@andrea_xtina: exactly! Just for looking pretty while I lie on the couch:)

FINALLY, an excuse to buy those totally impractical pointe shoes I've always wanted.

Read Delusions of Gender.

@mgallagher713: Yes, thank you.

Did they control for breast or bottle-feeding? Otherwise... duh. The SD summary doesn't mention it.

@ImogenKey: I don't remember the rationale precisely: think it might be too feminist for this "feminist-leaning" site. If you ask on groupthink there might be commenters there with better memories than me:)

@Tego: I believe this is something that the Royal College of Midwives has spoken about before, several times: low staffing levels are risky for everyone, at home or at hospital.

@kitsa961: Jez doesn't do trigger warnings:(

@laureltreedaphne: ah, Dr. Amy. That study is the main one based on a US population. There are others more relevant to the UK (like the de Jonge one).

@laureltreedaphne: Overviews I've read (e.g.: the one below from the Cochrane Collaboration) mostly agree that the mortality rate for ("low-risk") women is about the same whether for (planned) hospital or home birth, but the morbidity rate is worse in hospitals for women.

@colormeroutine: Neither one is inherently better than the other. What is good for ALL women is having access to good pre-natal care and being able to determine their own level of risk based on a wide array of factors so they can have their babies with the least invasive interventions possible, but with the most…

I imagine this has also something to do with a staffing shortage in the NHS for midwives. When midwives know each home birth needs two midwives (one for mum, one for baby), and those two midwives could cover more women in the hospital, they may subtlely or not-so-subtlely discourage home birth for mothers who are…

@laureltreedaphne: Giving birth at home does have its own set of risks. But so does birth in a hospital. I'm all for women deciding for themselves based on publicly available data, but let's not pretend hospitals are risk-free and that you're only "putting the health of yourself and your baby at risk" if you birth at…

Beatrice is clearly thinking "dammit, why did none of them get me gloves for Christmas?"

rapidly losing what little respect I had for him...

@PaintedTrollop: she just couldn't stand all the needling.

@CubeRootOfPi: I felt like this today after several snowballs to the face (and I'm in Ireland).

@blametheredline: yes!

@nessunolosa: yes! And they had beautiful art on them, too.

@hillarym hit the triple nerd score: also, correlation =/= causation! It's a win!