What's in the News

Is society being reshaped on a microbiological and epigenetic level by the way women give birth?

The debate about the relative benefits and disadvantages of Caesarean Sections versus vaginal births is one of the most complex and contentious in the medical and health sphere.  In this fascinating piece, Hannah Dahlen, Professor of Midwifery, University of Western Sydney, approaches this issue from a microbiological and epigenetic perspective and discusses the evidence for a causal link between labor and birthing processes and diseases later in life, such as asthma and diabetes.  These fields of research are relatively new and not without their skeptics. However, if proven to be correct this research could potentially have major implications for birthing practices in countries, like Australia, with very high rates of Caesarian sections, and provide important insights into the cause of the ‘chronic disease epidemic’ facing our society today.  Professor Dahlen writes:

In 1915, when caesarean section was rare, Kendall proposed that microbes, which colonise the baby’s gastrointestinal tract following vaginal birth, ‘may be protective’ He said, “Very shortly after birth bacteria make their appearance in the mouth of the newborn, and organisms appear in the meconium from four to twenty hours post partum (Kendall, 1915 p 209). Colleagues of Kendall had previously undertaken experiments sterilizing the environments (including undertaking caesareans) and foods of newly born/hatched animals, observing that development became affected under these conditions. This led Kendall to conclude that these bacteria may be protective under ‘ordinary conditions’.

In the intervening 100 years intervention in childbirth has climbed higher than ever before in the history of humankind. Vaginal births without a medical intervention are becoming increasingly rare in both Australia and many other developed nations. In 2012 we published a paper showing only 15% of low risk first time mothers giving birth in private hospitals in NSW did so without intervention compared to 35% in public hospitals. In 2014 we published a follow up paper showing that babies born to low risk women in the private sector, where the intervention rates were so much higher, were more likely to have a problem following birth and to be readmitted to hospital in the first 28 days for morbidities associated with interventions, such as forceps and vacuum birth (scalp trauma) and being delivered early (breathing difficulties, feeding difficulties, sleep and behavioural difficulties and jaundice). However this is only giving us a short-term glimpse at the impact of obstetric intervention....


Or, for when Crikey puts the article behind their paywall, the evidence isn't in but it looks a bit like vaginal birth is, in general, beneficial because the birthed infant gets stressed in a good ways and... PREHISTORIC MICROBES, WOOHOO!

IRL I will not pat a pregnant belly nor do I bequeath valuable old wives tales to tell the heaving birther what's right and wrong with everything she's ever done. I just happened to see these articles and, unfortunately, reposted them.

Girl flirts with guy in uniform, boyfriend wannabe gets peeved and before you know it, all hell breaks loose.

I've been to Longshan County. It's is way out in the boonies.

Interesting that they decided to allow the news.

I don't think there's a way for the drill instructors to not be at fault in this story.

Unless, for instance, the authority of the military really does supersede that of the teaching staff of a teaching institution with respect to enrolled students of that institution. Arguably then when the teacher intervened, he would have been undermining the educational and spiritual role of the invited trainers. And when the students first mobbed the playfully tiffing instructor, they would have been in the wrong too, and all of them should have been disciplined. The invited trainers derive their legitimacy from whatever mandated their presence in the first place, and as far as I know, that was the government, the one party.

The (hopefully different) instructors are due here in a few days. In times past I've seen them providing what looked like salutary instruction to the freshmen. They make them march, get coherent, possibly soak up some values, and sing. They make the atmosphere a bit more antagonistic for me, hit on without actually hitting a few girls, possibly score, then leave. The students ditch their uniforms and suddenly look older. Class begins.

There's probably no chance the students don't know the Longshan story by now. I don't know what's going to happen. If the instructors that turn up here are worth anything, they'll know how to tell that story the right way and the students will end up knowing something worth knowing. There might even be a propaganda victory in it. But the dudes who made the violence come true in the first place.... they, I think, remain dicks.

I GHOSTWRITE CHINESE STUDENTS' IVY LEAGUE ADMISSIONS ESSAYS

Hey China, you’re welcome. When you think about your future multi-million dollar shipping moguls, innovative tech giants, and up-and-coming diplomats, please remember a small handful of them probably received their Ivy League degrees thanks to me.

I’m a black market college admissions essay writer, and over the last three years I’ve written over 350 fraudulent essays for wealthy Chinese exchange students. Although my clients have varied from earnest do-gooders to factory tycoon’s daughters who communicate primarily through emojis, they all have one thing in common: They’re unable to write meaningful sentences.

Sometimes this inability has stemmed from a language barrier, but other times they have struggled to understand what American college admissions committees are looking for in a personal essay. Either way, they have all been willing to pay me way more than my old waitressing job ever paid me....


Made up or real?

Because, I remember reading a similar story but by a male author and set, as I recall, in Australia. He would write assignments rather than admissions essays. But it was the same story of suffering writer selling words coming out of the closet yet not quite deciding to stop.

I written several of there recently but not for Ivy league schools yet.

What are your rates? I wrote one, many years ago, but that was for fun. (Student was granted a place and insisted on buying a meal, I doubt the essay decided the deal though because she was a good student anyway.) whoops, no i didn't, that was a reference letter.

The news article though seems to me like it might be advertising. It is an article. It is in the news. (Sorta.) But I've seen almost the exact same weirdly self-congratulatory, self-flagellatory tone in this other article a few years ago. That other article, as I recall, had the dude actually quitting the words-for-hire biz. He claimed big bucks and burn out. But I don't know what's the purpose. They want to normalise the practice of writing other people's assignments? Get some kudos of some kind? Or some new clients? I find it weird.