Due to the common use of assisted reproductive technology, twins and triplets are now subconsciously labeled “natural” or “unnatural.”

In Katharine Wroth’s Salon article about the questions people ask pregnant women, she expresses her outrage at continually being asked “Were you trying?” She thought it was not only too personal, but the answer potentially passed judgment on her relationship and lifestyle. The good news is that once she gives birth, this question will most likely disappear. As the mother of twins, there is a question I feel is far more invasive and offensive that begins with pregnancy and is more frequent after birth.

“Are they natural?”

It is universally the most-hated question asked of parents of multiples, followed closely by “You must have your hands full!” or “Better you than me.” In just three words, strangers pry into your method of conception – a private and intimate moment - and tack a label on your children. Using the term “natural” to describe children conceived without any help automatically conveys what the asker thinks of children who were conceived using assisted reproductive technology (unnatural).

What is an unnatural child, anyway? Am I really supposed to answer: Yes or no? It’s shocking that strangers and casual acquaintances think it’s appropriate to ask someone how their children were conceived. Although fertility treatments account for 77 percent of multiple births, many single children are born that way, too, yet I don’t see the same people marching up to everyone they meet and asking how their child was conceived. Whenever I am asked, I get the creepy feeling that the person is either picturing me in bed with my husband or in a gown and stirrups at a doctor’s office. I was raised to be polite, so as yet I haven’t asked that person how they conceived their own children – flat on their backs or in some other position? Maybe next time, I will.

I have seven friends with twins to whom I am close enough to know the circumstances of their origin. Out of our group, six sets (one mom has two sets) were conceived with no outside intervention, and three were the result of assistance. We have all been asked how our children came to be, and I’ve noticed that when the answer is that they were conceived naturally, the asker smiles and is supportive, commenting on how cute the children are. When the answer is that they were conceived with help, the asker usually replies, “oh,” rather flatly. Many parents report that they have resorted to lying or giving outrageous answers like ”No, they’re plastic” or “We had sex twice in one night” in an attempt to end unwelcome conversations in the mall or at the supermarket.

My friend’s mother was talking the other day about a coworker’s daughter who had IVF and subsequently had triplets. She said, “Well, you get what you deserve.”

Exactly what do couples who have infertility issues deserve? The repeated disappointment of not being able to get pregnant, month after month, while watching their family and friends reproduce without issue? The devastation of miscarriages? The bone-deep, hollowed-out heartache of watching a fetus on an ultrasound that is not moving and has no heartbeat? Or, because they had the nerve to see a specialist and use fertility medications, they “deserve” multiples? Evidently, multiples are somehow a punishment.

Assisted reproduction has become more common now due to a variety of factors, and it is certainly discussed more often. Perhaps that’s why people feel that they can ask parents how their children came to be, however inappropriate it still is. While it’s more common, judging by the reactions, assisted reproduction is still looked down on by many. For some reason, having one child through assisted reproduction is a miracle, but having multiples that way is unnatural, even though having twins or triplets is always out of anyone’s control. One commenter on a twins blog said that he had “natural” twins, and felt they were special, whereas twins conceived through IVF were not.

Whether people are fascinated, admiring, or just plain nosy, the issue affects more than the parents – the kids can hear these comments, questions, labels and tone of voice, too. One mother posted a story about a woman who asked her if her triplets were “natural.” She then said, sympathetically, that the mother’s life must be so hard and how did she possibly do it? Later, her sad daughter asked the mother if she wished she had had only one child instead of three. I worry, too, that soon my two-year-old sons will want to know what “natural” means. That funny, irrepressible Ben and serious, cuddly Sam will wonder if they are a burden to me due to the thoughtlessness of others.

When people ask, “Do twins run in your family?” (the fraternal twin question to “Are they natural?”) in that I-would-shoot-myself-in-the-head-if-it-were-me voice, I tell them I’m adopted. Although they are asking for personal information, it seems that when they get some they don’t expect, people shut up – at least long enough for me to make a getaway. But what’s next? Perhaps they’ll want to know if I plan to find my “real” parents someday.

image: Angela Vincent

ColumnWhere celebrity becomes conscious.

Hollywood is a land of contradictions. An extra serving of ice cream can send people into hysterics while no one bats an eyelash at a starlet on her fifth arrest. But when it comes to abortion politics in film, everyone generally joins together to dive under high-end Egyptian cotton sheets, refusing to come out until someone yells “big opening weekend.” Even torture porn flicks such as Saw can cause less controversy than a pimpled teenager walking inside an abortion clinic.

While the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize abortion occurred in 1973, the debate has continued to rage. Take issues near and dear to people, nicely steeped in the American zeitgeist, and you have a political fire starter no one wants to touch. With such impassioned supporters on both sides, you would think Hollywood would have been quick to carry over the argument on film. Controversy breeds ticket sales, after all. Right?

In a word: No. Abortion in cinema has become as popular as discussing abortion at a family reunion. No one wants to touch the subject for fear of reprisal. When films and television shows do deal with abortion, they generally employ the following ten rules of portrayal. While some of these rules walk the thin gray line, all seem determined to leave you confused and uncertain about the state of abortion politics in America.

If your character goes through with her abortion, be prepared to fight the studio to keep it in.

Dirty Dancing, 1987’s wildly popular tribute to 1963 Catskill dance moves, reminds us that abortion was once completely illegal in America. Penny Johnson (Cynthia Rhodes) is forsaken by her bad-guy boyfriend and will lose her ability to earn a living as a dancer. She almost dies after seeking a back-alley abortion, and is saved by kindly Dr. Houseman (Jerry Orbach).

Eleanor Bergstein wrote the script for Dirty Dancing. The Daily Beast reports that when the studio saw the final version, they urged Bergstein and director Emile Ardolino to edit out all references to the abortion. As Bergstein tells The Daily Beast, “I explained that it was integral to the plot…and if we cut that out, the rest of the story would collapse. So we kept it in.” According to Bergstein, the lesson is clear. As she further expounds, “What movies are saying now is that if you are of fine moral fiber, you make the opposite decision and decide to have the baby. And everything turns out beautifully. The girls never end up in a shelter, as girls in real life often do.”

If your character is thinking about abortion, she will likely back out of it or experience an unfortunate miscarriage.

Several television shows have addressed the issue accordingly. The original Beverly Hills: 90210 (1990-2000) explored abortion when brainy Andrea became impregnated by her boyfriend, Jesse. Jesse breaks up with Andrea over the decision, only to realize the error of his judgmental ways. In the meantime, Andrea has decided to back out of the abortion. Happiness reigns. No judgment!

Sex and the City (1998-2004) similarly dealt with abortion a decade later. Miranda finds herself pregnant by her sometimes boyfriend, Steve. She initially chooses abortion, but backs out when confronted with the realization that, at aged 36, this may be her last chance at motherhood. While this episode explored the myriad issues surrounding abortion, it inevitably gave us a main heroine, Carrie Bradshaw, who has admitted to having an abortion. Further, Carrie truthfully acknowledges the uncomfortable feelings she still has over the procedure.

And if your character is still undecided? She can always fall back on the conveniently-timed miscarriage. In Party of Five (1994-2000), teenager Julia (Neve Campbell) chooses abortion, backs out, chooses it again, and then succumbs to a miscarriage.

If your character decides to go through with an abortion on a TV show, make sure it is on premium cable.

Abortion issues on the small screen almost always coincide with a premium cable bill. We’ve already mentioned HBO’s Sex and the City treatment of the issue. The same network also gave us Claire Fisher’s procedure on Six Feet Under (2001-2005), as well as with the HBO produced movie If These Walls Could Talk (1996), which looked at three women dealing with abortion over a span of forty years.

But abortion issues on network television? Keep looking. In 1972, Bea Arthur’s Maude decided to have an abortion after becoming pregnant at age 47. This episode of Maude, which was on CBS, is one of the only times where a character on network TV actually went through with an abortion.

European producers or financiers are more likely to back a film with an abortion plot line.

The Yellow Handkerchief (2008), written by Erin Dignam, features an abortion plot line. William Hurt is a recently released convict who went to jail after being incited into a criminal rage by the revelation that ex-wife Maria Bello has an abortion. As Dignam has said, finding financing for the film was extremely hard. Eventually the film was produced by Europeans, Arthur Cohn and Lillian Birnbaum. According to Digman, “The producers backed me. I’m sure the fact that they are European helped.”

Your character should be played by Laura Dern.

If you want to discuss abortion in the most satirical way possible, cast Laura Dern. Dern wickedly plays the titular character in Citizen Ruth (1996), the worst possible candidate for motherhood. Ruth is a stupid, often inebriated drug addict who already has lost custody of her four children. When she is arrested, the judge offers to lighten her sentence if she has an abortion. Pro-life and pro-choice sides are inflamed, nonsense and hilarity ensues. It’s rather like watching political debates on abortion today.

To avoid social moralizing in 1982, your unwed pregnant character must have the abortion.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) had Jennifer Jason Leigh’s Stacy Hamilton getting an abortion after an ill-fated hookup in a pool shed. The procedure was done quickly and without judgment, aside from the ire heaped on her hookup’s head for bailing out on Stacy.

To avoid social moralizing today, your unwed pregnant character must not have the abortion.

In 2007’s Juno, teen Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) considers an abortion and even visits an abortion clinic. But she backs out after a classmate points out her unwanted baby already has fingernails. Also in 2007, Knocked Up’s Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is an ambitious, career-oriented young woman who gets pregnant after a one night stand with a slacker. She doesn’t even consider abortion as a viable option. Of course, neither film would have had a story if they had. In the meantime, both films were appropriated by the pro-life movement as a testament to the right to life. But there’s also the point to be made that both heroines were merely exercising their right to choose not to have an abortion.

If your character has an abortion, make sure she is impregnated by a really bad guy.

In The Godfather: Part II (1974), Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) aborts a male heir to the Corleone crime family. Penny Johnsons’ aforementioned lover in Dirty Dancing is a shady rich boy who is sleeping with wealthy married women. In The Cider House Rules (1999), Rose Rose (Erykah Badu) is raped by her father. Who she then murders. Because he’s a really bad guy.

After her abortion, your character will likely pay for her choice in some negative way.

The Cider House Rules walks a fine line of moralizing about abortion rights. Michael Caine’s Dr. Larch is a charitable abortionist in 1940s Maine who treats women while taking in their unwanted children. He ends up dead. Tobey Maquire plays Homer Wells, his uncertain protégé, himself an unwanted child.

Homer’s ambiguity over abortion is challenged by two women. Charlize Theron is Candy Kendall, whose abortion is seemingly consequence-free until her boyfriend turns up from war paralyzed from the waist down. Candy is now likely permanently childless. Coupled with the grim fate of Rose, who wins in any of these scenarios? No one. Even Homer Wells, who returns home to Maine to take up where Dr. Larch left off, is left to provide medical care to women in desperate situations in a barren, frozen landscape with a young Paz de la Huerta making eyes at him over the staircase.

And finally, if your character is going to have the first legal abortion on television, make sure the aborted fetus “reappears [decades later] fully grown after having been miraculously saved by the unscrupulous doctor who had performed the initial procedure.”

In 1973, All My Children’s Erica Kane had the first legal abortion on television. Which one would think is a landmark event, no? Until said fetus, now fully grown, showed up year later in Pine Valley. Just this April, ABC canceled All My Children after decades on the air. Tough break, fetus. Welcome to show business.

This is the latest installment in Katherine Butler’s column, Shade Grown Hollywood, where celebrity becomes conscious. “Shade grown” refers literally to shade grown coffee, a farming method that “incorporates principles of natural ecology to promote natural ecological relationships.” Shade Grown is our sustainable twist on Hollywood.

Infertility is a major bitch. It can seem like an almost endless font of emotions, misconceptions, fears, and at times complete and utter despair for the women and men who suffer through it. For women of a certain age who are not yet even trying for babies, it can swing like a scythe out of nowhere. For women (and yes, men) who are on the path to babies and facing road block after road block, it can be one of the hardest roads to travel in life.

The good news? Infertility is a bitch who almost always gets made over into a happy stork. Of the many strong women and men I know who have been down this road, they all have children now – be they biologically-derived or of another mother. And all of them feel with the depth of their souls that they have the children they were “meant” to have. Some confide they would not even change the path that got them to parenthood, as stressful as it was at times.

Still, for our sisters and brothers still on this road, one of the most painful things about it can be the misconceptions of others. People in the midst of infertility may know the technical ins and outs almost as well as some doctors. But the same doesn’t go for the aunt at Thanksgiving dinner who loudly asks three times in one evening if you’re pregnant and haven’t you been trying for years? (Because you got knocked up in the ten minutes since the first time she asked, right?) For the nosy aunts and well-meaning friends out there, here’s a look at some of the common misunderstandings about fertility that are better left unsaid.

It’s all in your head. It’s not all in your head. As Parents Magazine points out, some may tell men and women struggling with infertility that “if you’d stop worrying so much, you’d get pregnant.” Dr. John Zhang is the director of New Hope Fertility Center in New York. As he told New York Family, your relaxed mental state is important while trying to conceive. But he points out that “It’s also not [the case] that you can just relax and everything will be fine.”

Isn’t it easy for women to get pregnant? Shows like 16 & Pregnant make it seem like a case of wine coolers is all you need to be with child. But the CDC reports that 7.3 million women in the United States have “impaired fecundity.” This is 11.3 percent of all women and by some estimate, one in every 10 couples. The struggle to get pregnant is more common than people think.

She had twins, so she must have used fertility treatments. Yes, with the rise of IVF, the rate of twin births has risen. One in 32 births are now twins, a rate that has gone up 65 percent since 1980 due to fertility treatments. But that doesn’t mean that every twin birth is from using fertility drugs or procedures, as one in 89 women still have fraternal twins and one in 250 women give birth to identical babies. More over, is it really a nosy aunt’s business how you conceived?

You’re healthy and look so young, so why are you having trouble? As a woman ages, her chances for conceiving a baby decrease no matter what. And while healthy choices are important on the road to baby, ultimately it is just about the joining of a viable egg and viable sperm. Further, infertility can strike men and women of any age.

Well, at least you have each other. To insinuate that a childless couple can’t have a happy or fulfilled life without babies insinuates that all people need parenthood as the lasting key to fulfillment. Life has disappointments. And if adoption and/or fertility treatments fail, people move on.

Genetics are everything. No, they aren’t. As Dr. Cooperman pointed out to New York Family, there is “no correlation between your mother’s infertility and your ability to conceive.” So if your mother or sister had trouble, that doesn’t mean you will.

It’s the woman’s fault. Sadly, CDC points out that 7.5 percent of all sexually-experienced men have sought treatment at some point for fertility issues. This comes to 3.3 to 4.7 million men. Couples who are trying for children are in this together. And as for the rest of us? We’re there for support.

Images: Vivian Chen, e3000

Stretch marks. Friend and new mom Erin Fox speaks of them in hushed, angry tones, calling them, “Something so evil they must be destroyed. Evilly.” Yes, Erin, stretch marks are bad. What’s more, they are complicated. No, I’m not talking complicated like understanding the appeal of putting crazy people on reality television. Stretch marks are complicated because a vigorous debate exists as to whether they can actually be prevented.

And the debate over stretch marks is fierce. It pits doctors against mothers against physical trainers against beauty technicians. And sure, there are those who argue that stretch marks are natural, we must embrace our bodies, and these marks just accentuate perfection. All good and true points – click here, my positive-thinking friends!

For the rest of us still reading, let’s talk options.

The cosmetics industry has produced tons of creams, oils, and salves that they swear will decimate stretch marks like a nuclear bomb takes care of tree. Meanwhile, other skin experts shake their heads, check their offices for hidden microphones, and admit that nothing can be done to prevent them. They are, in fact, a result of the genetic makeup of your skin.

And it does seem that stretch marks are unavoidable for some people. I have friends who cocoa buttered themselves ceaselessly during pregnancy – only to end up with stretch marks best described as Freddy Kruger-esque. Then I know others who sailed through pregnancy without a mark to be had. And nary a cream or oil did they touch.

So what’s the deal? Firstly, stretch marks aren’t just due to pregnancy. They come from weight loss or weight gain – basically, from anything that will stretch the skin. Men and women get them all over their bodies. They arise in the elastic middle layer of skin called the dermis. Experts point out that when the dermis is constantly stretched, it can break down. Voila, stretch marks. They start off red or purple and can end up silvery white on the skin.

So what can you do to fight them naturally? Yes, I know that some say they are unavoidable. But experts suggest keeping the skin as hydrated as possible – and that sure can’t hurt the situation. Use Vitamin E lotions and oils on the skin, and get as much Vitamin E as you can in your diet. Nuts, spinach and tomatoes all contain a lot of it.

Finally, Narine Nikogosian of Return to Beauty details a natural recipe for stretch mark care in her book. She suggests combing 3 Vitamin E capsules with 2 tablespoons of cocoa butter, covering your affected areas every night before bed. She also offers up a similar recipe combining 1 teaspoon sesame oil, 1 teaspoon apricot kernel oil, and ½ teaspoon of honey. You can purchase Narine’s book here.

Have any of your own homemade recipes or tips to fight stretch marks that you’d like to share? Let us know!

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Recently, I discovered “the Aniston syndrome.” And I’m not talking a mid-90s hair flip or Angelina Jolie’s extremely-played-out-imaginary nemesis. It seems a certain smug-section of bloggers have coined “the Aniston syndrome” to refer to careless old women who have dared to put their careers first, only to be suffering barren wombs and lives never truly lived. Which clearly, is represented in the tears of 40-something Jennifer Aniston, despite her amazing career, friends, body, and bank account.

It’s possible you’ve exploded with annoyance at this point – I’m sweeping up my own pieces right now. Because despite our post-feminist inclinations, society seems as hell bent as ever to shame childless spinster/old maids. If you aren’t hustling into motherhood post 35, you’re clearly tragic – even if you are Jennifer Aniston. And as a recently-engaged 38-year-old woman who wants kids but waited for the right partner, this has struck a nerve. Or two. Or twelve.

Here’s why. My fiancé and I are not rushing to get married. We are not rushing to get pregnant. We are not rushing, period. And we want children. I adore my nieces and could easily walk home with any of my friend’s babies, maybe possibly returning them in five weeks or years.

But try explaining this to the masses at large. “Thirty-eight and engaged” means “throw out the birth control pills, you aged fool” to many. I recently had an acquaintance congratulate me on my engagement and ask when I was getting married, only to immediately assert “Oh well, you’ll probably have to do IVF anyway. There’s no rush!”

To which I say – really? Really, self-satisfied acquaintance who represents a portion of society? Giving birth is probably the most personal thing any of us can do, yet it seems to be a topic on which many are eager to offer an opinion. Are fertility drugs the expected choice for struggling parents? And if fertility is now about choice, then why does it seem like adoption is the thing you’re supposed to consider AFTER you’ve put your body through courses of taxing hormones? What about the right to refuse fertility drugs?

I have several friends who used IVF with outstanding results. And with their wonderful children in tow, they couldn’t imagine not having made the choice to use them. I’m happy they did as well, as I love their kids as only an auntie bent on ultimate spoilage could. I was with them every step of the way through their struggles, supporting, crying tears of frustration and eventual happiness at their amazing news.

I love my friends, I love their babies, and I love that they made their own choices. Most of all, I love that they had the right to do it without my judgment. Everyone deserves the right to explore all options to start a family. And this include the decision not to take fertility drugs.

I’m not even going to begin to address the other issues that go into having a child or fertility treatments, such as financial position, stability and more. (A recent article in Newsweek details the extreme cost of fertility drugs here.) Despite the dire predictions associated with my bridal age, I don’t know if I will be faced with any extra costs to start my family. And since I also firmly believe that no one knows how they will truly react until they are in a situation – I can’t say definitively how I or my fiancé will address the issue if we encounter it. That’s the honest-to-Betsy truth.

But I do know this. A close family member, who is like my right arm, almost died six months after giving birth to her second child. She suffered an extremely rare condition called a hepatic adenoma, which was a benign liver tumor the size of a grapefruit. (Want to learn more about this condition? Click here.) She had no idea she had it until the day it ruptured. Bleeding internally for days, she would have died were it not for the skills of her insanely amazing doctors. (Shout out, UCLA Medical and Long Beach Memorial!)

And what caused her tumor in the first place? Hormones. We will never know if they were the natural hormones from her two pregnancies. We will never know if they were the artificial hormones from her use of birth control pills, since she had this crazy idea of not wanting to get pregnant on her honeymoon. But we do know that her tumor was caused by too much estrogen in her body.

Sure, her condition was extremely rare. And yes, it hasn’t happened to me – I know this because my doctor ordered an ultrasound for my liver and it is currently tumor-free. One of the greatest things about my life is that this family member, now sporting an impressive scar and a re-sectioned liver, is still hanging around. And that she gets to come with me next week to check out a wedding dress. Because she survived too many hormones in her body.

And – my point. The decision to take fertility drugs can be extremely complicated and should be respected. But same goes for the decision not to take them. It is okay to wait to have babies, and it is okay not to have IVF in your back pocket.

And best of all? I’m not the first person to think so. Fertility is everywhere in the news. We are aware of the science of conceiving and childbirth. We know it gets harder as you age. We don’t need you to remind us, creators of “the Aniston syndrome.” We can still choose fertility drugs, we can still choose to adopt, and we can still choose to remain childless. We just don’t need to be mocked/pitied/judged for it. And we don’t need to be rushed.

So, world at large, can we back off gossiping about older moms/barren women? What’s more, can we learn to respect all our different choices? I’m sure Jennifer Aniston is extremely tired of her public persona being one of tragic, childless spinsterhood. Because at the very least, we need to just focus on her how she got her amazing gams.

Image: bibbit

Don’t be fooled by the appropriately aged thirty-year-old model strutting her pregnant belly in the new Forever 21 ad campaign to launch their ‘Love 21‘ maternity line. Although the company’s reps claim, “Forever 21 did not create, design or distribute Love 21 Maternity to target or appeal specifically to pregnant teens. Any relationship between teen pregnancy rates and the locations of our stores is unintentional,” it can’t be pure coincidence that the collection will only be launched in five states, with the highest pregnancy rates: Texas, Utah, Alaska, Arizona and California. Whom do they think they’re kidding?

Clearly, the ‘Forever 21′ name implies that their apparel is targeted for twenty-somethings, but the chain’s demographic is largely comprised of teenage shoppers looking to buy the latest trends at a dirt-cheap price. The company says they are trying to expand their demographic and appeal to a wider variety of ages by introducing a maternity line. But, all of the items in the Love 21 collection have a price point of $20 or less, and they make maternity clothing available to teens in a familiar setting in which they’ll be comfortable making purchases to befit their burgeoning bellies.

Of course, we can’t blame the easy access to maternity clothing for teen pregnancy, but is it responsible marketing to showcase trendy, affordable maternity apparel and accessories, romanticizing it by making it look super chic on a hot model, in a setting known for catering to young girls and teens? Or, is it opportunistic, especially given that the line is debuting in states known for their high rates of teen pregnancy?

We can’t truly believe that this fact is “pure coincidence” as senior marketing manager of Forever 21 stores, Linda Chang suggests – especially in this economy, where marketers are trying everything they can to target buyers and succeed at making big bucks.

Further, do we really need a practically disposable line of maternity clothing to crop up in any venue? Why must Forever 21 add to their already superfluous one-time-wear line of poor quality apparel? The ‘Love 21′ line is being touted as cheap and for temporary (nine month) use only. There are so many greener ways to dress stylishly during the nine months of pregnancy. Even if appropriately aged pregnant women are the ones who end up purchasing this line, no one will benefit, especially not the planet.

Pregnancy seems strange. Yes, I know it is natural/beautiful/necessary for our continued existence. But even our most goddess-embracing sisters have to admit that it’s a little freaky to have a human being grow inside of you – even if it is whispered in the dark of night, under a rock, and only to fairies that don’t exist.

Or maybe I’ve just heard too many pregnancy myths that make the act itself seem weird. After all, won’t your cat kill your unborn child? And who hasn’t heard that bumpy rides can cause labor/you can tell the gender of your baby by the way you are carrying/you lose a tooth with every pregnancy? But what’s true, what’s false, and what’s just weird old wives tales designed to scare teenagers out of sex? Here’s a look at some of the best pregnancy myths out there – and the truth behind them.

(Ultimately, of course, consult and take the advice of your doctor.)

If you raise your arms while pregnant, the baby will get the umbilical cord tangle around his or her neck.
This is FALSE. (And quite scary, I might add.) When an umbilical cord gets wrapped around a baby’s neck, it is because of the baby’s movements, not momma’s. You can twist, shout, and do the chicken dance and it will not affect the cord or your baby. It might give her an unexplained aversion to bad dance moves later in life, but I speculate.

Your cat can hurt your unborn baby.
This is FALSE, and not just because it sounds like Stephen King made it up. You can snuggle up with Fluffy as much as you’d like and your baby will be fine. However, pregnancy is a good time to pass off changing the kitty litter onto your significant other. Cat “number two” can contain the parasite toxoplasma gondii, which can cause deformities in developing fetuses. So as long as you lay off hanging around cat crap, you should be fine. (I know, it will be hard, right?)

Sex will harm the baby.
Happily, this is also FALSE. There is no evidence that sexual activity can hurt your unborn baby. You may not want to be hanging from an unsecured sex swing or performing otherwise acrobatic sexual feats. But the actual act itself is fine. In fact, evidence shows that it is even more enjoyable for you, as increased blood flow to the pelvic floor can enhance orgasms. There are some conditions that do make sex during pregnancy an issue – be sure to consult your doctor to learn if you have them.

You can tell the sex of the baby by the way you are carrying.
This is FALSE. Other than using ultrasound or amniocentesis, you cannot tell if you are going boy or girl by simply looking at the way you are carrying him/her. According to one expert, “Babies are carried differently based on their presentation (breech, vertex, transverse), their position (anterior, posterior), their gestational age and weight, maternal weight and stature and the mother’s parity (whether or not this is her first or eighth baby).”

You are more likely to go into labor during the full moon or stormy weather.
And this is also FALSE. Sure, my cousin the maternity nurse may disagree, but there is no scientific evidence that a full moon will send you into labor. Labor is caused by hormones and hormones alone. As for stormy weather - the stress of perhaps riding out a tornado in a bathtub could cause your hormones to trigger labor. So false – barring tornados, hurricanes, blizzards et al.

Image: scvimagery

Myths abound when it comes to our health. Back in the olden times, before the internet made data instantaneous, information was found in books and microfiche. If we had a strange bump on our hands, we’d have no choice but to actually go see a doctor for it. And not Google “hand cancer symptoms” only to discover that the bump was dried cupcake frosting.

Has the internet made health myths worse? Probably not. But they have made them much easier to explore! Check out five of our favorite health myths to see if they are very true, so false, or somewhere in between.

You must drink eight glasses of water a day.

And this is – false. The average person loses ten cups of water a day, a cup being eight ounces. But you regain four cups from simply eating. So you just need to drink six cups of water to make up the difference. Some nutritionists think you don’t need more than one liter a day. Others will go to their death bed swearing that eight glasses a day is the key to all good health.

The final word comes from Heinz Valtin, a doctor who specialized in kidney research for 45 years. He recently told Scientific American that the answer is no – there are no health benefits to drinking an excessive amount of water daily.

You will ruin your eyes reading in dim light.

I was a big reader as a kid. To the point that if I didn’t get my daily Judy Blume/Laura Ingalls Wilder/LM Montgomery fix, I went a little nutty. Needless to say, there was a lot of reading at night in dim light. When my eyesight went from good to “legally-blind with corrective vision” (Thank you, Lasik!) in a matter of a couple years, some blamed my excessive reading in bad light.

Where they right? Apparently not. But reading in dim light can certainly strain your eyes – it’s just that those itchy, burning tired eyes will restore themselves. No permanent damage is possible.

Pregnancy makes you crazy.

This health myth is common among my friends, who are bearing progeny like there’s no tomorrow. (It’s true – last Mother’s Day I had six friends celebrating their first one, not to mentioned the seasoned mommas among my peeps.) And most of them reported the worst emotional manipulation since kittens started starring on YouTube.

But does pregnancy make you crazy? Not permanently. But if you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD,) new evidence shows that pregnancy hormones can make it worse. In a study that looked at women’s symptoms, researcher found that they worsened, a good one-third of the time during pregnancy.

If you pluck your hair, more grows back.

On an episode of Sex and the City, or “The Show That was Great Before the Second Sequel,” Samantha is upset over a grey hair. She goes to pluck it but decides against it. As she tells our heroine Carrie Bradshaw, “If you pluck it, ten more will come to its funeral.” Now quickly skimming over the fact that I can recite Sex and the City from memory – is Samantha’s anxiety based in truth?

No, no, and more no, according to experts. When your shaved hair grows back, it is initially short and stubbly. The longer hair is, the softer it becomes. So while it may seem like the gods are punishing you for taking a razor to unwanted hair – it’s really just the biology of your body.

Using a cell phone will give you a brain tumor.

Cell phones channel dirty electricity, and all of this dirty electricity has evolved into what experts called “electro-smog.” According to sources, electro-smog is the invisible pollution or smog in the form of EMFs from the now widespread microwave-emitting devices such as mobile phones, their masts, wireless routers and DECT phones. Wired Child is a group that provides a comprehensive guide on how to protect themselves and their children from EMFs and transients.

So will your cell phone give you a brain tumor? Frankly, it seems that the jury is still out on this. Would I invest in a device that keeps “electro-smog” away from your brain? I’m calling Verizon Wireless to order one right now. Or not.

Image: flickr4jazz

It’s the end of June already, and the earth’s half-spin around the sun has brought us ladies plenty to wring our delicate little hands about. From Iranian clerics blaming earthquakes on our breasts to oil spills wreaking havoc on our pregnancies, 2010 has made us reach for the smelling salts on numerous occasions. Here at EcoSalon, we’ve covered women and the environment with vim, bringing you celebratory communiques alongside melancholic missives. Below, you’ll find a roundup of the news in 2010 thus far. If the past six months are any indication, the rest of the year will be a doozy. Feeling faint yet?

• Is GINK the new DINK? It used to be that childfree couples were called DINKs – Double Income, No Kids. But the great American greenwash has influenced reproductive choices as well, with an increasing number of couples citing the environment as a reason to go kidless. A recent study by Oregon State University added fuel to the fire, revealing that not having kids is 20 times more environmentally friendly than any other day to day green task, like recycling. Lisa Hymas of Grist coined the term GINK – Green Inclinations, No Kids – to describe childfree tree huggers like herself.

• Condoms came under attack earlier this year, with women’s health writers and scientists bemoaning the prophylactic’s sorry environmental record of sullying our beaches and clogging up our landfills. While greensters wondered whether condoms are biodegradable (likely not – their decomposable latex is mixed with human-made chemicals), we asked another question: why have this conversation in the first place? Condoms, as a blogger at EcoGeek noted, are “the single most important environmental innovation” ever, curbing environmentally-catastrophic population growth.

• Congress attacked killer chemicals this spring when members of the House and Senate introduced versions of the Safe Chemicals Act, a bill meant to fortify a toothless, decades-old law against allowing dangerous chemicals in household products (we all know how well that one worked…hello bisphenol-a). Uteruses in America rejoiced at the news: the Safe Chemicals Act is a boon to women, whose reproductive systems have been under siege by infertility-causing chemicals in water bottles and other plastics.

• In April, an Iranian cleric asserted that women who don’t cover up cause earthquakes. His declaration–meant to dissuade Iranian women from unveiling–ignited a response in the U.S., when blogger Jennifer McCreight organized a Boobquake, a day in which women wore low-cut tops without tectonic incident to prove the cleric wrong. But what could have been a bold political stunt turned into a ho-hum protest, with men egging on their breast-baring peers while feminists complained that the plight of Iranian women became fodder for a Girls Gone Wild spectacle.

• As if the earthquake itself didn’t cause enough damage, sexual violence rates spiked in Haiti in the months after the disaster. According to an article in Women’s eNews, aid workers in a major Port-au-Prince refugee camp fielded daily reports of rape, prompting the United Nations to send a special unit of 130 female Bangladeshi soldiers to address the violence. Lamentably, the post-disaster rape crisis was not unique to Haiti alone; many Hurricane Katrina survivors were similarly re-victimized.

• On the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, we noted that the pill’s invention by women’s rights crusader Margaret Sanger initiated the era of modern family planning, allowing women to choose the number and spacing of their children – a boon for their health and the health of their babies alike. But while the pill has done its part to keep our skyrocketing population in check (if you think things are bad, just imagine the world without it) its environmental record isn’t spotless – the hormones in the pill, excreted into waste water through urine, cause fatal mutations in fish populations.

• When a Houston tanning salon called upon the spirit of Coco Chanel to promote its new earth-friendly false tanning beet spray, we called foul. As legend has it, Chanel sparked the tanning craze in America when she stepped off a boat in Cannes with perfectly bronzed skin. Though Coco was a pioneering designer, breaching the boundary between menswear and womenswear, the tanning trendsetter didn’t galvanize women to leave the drudgery of housework in order to bask in the sunshine. Rather, Coco inadvertently created another unrealistic beauty standard.

• While much of the initial news surrounding the BP oil spill focused on the disaster’s effect on wildlife, we asked about its impact on human livelihoods. Coastal Women for Change, a community organization that sprung out of the post-Katrina haze to bring attention to the need for improved childcare in Biloxi, Mississippi, has stepped up after the spill by serving as a conduit for information from the Environmental Protection Agency to the local fishers. The biggest challenge? Getting fishers of different ethnic and economic backgrounds to rally together for their interests.

• Last year, journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published their book Half the Sky, a groundbreaking tome arguing that international aid is more effective when directed toward women. While Kristof and WuDunn described women as the gatekeepers of health and well-being in their communities, they left out one green detail: the fact that women also hold the keys to conservation. In Indonesia, the Environmental Ministry has begun offering classes on water conservation to women in rural areas who are responsible for fetching and distributing water to their families.

• Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but we all care equally about the earth, right? Wrong. According to several articles this year, men and women display their green pride differently, with men working for big picture sustainability while women, ever the quibblers, take on recycling and composting projects. We pointed out the ludicrousy in this theory, noting that a handful of anecdotes don’t constitute a trend. With all this talk about men, women, and their green differences, we lose sight of the why we should go green at all.

• As if the oil spill wasn’t dangerous enough, the chemical dispersants used to clean it up could spell health risks for pregnant mothers and their unborn children. According to information recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency, chemicals that caused health problems in the cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill are being used again today. Pregnant women have been advised to stay as far away from the contaminants as possible – a tall order for those women who actually live in the Gulf.

Image: xjyxjy

When President Obama outlined his administration’s plans to curb the ongoing BP oil spill in his national address last night, he mentioned the “wrenching anxiety” that local fishers feel at the potential loss of their livelihoods. But Obama failed to mention another cause of disquiet: the fact that the oil and its chemical dispersants may cause major complications for pregnant women and their unborn children living along the Gulf Coast.

According to Lucinda Marshall at Truthout, young children and babies in utero are at a major risk of chemical poisoning after oil spills because their immune systems are not fully developed, leaving them incapacitated to fight off dangerous compounds. While the National Institutes of Health have provided information on the way endocrine disrupters – common in both the oil and the substances used to clean it up – scientists aren’t clear on the effects of the chemicals, in part because until very recently, they had no idea which chemicals were being disseminated.

Now, without first telling Nalco Holding Co., the manufacturer of the dispersants that BP is using, the Environmental Protection Agency has released a list of ingredients used to break down the oil. And – shocker – the news isn’t pretty. One of the ingredients, 2-butoxyethanol, caused major health problems among cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill. That, plus the oil itself, could spell major risks to pregnant women and their fetuses.

According to Dr. Gina Solomon, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, “Some of the volatile chemicals in oil have been linked to miscarriage, preterm birth, and low birth weight, so it is a good idea for pregnant women to avoid the areas where there are elevated levels of VOCs [Volatile Organic Compounds] in the air. These are areas that include noticeable smells of oil or visible oil and also any areas where the EPA monitoring system detects elevated levels. The EPA air monitoring results are being updated regularly at www.epa.gov/bpspill. To be cautious, pregnant women may choose to avoid any areas directly along the waterfront and beachfront, even when oil is not visible.”

That’s easy enough advice to follow for would-be Gulf Coast vacationers (as if there are any this season). But for pregnant women living near the spill zone – where oil and dispersants reenter the atmosphere after being burned off the water – avoiding chemical exposure is akin to turning a blind eye to the disaster itself.

Image: Hello Turkey Toe