Yesterday I posted a photo of Diddy with his new twins on the cover of Hello! Canada.

People magazine has 8 new pictures plus an audio interview on their website. Here are a couple shots of the twins D’Lila Star and Jessie James, sharing some private time with their daddy and snuggling up for some shut-eye in their shared bassinet. .

In August, I wrote about how lucky Canadians were to have 52 weeks of paid maternity leave. Canada tied for second with Australia, only to be beaten out by Sweden who gives their moms 92 weeks of maternity leave.

A study, that is being released today confirms what most people already know - The U.S. needs to revamp their maternity leave policies.

The United States lags far behind virtually all wealthy countries with regard to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast-feeding, a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers says.

The new data comes as politicians and lobbyists wrangle over whether to scale back the existing federal law providing unpaid family leaves or to push new legislation allowing paid leaves.

The study, officially being issued Thursday, says workplace policies for families in the United States are weaker than those of all high-income countries and many middle- and low-income countries. Notably, it says the U.S. is one of only five countries out of 173 in the survey that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave; the others are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea.

“More countries are providing the workplace protections that millions of Americans can only dream of,” said the study’s lead author, Jody Heymann, founder of the Harvard-based Project on Global Working Families and director of McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy.

Among the study’s findings:

_Fathers are granted paid paternity leave or paid parental leave in 65 countries, including 31 offering at least 14 weeks of paid leave. The U.S. guarantees fathers no such paid leaves.

_At least 107 countries protect working women’s right to breast-feed; the breaks are paid in at least 73 of them. The U.S. does not have federal legislation guaranteeing the right to breast-feed at work.

_At least 145 countries provide paid sick days, with 127 providing a week or more annually. The U.S. provides unpaid leave through the Family and Medical Leave Act, which does not cover all workers; there is no federal law providing for paid sick days.

_At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week. The U.S. does not have a maximum work week length or a limit on mandatory overtime per week.

According to the study, the U.S. fares comparatively well in some areas — such as guaranteeing significantly higher pay for overtime work and ensuring the right to work for all racial and ethnic groups, regardless of gender, age or disability.

“The U.S. has been a proud leader in adopting laws that provide for equal opportunity in the workplace, but our work/family protections are among the worst,” Heymann said. “It’s time for a change.”

The U.S. government should be ashamed of themselves for not supporting families during the most important time. Three months is not enough time for a mother to spend with her newborn. They have lost site of what is important.

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He is called “Super Tonio,” and at a whopping birth weight of 14.5 pounds, the little fellow is causing a sensation in this Mexican resort city.

Cancun residents have crowded the nursery ward’s window to see Antonio Vasconcelos, who was born early Monday by Caesarean section. The baby drinks 5 ounces of milk every three hours, and measures 22 inches in length.

“We haven’t found any abnormality in the child, there are some signs of high blood sugar, and a slight blood infection, but that is being controlled so that the child can get on with his normal life in a few more days,” Narciso Perez Bravo, the hospital’s director, said on Wednesday.

In Brazil, a baby born in January 2005 in the city of Salvador weighed 16 pounds, 11 ounces at birth. According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest baby born to a healthy mother was a boy weighing 22 pounds, 8 ounces, born in Aversa, Italy, in September 1955.

Antonio’s mother, Teresa Alejandra Cruz, 23, and father, Luis Vasconcelos, 38, said they were proud of the boy, and noted that Cruz had given birth to a baby girl seven years ago who weighed 11.46 pounds.

I cannot imagine carrying a 14.5 lb baby. This mom is lucky they delivered him cesarean.

SOURCE:SIGNONSANDIEGO

Young, Black and Fabulous has the first photos of Diddy, Kim Porter and their new twins. Hello magazine got the big interview for their upcoming issue of Hello! Canada. The magazine will be on newstands in a couple of days.

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