Are you one of the thousands of women out there who is desparately trying to have a left handed baby? I have a little stress trivia that just might help you make that happen.
As I was reading through my medical journals, I found a tiny article burried amongst the back pages. To paraphrase the wine tasters, it was an amusing little article, making up in pretension what it lacked in content.
In other words, an article so thoroughly useless that one wonders just how it ever got published. The headline screams “Older women have more left-handed babies”.
Carried on the Reuters wire service, so that it will appear in every corner of the globe, the article reported that a forty year old woman is twice as likely to give birth to a left-handed child than a twenty year old woman. The survey done by a University of British Columbia researcher studied more than 2200 college freshmen, or should we say freshpersons. Compared with women 17 to 24 years old, the likelihood of giving birth to a lefty was 11 percent higher among women 25 to 29, 25% highter in the 30-34 age group, and almost 70% higher in women 35 to 39.
But here comes the shocker, hang on to your hats: for women over thirty nine, the likelihood of delivering a sinister, rather than a dexter was an amazing 228% greater. The author, Dr. Stanley Coren, wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine that his findings coincide with previous research suggesting that babies subjected to excess stress during birth tend to be left handed when they grow up. Dr. Coren wrote that his findings are consistent with the supposition that older mothers have mores stressful deliveries and gestational periods, and that prenatal and perinatal stress contributes to the appearance of left-handedness.
Well, I’m sure I can speak for the rest of you when I tell you that this article is certainly going to change my life.
Here’s an action tip:
According to the lastest research, if you are desperately hoping to have a left handed baby, make sure you wait until long after your fortieth birthday, and then try to argue with your spouse throughout the entire pregnancy. With useful applications like this, is it any wonder medical research costs so much…