Congratulations to T.V. show Extra’ Dayna Devon and her husband Brent Moelleken on the safe arrival of their second child.

Cole Brent Moelleken was born by cesarean section and weighed 8 lbs., 2 oz. He was delivered two weeks early because Devon had developed excessive amniotic fluid that might have been dangerous to the baby.

Cole experienced fluid in the lungs but is doing well and expected to go home Monday, according to Devon’s rep.

“Thank goodness I had a c-section delivery because this is not a baby, he’s a linebacker,” Devon said in a statement. “Brent and I are grateful he’s doing so well, even though the first couple days were stressful. His big sister Emmi, who is 16 months old, doesn’t quite get it yet, but we are now going to be a happy family unit of four.”

Devon, 36, and Moelleken, 46, welcomed their first child, daughter Emmi Reese, in September 2005. “Our elation and joy are beyond expectation,” Devon told PEOPLE at the time.

Devon, a Texas native, has been a regular cohost on Extra since 2003. She joined the show as a weekend co-anchor in 1999. Besides Extra, she has appeared – usually playing a reporter – on TV shows including The West Wing, Charmed, Gilmore Girls and Desperate Housewives.

PHOTO CREDIT:© David Gabber / Photorazzi

This story was reported late last night on the news, but hospital officials were not comfirming the birth of these babies at that time.

A spokesman for B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre contacted by The Canadian Press would not confirm or deny the births had taken place, citing privacy policy.

Canada.com is now report that Canada’s 1st set of sexuplets were born yesterday to a Vancouver couple.

Six babies were born to one mom in a Vancouver hospital yesterday.

“They’re very tiny but all six are alive,” an informed source told The Province late last night. It is believed to be the first time sextuplets have been born in Canada.

The source said the four boys and two girls each weighed about 800 grams, or 1.8 pounds, and were born between 25 and 26 weeks into their mom’s pregnancy.

In general, babies born after 24 to 25 weeks of gestation are mature enough to survive, although they need a prolonged period of intensive care. Babies born premature have a higher risk of blindness, hearing problems and mental retardation than babies born full term.

“We used to say viability for the baby was 28 weeks,” the source said. “But that’s changed now. They have a good shot at survival but there’s a chance some may not become fully functioning adults.”

The mother had been at B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre for several weeks because doctors wanted to keep her stable to maximize the time the babies would stay in the womb.

The source said one of the babies was born naturally and the others by emergency caesarean section.

A hospital spokesman would not confirm or deny the births had taken place, citing a privacy policy.

The hospital was in the news a few weeks ago when rare conjoined twins were born there. They went home just before Christmas.

Among multiple births, six babies are extremely rare and until now, apparently unknown in Canada. Most multiple births, including the birth of Vancouver’s sextuplets, are due to the use of fertility drugs.

There are just six sets of sextuplets living in the United States — two sets in New York, and one each in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama and Kansas.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2001 that the incidence of triplets and other high-number births declined for the first time in 1999, after the rate nearly doubled between 1990 and 1998.

Canada’s most famous multiple births were the Dionne quintuplets, delivered by a country doctor in a rural Ontario farmhouse. They became international Depression-era celebrities, their every move recorded and written about.

They were the first-ever quints known to have survived infancy.

It may sound weird, but 800 grams is a decent size for a “micropreemie”. Hopefully these babies were able to benefit from a shot of Celestone to help their lungs develop faster while in utero.

B.C. Women’s Hospital and Health Centre is the same hospital that delivered conjoined twins, Krista and Tatiana in October. They have been receiving quite a bit of press lately because those twins were able to go home for Christmas.

In 2000 BC Women’s Hospital delivered 12 sets of triplets and 1 set of quads - that’s 40 babies for 13 families! They also delivered 144 sets of twins.

I will keep you updated on the progress of these special babies!!

This method of stem cell harvesting should make the ethical groups happy.

U.S. scientists say they have isolated a new type of stem cell from amniotic fluid surrounding the fetus and from the placenta, a discovery they believe could someday provide a ready means of repairing or replacing diseased organs in patients.

The researchers have already used these “amniotic fluid-derived stem (AFS) cells,” as they’ve been dubbed, to grow human bone inside laboratory mice, nerve cells that show function and liver cells that secrete urea, a substance converted by the organ from toxic ammonia.

“It has been known for decades that both the placenta and amniotic fluid contain multiple progenitor cell types from the developing embryo, including fat, bone, and muscle,” said Dr. Anthony Atala, head of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

“We asked the question: ‘Is there a possibility that within this cell population we can capture true stem cells?’ The answer is yes.”

Atala’s team isolated the stem cells from amniotic fluid and placental tissue left over from routine prenatal tests used to detect fetal abnormalities - both amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling, or CVS (the latter involves taking a tiny snip of the placenta for analysis).

They found that about one per cent of all the cells were indeed stem cells, but of a kind not previously identified.

The AFS cells have characteristics of both human embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells. (Stem cells are those cells which give rise to all the different cell types in the body, from those that make up heart muscle to organs like the pancreas to neurons in the brain.)

“The cell type is totally different, which makes sense because it doesn’t come from the embryo and it doesn’t come from the adult - it’s really coming from a fetus,” Atala said in an interview from Winston-Salem, N.C.

The AFS cells grow like human embryonic stem cells, doubling in number every 36 hours in laboratory dishes, but do not form tumours when implanted in lab animals, as embryonic cells can do.

What’s more, specialized cells generated from AFS included all three classes of cells found in the developing embryo - called ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm. Their high degree of flexibility suggests AFS cells are similar to embryonic stem cells, which are thought to be able to generate every type of cell in the body.

So far, Atala’s group has been able to prod the AFS cells into forming muscle, fat, bone, blood vessel, nerve and liver cells in the laboratory.

“It’s still in its early stages, but long-term our goal would be to develop these cells to provide therapy for patients,” said Atala, who has spent seven years working on the project.

If they do prove to have the hoped-for therapeutic value, he suggests stem cells from amniotic fluid and placental tissue - in other words, afterbirth - could be frozen and banked for future use, ideally for donors’ offspring, or even across most of the population.

SOURCE:CANADA.COM

Two words came to mind when I read this story…. Your Fired! There is a reason why I am paranoid about a babysitter looking after my child.

Just after noon hour, 3-year-old Timothy Addo wandered out an open window and onto a fire escape, while his babysitter was in the bathroom smoking a cigarette.

Two men, that were just passing by made a heroic catch after a toddler fell off a fire escape from his fourth floor apartment.

The second that this happened she just went to the bathroom for a minute,” said neighbor Migdalia Melendez. “It happened just like that.”

A neighbor caught sight of the boy and yelled down to two men on the street just before the boy slipped and fell four stories into their waiting arms.

“I started screaming, come back, come back, Julio, I cannot do this by myself,” said Pedro Navarez. “As I’m calling him back, I look up again, the kid’s falling down, so he ran right there, we’re both waiting to catch him, so he hit the branch, so he went to Julio’s side.”

“As he was coming down I noticed he was a pretty big kid, a pretty big kid. It’s so fortunate that he was standing right next to me, ‘cause actually he bounced right off of me – I couldn’t get a good grip – and he grabbed him,” said Julio Gonzalez.

The little boy was taken to hospital, but has since been released with just minor cuts and bruises.

Navarez and Gonzalez are being hailed as heroes.

“This is the year 2007 and you gotta thank God and all our miracle angels that these guys were around at the time that that little angel needed him,” said neighbor Luis Gonzalez.

City law requires apartments with children under the age of ten to have window guards.

An exception is for windows that lead to a fire escape. But the law also says children should not be allowed on fire escapes unless there is an emergency evacuation.

There’s no word on whether the babysitter face any charges.

SOURCE:NY1

Photo Taken by Andrew Taylor

If you have a picture that you would like to be considered for the Photo Of The Week please send it to me at growingyourbaby@rogers.com Titled:Photo of the week. Please reduce the resolution so that my inbox doesn’t fill up too quickly…Tks Check back on Saturday to see if I have chosen your picture!!