Does Hanna=Sam?

So, Labor Day didn't turn out to be "labor day," but Hanna is coming our way! Does this bode well for the hundreds of pregnant women in eastern South and North Carolina? Well, I've been trying to find some proof that it does, and here's the best I can come up with...


The Wall Street Journal on Monday examined the "commonly held" theory that declining barometric pressure -- which occurs during a hurricane -- can cause a pregnant woman's amniotic sack to rupture and induce labor. A study published in a 1997 issue of the Journal of Nurse-Midwifery measured 12 significant drops in barometric pressure during 1992 and studied 162 births that occurred that year. The researchers found "significantly more occurrences of onset of labor" within 24 hours of one of the drops in pressure. However, researchers who undertook one of the largest studies on the issue -- which included data on 2,400 births and was published in 1996 in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology -- found that labor was less likely to begin after periods of dropping barometric pressure, although the findings were not clinically significant, according to the Journal. Research into the theory remains "inconclusive," and some doctors and researchers say that most of the data supporting the theory is anecdotal and that labor onset is just as likely caused by the stress associated with an impending hurricane, the Journal reports. However, gathering adequate evidence and data to find a scientifically conclusive answer about barometric pressure's potential impact on pregnancy is difficult, the Journal reports. In order to get a clear answer on the issue, researchers would need to be able to measure the exact barometric pressure of the location of each pregnant woman and gather that information at varying times, including before labor, during labor and during times without low barometric pressure (Morse/Carrns, Wall Street Journal, 9/20).

In other words, maybe, maybe not. I'm going for the "maybe" option. But, did you notice in this little clip how it said that the stress from the hurricane could just as likely cause labor? So, my question is, just how much stress would it take to induce labor?

Anyway- get to the grocery store and stock up on bread and milk. If you have your 72 hour kits like you should, then no worries. If you haven't put together a 72 kit yet, then shame on you! I'm totally joking, by the way. The only reason I have a rockin' 72 hour kit is because my mother and mother-in-law saw fit to basically do it for me. Ann gave us a full kit a couple of years ago. All I've had to do is update the food items. Then mama led a huge ward project to get everyone a 72 hour kit a couple of summer's back and she made up for what wasn't already there. Rope, check; battery powered radio, check; change of clothes, check; flashlight, check; first aid kit, check; anything else you can imagine, check!