Friday News Round-Up - 3/2/07

I ususally do these on Saturday, but had the content all set up and ready to push through, so here you go:

New England Journal of Medicine (free full-text) - Cesarean Delivery and the Risk-Benefit Calculus - this perspective piece states, "As practicing obstetricians, we find that the risk that women are now willing to assume in exchange for a measure of potential benefit, especially for the neonate, has changed: for many, the level of risk of an adverse outcome that was tolerated in the past to avoid cesarean delivery is no longer acceptable..." without asking whether this is linked to the number of unnecessary c-sections physicians have advocated for and insisted are necessary over the past decades. More on this later.

The Mommy Blawg has a roundup of midwifery-related legislation (found via Belly Tales)

UN Dispatch on community-based interventions to reduce violence against women

Could the REAL ID Act endanger victims of domestic violence? Melissa Ngo thinks it could.

Statehealthfacts.org has added information on women's health, including "new state-by-state and national data for 2006 on state mandates for cancer screening, inpatient mastectomy stay, post-mastectomy breast reconstruction, fertility treatment and osteoporosis screening. In addition, information on mandates for direct access to ob-gyns and for ob-gyns as primary physicians has been updated."

From the Kaiser Network, Increasing Number of Hospitals Banning Gift Bags Containing Samples of Infant Formula. Ban the Bags works to increase these bans, as providing samples of formula is thought to discourage breastfeeding. (found via Katie Allison Granju)

March 8 is "World Kidney Day"

Does bad PR for Merck help or hurt sales of Gardasil? (found via Kevin MD)

CNN - Rising STD rate sparks online dating sites

National Cancer Institute Hosts Meeting on Preoperative Therapy in Invasive Breast Cancer

NYTimes - New Options (and Risks) in Home Care for Elderly

NYTimes - Updating an Old Way to Leave the Baby on the Doorstep