Pregnancy and childbirth myths: The Checkup discusses bed rest, epidurals, and cutting the umbilical cord.

The Checkup Podcast, Pregnancy Myths: Bed Rest, Epidurals, and When to Cut the Umbilical Cord

The Checkup Podcast, Pregnancy Myths: Bed Rest, Epidurals, and When to Cut the Umbilical Cord

A podcast about health and health myths, from Slate and WBUR.
Aug. 26 2013 2:40 PM

The Checkup Podcast: Pregnancy Myths

A new collaboration between Slate and WBUR discusses pregnancy myths around bed rest, labor pain, and when to cut the cord.

Listen to the debut episode of The Checkup:

The Checkup is a new health podcast, a collaboration between Slate and WBUR, Boston’s NPR News Station, and features the authors of WBUR’s health care blog CommonHealth: Carey Goldberg, former Boston bureau chief of the New York Times, and Rachel Zimmerman, former health care reporter at the Wall Street Journal. New episodes will appear on Mondays in the Slate Daily Podcast and The Checkup’s individual feed.

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Welcome to The Checkup. Our first episode is “Three Myths of Pregnancy and Childbirth,” a subject near to our motherly hearts. It features interesting, relevant new research on bed rest during pregnancy, labor pain and cutting the baby’s umbilical cord, including information you may not read much about in the best-selling pregnancy bible What To Expect When You’re Expecting.

Regular CommonHealth readers will be familiar with our blend of solidly reported, somewhat opinionated health-related news you can use (at least we think you can use it, since we can and have). Each episode will focus on a different topic—from sex problems and students’ mental health as they head back to school, to fitness snake oil and vaccine controversies. Tune in next Monday for Episode 2, “Topics Below the Waist.”

The Checkup Podcast is produced at WBUR by George Hicks.

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