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November Newsletter

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Teen Vogue debuts teen pregnancy

You might not believe it but the model on the left, Jourdan Dunn, is pregnant. And 19. When Teen Vogue editors booked her for the gig they didn't know she was pregnant until she revealed the news for a feature on she and her fellow model friend Chanel Iman (on the right). While the pregnancy is not explicit, it is heartening to know that Editor-in-Chief, Amy Astley said the editors of the mag had no intention of pulling her from the Nov edition.

"Teen pregnancy is a difficult, real-life issue that Teen Vogue readers (with an average age of 18) are mature enough to be exposed to," Astley said in a statement. "Teen Vogue felt it was important to support, not punish, Jourdan Dunn, who contributed to a beautiful photo shoot and who will surely have an ongoing and successful career in fashion."

But, I wonder, if Jourdan was visibly pregnant would they still have put her on the cover of a 'teen' magazine given all of the moral panics about teen mums? Jourdan is almost eight months pregnant now and due in December so obviously the shoot was done very early in her pregnancy. As I noted in an earlier post, Jourdan and her belly were featured in a sort of Gladiator-esque pregnancy corset by Gaultier during Paris Fashion Week.

Of her pregnancy, Dunn has said: "All I could think about was what my mom was going to say, my agency, my boyfriend. When I told my mom, she started crying and blaming herself. She got pregnant with me at the same age, and she said, 'I don't want you to have to go through what I did.'"

Sure it is great that Vogue editors didn't want to 'punish' Dunn for her pregnancy but one wonders whether the realities of young parenthood are made clear to the readers of Teen Vogue in the issue. Dunn is a beautiful woman but pregnancy for celebrities or in the world of fashion is invariably enrobed in glamour and it might have been more useful or perhaps progressive on behalf of the magazine to allow Dunn to express some of her worries about parenthood in order to educate other young women as opposed to pretending that everything is great.

Love your cervix

Have you ever wondered what your cervix looks like? How about after you've given birth?

Then you MUST check out The Beautiful Cervix Project created by a student midwife. This is an ode to being a woman, where cervixes aren't objects of a medical gaze, but objects of beauty in their own right. The creator not only photographed her own cervix throughout her menstrual cycle, but also has loads of photos of cervixes at different stages of life.

Octomum drops her weight

Photo credit: splashnewsonline.com

Holy mother of octuplets! Have you seen Octomum!?

Like a pregnant version of a linebacker, Nadya hit 270lbs during her pregnancy and now she's back into her pre-baby jeans after a weight loss of 145 lbs without a trainer or surgery.

Losing 40 pounds immediately after delivering her octuplets, Suleman says she felt compelled to join a local gym after their birth. There, she fits in thrice-weekly midnight workouts (while a nanny watches over her sleeping children) with strength training but no cardio. "I get enough of that with the kids," Suleman, who gets by on three hours of sleep, tells Us.

Well, can't say that working out at midnight seems very healthy but I suppose it's better than dropping straight into the plastic surgeon's office.

Breastfeeding is awesome in New Zealand

Check out a super new public breastfeeding campaign in New Zealand.

"Although New Zealand has breastfeeding rates that are consistent with other OECD countries, rates are low at six weeks, especially among Māori and Pacific women,” said Ministry of Health Deputy Director Margie Apa. She went on to say that barriers to breastfeeding, including “lack of breastfeeding support and information, mothers returning to paid work and finding it hard to continue breastfeeding, and negative attitudes to breastfeeding from the general public and family members” tend to more adversely affect minorities, teenage parents and low-income moms.

Small country, so progressive.

Kendra: TMFI

Ah Kendra. Miss ex-Playboy has opened up to In Touch about all things pregnant, including her discovery that her breasts are leaking milk to which she responded by screaming and likening herself to a cow.

How much weight have you gained so far?
Kendra Wilkinson: I have gained 40 pounds. I still have a month-and-a-half to go. I was 110 or 115 and now weigh 150.

How do you feel about the weight gain?
KW: There are things I love about it. I love that my hips are growing, even though it hurts. I want that butt and am starting to get it, so I’m excited.

What have you been craving?
KW: I’ve been eating a lot of breakfast — eggs, bacon and cheese sandwiches with wheat toast, a lot of waffles with peanut butter. Peanut butter is my biggest craving. I actually put bananas and syrup all over it, too.

Even though I don’t usually eat much meat, I’ve been eating a lot of ribs with barbecue sauce and steak. Also, my craving for chocolate came back. I never ate it before because it gave me migraines.

Has it changed your sex life?
KW: Yes, it’s changed our sex life — for the worse [laughs]. I am a wild girl in bed and I can’t really be that wild anymore because I have limits now. I have 40 extra pounds in my belly, so I get tired easily.

But no, of course, it’s still great. I have a great man in bed, he definitely knows how to please me. But, yeah, we’ll be better after when we have more energy!

Do you feel prettier pregnant?
KW: I have never felt this beautiful! The one thing I love about being pregnant is my skin, I used to have the worst acne. My whole life it’s been horrible — on The Girls Next Door, it was disgusting. This is the best skin that I have ever had in my life!

What’s the best thing about being pregnant?
KW: The greatest thing is probably just feeling like a queen. Everybody does everything for me. And Hank is always just giving me unconditional love — that different type of love that I’ve never felt before.