It’s Thursday, y’all!

I’m frantically preparing for Alex’ 1st birthday party. My planning was sidetracked by Maya’s prolonged illness, but just 24 hours after finally being prescribed antibiotics, she was back to her old self. Whew! She’s back to school today, after missing 4 days.

I’d love to squeeze in a facial and a pedicure, but that’s looking unlikely. I did get a giggle over this article about the latest spa treatment for your- ahem- private parts: vaginal steam baths.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, chai-yok (not to be confused with bok-choy, also good steamed) is a “centuries-old Korean remedy that is gaining a toehold in the West,“ thanks to its many purported health benefits.

Those benefits – none of which have been studied – are said to include everything from reducing stress to fighting infections to helping with infertility. Not surprisingly, vaginal steams are also supposed to help with hemorrhoids.

Treatments cost anywhere from $20 to $75 (depending on your location) and basically involve perching naked on a bottomless stool over a boiling pot of water infused with mugwort, wormwood and a variety of other herbs.

While some women swear by the “V-steam,“ (a 45-year-old woman interviewed by the LA Times says she not only had fewer body aches and more energy, she also became pregnant after just five steams), doctors seem dubious.

“I just don’t understand physiologically how putting steam up the vagina is going to change your fertility or help you relieve stress,“ says Dr. Laura Riley, director of labor and delivery at Massachusetts General in Boston.

LOL!

What’s your favorite beauty treatment, and does it involve your vagina?

Here’s an article on how to navigate parent-teacher night once your kid goes to middle and high school, and you have to vie for the attention of six different teachers.

This is a tricky topic: should hospitals ban all photography and videos in labor and delivery rooms? I have to say I would have been majorly pissed if I hadn’t been able to take some photos as soon as I wanted after birth. Some hospitals are even banning cell phones:

For the hospital, the issue is not about “rights“ but about the health and safety of the baby and mother and about protecting the privacy of the medical staff, many of whom have no desire to become instant celebrities on Facebook or YouTube.

Their concerns take place against a backdrop of medical malpractice suits in which video is playing a role. A typical case is one settled in 2007 that involved a baby born at the University of Illinois Hospital with shoulder complications and permanent injury; video taken by the father in the delivery room showed the nurse-midwife using excessive force and led to a payment to the family of $2.3 million.

What say you?

Lastly, watch out for the newest menace: HICKEYS!

A New Zealand woman was partially paralyzed after receiving a “lovebite” from her partner, reports a New Zealand news site. When the 44-year-old visited the emergency room at Middlemore Hospital in Auckland, she was unable to move her left arm. Her only other injury: the hickey on the right side of her neck.

An unfortunate chain of events followed: The hickey was covering an artery, and all the sucking it takes to create a hickey caused some bruising inside the blood vessel, resulting in a clot. That clot went into the woman’s heart, triggering a minor stroke — hence her frozen arm.

Doctors treated her with an anticoagulant, and her clot almost completely disappeared within a week.

That is some weird shizz.

What’s everyone up to? Chat away!