Word: labor
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...Utter the phrase "natural childbirth" and the mind envisages a stoic and earnest woman, surrounded by murmuring midwives in a softly lit room, where ambient music plays and tea lights flicker. Upon the elapse of some decent, manageable labor, she pushes out her baby with honest grunts. While that may be true for some, for most women natural childbirth is one of the most violent physical traumas they will ever experience, bar a serious accident or grievous assault. The average length of labor for a first-time mother is anything from seven to 12 hours, but it can easily...
...also experience increased risks of ectopic pregnancy and placenta previa or accreta (an abnormally located placenta, which may cause bleeding and other complications). And because many doctors will not permit a woman to undergo natural childbirth once she has had a cesarean - because the uterine scar may rupture during labor with potentially dire consequences - it is likely that her subsequent children will also be surgically delivered, multiplying all of these risk factors each time. "If there is no medical reason to have a C-section, we would advise [women] to have a vaginal delivery," says Professor Tan Kok Hian...
...Something is about to change - but almost certainly for the worse. Higher labor costs, a strengthening Chinese currency and soaring raw-materials prices are bad enough. Now, a slowdown in global growth and a likely full-blown recession in the U.S. are about to stress-test China's manufacturing sector like never before - and could result in the shuttering of thousands of factories and cost hundreds of thousands of workers their jobs. Makers of low-end goods are already suffering. The Guangdong city of Huidong was home to 3,000 shoe factories at the beginning of 2007, but as many...
...Some are already starving. China's competitive advantage has been its armies of cheap workers, but that edge is getting dull. Labor costs have increased 50% in the past four years across southeastern provinces - an area of China sometimes called the "workshop of the world" - and a new labor law passed by Beijing will only add to the burden. Jonathan Anderson, an economist at UBS in Hong Kong, says that factory owners in southern China believe the new law will drive labor costs another 10-25% higher. Among other provisions, the new law entitles laid-off workers to one month...
...MIDDLE EAST 500 Number of construction workers, mostly from South Asia, in the United Arab Emirates whom police say vandalized property on March 18. Rising inflation in the Gulf state has triggered labor protests 80% Percentage of U.A.E. residents who come from overseas...