birth outcomes

Forget pink or blue. It turns out that the best color for baby may be green. In a study recently published in Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers found that mothers living in neighborhoods with plenty of greenness — grass, trees and other types of lush vegetation — were more likely to carry their pregnancies to full term and deliver babies at healthier weights. Specifically, the study found that very pre-term births were 20 percent lower and moderate pre-term births were 13 percent lower among mothers living in greener neighborhoods. Also, babies from greener neighborhoods were…
Earlier this week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed legislation that accepts the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion for his state, and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett has signaled his intention to do so if the federal government approves his proposed program changes. Wonkblog’s Sarah Kliff notes that if Pennsylvania does expand its Medicaid program, that will mean the majority of the states have adopted one of the main aspects of the Affordable Care Act. This is good news for the millions of low-income uninsured US residents who will gain health coverage from Medicaid. Another…
A few of the recent pieces I've liked: Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science: The disease trackers Maryn McKenna at Superbug: How Much Is a Drug-Resistance Death Worth? Less Than $600 Michele Norris at NPR: Why Black Women, Infants Lag in Birth Outcomes Fred Pearce at Yale Environment 360: Phosphate: A Critical Resource Misused and Now Running Low Gina Kolata in the New York Times: First Study of Its Kind Shows Benefits of Providing Medical Insurance to Poor And for what will surely be a source of many excellent blog posts in the future, check out the new Scientific American blog network.