Pregnant

Confession: We got a bit too excited when we heard the news today that Kate Middleton's expecting a little royal baby. Apparently, so did everyone else. We've rounded up the best (er, funniest) reactions to Will and Kate's big news. "#royalbaby is trending. So soon there will be a new half-blood Prince?" - @Lord_Voldemort7 "I hope Royal Baby and Blue Ivy Carter become best friends" - @BrooklynDecker "God tells me the child is male, will be named Henry IX & the colonies better re-learn how to bend the sodding knee.

Pregnant women who smoke run into the risk of their children have reading problems later in life, a Yale School of Medicine study has found. The reserachers looked at the reading tests of 5,000 students and found that many whose mothers smoked while pregnant struggled on reading comprehension and other tests. The findings are published in The Journal of Pediatrics. Lead author Dr. Jeffrey Gruen, a Yale professor of pediatrics, and his colleagues compared performance on seven specific tasks - reading speed, single-word identification, spelling, accuracy, real and non-word reading, and reading comprehension.

When I read the letter in the Saturday edition of The Sun "Pregnant pigs treated humanely" (Sept. 22), I had to laugh out loud when I read the name of the person who wrote the letter. Rick Berman is a well-known hired gun who uses front groups, such as "Center for Consumer Freedom," to defend his corporate clients in Washington, D.C. The "veterinarians" Mr. Berman describes in his letter claiming the policy of confining pregnant sows in cages so small that they cannot turn around and can barely stand up for their entire life is in fact humane are the same veterinarians who are on the huge agribusiness payroll.

Rick Berman, a highly paid lobbyist for animal abuse industries, is deceiving consumers again ("Pregnant pigs treated humanely," Sept. 20). Numerous investigations at Walmart pork suppliers reveal pregnant pigs condemned to lives of misery inside metal cages so small they can't even turn around or lie down comfortably. These torture boxes have been widely criticized by animal welfare experts as one of the cruelest factory farming practices in the world. Gestation crates are so inhumane they have been banned in nine U.S. states and the entire European Union.

The vegan proselytizers at Mercy for Animals, PETA, and the Humane Society of the United States have propaganda campaigns claiming that housing pregnant pigs in individual maternity pens is inhumane, but their shrill screeds aren't backed up by veterinarians. ("Glen Burnie Walmart shoppers to be confronted with giant, bloodied, inflatable pig," Sept. 18). The American Association of Swine Veterinarians finds that individual housing is a humane method, and the American Veterinary Medical Association finds that maternity pens provide for animal welfare.

With so many things to think about, expectant mothers sometimes neglect their teeth, but this can have implications for their unborn babies. In response, the advocacy group Maryland Dental Action Coalition is educating women about proper oral hygiene and dietary habits through an effort called Healthy Teeth, Healthy Kids. The group's aim is to develop good habits by mothers and children and to reduce early childhood cavities, said Dr. Winifred J. Booker, an Owings Mills pediatric dentist who has served on several state committees and professional organizations and is currently a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry.

Shoppers seeking to spend their rainy Tuesday running errands at the Walmart in Glen Burnie will be confronted with a 10-foot tall inflatable pig, standing in a cage and showing open, bleeding wounds. The animal rights organization Mercy For Animals is protesting Walmart's use of pork suppliers who confine pregnant pigs in tiny crates, where they are unable to lie down or turn around. According to Mercy For Animals, the practice is banned in nine U.S. states and the entire European Union.

A pregnant woman was ejected from her vehicle on northbound Interstate 95 near the border of Baltimore and Harford counties about 3:45 p.m. Thursday, according to a Harford County Fire and EMS Association spokesman. Traffic has begun backing up in the area, near Joppa. The woman, who has not been identified, was the only person injured in the accident, and was being flown to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center by a Maryland State Police helicopter, said Rich Gardiner, the spokesman.

Furor surged in Maryland and across the country Monday over a Missouri congressman's comment that he opposes abortion in most cases of rape because women rarely become pregnant during a "legitimate rape. " Though Rep. Todd Akin, a Republican who is challenging Democrat Claire McCaskill for her U.S. Senate seat, later said he "misspoke," it did little to quell astonishment rolling in from women's groups, prominent members of the GOP and the president. "Rape is rape, and the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we are talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me," President Barack Obama said Monday.

Women continue to mix cocktails and pregnancy despite the dangers it can pose to unborn babies. New government data found that 7.6 percent of women drank while pregnant and 1.4 percent of those moms binged on alcochol and beer. Binge drinking involves four or more drinks on one occasion. The Centers for Disease Control and Preventiion used data from a telephone survey of more than 345,000 women aged 18 to 44 to come up with its analysis. Of those, 13,880, or 4 percent, were pregnant.