CDC – Maternal and Infant Health 2004
The cesarean delivery rate rose 6 percent in 2004 to 29.1 percent of all births, the highest rate ever reported in the United States (2). The rate has increased by over 40 percent since 1996. For 2003–04 the primary cesarean rate rose 8 percent, and the rate of vaginal birth after cesarean delivery (VBAC) dropped 13 percent.
The primary rate has climbed 41 percent and the VBAC rate has fallen 67 percent since 1996. See table 1 and figure 1. There may be small discontinuities in rates of primary cesarean delivery and VBAC in 2003 and 2004 due to changes in data collection resulting from implementation of the 2003 revision of the U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth in nine States.
However, for the majority of reporting areas for 2003–04 there appears to be a strong upward trend in the primary rate and a sharp downturn in VBAC.”
Have no idea what to say…
Jenny Hatch

Europe’s baby bust
“In the cradle of Western civilization, the cradles are empty. From the Atlantic to the Urals, in good and bad economies, in Protestant and Catholic societies, the countries of Europe are witnessing an unprecedented decline in birthrates.
This “baby bust,” analysts warn, will affect economic growth, social-welfare programs, patterns of immigration and Europe’s ability to pull its weight diplomatically, culturally and militarily in the 21st century.
In 1900, according to U.N. estimates, one out of four human beings on the planet — 24.7 percent — lived in Europe.
Today, the European population share is a little more than 10 percent. By 2025 — with the average woman in the European Union bearing just 1.48 children in her lifetime — the ratio of Europeans to everyone else is projected to be less than one in 14 — 7 percent.”
Sometimes you reap what you sow.
Jenny Hatch

This year we did thanksgiving alone. Did not have any company and did not travel. It was nice to be home with just our family.
Paul and Jeff cooked the whole supper, and it was so yummy. We have been having a week of the children doing the cooking, and I took Thanksgiving off too. Paul was happy to take full responsibility for the meal. What a great example for our boys! He was kind enough to mention how difficult of a chore it was. He also expressed appreciation for what I do every day in my kitchen, and it was very nice to hear those words. Food for my soul.
This morning I took a long hot bath, watched the parade on television, read, and relaxed. I have watched two full movies during the day, did not stress at all about house cleaning because it was just us, and really have just had a very relaxing day.

While Jeff and Paul cooked, Michelle, Allison, Andy and I watched a movie and Ben took his nap…

Thanksgiving turkey fresh out of the oven

Jeff cooking

Jeff made Rachel Rays five minute fudge

Andy brings out a mountain of mashed potatos

Turkey on the table

Paul gets ready to carve the turkey

Ben and Andy eat thanksgiving supper

Ben eating corn

Ben

Smiling Ben

Jenny eating thanksgiving supper

We give thanks

The Highlight of the meal was Jeff’s Boston Cream Pie.

The Pie – recipe found on Food Network!

Shelly and Jeff thanksgiving supper
Jenny Hatch

Good for Mom,
Good for Baby,
Why not?
Jenny Hatch

Ann hits a home run…
Quote:
“In an upbeat speech now being aired repeatedly on al-Jazeera, last week Rep. John Murtha said U.S. troops “cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home.” Claiming the war is “a flawed policy wrapped in illusion,” Murtha said the “American public is way ahead of us.”
Fed up with being endlessly told “the American people” have turned against the war in Iraq, Republicans asked the Democrats to show what they had in their hand and vote on a resolution to withdraw the troops.
By a vote of 403-3, the House of Representatives wasn’t willing to bet that “the American people” want to pull out of Iraq. (This vote also marked the first time in recent history that the Democrats did not respond to getting their butts kicked by demanding a recount.)
The vote is all the more shocking because of what it says about the Democrats’ motives in attacking the war — as well as alerting us to three members of Congress we really need to keep an eye on.
It is simply a fact that Democrats like Murtha are encouraging the Iraqi insurgents when they say the war is going badly and it’s time to bring the troops home. Whether or not there is any merit to the idea, calling for a troop withdrawal — or “redeployment,” as liberals pointlessly distinguish — will delay our inevitable victory and cost more American lives.
Anti-war protests in the U.S. during the Vietnam War were a major source of moral support to the enemy. We know that not only from plain common sense, but from the statements of former North Vietnamese military leaders who evidently didn’t get the memo telling them not to say so. In an Aug. 3, 1995, interview in The Wall Street Journal, Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, called the American peace movement “essential” to the North Vietnamese victory.
“Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American anti-war movement,” he said. “Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.”
What are we to make of the fact that — as we now know — the Democrats don’t even want to withdraw troops from Iraq? By their own account, there is no merit to their demands. Before the vote, Democrats could at least defend themselves from sedition by pleading stupidity. Now we know they don’t believe what they are saying about the war. (Thanks to that vote, the Islamo-fascists know it, too.)
The Democrats are giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats’ behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle.
They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on withdrawing troops, disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.”
I think the “plausible” explanation for the Democrats behavior is simply habit. They are so in the habit of dissing the US that to act any other way is out of character.
Jenny Hatch