ABCE

A large new study on VBAC after prior VBAC has just come out, and it affirms what we've seen before, that risk for subsequent labors goes down and success rates go up after a previous VBAC. Krispin 2018 Study This is a large retrospective cohort study from Israel. It looked back at all women who attempted a VBAC at a major hospital over a period of 7 years (2007-2014). The study group (n=1,211) contained the women with at least one prior VBAC. The control group (n=2,045) was comprised of women pursuing their first VBAC. As we've seen before , a prior VBAC increases the chances of another VBAC. So it was in this study, too. Those with a prior VBAC had a 96% subsequent VBAC rate . (I think that's the highest VBAC rate of any study I've ever seen!) However, even the women pursuing their first VBAC had a high rate, nearly 85%. This suggests that the Israelis are doing something right when it comes to attending VBACs, because their VBAC rates are much better than those of

Five years ago, Disney and Barney’s announced a partnership for the Barney’s holiday window in which they would dramatically alter Minnie Mouse’s body — making her a 5’11, size zero in order to “look good” in a Lanvin dress. There was an uproar, the result of which was that Disney and Barneys changed the campaign, making it a “dream sequence” with Minnie eventually waking up wearing the dress on her actual body. However, when Disney announced the changes in a press release, they claimed they had planned to do it the whole time and added: “We are saddened that activists have repeatedly tried to distort a lighthearted holiday project in order to draw  media attention  to themselves.” They were talking about me. I was one of the attention seeking activists. I had started  a petition against the campaign  that garnered over 140,000 signatures (including actors, models, and Walt Disney’s granddaughter) and drew international media attention. It wasn’t the first time I’d been called an “atte

If you’ve watched How To Get Away With Murder or Orange is the New Black, you’ve seen the work of actor Matt McGorry. If you follow him on Facebook you saw him do some serious ally work for Health at Every Size and Size Acceptance , even giving shouts out to people in HAES community: This one is an important read. “Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight” by Linda Bacon. # I wish that all people, and especially health care providers, fitness industry professionals, and nutritionists would read this book. # Like most people in our society, you’ve probably been on a diet aimed at losing weight. In fact, you’ve probably been on a diet MANY times. And when you inevitably “fall off” of the diet, you most likely blame yourself for not having enough willpower. You hope that next time will be different. But how many times has this happened? And should you really have to make yourself miserable with overly-restrictive eating and exercise plans in order to look a way that ca

Your pelvis is NOT defective A cesarean for " Arrest of Descent " means a cesarean done after a woman has dilated fully and pushed for a while without the baby descending. The amount of pushing time required for the diagnosis varies from source to source but is usually at least 1-3 hours. When a woman has a cesarean for Arrest of Descent, she is often told something is wrong with her pelvis. She might be told she has: A "flat" sacrum  A "prominent" sacrum A pubic arch that is "too narrow" Ischial spines that are "too prominent"  A pelvis that is "too small" "Too much soft tissue" (fat) lining the vagina/pelvis A pelvis that is the "wrong shape"  A baby that was "too big" for her pelvis  "Cephalo-Pelvic Disproportion" (baby too big and pelvis too small, causing baby to not fit) Often women who have been told these things are strongly discouraged from trying for a Vaginal Birth After Ces

Let’s start with the fact that I’m a fan of Drew Barrymore – I recently went on a kick and watched a bunch of her movies (the song from the end of The Wedding Singer is still in my head.) I also want to acknowledge that she is not typically “Hollywood thin” and her weight has fluctuated throughout her career, which means that she’s had to deal with all kinds of body shaming nonsense, and that’s total bullshit. Based on a recent People Magazine interview , it seems that she may have bought into diet culture in a way that illustrates the problems that many of us have, or have had that I think are worth acknowledging. Discussing her eating habits around her show Santa Clarita Diet she says: “Let’s face it, I hate it, I would much rather eat fettuccine alfredo all day long…When I first started the show [Santa Clarita Diet], I was 145 lbs. and my life was kind of falling apart,” she said. “And I said, ‘Victor [Fresco, the show’s executive producer], can I lose 20 lbs. over the course of the

Life is such a funny beast of a thing! When you think you know yourself, and I feel like I really know myself at this point, things happen or change and suddenly you’re meeting an ex downtown for tea. WHAT?! I know! SO not a Me thing to do. Shit happens, things change, you pivot or bail, whatever! Ha-ha! It’s good to surprise yourself, I guess. And, well, I guess I’m glad that I did it! So…what happened? So, after I left my husband in 2012, I befriended a man I had met at a terrible BBW club. There was attraction, but it was more than that (always is for me).We didn’t ever actually date. We “hung out” and were “friends” but whenever things felt too serious for him, he’d bail and I wouldn’t hear from him for weeks. *Yawn* Long story short, after a year of chasing after the dumbass, I found some love elsewhere and left him in the dust. He moved away, I had moved one. End of story. Sort of. Really he has continued to text me every few months. Usually simple things like, “Thinking of you”

Last week I got the chance to be on Plus This! A show created by Eva Tingley and Kathy Deitch, two powerful plus size women in entertainment. Kathy’s credits include the original Broadway casts of Footloose and Wicked, and Eva’s credits include Scandal and Community. I met Kathy at the Fattitude screening in LA and she invited me to be on the show. They have a lot of seriously famous guests so I was feeling nervous, but of course I agreed. As we walked into the Universal Broadcasting Network studio, they pointed out that it’s in the same building as Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder  – which didn’t help me feel any less intimidated, but did make me want to sneak on to the elevator to check things out. Kathy and Eva are amazing, hilarious, brilliant, talented, and a total joy to be around so that put me at ease right away. Jarvis, the show’s producer was also amazing and incredibly kind despite doing roughly 1,000 things at once. I hung out through the first segment and then we