Miracle Pregnancy

You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll hide the moisturizer.

Here are 11 reasons men love women. 

1. Your sweaty post-gym rawness
You think you’re most desirable when you’re all dolled up and looking as elegant as a champagne flute. No. It’s at6 o’clock on a weekday, when you’re just back from the gym in an old gray tank top and a sports bra, devoid of makeup and perfume—when you are nothing but raw, glistening, briny womanness. “Ewww,” you say, “I’m so gross!” We so beg to differ.

2. When you cross-dress
Why does the sight of you gliding by in one of our shirts or our boxers bring us such crazy-wild happiness? Maybe it’s some primal, chimp-like possessiveness, as in: She’s mine. Well, so what? We monkeys can’t help it—we’re thrilled that you’re ours.

MORE: 10 Secrets of Super Happy Couples
 

3. Your awkward high school photos
“Oh my God!” you say, snatching the snapshot from our hand. “Don’t look at that!” But here’s what you don’t know: No matter how frizzy the hair, no matter how gangly the limbs or how beglittered with braces the smile, we’re fairly certain you wouldn’t have talked to us back in high school anyway.

4. Your taste in movies
Just kidding. Sorry—it stinks.

5. Your way with kids
Here’s the thing: We don’t know where this young relationship is going, right? And nothing freaks us out more than when you start naming our future children. But when we see your warmth and ease around kids, when we notice your unspoken uplift in their presence, it’s hard not to smile and think, “Maybe.”

MORE: 5 Signs He’ll Be a Great Father
 

6. Your spaghetti and meatballs
We dig those candlelit dinners and all your impressive kitchen acrobatics. But you know what’s just as good? When you dig out your mom’s spaghetti recipe and uncork some $8 Chianti and we eat together on the patio or the couch, idly riffing about our day.  There’s infinite bliss in simple moments.

7. Your beauty stash
Sure, we scoff mightily at all your high-tech moisturizers, your microdermabrasion cleansers and inscrutable creams. In public. But alone in your bathroom, we Barbasol-and-Ivory men make full sneaky use of your mystical chemistry set.

8. Your patience with our family
Uncle Schnozzie is making comments about your “rump,” and Aunt Franny is pushing another ham-salad-covered Triscuit toward your lips while niece Harmony is hissing “Meat is murder!” in your ear; you’re also pretty sure weird little cousin Sluggo has been spying on you while you pee. All this and you still want to have sex with us. It boggles the mind.

MORE: The Easiest Way to Boost Your Bond
 

9. When you clean your plate
The only thing sexier than a beautiful woman tearing into a medium-rare ribeye is her saying halfway through, “I can’t stop eating this—it’s way too good.” A passion for great food suggests a freewheeling and insatiable appetite for all of life’s sensual pleasures.

10. That look
You know the one. That look that clues us in as to where the night’s headed. It’s subtle and sly enough to be offered across a crowded dinner table but lascivious and powerful enough to buckle our poor knees. Don’t underestimate it.

MORE: The Hidden Health Benefits of Sex
 

11. Your self-reliance
When on a camping trip you’ve gathered the wood and lit the campfire while we’re still wrestling with the tent. Or when you fix your own crashed computer, or take a wrench to a leaky tub faucet. When you show you don’t need us, it’s that much more gratifying that you want us.

Herbal supplements aimed at improving men’s sexual abilities often contain the active ingredients in erectile dysfunction pills such as Viagra, according to a new study.

Additionally, researchers found that some of these over-the-counter herbal remedies contained more of the ingredient than is allowed in prescription-only pharmaceuticals.

“It’s pretty scary stuff,” said Neil Campbell, the lead author of the study and a researcher at Pfizer, which sells Viagra. “These products are not herbal at all, they’re adulterated.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is in charge of regulating herbal supplements, posted 11 warnings to consumers in 2013 alerting them of unlabeled pharmaceuticals being found in these products.

Campbell and his colleagues analyzed 91 samples from 58 products.

They sent undercover consumers into convenience stores and gas stations in the Atlanta and Baltimore areas, and bought products such as Rize 2 The Occasion, Stiff 4 Hours, and Man King.

Although 57 of the products claimed to be “all natural,” 81 percent of them contained the tadalafil or sildenafil (marketed as Cialis and Viagra, respectively) or similar ingredients that are not approved by the FDA.

The products also had labeling problems, indicating poor quality production, according to the authors. In some cases, expiration dates or lot numbers were missing, manufacturers could not be identified, or samples of the same product had different appearances.

“There’s so little effort to do something the right way to produce a legitimate product,” Campbell said. “This is an all time low.”

None of 10 supplement companies contacted responded to a request for comment, nor did the FDA.

Campbell said given the potential side effects and health risks associated with prescription erectile dysfunction drugs, men are “risking their lives” taking herbal sex enhancement drugs.

“Almost one patient a day says they’ve tried Mojo or one of these over-the-counter products,” said Dr. Gregory Lowe, an assistant professor of urology at Ohio State University who was not part of this study.

“One of the big concerns is that we don’t know what the patient’s getting,” he added.

Seven samples that Campbell’s group analyzed contained only unknown substances.

“Commonly, I hear patients say, ‘it worked one time and it didn’t work other times.’ And that fits in well with what they found here” that quality control is lacking, he added.

It’s unclear where the ingredients are coming from.

Lowe advises men who are interested in taking these pills to talk to their doctors first.

He says patients often turn to these products because they are cheap – costing between $2.99 and $17.99, according to Campbell’s study, published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

But they are taking a health risk in doing so.

Erectile dysfunction medicines can be unsafe for men taking nitrates for chest pain, but only 14 of the samples in the study included a warning against combining the drugs.

“Unfortunately, to an unwitting patient they think they’re taking an herbal product,” said Campbell. “It really poses a really scary threat for patient health and safety.”

Parents hope their children won’t text and drive, but a new study suggests many parents are guilty of multitasking behind the wheel.

The results show about 90 percent of parents surveyed reported technology-related multitasking while driving their children in the past month, such as talking on the phone, texting or changing a DVD or CD.

Other types of multitasking were also common: About 70 percent reported performing childcare duties while driving, such as feeding their child or picking up a dropped toy, and 70 percent reported engaging in self-care, such as grooming or eating.

What’s more, multitasking was more common among parents who’d reported being in a car accident at some point in their lives compared with those who’d never been in a crash, the researchers said.

“Lots of attention has been given to distracted teen drivers. However, our results indicate parents are frequently distracted while driving,” study researcher Dr. Michelle Macy, of the University of Michigan, said in a statement.

The researchers surveyed more than 600 parents whose children were treated at two emergency departments in Michigan for any reason. The children were ages 1 to 12.

About half of parents said they had driven while trying to find directions, by using a map or a GPS device while driving.

Texting was the least common distraction, with just a little over 10 percent of parents reporting texting while driving their children in the past month.

Parents were also asked what type of safety restraints they used for their children, and researchers considered whether the safety restraint was appropriate for the children’s age (for instance, whether they used a car seat for children under age 3, or seat belts for those ages 8 to 12).

Parents who did not use the appropriate type of safety restraint were more likely to report driving while distracted than those who used the appropriate safety restraints for their children.

“Our research has identified some high-impact areas to improve child passenger safety,” Macy said.

The study will be presented today (May 6) at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in Washington, DC.

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A woman claims her boobs have grown three cup sizes — after she was hypnotized to make them grow.

Single mom-of-three Ashley Weller, 26, was unhappy with her breasts so she went under to help “think” them bigger.

And she says she has gone from a size 36C to a 36E.

Hypnotherapist Felix Economakis said the mind can create blocks that stop women’s breasts growing.

“There are many reasons for these blocks. For instance, during puberty women associate big breasts with unwanted male attention when they were not emotionally ready,” he explained. 

The treatment, known as hypnogrowth, involved Ashley having three hypnotherapy sessions at Economakis’ London clinic.

Click here for more from The Sun. 

Toddlers are less likely to have asthma and itchy rashes if their parents “cleaned” their pacifiers by sucking on them when the kids were infants, a small new study suggests.

The findings don’t prove that technique protects kids against asthma, eczema or other allergies. But researchers said it’s possible the transfer of mouth microbes from parents to baby may help boost the bacterial diversity of the young child’s digestive system and foster immunity.

“We know these bacteria are important for development,” said Dr. Wilfried Karmaus from the University of Memphis, who has studied asthma and eczema but wasn’t involved in the new research.

Being delivered through a vaginal birth, for example, exposes babies to more of their moms’ bacteria and has been linked to fewer allergies in childhood. But no one has ever looked at transfer of bacteria through pacifiers, Karmaus said.

For the new study, researchers recruited pregnant women at one Swedish hospital and followed them and their children through phone calls and exams over three years. The 184 infants in the study were particularly allergy-prone: 80 percent had at least one parent with allergies.

When the babies were six months old, 65 parents reported “cleaning” their pacifiers by sucking on them. Most parents also said they rinsed pacifiers with tap water.

The children were then brought in for allergy testing at 18 and 36 months of age.

At the first visit, 46 of them had eczema and 10 had asthma symptoms. Kids whose pacifiers had been sucked on by parents were 63 percent less likely to have eczema at 18 months and 88 percent less likely to have asthma, compared to the children of parents who didn’t use that cleaning technique.

By 36 months, the difference had gone away for asthma. Parental pacifier sucking was still tied to a 49-percent lower chance of a child having eczema, researchers led by Dr. Bill Hesselmar from Queen Silvia Children’s Hospital in Gothenburg found.

There was no clear link between parents’ pacifier cleaning method and babies’ sensitization to common allergens, such as cat and dog dander or eggs and peanuts, at either age.

In a smaller analysis of 33 infants, the researchers found that babies whose parents did or didn’t suck on their pacifiers had different types of bacteria living in their mouths, the group reported Monday in Pediatrics.

“With the different oral flora, it supports the hypothesis and the findings,” Hesselmar told Reuters Health.

Still, he said the study can’t prove the pacifier cleaning method protected kids against asthma and eczema, and that it’s too early to recommend this technique to parents.

“It’s always hard to tell if it’s the only explanation, but we have tried to analyze as many other possibilities as we can think of,” he said.

“This is a simple measure which is really, really nice,” Karmaus said. “But we need a trial to be really sure that this is protective.”

A gold-standard trial would involve randomly assigning some parents to regularly clean pacifiers by sucking on them and others to never use that method. In the current study, Karmaus said, it’s possible parents who decided on their own to suck on their child’s pacifier were different from parents who didn’t in other important, allergy-related ways.

“It could be that these parents have more time with their children, a less stressful relationship with their children, hug their children more or whatever,” he told Reuters Health.

For now, he said, parents should know that using their mouth to clean an infant’s pacifier may be worth trying – and at the very least, shouldn’t be harmful.

That technique may also be a necessity from time to time, Karmaus noted.

“Sometimes you take two or three pacifiers with you but if all are dirty and your child is crying, there’s nothing you can do” but clean it yourself.

Lily Cracknell’s life was saved when doctors put her in a cooling bag after she was born.

She was battling to breathe for 30 minutes after her mother Rebecca Hasler gave birth — before doctors decided she needed to cool down.

Lily was placed in the cool bag for three days as her core body temperature was lowered from 98 degrees Fahrenheit (37°C) to 95.9 degrees F (35.5°C).

The chilling treatment was needed to stop her brain swelling, which could have killed her.

Lily, who weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces, was slowly warmed up and started to recover.

“Doctors said it was a miracle she pulled through,” said Hasler, 23. “She looked so small and helpless lying there in her cool bag. But we knew it was her only chance of survival.”

Hasler, who lives in Harlow, Essex, was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia when she was 36 weeks pregnant. Labor was induced immediately at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow.

Click here for more from The Sun.

A teenage girl horrifically burned as a baby in a terrifying fire has made her dad very proud as she prepares to leave school.

Terri Calvesbert lost her hair, lips, nose, all her fingers and her left foot as the blaze tore through her bedroom in November 1998.

Terri’s father, Paul, feared his 23-month-old girl would not survive as her body was brutally scarred by savage burns.

But his heroic daughter defied the odds and now Paul, 40, is preparing to watch his 16-year-old pride and joy leave (high school), enjoy the school prom and start the next exciting chapter of her life.

Paul, of Suffolk, England said, “Seeing Terri leave school is a huge deal, I am so proud of her.

“I never thought I would see her start school let alone get to this stage.

“In the early days I never thought I would see Terri grow up but she is a real fighter. She has exceeded everyone’s expectations.”

And Terri admitted, “It is fairly scary, leaving school. I have made some great friends – they have always looked out for me.”

But Terri is ready to take on her next big challenge — an animal studies qualification at Otley College, near Ipswich, England.

Terri said, “When I was younger I wanted to work in a hospital helping people, or as an ambulance driver.

“I think it’s because I spent so much time at Broomfield Hospital when I was little.

“Then I decided I wanted to work with children and then I realized animals would be easier to work with than kids.”

Before she moves on she has her school prom to look forward to, saying, “I can’t wait. I already have my dress sorted.”

She was just 23-months-old when the fire broke out in her bedroom just days before her second birthday.

The devastating inferno was started by a cigarette her mother, Julie Minter, left by her cot.

Terri was left with burns covering 90 percent of her fragile body.

Her face, scalp, neck, chest, back and both arms and legs were all devastated.

She is still left with questions over her nightmare ordeal but has been going to a burns camp for the last 10 years.

She admitted, “Sharing what you have been through helps. You realize you’re not the only one.”|

Terri knows some of what happened to her, saying, “I don’t know if I will ever know the full story. I think I have dealt with it and I am moving on.”

Last year Terri’s mother, Julie, spoke out about the fire and admitted she is crippled by terrible guilt.

Despite a brief attempt at reconciliation, Terri and her mother no longer have any contact.

“I tried,” admitted Terri, who wears a blonde wig. “But it didn’t work out. I have moved on. I am looking forward.”

There are more operations ahead for the brave teenager as doctors are set to begin the process of rebuilding Terri’s face once she turns 18.

She has already faced 50 agonizing operations to stretch her taut skin.

“I don’t want my head to get any bigger between now and then,” Terri joked.

“I don’t really know how I feel about it.

“At the moment I’m not really too bothered but I’m sure I’ll think about it more nearer the time.”

Terri wants to continue working with young burns victims through her role as ambassador of the charity The Healing Foundation.

Click here for more from The Sun.