Child Free Zone

From the CFZ forum:

"Here's a great article explaining how you've got to be careful when you read "studies"
because you shouldn't interpret the findings as they appear first hand ....... you'll
understand when you read the article.

ie. What came first ..... the chicken or the egg?

http://www.medicalsearch.com.au/Features/Childless-women-at-risk-of-poor-health-study-8524"

 ...

"The study itself has been published.

They did make this caveat:

Although this pilot project has provided valuable insight into these childless women’s physical and mental health and wellbeing, it is not without its limitations. This pilot study was based on a small

convenience sample of childless women in Victoria, Australia, thus these findings must be considered with caution and cannot be generalised to the wider population of childless women. Accordingly, the physical and mental health and wellbeing of the women could not be compared by the types of childlessness. However, it is possible that there are physical and mental health and wellbeing differences between the types of childlessness [40], which are masked in the current analysis.

What I liked about this study is that the writers acknowledged the stigmatisation and marginalisation of women who are childless. The researchers were not setting out to say to women “have babies or else suffer the consequences you deserve” like so much of the anti-abortion/pro-natalist medical literature. Instead, it looks as though the writers are seeking to promote social acceptance of female childlessness to treat causes of depression et al.

See the published study (which has been highly accessed, apparently) here http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6874/11/47/abstract

and the provisional pdf here http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1472-6874-11-47.pdf"

P.S. I like the way the "childless" woman is completely on her own on the beach. You know, on the barren sands alone FFS!