NPR - Baseball's First Player To Take Paternity Leave Faces Criticism

That just plain sucks - men are damned if we don't attend the births of our children, and now we are damned if we do attend the birth. Colby Lewis did the right thing - and for crying out loud, it's April. They've played, what, maybe 25 games out of a 162 game season? Big effing deal if Lewis misses one start in April.

Besides 24-72 hrs for paternity leave? How about 3-6 weeks? These are children being born, not puppies.

Baseball's First Player To Take Paternity Leave Faces Criticism

April 21, 2011

by Eyder Peralta

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All Things Considered

[3 min 36 sec]

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Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis makes his return from paternity leave on Tuesday. He, and the Rangers, lost that night to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 15-4.

Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis became the first Major League Baseball player to go on paternity leave last week. The league codified the leave, this season, and now gives players 24 to 72 hours off for the birth of their children.

Rob Neyer, national baseball editor for Sports Blog Nation, told Robert Siegel for today's edition of All Things Considered, that players have traditionally taken time off in the past, but now they don't have to ask permission.

The league made the decision to make the change, he said, "basically to take the decision out of the hands of the team." But Lewis' leave hasn't come without some criticism.

This is what Richie Whitt, a columnist for the Dallas Observer, wrote on Monday about Lewis' time off:

In Game 2, Colby Lewis is scheduled to start after missing his last regular turn in the rotation because — I'm not making this up — his wife, Jenny, was giving birth in California. To the couple's second child.

Don't have kids of my own but I raised a step-son for eight years. I know all about sacrifice and love and how great children are.

But a pitcher missing one of maybe 30 starts? And it's all kosher because of Major League Baseball's new paternity leave rule?

...

Baseball players are paid millions to play baseball. If that means "scheduling" births so they occur in the off-season, then so be it. Of the 365 days in a year, starting pitchers "work" maybe 40 of them, counting spring training and playoffs.

Of course, Whitt was jumped on immediately for his comments — pretty viciously by NBC Sports Craig Calcaterra, who made some harsh personal comments. The Dallas Morning News reported, yesterday, that Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux stuck by Lewis:

"I don't know why we didn't have it before. I've longed for the day we would," Maddux said. "We have the bereavement list and to some, this is for something that's even more sacred."

Neyer cautiously took Whitt's side in his interview with Robert.

"I think [Whitt] took the argument too far," he said. "The example I gave was, what if it's game seven of the World Series? If you're a fan of that team do you want your pitcher pitching in that game? The Rangers last year made it to the World Series. Colby Lewis was a big reason for that."

But right now, Robert pointed out, it's only April.

Tune in to your local NPR member station to listen to the full interview. We'll post the as-aired version of it here a little later on.

Tags: NPR, Baseball, First, Player, Paternity Leave, Criticism, MLB, Major League Baseball, Colby Lewis, men, fatherhood, birth, children, sports, Texas Rangers, Eyder Peralta, All Things Considered, Rob Neyer, Richie Whitt

Male fetuses ignore their stressed-out mothers

This is an interesting finding - it has long been assumed that male fetuses are more vulnerable than females, with more males being conceived, but the margin narrows by the end of nine months. From New Scientist.

Male fetuses ignore their stressed-out mothers

• 15:00 20 July 2010 by Wendy Zukerman

Male fetuses ignore their mothers' response to stress – unlike females, which are very sensitive to it. The finding could lead to better treatments for male fetuses at risk of premature birth.

It is known that when a pregnant woman produces the stress hormone cortisol, it can cross the placenta. But it has been unclear how this affects fetal development, and whether female and male fetuses respond differently to the hormone.

During an asthma attack, high levels of cortisol are released. So Vicki Clifton and colleagues at the University of Adelaide in South Australia investigated the effect of cortisol on fetuses by following 123 asthmatic women and 51 healthy women during their pregnancies, recording the severity of each woman's asthma and her medication at 12, 18 and 30 weeks of pregnancy.

Forty-five minutes after the women gave birth, Clifton and her team measured the cortisol in their umbilical cord blood and analysed the placenta for the expression of genes related to stress response. She also recorded the newborn's sex and birth weight.

Stressful information

Baby girls born to women with moderate to severe asthma had higher levels of cortisol in their cord blood – an average of 245 millimoles per litre – compared with girls born to controls and mildly asthmatic women, who averaged 202 and 209 millimoles per litre respectively.

However, no difference in cortisol levels was observed in baby boys born to either group.

The team also observed that 22.5 per cent of girls born to asthmatic women were small for their gestational age, meaning they were among the lightest 10 per cent of all babies born worldwide. But just 9.5 per cent of girls born to healthy women fell into this group. Again, no difference was observed in boys from either group.

"Females are very sensitive to what's happening in mum's body, but males just ignore it," says Clifton, who presented her results at the University of Adelaide last week.

Small strategy

Low birth weight is associated with hypertension, diabetes and depression in adulthood, but a smaller fetus copes better with adversity in the womb, such as a drop in nutrients during an asthma attack. But the males take a gamble, says Clifton, ignoring the rise in cortisol and continuing to grow at a regular pace.

"There must be some benefit in males being bigger at birth, and this is worth the risk [of being affected by an associated drop in nutrients]," says Tim Moss, a prenatal physiologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

Moss says the work has important clinical applications that "could help us to reduce the vulnerability of male infants".

For example, in obstetric practice, stress hormones are routinely administered to women who are at risk of preterm delivery to induce faster maturation of the fetus. The treatment seems less effective in males than females – this study could explain why, and lead to new methods of aiding male development.

Tags: boys, girls, biology, genetics, birth, stress, gestation, mothers, Wendy Zukerman, asthma, New Scientist

Dana Glazer - Should Dads Be Allowed in the Birthing Room?

My first question (and my girlfriend's as well, as she read over my shoulder) is why the hell wouldn't they be allowed to see the birth of their child? Men are stepping as fathers in ways men in my father's generation couldn't or wouldn't - that should be praised, not questioned.

Should Dads Be Allowed in the Birthing Room?

Dana H. Glazer

Posted: June 29, 2010 08:00 AM

Should dads be allowed in the birthing room? This question has arisen lately in the blogosphere and, frankly, I'm just as mystified as other "dadvocates" like Brian Reid from Rebel Dad.com. Isn't it just a given at this point that dads should be allowed to attend the birth of their children?

Watching a rerun of Mad Men the other day -- the episode where Don Draper is stuck in a hospital waiting room while his wife gives birth -- reminded me once again of where the state of the delivery room was only a few short decades ago. My own father was not permitted at my birth and, after I was born, he had to adhere to "visiting hours" just like everyone else. The message about my dad being a "visitor" is something that most fathers of his generation had to contend with and, in some cases of divorce, still do.

From my view, one way to pinpoint exactly where we are in the "evolution" of fatherhood is to notice how most of today's dads are now present at the birth of their children. Most also accompany their wives to birthing classes and learn how to coach their wives on breathing; very often, they will be given the opportunity to snip the umbilical cord. The typical dad of today proudly wears his involvement in the birth as a badge of fatherhood... as well he should.

And then I read the comments to a recent posting on Jezebel.com about this subject, where a number of people expressed that a father's presence in the birthing room is "distracting" to the process. Of course, it should be up to the couple to decide what is best in their situation, but to read about how some people would like dads to once again not be permitted in the birthing room is, in my mind, reflective of how far we still need to go to get everyone on board about the importance of fathers becoming more involved with their families.

I'm not an alarmist by nature, nor do I do I really believe we are going to regress to the point where my father and countless other dads were in generations past. We've come too far for that to happen. However, I bring this issue up to point out how fragile the "evolution" of dad truly is, and that as dads and parents we must really work hard to keep moving forward.

One way to progress would be to make the pre-baby process more inclusive of dads-to-be. It might help many men to be educated at this stage about fatherhood in general and, more importantly, that their value should not be based solely on the size of their wallets- as is still, more often than not, the case. Among so many things, dads should learn about the importance of parental leave and see how it's most beneficial to their children, as well as themselves, to be involved as early on as possible. The next real step in our "evolution" is what happens immediately following the birth, so the more dads can understand about this the better. Lastly, dads should become aware that work/family balance is as much an issue for them as it is for their wives, and that discussing it early and often can avoid problems down the road.

I can't wait to see how fatherhood progresses in the years to come. Educating dads on their role and keeping them engaged in the delivery room and beyond - can make sure that fatherhood continues to grow to its fullest potential.

~ Dana H. Glazer is the award-winning director of the feature-length documentary film, The Evolution of Dad. To learn more about the film, please visit www.evolutionofdad.com.

Tags: fathers, birth, rights, family, men, Dana Glazer, Should Dads Be Allowed in the Birthing Room?, Huffington Post, Jezebel.com, dadvocates