mothers news stories on Newser

Stay-at-Home Moms Suffer More Sadness

Matt Cantor — Fri, 18 May 2012 10:44:05 CDT

Stay-at-home moms struggle with sadness, depression, and anger more often than employed mothers do, according to a sure-to-be-controversial new Gallup poll. While 26% of stay-at-home moms reported feeling sadness much of "yesterday," that figure was just 16% among employed moms. Some 28% of stay-at-home moms said they have been diagnosed...

Moms Spray Teens With Lysol for 'Dirty Dancing'

Mary Papenfuss — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:22:23 CDT

A pair of moms chaperoning a high school prom in Colorado were so disgusted by the "dirty dancing" they witnessed that they sprayed down the teenagers with Lysol and called girls "sluts" and "whores," police report. Some eight teens were hit with the spray, and some of it entered students'...

Worst Place to Be a Mom: Niger

Kate Schwartz — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:00:00 CDT

Good news for American moms: The United States is a slightly better place to be a mother than it was last year, according to Save the Children's 13th annual report on the topic. The US rose from 31st to 25th place in its look at 165 countries. For the best...

Smoking While Pregnant May Raise Autism Risk

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 17:21:15 CDT

If any expectant mom needed yet more evidence that smoking is a bad idea, here it is: Doing so during pregnancy raises the risk of having a child with Asperger's or another kind of autism, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed data from about 630,000 kids born in the...

For Older Women, Daughter —Not Husband—Is No. 1

Evann Gastaldo — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 08:19:05 CDT

As women age, they tend to replace their husbands—with their daughters. A new study finds that when women hit their 40s, their closest confidant shifts from their spouse to a woman about 25 years younger—presumably a daughter. Researchers analyzed almost 2 billion cell phone calls and 489 million...

Cops: Suspect Had Miscarriage Before Baby Snatching

Dustin Lushing — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:15:18 CDT

The woman accused of shooting a young mother to death and snatching her 3-day-old boy is a Texas nurse who told police she was planning to "adopt" the baby as her own after suffering a miscarriage, reports AP . Verna McClain, 30, confessed to killing 28-year-old Kala Golden outside a pediatrician's...

Mother Sentenced for Aiding Rape of Own Daughters

Dustin Lushing — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:21:06 CDT

A sadistic mother in Britain will spend 10 years in prison after a court convicted her of encouraging her boyfriend to systematically rape her three young daughters. The 65-year-old woman instructed her daughters to wear provocative underwear, gave them alcohol, and then drove the girls, who were all under the...

Labor Lasts 3 Hours Longer Than It Did in 1960s

Evann Gastaldo — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:13:06 CDT

The good news for modern women giving birth: The use of epidural anesthesia is massively more common than it was 50 years ago. The bad news: Those very drugs may be to blame for labor lasting longer than it did 50 years ago. Today's first-time mothers spend 2.6 more...

Nurturing Moms Help Kids' Brains Grow

Matt Cantor — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 15:55:30 CST

A mother's care may affect the physical development of a child's brain, a study suggests. Researchers found that preschool kids with more nurturing mothers had larger hippocampi than their peers by the time they were school age, reports HealthDay News, via the Philadelphia Inquirer . The hippocampus is a part of...