Okay, I'm trying to type this post with a straight face. I know this topic has been out there for a long while ... I think I first heard about it a few years ago and repressed the memory of it. It's come back above ground recently through the media and still totally freaks me out. I find it amazing that a woman sued a hospital to get her placenta so she could eat it. And I just visited a discussion thread on mothering.com to see what other moms are saying about the suggestion that eating your placenta cures you of PPD. I'm still freaked out....

I‘m not what you‘d call a “closet crier.” I’m a closet warrior; it’s a battle getting dressed every morning. So, it wasn’t surprising that one Sunday afternoon I found myself in my walk-in closet yelling at my clothes, with my friend, Marie, by my side.

I can always tell when a parent of a child I'm treating is a smoker. The examination room is just filled with smoke - not too different from the experience you'd have if you walked into a bar or restaurant that still allows smoking. My style is to ignore it until the very end of the visit - sneaky, I know! I just forge ahead trying to not inhale too much air. I have to admit, there have been times I've had to find excuses to leave the room to get a few smoke-free breathes of air!!

THURSDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Cocaine and methamphetamine use among young adults in the United States fell significantly in 2007, while abuse of prescription drugs increased fairly dramatically, according to a new U.S. survey.

The 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which included about 67,500 Americans, was released Thursday by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

From 2006 to 2007, cocaine use among adults ages 18-25 decreased 23 percent to 1.7 percent, the annual report found, and methamphetamine use fell by a third to 0.4 percent.

THURSDAY, Sept. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Hoping to dispel long-running concerns that autism is linked to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine (MMR), researchers now say a new study shows the childhood vaccine does not raise that risk.

"We are certain that there's no link between autism and the MMR," Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, director of the Mailman School of Public Health Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, said at a Wednesday teleconference.

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Physicians could dramatically reduce the number of suicides by restricting at-risk patients' access to guns and other highly lethal ways of killing themselves, say Harvard School of Public Health researchers.

"The temporary nature and fleeting sway of many suicidal crises is evident by the fact that more than 90 percent of people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide. A suicide attempt with a firearm rarely affords a second chance," the researchers said in an article in the Sept. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Freshman college students think the occasional use of prescription drugs for non-medicinal purposes poses a greater risk to their health than smoking pot or knocking back five drinks every weekend, a new study indicates.

TUESDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The older the father, the greater his child's risk for bipolar disorder.

That's the conclusion of a new study by Swedish researchers who compared 13,428 people with bipolar disorder to more than 67,000 people without the condition.

TUESDAY, Sept. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Three simple questions were just as good as conventional screening for identifying potential postpartum depression among new mothers.

"Postpartum depression is under-diagnosed," said Dr. Adam Aponte, a pediatrician and associate director for recruitment and retention at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. "We found the fewer the questions, the better. It opens the door for dialogue about how the mom is doing. The last thing you want is a depressed mom. It's important to screen."

SATURDAY, Aug. 30 (HealthDay News) -- This Labor Day weekend, the Vision Council and National Sleep Foundation are warning people of the dangers of driving with poor vision or while drowsy.

These two rarely recognized driving hazards are just as deadly as poor road conditions and drunk driving.