Didelphic triumphs
On vacation, just popping in briefly (the beloved boy just looked over my shoulder at what I’m doing and said “I can’t believe you’re posting while on holiday”). Uh, yeah. So, anyway, the semester is over. It was pretty intense at the end, with three hefty exams one right after the other: our neonatology final, followed by our intrapartum final (which took me three hours to complete…I was scribbling down to the very last second), and finally, our postpartum final. I’m pleased to report that I did well on all my exams; I guess it’s comforting to know that all that stress is actually going towards a good cause.
Anyway, I was browsing on the BBC’s website today and found two articles that are worth passing on:
First, a woman in Devon with a didelphic uterus gave birth to triplets. She carried identical twins in one of her wombs, and a singleton pregnancy in the other, and both eggs were fertilized at the same time. Apparently the odds of this happening are five million to one.
Also from the BBC, new research suggests that women with bowel problems such as ulcerative colitis and crohn’s disease might be at greater risk for premature birth and low birth weight babies, in part because inflammatory bowel disease can apparently restrict the amount of nutrients a baby receives during its development. The rate of birth defects in babies born to mothers with these diseases was also found to be twice as high as compared to women without inflammatory bowel disease, although overall the research felt that early detection and proper treatment could help eliminate these problems. Does anyone subscribe to Gut?
Right. It was a hard, but wonderful semester, and right now, I really, truly am on vacation. I’ll see you all in the new year.
