Links Round Up: Week Ending 16 August 2013

[barrelofrain.livejournal.com]

For folks who don't know, the LRU is a compilation of items from the past week that may be of interest to VPers and is intended to broaden the kinds of conversations we have here. (We're experimenting with moving the LRU to Fridays at the moment.)

To submit articles for next week's round-up, e-mail vpteam@vaginapagina.com. If you have additional articles you'd like folks to know about this week, feel free to comment directly to this post.

As a reminder, in lieu of trigger warnings, I use keywords describing the themes of the piece. Please skim these before deciding to read the excerpt or click through for the full article. Outside sources are not safe spaces, and mainstream source's comments should almost always be avoided. The links I highlight don't necessarily reflect VP's views, or even my own, for that matter.

This week's round-up includes: a breakdown of fertility awareness, questioning "rules" about certain restrictions during pregnancy, informed decisions about the care of extreme preemies, new ideas about the anatomy of the clitoris, "the talk," and public nudity.

1. Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 15: Fertility Awareness Education by Tori at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona (Keywords: planned parenthood, fertility, trying to conceive, contraception)
   

   For someone having menstrual cycles, fertility awareness involves monitoring cycle signs and symptoms — predominantly cervical fluid and basal body temperature, though these are often supported or “cross referenced” by tracking other signs as well — in order to determine when a person is approaching ovulation and/or to confirm when ovulation has already taken place.
   

   
   



2. Q&A: The Woman Who Is Rewriting the Rules of Pregnancy by Erica Schwiegershausen at The Cut (Keywords: pregnancy, health, rules, caffeine, alcohol)
   

   Emily Oster combs through hundreds of medical studies to debunk many widely followed dictates: no alcohol, no caffeine, no changing the kitty litter. Her conclusions are startling, not least among them the revelation that there's no good evidence to suggest that light drinking during pregnancy has any negative effect on the baby. (She concludes that woman should feel comfortable with one or two drinks a week during their first trimester, and up to one drink a day during the second and third.) She finds the evidence linking caffeine to miscarriage similarly flimsy, advising that one or two cups of coffee a day while pregnant are fine.
   

   
   



3. End of Life, at Birth by April R. Dworetz at New York Times Op-Ed (Keywords: end of life care, birth, preemies, disability, parenting)
   

   Ultimately, parents have the right to decide, but we physicians must help them make informed decisions. I asked Miracle’s father whether anyone had talked to him about resuscitating Miracle before she was born. He vaguely remembered a conversation, but hadn’t understood what treating such a tiny premature baby meant.
   

   
   



4. Time for rethink on the clitoris by Sharon Mascall at BBC News (Keywords: the clitoris!, anatomy, health, medical education)
   

   The clitoris rivals the penis in size. "The vaginal wall is, in fact, the clitoris," said Dr O'Connell, who is based in Melbourne. "If you lift the skin off the vagina on the side walls, you get the bulbs of the clitoris - triangular, crescental masses of erectile tissue." [...] "They left it out," she said. "It boils down to rivalry between the sexes: the idea that one sex is sexual and the other reproductive.
   

   
   



5. MMMMonday! Birds and Bees and Kids. by Amy Lang of Birds and Bees and Kids, for VaginaPagina (Keywords: MMMMonday, the talk, kids, sex ed, parenting)
   

   It’s time to get the birds and bees talks started! Here are some tips for starting the conversations with kids of just about any age. But first, some very general guidelines: First rule - Get a book! [...] Second rule - Read it yourself first! You don’t want to be surprised by the content. Third rule - Relax! The calmer, more centered and relaxed you are the better.
   

   
   



6. Right to bare breasts by Jessica Blankenship at Creative Loafing Atlanta (Keywords: nudity, topless equality movement, objectification, public indecency, criminalization)
   

   This mentality speaks to a culture of objectifying women that is so deeply embedded in our collective social psyche that it's challenging for even the most equal-minded individuals to view a woman's exposed body as benign. It's a culture that, in fact, beats into women and men the notion that female bodies are exclusively sexual, even when acting in ways that would be innocuous and permissible for men.
   

   
   

Thoughts on any of these stories? Also, what have you been reading (or writing!) this week?