That picture looks suspiciously like the poster of this movie.

Every time I read something about Orion, I think "cool, city-sized atomic-bomb-powered spacecraft!"

Then, the big letdown: "aw, it's just another rocket-powered capsule."

Fools` Day was two months ago!

Please don't mix cultures. The nazi in Asia were the japanese.

Oh wait, in view of this, the chef's attitude just seems proper now.

Apple is now officialy THE ENEMY here at slashdot. M$ is just another bad guy now.

Who cares about the origin of mitochondria anymore? I'd give an arm to have mommy's midichlorians!

Of course you should take informed decisions. Just remember that not every Ob-Gyn is trying to gouge you. Also, that not every "alternative practitioner" has your best interests in mind. Remember also that if you're unlucky, the "dead baby card" is a real dead infant on your lap.

Ob-gyn's in the United States, but also in other parts of the world, certainly have reason to be extra careful and conservative in their decisions, as they have some of the highest rates of malpractice litigation in the medical profession.

If you consider that the United States is #1 in health expenditure per capita, #46 in infant mortality does suck badly.

He still won't be able to run Crysis 2. On the other hand, she would probably not want to run Crysis 2.

Congrats, anyway!

The thing about stem cell harvesting is that the chance that your child will actually need its own cells later on is rather small. Actually around 1 in 20000 small. A public stem cell bank is much more useful for everybody. It benefits children who were born too early to have their cells harvested. It may even benefit the old geezers lurking here in slashdot.

Of course, there's a lot of money being made in keeping private stem cell banks working, so there's little hope of convincing people otherwise.

There's actually a pulse even after the umbilical cord is clamped. Pulse in the umbilical cord is generated by the fetus' or baby's heartbeat, not by the placenta. The placenta has no pumping motion.

After the baby is delivered, it is actually not "getting everything it needs" through the placenta. Even were the placenta still attached to the uterine wall, blood flow to that organ diminishes greatly soon after delivery -- otherwise, life threatening maternal blood loss might occur. Of course, an unattached placenta is not contributing with any substantial amount of metabolites to the baby.

As a medical curiosity, I'd like to point out that the first picture of the original article shows a true knot of the umbilical cord. Of course, it's a curiosity and not a tragedy only because the knot wasn't tight enough to kill the fetus.

"Probably" just doesn't cut it. While delayed clamping of the umbilical cord may have a number of benefits to premature newborns, there are several other reasons for neonatal anemia (and hence, your need for a transfusion of RBCs) that have nothing to do with the timing of clamping.

Also, several of the reasons for prematurity may cause birth with low Apgar scores. When a baby is born with low/zero heart rate or does not breathe soon after delivery, keeping it attached to the placenta is not going to give you better results than prompt clamping and institution of proper resuscitation.

Please try to exercise more common sense when you leave your opinions in a public forum. Oh, forget that last sentence, this is slashdot, after all.

The first choice of treatment for neonatal jaundice is a blue light bath. Read the wikipedia article you've referred to more carefully.