Miscarriages

Sad news for Michelle Duggar and family: The "19 Kids and Counting" mom learned that she suffered a miscarriage in her second trimester. The miscarriage reportedly was detected during during what was supposed to be a routine doctor's appointment for Duggar, 45 -- a heartbeat no longer could be detected. She and husband Jim Bob Duggar had been expecting their 20th child this spring. They plan to hold a funeral and will pick a name once they determine what the child's sex would have been.

Hours after Ariel Castro was arraigned on rape and kidnapping counts in connection with three women held prisoner for years in his Cleveland house, Ohio prosecutors said they would seek new charges that he abused some of his victims and forced them to have miscarriages. Cuyahoga County prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty, whose office will present the case to a grand jury, said that if Castro, 52, were charged and convicted of aggravated murder as a result of the miscarriages, he could face the death penalty.

A study commissioned by IBM has found that two chemicals used in manufacturing semiconductor chips may significantly increase the risk of miscarriage, the New York Times reported in today's editions. The newspaper said that the computer maker had warned its workers, as well as other companies, of the potential chemical risk. IBM's warnings were based on a study that found 10 miscarriages among 30 pregnant workers at two IBM plants.

Gwyneth Paltrow suffered a miscarriage, she revealed in an interview published over the weekend, and because of another health scare revamped her entire diet.  Paltrow, who has a son and daughter with husband Chris Martin of Coldplay, shared the personal information in the Daily Mail's Sunday magazine You. "My children ask me to have a baby all the time, and you never know - I could squeeze one more in," the 40-year-old said, noting that...

In the most comprehensive study to date of reproductive hazards in the workplace, UC Davis researchers found that women who work in fabrication areas of computer chip plants are 40% more likely to suffer miscarriages than other women working in the semiconductor industry. The four-year, $3.

Pregnant women with diabetes can reduce their high risk of miscarriage by keeping their blood sugar levels under control, a federal study shows. The study tried to settle a long debate over whether diabetes increases a woman's risk of miscarriage. It found that the higher the blood sugar level in diabetic women, the higher the risk of miscarriage. However, women who keep their sugar levels in the normal range have no higher risk than women without diabetes.

The United Methodist Church is considering a new ceremony intended to comfort families grieving over a miscarriage, but the rite's language seems almost certain to spark debate on another front--abortion. As proposed by a committee charged with preparing a new Book of Worship for the 9-million-member denomination, the "service of hope" for miscarried pregnancies refers to the fetus as "this infant, the child of . . ."

Federal investigators were unable to determine what caused numerous miscarriages among employees at USA Today's headquarters in suburban Rosslyn, Va., but said Tuesday that pregnant women working on some floors that were under renovation in 1988 were three times as likely to lose their babies as others elsewhere in the building.

Alarmed by new evidence of health problems from last month's toxic spill on the Sacramento River, state health director Molly Coye said Friday she will investigate reports of two miscarriages and more than 100 cases of lingering rashes and other ailments. "We are beginning to see reports of some symptoms that apparently are persistent longer than we would have expected," said Coye, the state's new health director. "And in combination with reports of miscarriages, we are quite concerned."

Three Indiana women who miscarried a total of six times within two years may have been sickened by well water polluted by a hog farm nearby, the government said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the women were drinking well water that contained high levels of nitrate, which is found naturally in trace amounts in many vegetables but can be harmful at the high levels present in animal and human feces.

Kim Kardashian's miscarriage scare is shedding light on the reality TV starlet's hectic lifestyle and jet-setting ways. A story from the New York Post posted late Wednesday claimed the pregnant 32-year-old, who is carrying rapper Kanye West's baby, "rushed" to see a doctor after a flight back to L.A. from Paris, where she was attending the Givenchy show with West during Paris Fashion Week. An unnamed source told the Post that Kardashian began feeling ill on the plane and went to see a doctor Tuesday night in tears because she was worried she was suffering a miscarriage.

A prominent restaurateur pleaded not guilty Wednesday to multiple counts of attempted murder after prosecutors said he tried to cause his pregnant girlfriend to miscarry by poisoning her with a substance known to induce labor. Joshua Woodward, 40, an investor in Los Angeles and Miami restaurants, including the old Table 8, was charged Tuesday with four counts of attempted murder. He turned himself in Wednesday morning and entered his plea at a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. The Florida resident, who is being held in lieu of $4-million bail, faces a potential life term in state prison with the possibility of parole, prosecutors said.

SAN DIEGO - Musicals are supposed to raise your spirits and warm your heart, right? Not necessarily. And certainly not in the case of "The Scottsboro Boys," the fearlessly inventive show about one of the most notorious episodes of racial injustice in America. It disturbs audiences as much as it entertains them. Who else but Kander & Ebb could pull off such a daring combination? Best known for "Cabaret" and "Chicago," John Kander and Fred Ebb were masters of "the concept musical," and "The Scottsboro Boys," created with book writer David Thompson and completed after the death of Ebb in 2004, is arguably the duo's most audacious crack at the form.

"A Separation" Hopscotch Films, Golem Distribution U.S. release: September The premise Nader (Peyman Moaadi) refuses to leave Iran with his wife because his aged father (Ali-Asghar Shahbazi) suffers from Alzheimer's disease, causing a schism between the couple. She leaves him, and Nader hires a young woman (Sareh Bayat) to take care of his father, who is disoriented, incontinent and often wanders the street. When he returns to find his father on the floor, naked and barely responsive, he blames the girl and pushes her out of the house.

Sad news for Michelle Duggar and family: The "19 Kids and Counting" mom learned that she suffered a miscarriage in her second trimester. The miscarriage reportedly was detected during during what was supposed to be a routine doctor's appointment for Duggar, 45 -- a heartbeat no longer could be detected. She and husband Jim Bob Duggar had been expecting their 20th child this spring. They plan to hold a funeral and will pick a name once they determine what the child's sex would have been.

Taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) during the early stages of pregnancy may be linked with a higher risk of miscarriage, a study finds. Canadian and French researchers evaluated 4,705 miscarriage cases up to the 20th week of pregnancy among women age 15 to 45. They were matched with 47,050 controls who did not have a miscarriage at the same point in their pregnancy as corresponding women in the other group. Among the women who had a spontaneous abortion, 7.5% had previously filled at least one prescription for an NSAID during their pregnancy, compared with 2.6% of women who did not miscarry.

When Katey Sagal, who plays buxom, bonbon-chewing Peg Bundy, got pregnant, the producers of "Married . . . With Children" decided to bring her TV husband's worst nightmare to life by writing the pregnancy into the sitcom. But Sagal's miscarriage two weeks ago has forced changes in their plan to create a Bundy baby.

Fertility scientists gathered in Stockholm last week to present their latest research on in vitro fertilization, high-risk pregnancies and other topics at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference. Among the highlights: British researchers have figured out a way to assess which pregnant women are at greatest risk of miscarriage. After studying 112 high-risk women during their sixth through 10th weeks of pregnancy, the researchers determined that the amount of a woman's bleeding and her level of the hormone chorionic gonadotrophin could be combined into a “pregnancy viability index” that accurately predicted which women would go on to continue their pregnancies in 94% of cases as well as which would have miscarriages in 77% of cases.

Rep. Michele Bachmann said she had a “devastating” miscarriage more than 20 years ago and that the event helped define her opposition to abortion. The Minnesota congresswoman was campaigning for the GOP presidential nomination in Rock Hill, S.C., where she told a town hall-style meeting of the miscarriage. The meeting was first reported by CNN and Politico. "After our second child was born, we became pregnant with a third baby," Bachmann said at Winthrop University on Wednesday night.