You And Me And Baby Makes Four

Okay, here's a little tidbit that's sure to get the giddy mad scientist in me excited and ready to rev up the plasma balls and Tesla coils, break out the microscope, and start doing bizarre and rebellious things with human reproductive systems.

Oh, and I might add before I start the meat of this blog post, let's be sure to clear the room of any neoconservative types, please. We wouldn't want any fundamentalists thumping their leather-bound holy books (why are the covers always black?) and ruining our scientific parade. I mean, really, if they get a whiff of what's going on in the hallowed halls of biology these days they might just, you know, insist that we keep living with our God-given diseases and disorders.

Now, having gone through six years of infertility treatments prior to the adoption of our two wonderful children, I can tell you with a certain degree of authority that there are some pretty unnatural yet clever ways of making babies that don’t in any way involve sexual intercourse. The most simple of these is artificial insemination (where the father – um, how should I say this? – "collects" his semen, and the concentrated "man-soup" is put into the female at just the right time and in just the right manner). If that fails, in vitro fertilization is an option (you know, "test tube babies", where eggs are surgically collected from the female, put into a Petri dish, washed with live sperm, and grown for a few days before being put into the mother's uterus). Yeah, we went through all that. Several times.

But reproductive biologists have gotten pretty good at the art of manipulating eggs, removing and even transplanting nuclei (where the DNA is located) between eggs, and adjusting the environment around the developing embryos. In fact, there's this little technique called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) which has bioethicists all in a tizzy, where you can remove the nucleus from an egg and replace it with the nucleus of an adult human, thus potentially cloning a person. Sounds like science fiction? Not at all. We can do it right now. We just don't. Because, like, that would be way too close to the plot of a bad B movie. And we wouldn't want to, say, remove stem cells from the embryo (which, at that point, looks more like a beach ball than a little human with a beating heart) and actually save lives.

Well, now some researchers are reviving the SCNT method.

But wait! Before you start shaking your head and calling up your Pentacostal buddies (I have one, too) and alerting FOX News, the new SCNT technique isn't for cloning purposes or harvesting stem cells or creating mindless replicas of Hitler or anything. Instead, this is a novel way to keep the potential child from developing mitochondrial disorders. And how do they achieve this lofty goal? By involving two mothers and one father!

http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4246047&page=1

Your typical egg is composed of a single nucleus that, once fertilized with sperm, has DNA from both the mother and father. The egg also has mitochondria, which are teeny-tiny structures that provide energy for the cell. Mitochondria also have DNA, but that DNA is solely derived from dear ole Mom. When the child grows up, he or she will have that Mom's mitochondrial DNA in every cell of their body, and none from Dad.

But if Mom's mitochondrial DNA is defective, harboring mutations that lead to a variety of diseases, heretofore there has been no way to prevent it from being passed to the child.

Using SCNT, though, researchers can remove the fertilized nucleus from the original Mom's egg and place that nucleus into the egg of another woman, whose nucleus had been removed. "The Other Woman" would have normal mitochondrial DNA. Thus, the resulting child from the fertilized egg would have the nuclear DNA (which make us who we are) from their traditional mom and dad, and mitochondria from woman #2. Voila! One father and two moms = healthy baby (and a bizarre family tree).

Wow. That gives a whole new meaning to the term "ménage tois"!


Image taken from HERE.

Will It Ever End?

Yes, for the second time in a week, another massive recall has been issued for Chinese-made toys. This time it is for 11 million (yes, million) toys which have been contaminated with lead-based paint or have small, swallow-able magnets:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/14/recall/index.html

Included in the recall are “Sarge” character products from the movie “Cars” as well as Polly brand toys.

These were made by a different Chinese manufacturer than the previously-recalled toys (as I reported in my last post, a co-owner of that company hung himself in a warehouse over the issue).

Also, an unknown number of Chinese-made vinyl baby bibs have been recalled due to high lead content:

http://www.redding.com/news/2007/may/03/wal-mart-issues-vinyl-bib-recall/

These bibs date back to 2004, and have 16-times the amount of lead allowed in lead-based paint, which is already very toxic. Hell, you might as was well use it as a fishing sinker with that sort of lead content. The lead is there as a “stabilizer” and can only cause harm if the bib is compromised. So your baby would have to have teeth and gnaw on a new bib to get poisoned, but if the bib is old and worn, or ripped, well, let’s just say he’ll be riding on the short bus later, if he survives. These bibs are predominantly sold through Wal-Mart.

Gee. Why am I not surprised.

Heck, it seems if you buy crappy Chinese-made toys and baby products, you might as well just tell your kid to chew on some lead pipes and get it over with.

“Here you go, Sweety. I got this from under the kitchen sink. Scrape it with your teeth, now! That’s a good boy.”

So let’s say you discover one of your kid’s brightly-colored Diego toys is lead-contaminated. What do you do? It’s the love of his life. The gleam in his eye. He plays with it, shows it off, sleeps with the frickin’ thing. How could you possibly be so cruel as to remove it??? Lucky you, there’s now a quick guide: HERE.

It’s a sad state of affairs, I think, when Chinese-made toy recalls have become so prominent that CNN releases a “how-to” on how take a toy from your baby. But that’s the world we live in.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go unscrew one of my lead pipes from the kitchen ….


Update (8/17/07): Now Toys-R-Us has pulled Chinese-made vinyl baby bibs from its shelves due to the lead content (STORY).


Images adapted from HERE and HERE.

Chinese Suicide And Cute Furry Monsters

Unless you’ve been living in a cave in Afghanistan, chances are you’ve heard about the numerous and increasing examples of recalled products from Chinese manufacturers. I recently posted a list of many of these toxic, hazardous, or misleading product warnings, everything from tires, to toothpaste, to toys. It seems China is trying to kill us.

Then it seemed they were trying to kill each other, when they executed their food and drug chief over these scandals and the bribes he was taking. Another official, who was at the heart of the recent dog food melamine poisonings, has been detained and may face the same fate.

Now they’re killing themselves:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/08/13/china.toymaker.ap/index.html

One of the most recent massive Chinese product recalls was for 967,000 Elmo, Big Bird, Diego, and Dora toys that had been painted with lead-based paint. Any children who may have stuck these toys in their mouth could have poisoned themselves, causing vomiting, anemia, learning disabilities, neurological conditions, or even death. I’ve paid close attention to this one, given that I have two small children who love those products with a cult-like devotion.

But I haven’t heard of any children actually known to be injured by these toys.

Nonetheless, Zhang Shuhong, co-owner of the Chinese company that manufactured these toys, Lee Dur Industry Company, hung himself in one of his warehouses this weekend. According to the article, it is common for disgraced officials to kill themselves in China. Hell, it’s probably better than letting the government execute you!

I can only guess what was going through his mind at the time of his death (other than a sudden desire to breathe and a wish that he’d used cheaper rope). Doubtless Zhang had lamented his role in potentially poisoning thousands of children to make better profits, though, ironically, it was his best friend, the paint manufacturer, who is probably the source of the issue. Had Zhang known the paint had lead? It remains to be seen. If he’d been in America, he would have simply professed ignorance and blamed his best friend. It’s the American way, don’t you know.

Now, being the father of young children who fawn over everything that bears the likeness of Elmo and Diego, I suspect there may be another cause to Zhang’s suicide: Elmo Overload.

Yes, overload of all things Elmo. Nothing new to parents with small children, only magnified. Can you imagine it? Going to work, day in and day out, seeing the little red monster everywhere you look, hearing that high-pitched laugh with every movement of every crate. Heck, he probably dreamed about Elmo. Only in his dreams the little beastie’s fur was probably blood-red, it’s laugh echoing across the caverns of his mind, its silly little voice chanting demonic curses. What’s the number of the day, Zhang? 666! It’s enough to drive a man to suicide.

I’m guessing Zhang isn’t the last Chinese official to face death over these scandals and recalls, either at their own hands or those of the government.

In the meantime, I recommend checking the source of your imported products. Oh, and don’t go sucking on any Diego toys, okay?



Image taken from HERE.

Father's Day, And Carrying My Children Through The Forest

Happy Father's Day to all you papas, grandpapas, and papas frites out there. We spent Father's Day picnicking at a nearby state park, then hiking a new trail (for us) up in the mountains with the family, enjoying the spirit of discovery I saw in the eyes of my kids as they explored the subtle joys of throwing rocks into a lake, splashing in the mud, and hugging trees along the trail. Though they are only toddlers, my son and daughter are real troopers. Still, by the end of it, I was carrying both of them when they ran out of steam. I didn't mind, though. That's what dads are for, after all.

Of course, I had started down the trail with the intention of making them walk all the way. Inevitably, it was my daughter who first broke me of that idea. How did she do it? Yep, you guessed it. She stood in front of me, arms wide, and looking at me with those adorable please-please-please eyes. How could I possibly say no to someone so cute? Oh, man, the things she's likely to get away with over the years!

I'm not alone in being influenced by my daughter. A study was recently released by researchers in economics and psychiatry from Yale that showed male congressmen who have daughters are more likely to support women's rights and health issues:

http://www.physorg.com/news101125978.html

But is it really surprising? Don't we naturally relate most to issues we have the closest connections to? According to the article: "Kyle Pruett, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Yale University's Child Study Center, said daughters make fathers 'think differently about how they're going to make the world a better place.'"

Yep. I consider myself an advocate for women's rights, anyhow, but I have no doubt she, and my son, will change the way I see the world, and in a big way. I think it's a reasonable argument that, though we play a pivotal role in molding the way our children see the world as they grow up, in the end it is our children who change us more.

Don't Get Knocked Up In The Next 3 Months Or Your Kid Will Be Dumb

A couple I know just found out they are pregnant with their first child. Congratulations, guys! They've only been trying for a short while, but it's a good thing they "did it" when they did! If they had just waited another month to conceive, their kid could have performed poorly in school.

Yes, you read that right. According to a recent study presented in early May, the date of your child's conception has a direct correlation with his or her academic performance. The worst months to be conceived are June through August:

http://www.medicine.indiana.edu/news_releases/viewRelease.php4?art=686

Researchers, led from the Indiana University School of Medicine, studied over 1.6 million children in Indiana who were between grades 3 and 10 and who had taken Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress (ISTEP) examination, and correlated their score with the month of their conception. The lowest scores were for those for children conceived in the summer months. It just so happens that these are the months that pesticides and fertilizers are used the most.

What better way is there to zap bugs than to coat your fields and gardens with ruthless neurotransmitter inhibitors that keep the buggie neurons from communicating with one another, making the bug a retard unable to perform even the simplest of bodily mechanisms, thus making it die a horrifying, quivering, spasmatic death? And you have to keep your lawn green and beauterrific, don't you? So spread some fertilizer on it, already! Just don't be surprised when all those pesticides and fertilizers leach into the local water supply, then back into you through your drinking water. So says the article: "Nitrates and pesticides are known to cause maternal hypothyroidism and lower maternal thyroid in pregnancy and are associated with lower cognitive scores in offspring." The findings were presented on May 7 at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting. Makes you want to run out and purchase a water purification system, eh?

So if you're trying to conceive a child right now, you'd better do it quick! You've got five days left, then you'd better keep your pants zipped for three months, or your kid may suffer a lifetime of stupidity!

Child: "Daddy, why can't I get good grades?"

Dad (eyes welling up): "I'm sorry, son! I couldn't keep my pecker in my pants during the summer months."

I didn't see the presentation, I haven't found a research article, and I haven't been able to find any data on the web, so I don't know how they can say that it is the pesticides and nitrates that lead to the lower scores. It's a reasonable hypothesis, but what else happens in the summer that could lead to this cognitive change in the developing embryo? Is there anything else we ingest in the summer that is vile enough to lead to baby brain damage?

One word: lemonade.

Yes, lemonade. All that bitter, acidic, pee-yellow liquid flowing into your gut must rot out your embryo's fragile little brain! Why, with every sip and gulp you can feel it scouring out your system. Sure, hide it with sugar, but the acidity is still there, evil and wretched, dissolving away your tissues like water through limestone, insinuating itself into your new, innocent little embryo. So watch out, all you newly-pregnant women out there! No more lemonade for you on those hot summer days!

Oh, and you might want to drink filtered water, too, just in case.


Images taken from: HERE and HERE.

Mothering Ain't What It Used To Be, But We Still Love You

I dedicate this blog post to – who else – Mom!

Happy Mother's Day! Today in the United States we celebrate all that is right and good about yo momma. Yes, on this glorious day of spring we step aside from the usual family squabbles and aim our loving glances at dear old mom, that all-too-human being with the second X chromosome who suckled us at her teat, rushed to our sides and kissed our boo-boos, worried about us when we were late getting home, and took care of uncountable loads of diapers, dishes, and laundry just to keep us happy, healthy, and wearing clean underwear. Who else but Mom would simultaneously pat down our hair with her own saliva while at the same time scolding us for poking at our siblings?

Mothering isn't the same job it used to be, for better or worse. While modern conveniences like dishwashers, microwave ovens, and washing machines have made the job of being mom a little easier than when she was a baby and Grandma did the job, modern living has also brought with it new and imposing worries about what her kids will face "out there," like drugs, school shootings, and Britney Spears. Let us not forget, too, that rising costs and changes in expectations from the feminist movements have led to Mom working outside the house. This brings independence and better pay, but it also has increased Mom's stress level and work load, particularly if Dad doesn't help out around the house as much as he should (A very interesting recent study found the amount of work that men do actually equals the amount of work that women do, on average, if you add up time working both in the home and outside the home for both sexes, at least in countries that aren't economically depressed).

But I think Mothering has also become more stressful because of a less tangible change in society. It seems to me that when Mom was being raised by Grandma, Grandma only had opinionated family members and nosey neighbors to tell her how to raise her baby. Since the time my generation was born, in the late 60's and early 70's, parenting has increasingly become the topic of concern for politicians, academics, and socialites, blaming every evil of society on bad parenting techniques. Do we have the hippies to blame for it?

Now, oddly, it's the grown-up hippies who have chimed in to the issue. Oh my God, what are you doing letting your kid watch Looney Tunes alone while eating Ding-Dongs while you're off in the kitchen doing dishes? Don't you know Looney Tunes is violent? Billy is sure to grow up to be a mass-murderer after watching Wile E. Coyote get clobbered for the thousandth time with his own Acme-brand anvil. Eating Ding-Dongs and not exercising are sure to make your kid morbidly obese. And why aren't you sitting there next to him? God only knows what he may be seeing or thinking without you there to guide him. Why, this poster boy is certain to grow up to prove the politicians right! Naughty mommy! That's it, we're blaming all of society's problems on you unless you feed him soy oat clusters, clothe him in American-made organic cotton, help him answer all of his math questions, and take him on rigorous bicycling trips to cultural-appreciation courses! And you'd better do it with a smile, too, Mum! If he sees you looking stressed, it's sure to send him straight to lifelong therapy.

An international conference on childrearing in the age of ‘intensive parenting’ will be held at the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research later this month:

http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid=520432&ez_search=1

As stated in the report: "Dr Ellie Lee, the conference organiser, explained that her own research about women’s experience of feeding their babies had led her to want to organise the event. ‘The research showed that a basic, everyday aspect of being a mother has become moralised and politicised,’ she said. ‘The choices women make in this area seem to have become bound up for many with identity, with demoralising consequences.'"

So I'm not alone in my perceptions, despite the fact that I'm your typical clueless, overweight, butt-scratching American dad. But let me play devil's advocate a moment and say that, while modern life has brought many evils, today's children are safer than ever because of "interference" from politicians and academics. As studies emerge, and policies change, parents are better informed, and so are their kids. It's because of this that we have mandated car seats, for instance, child labor laws, child abuse laws, recall notices for toys, and those little ratings for TV that pop up in the corner of your screen for you to ignore. My mother raised me the best she knew how and has always loved me with all her heart, but I would like to think I am raising my kids in a more emotionally and physically healthy manner simply because society has provided better outlets and more updated information. Only time will tell.

But Mom, Grandma, and all you other mothers out there, you ARE appreciated for making us eat our veggies, clean our rooms, and sit up straight all these years. We children are better off for it (but I'm still not eating my Brussel sprouts - so there!).

Marital Bliss And Toddler Upchuck

As I said in my last post, my family and I have been battling a flu. First it was me, in all my belly-clutching, sleep-demanding grumpiness. Then my lovely wife got it (Tag, you’re it, Honey!), with requisite barfing and long sleep hours. Now my toddler daughter has it, but in her sweet, straightforward manner that only a young child could have she just cried a little and then upchucked onto the linoleum (thank goodness it wasn’t the carpet!), followed by lots of sleep. We could have done without the rotten-egg farts and diarrhea, though. Have I grossed you out yet? Doubtless my 2 ½ year old son will get it next, as he shares cups and such with my daughter despite our best efforts. All the while we’ve had to stir into the stew a heaping portion of long work hours for both of us, including night work, with a soup base of fatigue, and a dash of irritability, just for flavor. And daycare won’t take a sick child.

It’s times like this that make me happy I’m in a strong marriage. Yes, my fellow parenting types, I think back to all those countless bottles, diapers, tantrums, thrown food, hyperactivity, and just plain neediness that have filled two and a half years between the smiles and laughs and sweetness, and I realize how much it has bonded me and my wife. I think even if we had had to deal with babies who had colic or some major medical need, we still could have weathered it. I feel sorry for those “kids” out there who get married right out of school and have babies before they’ve even had a chance to bond with each other, much less mentally mature on their own, or for single moms with few folks to turn to (like my mom was). Just last Sunday marked the 13th anniversary of when my wife and I met each other, as well as the 12th anniversary of my proposal to her. By the time kids came around, we had worked out enough of the relationship glitches to weather the rough spots of parenting.

Well, a study has just been released about “coparenting relationships” with small children (a.k.a. the ability for you and your spouse not to strangle each other when the kids are screaming, poopy, breaking fragile keepsakes, falling off tabletops, and wiping runny noses on their arms all at the same time):

http://www.physorg.com/news96002754.html

Researchers through Ohio State University studied 97 Illinois couples who were expecting a child (2/3 of them would have their first child), giving them a questionnaire and videotaping their interaction. When their child was 3.5 years old, the researchers came back and videotaped the couple playing together with their child and cooperating to change their child’s clothes. Their goal was to study how well the couples interacted with each other as well as the child, how “close” their marriage relationship was, and how well they cooperated with each other. Not surprisingly, those couples found to be less “close” had more difficulty cooperating with tasks and were more critical with each other. Previous studies by the authors had shown how negative coparenting relationships affected the children in negative ways down the line, such as in aggressiveness and inappropriate behavior at home and school.

Duh. But I guess it’s good to show it in an irrefutable way.

What I’d be more interested in studying is the effects on marriage of having children who were behaviorally difficult, especially spirited, or had special needs. Do couples tend to grow closer from the strain, on average, or is the divorce rate much higher? I wonder. Personally, I’d like to think they tend to grow closer. Getting toddler puke on me and working with my wife despite our own sickness has made me think so.

Sleep Problems, Part I

Come, Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace.
The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release…

-- excerpt from "Sleep", by Sir Philip Sidney

Ah, Sleep! Without it the "knot of peace" becomes a knot in my back. Trust me. It hurts.

I get too little of the "balm of woe" these days. We really can't get much done while the kids are awake, so I spend late hours most nights catching up with things. Sometimes I even go in to work. If we want to relax and decompress, it happens in that time, too, typically with a movie or TV show. Usually I'm up until midnight or 1 AM. The kids still wake up most nights, too. Since I'm the one most likely to hear them, I'm the one most likely to get up and soothe them back to sleep. I'm f*ckin' tired. Maybe I should just sleep at work.

A couple of studies were released last week regarding sleep. The first one, from the Journal of Family Psychology and a researcher named Boergers, shows that children with sleep problems negatively affect the sleep patterns of their parents:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070308/hl_nm/sleep_disorder_dc

Boergers found that parents with sleepless children are more likely to have daytime drowsiness, more likely to be impatient with their children or spouse, and be less productive at work and home.

Really?? Let us please pause a moment to tilt our heads, take a deep breath, then utter a deep and sarcastic DUHHH! I rate this study right up there with the one that found people who go to bars with country music are more likely to be depressed. Come on! Is this what our government money is funding these days, stupid ass studies to confirm that parents with sleepless kids are friggin' zombies? Hey, Boergers, here's a sleep study for ya: Does standing over you while banging cymbals and screaming the Star Spangled Banner keep you awake at night? How can you be sure? I think you should commission a study and let me help!

Sleeping At Work

Being the parent of two children in diapers, plus working full time as a lab rat, is a hell of a tiring lifestyle. In the typical day I get home around 6:00PM or 6:30PM and immediately launch into "daddy mode", which doesn't stop until the kids go to sleep around 9:00PM. By then all I want to do is crash in front of the TV, but there are always household chores to do. And I am a busy body type with lots of hobbies, so in order to get those things done, too, I wind up staying up until about 1AM. Add to this the fact that the kids still tend to wake up once or twice a night, and if they are sick or teething they wake up a lot more. Then of course I have to wake up in time to get to work (which, luckily, doesn't require me there until 9AM), and every other morning it's my turn to get up with the kids, sometime between 6:30AM and 7:30AM. So I only get about 5 or 6 hours of interrupted sleep on a good night. I'm only half-complaining, since this is a sleep schedule I bring upon myself (what with the hobbies and all and my choice to be a parent, knowing what I was getting into). At least it's not as bad as when the kids were newborns.

So sleep is at a premium, and many days I drag myself into work in a haze and daydream all day about falling into my bed. My wife is home with the kids many days, and has the option sometimes of napping when the kids nap, in the early afternoon. I envy her a bit for that (though being at home with the kids is usually more physically tiring than my work).

So I revel in stories about people sleeping at work. I can think of a couple people at my work who catch a cat nap in their car over lunch. The problem with that plan is that the car may be screaming hot in the summer or frigid in the winter. I've also read about someone who would sleep in the restroom while sitting on the toilet. No one is going to bother you there, but of course this has its obvious downsides! I haven't quite heard of anyone going to the extreme of George Castanza in "Seinfeld", where in one episode he would sleep under his desk, complete with little shelves, pillow, and alarm clock! There is actually a book entitled The Art of Napping at Work, on the subject. Personally, I've only napped a couple of times at work, when I was sick, by putting my head on my desk and closing my door (I'm lucky I have an office to do this!).

There are a couple companies out there that actually encourage employees to take naps in special nap rooms, believing (oddly enough) that a well-rested employee is more productive. What a notion! It's expected in many countries around the world, like around the Mediterranean, but here in the U.S. it is considered a sign of laziness.

Well, now a study shows that working men, and possibly women too, who nap during the day are not only more rested, but are less likely to die an early death from heart attack:

http://www.physorg.com/news90504801.html

The Greek researchers followed 23,681 healthy Greek adults for six years (siestas are considered normal in Greece). Those who napped at least 3 times a week for about a half hour – get this! – were a whopping 37% less likely to die from heart attack! Wow. Given I have a mild heart condition and that serious heart and circulatory problems run in my family, maybe I should start taking daily siestas, eh?

One possible problem with the study, though, is that highly-stressed individuals (who are therefore more prone to heart attack) may not make time to nap, and less-stressed individuals do, thus skewing the data.

I wonder what my boss would think about me taking a daily nap?

And could I get a note from my doctor mandating that I put a cot in my office and sleep on the job?

Larger Families Kill You Quicker

Just before my lovely wife and I became parents, everyone kept saying the same cliché regarding our impending parenthood: "Your life is going to change!" This statement would be said with a wink of the eye and a tone suggesting they were being witty and wise, and I heard it as much as two or three times a week in the months leading up to our son's birth. Each time I heard it I wanted to raise my hand and utter, "Duh! Of course my life will change. Don't you think I realize this?", but I would instead give a tight smile and nod as if they'd just enlightened me. I still hate that saying.

But now I think they just didn't say what they meant. I think what they REALLY meant to say was, "You think your life is hard now? Just wait! In a few months you'll be begging for sleep and thinking that squishy baby will be the death of you!" And that's exactly what happened. I underestimated the physiologic toll that caring for a baby can exact. Within a week we were walking zombies and looked like we had ridden a carnival ride a few too many hundreds of times. Thank goodness my wife and I had each other to help.

And then came our second baby, our daughter, a mere 11 months after our son was born. Surprise! As much as I loved them both, some days I wondered how I could possibly continue functioning on as little as three hours of interrupted sleep a night and overwhelmed with responsibilities and chores (diapers, bottles, spit-up) on top of a full-time job and the usual life hurtles. "They'll be the death of me!" I would mutter.

Well, a study released this month suggests I wasn't far from the truth:

Summary: http://www.unews.utah.edu/p/?r=122806-2

Full Paper: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0609301103v1

This study, conducted using the birth and death records of tens of thousands of Utah parents and hundreds of thousands of their children in the late 1800's, showed a significantly higher mortality rate of parents, especially mothers, with increasing numbers of children. In other words, the more kids you have, the faster you die! Boy, do I believe it. I guess everyone has their comfort limits. Maybe you would be happy with a gaggle of kids, but two is enough for me. Any more and I'm likely to keel over from fatigue (last night, for instance, my little daughter spent at least an hour screaming and crying around 2AM). The study showed children were also more likely to die with increasing numbers of siblings, especially the later kids. Surprisingly, economic status was not a factor.

The study went on to suggest that menopause may be nature's way of saying, "Whoa there, Bertha! That's enough kids. You're a human, not a rabbit." By developing menopause, the authors suggest, women are more likely to raise their offspring to adulthood.

According to the authors: "Researchers note that natural selection does not necessarily favor maximal reproduction because reproduction 'imposes fitness costs, reducing parental survival and offspring quality.'" One important critique of mine, though: These data were collected from people who lived more than a hundred years ago. How relevant is this study to modern living?

But when do you stop having children? Like I said, we all have our comfort limits, but I think most of us would agree that having more than, say, 6 children, is considered extreme these days. So I've made a top-ten list to help you know if you need to stop reproducing, in the name of extending your life:

YOU KNOW YOU'VE HAD TOO MANY CHILDREN WHEN:

10. Family road trips require a bus

9. Your family formed its own baseball team

8. You have children younger than your oldest grandchild

7. You no longer notice when babies cry

6. Your house is often mistaken for a dormitory

5. Airlines offer your family special charter flights

4. Your breasts are as perky as pancakes

3. Root canals are a chance to "relax"

2. Your family eats in shifts

and

1. Your uterus doubles as a laundry basket