Hostess, 5-Hour Energy, Tamera Mowry and more: Our parenting news roundup
Hostess, maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, is shuttering operations, actress Tamera Mowry has her baby, 5-Hour Energy comes under scrutiny after 13 deaths, and the United Nations calls access to contraception a 'human right' (and a bargain!).
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The energy drink manufacturers say their beverages are safe, but concerns about them seem to be growing: This week a group of doctors in Nova Scotia recommended that caffeinated energy beverages not be sold to children under the age of 19; a number of US policymakers also seem to be jumping on the anti-energy drink bandwagon.
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Correspondent
Stephanie Hanes is the lead writer for Modern Parenthood and a longtime Monitor correspondent. She lives in Andover, Mass. with her husband, Christopher, her daughter, Madeline Thuli, a South Africa Labrador retriever, Karoo, and an imperialist cat named Kipling.
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The right to birth control
The United Nations for the first time described women’s access to birth control as a universal human right. Although the statement came, in classic UN fashion, in an annual report, advocates were quick to recognize the importance of the message. Global leaders, it was clear, believe that legal, cultural, and financial barriers to contraception are human rights violations.
Or otherwise put: Sandra Fluke, 1. Rush Limbaugh, 0.
The UN Population Fund’s annual report also detailed the financial benefits of contraception access, saying that increased funding for family planning by $4.1 billion could save $11.3 billion a year in health costs for moms and babies in poor countries.
Preterm baby news
The US last year had the lowest rate of preterm births in the past decade, the March of Dimes reported earlier this week, with 11.7 percent of babies born prematurely. That’s down from a 12.8 percent peak in 2006, but is still higher than the 6 percent in Japan and Sweden, or the fewer than 8 percent in Canada and Britain. Meanwhile, a report by specialists from a collection of children’s and medical groups, including Save the Children and the World Health Organization, said this week there is still too little known about how to reduce preterm births across the globe, where some 15 million babies are born before the 38th week of pregnancy.
And the celebs have it…
And finally, “Sister, Sister” actress Tamera Mowry-Housley welcomed a baby boy on Nov. 12. Important business, we realize.
We had written about how Ms. Mowry’s comments about late pregnancy struck us as refreshingly down to earth, i.e. she felt big, uncomfortable, and was ready for this baby to get here now.
Picking up on the new trend of two middle names, (OK, I don’t know if it’s a trend, it just happened in our house), Mowry and Fox News correspondent husband Adam Housely named their son Aden John Tanner Housley.
Happy Friday!
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