Normal weight: Gain 25-30 lbs

Underweight: Gain 28-40 lbs

Overweight: Gain 15-25 lbs

Obese: Gain 11-20 lbs

These new guidelines were not released simply because it had been a few years since numbers like this  were released, but likely because of the obesity epidemic sweeping across our nation and many others. New data is available today that was not available when the previous set of regulations were released, and scientists and doctors are now able to predict with some certainty how much weight women should gain when pregnant according to their current weight status. These new regulations were also released due to the fact that many women are giving birth later in life, which poses a risk in and of itself, and it’s important for women to remain as healthy as possible when pregnant, especially in their 30′s and 40′s. Women who gain too much weight when pregnant run the risk of developing high blood pressure, needing a C-section, and also, heavy babies are more likely to become obese children and/or obese adults. So to the women who are offended by rules telling you what you should weight: Quit being so defensive and think about the health of your child and yourself.

Check out his website for all kinds of silliness:

www.tonightshowwithconanobrien.com/

After viewing it, there is no doubt in my mind that waterboarding IS torture.

Bristol Palin, daughter of Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, is the new face of a national campaign to raise awareness for teen pregnancy prevention. Um, doesn’t this chick have a child of her own? At 18? Yea that’s what I thought. Apparently she wants to educate teens to do what she didn’t– abstain from sex. Oh this is so ridiculous I can hardly stand it. Bristol should be the face of “THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ABSTINENCE IS PREACHED!” Teens don’t know how to or see the importance of protecting themselves. When asked why this is important Bristol said,  “It’s important for me to get involved just to advocate and promote abstinence and just send my message out.” All of her answers sounded like this. She never really gave any compelling information or statistics, just curt sentences that sounded so generic they could have been the answer to any question. I won’t even mention the studies that show pregnancy and STD rates often drop when teens are educated about birth control. I don’t want to steal Bristol’s thunder. SHE’S the spokesperson, not me.

In a recent interview, Greta Van Susteren of Fox News asked, “Is that something that you were just lazy about or not interested, or do you have philosophical or religious opposition to it?” But Bristol didn’t want to get into the details, just repeating that abstinence is the best option. Sounds like her mother successfully programmed her…

This video from ABCnews.com literally makes me ill. She sounds like a Miss America candidate.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=7515621

Oh btw, Candie’s seems really invested in their campaign to combat teen pregnancy through abstinence. Here’s another huge ad campaign their launching with Britney Spears:

Now I’m not blaming Britney. I love her and this is who she is. But how can Candie’s be so hypocritical? Using these oversexualized images of a celebrity which scream “Let’s have some fun if you know what I mean…”, while at the same time preaching to teens to abstain. Well which is it?? You’re confusing me Candie’s I dont’ know what to do!!

From what I’ve read, these cuts will only amount to a tiny portion of the $17 billion trimmed from the $3.4 trillion funding request, however, it’s the principle of this cut that is important to me. Teaching only abstinence in schools is a completely ineffective and medieval approach to sexual education. With sex as a constant fixture in today’s media and our society overall, it’s unrealistic to approach this subject so senselessly. Kids are going to engage in sexual activity whether they’re taught the appropriate and responsible way or not, and if it’s the latter, they suffer the consequences that they didn’t even know existed. Education about condoms and birth control is, without a doubt, the most pragmatic approach to this subject and it will open a discussion for kids to feel more comfortable learning and asking questions about sex. Well done Obama. Now about some of those other cuts…

I understand how she must be looking for someone or something to blame, it must be horrible knowing your child has an illness that is, as of yet, still a bit of a mystery, but can’t she find a scapegoat that won’t potentially cause millions of children to DIE OF THE MEASLES? I mean honestly! Vaccinations are not a conspiracy, they are medically necessary! McCarthy has been bopping around from talk show to talk show rebuking the benefit of vaccinations for years and claiming that mercury is what’s causing autism. Btw McCarth, mercury has not been used in vaccinations for over a decade, but ok.

Meanwhile, back on planet earth, REAL SCIENTISTS (not Z-list actresses) have been making headway in finding the REAL cause for autism. Researchers at the University of North Carolina have found a correlation between the size in a portion of the brain and autism. They found that in children with autism, the area of the brain called the amygdale was about 13% larger than it was in children without autism. Published in the latest archive of General Psychiatry, the study found that in the first year of a child’s life, that portion of the brain begins to grow in kids with autism. The amygdale is what prompts facial features to match emotions. “This is a core feature of autism, and it raises a very provocative possibility that if they [joint attention problems] aren’t caused by changes in the amygdala, they are certainly associated with it,” said Dr. Barry Kosofsky, chief of neurology at Cornell Medical Center. Autism experts say such findings are critical in developing new ways to treat and diagnose autism earlier. “Once we understand the neurological circuits, we may be able to detect if a child has problems in those circuits as early as 6 months of age,” said Dr. Joseph Piven, lead author in the study. “We need to let the pattern of early brain development guide us to predict who is at higher risk and who would benefit from early intervention.”

Soooo if a child must be at least 12 months to get the measles vaccination, according to scientists, there is no way that the measles vaccination could cause autism, because the disease has developed before they can be vaccinated! Now do you see that this ridiculous campaign against vaccinations is completely ridiculous and absolutely false??

Campbell Brown in a fairly recent episode of “No Bias, No Bull” had this to say: “Major medical groups and government research are unanimous: the measles vaccine is safe, and you must get your children vaccinated; because if you don’t, you are endangering my children. You are endangering your neighbor’s children. You are endangering all of our children.”

Brown is, of course, right. Whether or not to vaccinate your children is not just a personal decision you are making for you family (no matter how reckless it is), it is a decision you are making for everyone your child comes into contact with. Small children, who have not yet had the opportunity to receive the vaccination, are susceptible to contracting this deadly disease merely from coming within range of children whose parents have personally decided not to have them vaccinated.

On last week’s new episode of Law and Order: SVU, Hilary Duff played an out of control mother who almost went to jail because she thought she killed her baby. We later found out that the child did not die from a good spanking, but from coming into contact with a measles-ridden child at the playground. His mother had decided she “didn’t believe in” the measles vaccination. That mother was tried for murder because of it.

So whatdya say? Let’s just abandon all of our modern knowledge of medicine and people can start getting scurvy and maybe we can relive the Black Plague! Or maybe, just maybe, we can listen to the experts on this one and continue to make progress in the fight against autism and not cause an epidemic of measles in the process.