Friday, March 29th, 2013
A 15 pound, 7 ounce baby named George was born six weeks ago in England in a surprising–and harrowing–experience for the boy’s mother, Jade King, who birthed him vaginally. Yahoo.com has more:
No one realized just how big George was until his head had emerged, at which point his shoulders got temporarily stuck and he went without oxygen for five minutes.
“There was about 20-odd doctors in the room, and that’s when it got really scary,” King recalled.
Once the baby was out, he was given a 10 percent chance of survival and transferred from Cheltenham to another hospital, in Bristol. He was kept there for four and a half weeks and then went home, and just received normal results from an MRI.
“It might just be that he’s a little bit slow with his learning,” his mom added. “So hopefully it’s just minor little things.”
George has only gained a pound since his birth, and has been wearing clothes sized for a 3-to-6-month old from day one (his mom had to give away all the newborn onesies that were awaiting him at home). He is the second-biggest baby ever born vaginally in the UK, according to various reports; the larger baby weighed just an ounce more.
In George’s case, doctors were unsure of what caused his hugeness, the medical term for which is called macrosomia. But the condition is often caused by mom having had gestational diabetes during her pregnancy, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Image: Woman giving birth at hospital, via Shutterstock
Wednesday, March 20th, 2013
Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani blogger who was shot in the head by the Taliban outside her school last October, is returning to school in Birmingham, England after enduring numerous surgeries and intensive medical procedures. Yousafzai was targeted because of her public criticism of the Taliban’s policies toward girls’ education.
More from NBC News:
Malala Yousafzai is attending classes in Birmingham, England, and not her homeland, where the Taliban had vowed to make another attempt on her life.
Still, it was a sweet victory for a 15-year-old who endured multiple surgeries to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing after she was shot on her way home from school Oct. 9.
“It’s what I dreamed,” she said in a video released by the public relations firm that works with her family.
“I dream for all the children that they should go to their school because it’s their right…their basic right.”
Image: School supplies, via Shutterstock
Wednesday, August 15th, 2012
Mohammed was the most popular baby boy name in England in 2011, making it the only name to retain either the top or second spot in the rankings for 6 consecutive years. CNN.com has more:
The government declared that Harry was the most popular boy’s name, but if you add up the five most popular different spellings of Mohammed, that name comes top.
Mohammed is also the most popular boy’s name of the past five years for England and Wales, ahead of Oliver and Jack. It came first or second every year since 2007, the only name to do so.
And it could become even more popular in 2012, given the adulation around long-distance runner Mo Farah, who won two gold medals for Britain at the Olympics.
The popularity of the name comes as Britain’s Muslim population is expected to double in the next 20 years.
The country, which was about 2% Muslim in 1990, grew to 4.6% Muslim in 2010, with nearly 2.9 million followers of the faith, according to analysis by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Image: Baby’s head, via Shutterstock
