and girl, 694 gm — have not only survived but have left for their Vasant Kunj home...

Susan Schmidt, director of Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline, said parents can "scapegoat" a child, wrongfully blaming one or two of them for the rest of the family's problems. Scapegoats are punished or neglected, while the others aren't harmed at all. "They're the bad kid," Schmidt said. "They're the reason everything is going wrong." Typically, however, neglect is unintentional, said Frederic G. Reamer, a professor at Rhode Island College's school of social work. Drug abuse and mental-health problems lie at the root of most cases. Poverty, unemployment and lack of support from friends and family can make it worse.

Legislative bodies in two states voted this month to define the beginning of human life – and human rights – at conception. On Feb. 17, North Dakota's House of Representatives voted 51-41 to approve a bill that declares "any organism with the genome of homo sapiens" – even one not yet born – is a person protected by rights under the state's constitution. Yesterday, the Montana Senate voted 26-24 to approve S.B. 406, a constitutional Personhood Amendment that states, "All persons are born free and have certain inalienable rights. ... Person means a human being at all stages of human...

Octomom Nadya Suleman is worried that the California hospital where she gave birth last month won't release her octuplets until she "has a better living arrangement," TV host "Dr. Phil" McGraw said. McGraw said Suleman, 33, called him in a frenzy on Tuesday, telling him she fears that the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center where she gave birth on Jan. 26 will not release her kids until she proves she can take care of them. "What she is telling me is that unless and until she has a better living arrangement, that they are not likely to release the children to...

INNOCENT-eyed Alfie Patten spent his first night acting as a 13-year-old dad and declared: “It was easier than I thought.”