Word: homely
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...midwives disagree. Home births attended by trained nurse-midwives are no less safe than hospital births, they argue, providing the midwives are affiliated with a nearby hospital to which the mothers can be brought in case of complications. "The most comprehensive study of this was published in the British Medical Journal in 2005," says Melissa Cheyney, an assistant professor of anthropology at OSU and a practicing midwife herself. "It showed that for low-risk [home] births in the U.S. and Canada, the infant mortality rate was roughly 1.7 per 1,000, or about the same as it is in hospitals...
Cheyney decided to test the British journal's findings in her home state, where the rate of planned home births is at least twice the national average, due both to Oregon's culturally liberal leanings as well as its wide rural stretches, which can make hospitals hard to reach. (From 1998 to 2003, parts of the state also had higher than average rates of premature and low-birthweight babies, leading some critics to conclude that midwifery was partly to blame.) Cheyney and doctoral student Courtney Everson examined one county's birth records from the entirety of that period and found...
...thing, even Cheyney admits that while the odds of mortality in the case of routine births may be no higher at home than they are in the hospital, they're no lower either. And even the lowest-risk birth can turn high-risk fast - with maternal hemorrhaging and fetal distress just two of the dangers - making immediate access to high-tech care imperative...
Cheyney's conversations with physicians turned up other, more complicated issues. When hospital-based obstetricians see midwives and their clients it's usually because something has gone wrong and the laboring mother is rushed in for care. OBs don't see the uneventful births that proceed successfully at home. What's more, doctors in this position find themselves not just being forced to take on someone else's case, but someone else's problem. That's enough to sour them on the entire profession...
...world's largest retailer isn't new to India. For the past decade, the country has been an important Wal-Mart supplier of textiles, apparel, home products and jewelry. But in anticipation of its India launch, Wal-Mart for the last three years has been developing a network of suppliers to stock its stores with fresh produce and staples like lentils, wheat and rice - all with an appreciation for variations in local cultures and tastes. "India is not a homogenous market, so ours is not a cookie-cutter approach from the U.S.," says Raj Jain, president of Wal-Mart India...