A post that has something to do with statistics you didn't butcher... In fact, you made sense.

There may be hope for you yet.

Now Doctor Price, do you tell people you are a blogger for Salon, or do you tell people you are a journalist at Salon?

If you're a journalist, are there any tools you may have used to determine whether your questions are relevant, or discovered teh answer to them? Tools like email, phone calls, ....

Instead Doctor, you did what Broadsheet Feminists(TM) typically do, which is to bloviate on matters in which you seem to be completely clueless and unqualified. And at the least, you failed your reader and employer and shareholders by refusing to even pick up a phone to research your post.

Great job! You go grrl!

You made good points, particularly about the amount of caffiene varying between different cafes and also about morning sickness possibly affecting caffiene intake as women who are sick don't want their coffee; on the other hand, I had repeated early miscarriages and vaccuumed up any information I could find about causes for miscarriages. Turned out I had a hormonal problem, but I would have chosen to forgo caffiene on even this little evidence. It's not like avoiding green veggies or protein or other necessary edible. I think this study is a useful pointer for women like me, who have had five or more miscarriages, which is not usually due to chromosomal problems.

It would be interesting to do some more rigorous studies about caffiene and pregnancy, perhaps with blood draws to evaluate caffiene metabolites?

Umm... I'm the first to critisize her inane babbling on all matters statistical... but this time, she actually qualified properly, and asked questions that were actually germaine.

You're out of line bub...

I bet she didn't even have to pay for the phone call.

And the difference between picking up the phone and not is what a journalism degree is all about. As a journalist, she could have gotten her questions responded to and would have written a much better and more useful article.

As it is, it is just rant, bloviation, and fear mongering.

Why do you think she didn't check her data? You give no points that refute anything she said; and her points make sense. Caffiene does indeed vary considerably between coffeehouses, people do indeed forget what they eat (making self-reports one of the least reliable types of research), and morning sickness is indeed related to hormones indicating a healthy pregnancy and women do indeed often find themselves unable to stomach coffee during morning sickness. All of this is reasonably common knowledge; and easily googled by anyone with minimal skills. She's not writing a research paper which has to have every detail footnoted, so unless you can substantiated a problem with her data, you are the bloviator.

It is annoying that she's commenting on the descrepancies between other outlet's coverage of the issue... but you miss the point. In past 'commentary' she'll just make stuff up, and post it as her own. At least this time she gave some references, and used them to temper her blovating.

Honestly, for blogging this one wasn't so bad.

It is lazy to just ask questions when she could contact the original researchers and have her questions responded to.

It is ignorant and arrogant to theorize when the answers are a phone call away.

It is disrespectful of the researchers and promotes Doctor Price as their peer.

Perhaps my expectations are just unrealistic and too high.

My apologies Catherine, I didn't mean to injure your self-esteem with my unreasonable demands and expectations for a certain level of journalism.

This is a simple issue. It's a matter of correlation but not necessarily causation.

It's the mark of a Dittohead.

Let's not "Rush" to any conclusions!

Why go through the trouble of doing a Nexus search of all articles mentioning the primary document, but not actually read the original article? This is a interpretation of interpretations, essentially worthless. I think you will find many of your questions answered should you choose to read the actual research.

What is good, bad, or neutral for a fetus during pregnancy remains mostly unknown. Consequently, during the first trimester of pregnancy, it probably makes sense to refrain from caffeine. For a long time, we did not know definitely that smoking during pregnancy can cause low birth weight, but studies indicated that it did. You would have been better off stopping smoking during pregnancy, just to be sure. Now, I like others was horribly ill during my first trimester of each pregnancy, and could not have downed a cup if my life depended on it. I have no idea whether caffeine is bad or good -- I know that I can just not drink it, and why not stay on the safe side?

http://www.americanheritage.com/blog/20064_27_191.shtml

The list of things to avoid to maximize fertility and ensure safe pregnancy is ever-changing -- don't change the cat litter, don't eat fish, now we have caffeine.

Whether or not the data on caffeine is especially accurate, I'd like to point out that there is a known factor that can affect fertility, and most definitely cause a miscarriage -- but few doctors are testing for it, and women don't know about it!

An underactive thyroid -- hypothyroidism -- can not only be a cause of infertility, but also recurrent miscarriage. And in some undiagnosed -- or improperly treated -- thyroid patients trying to get pregnant, they actually are having early miscarriages, so early that the miscarriage appears to be just a heavy menstrual period.

Unfortunately doctors don't agree about the necessity of thyroid testing in women with fertility or miscarriage problems. You'll find, in fact, that many women are sent for costly fertility evaluations, and even assisted reproduction and invitro treatments, and they NEVER GET A THYROID TEST.

Happily, I hear from women every week who took it upon themselves to get a thorough thyroid evaluation, and managed to get pregnant all on their own -- without any medical assistance needed -- only a few months after getting thyroid evaluation and treatment.

All this is to say: If you are having fertility problems, or recurrent miscarriages, MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR THYROID TESTED. Not just TSH , but Free T4, Free T3 AND thyroid antibodies. And know the numbers, don't just accept your doctor saying "it's normal" as a result.

January is Thyroid Awareness Month (hint, hint, Broadsheet -- this is a topic that affects MILLIONS of women in the U.S. alone!) and the imapct of the thyroid on fertility and pregnancy is the theme of the 2008 Thyroid Awareness Month campaign.

You can learn more about the thyroid/fertility connection at these Thyroid Awareness Month campaign websites:

See the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists

"Thyroid Awareness Month 2008 - Women Considering Pregnancy or Already Pregnant: Get Your Neck Checked"

http://www.aace.com/newsroom/press/2008/index.php?r=20080102-2

Also see the Thyroid Awareness Month website for other information:

http://www.thyroidawarenessmonth.com