If there's one thing a woman loses while pregnant (besides her waistline), it's any sense of control. Will it be a boy or a girl? Will my baby have 10 fingers and 10 toes? Will labor be easy or difficult? With so many unknowns out there, it's no wonder pregnancy and birth superstitions have proliferated for as long as they have.

Thanks to advancements in science and technology, some of these superstitions are losing their relevance. For example, moms-to-be no longer have to rely on dangling a wedding band over their bellies to determine their baby's sex. Sure, they may have had a 50/50 chance of being right, but ultrasound is much more accurate and DNA is, well, pretty hard to contest.

Did you know that one in 10 newborns are diagnosed with a vascular birthmark, those dark red or purplish marks more commonly known as strawberries, port-wine stains, stork bites or angel kisses? Before we had the science to explain that they are simply a mass of extra blood vessels in the skin, many cultures saw them as something sinister, referring to them as "the mark of the devil," while other societies explained away the unsightly marks by claiming the mother had indulged in red berries while pregnant.

Another medical phenomenon ancient cultures attempted to make sense of is the harelip, a colloquial name for cleft palate or cleft lip, which occur in approximately 1 per 500 to 700 births worldwide, according to Operation Smile. Ugandans believe if a pregnant woman sees an eclipse, her baby will have a harelip. In Mexico, harelips occur if she's out during a full moon and in China, if she eats rabbit.

While the country is under the impression that President Barack Obama is the fast-food grabber in the White House, the secret is now out. It's the First Lady who admits to "loving it more than he does."

In a live chat in her White House office, Michelle Obama talked with AOL Health senior editor Jennifer Fields about what it takes to end childhood obesity and introduced her recently launched campaign, Let's Move: America's Move to Raise a Healthier Generation of Kids.

"I wanted to bring a national voice to it," she says, regarding the obesity epidemic in the United States. "It's a personal issue to me."

Before moving to the White House, the Obamas were just like any other family with two working parents and not enough time to fit it all in. One day, her pediatrician suggested some dietary and fitness changes to help improve the health of her daughters, Malia and Sasha.

Most women would feel a bit intimidated if, upon opening their front door, they found movie star Sandra Bullock standing there. But not Leigh Anne Tuohy. The Memphis, Tenn., mom found herself in that exact situation, but, in fact, it was Bullock's knees that were knocking when the two women first laid eyes on one another.

"Leigh Anne scared me from the minute she opened the door," Bullock writes in an interlude chapter of the new memoir "In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving," by the husband and wife team of Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy.

Described in the book as a "petite, talkative, outwardly soft woman with an inner ferocity," Tuohy is perhaps most famous for adopting Michael Oher, a homeless teenager turned Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle. Bullock's portrayal of Tuohy in the movie "The Blind Side " won the actress her first Oscar.

To a 12-year-old, there's nothing scarier than a chilling ghost story told by the glow of a campfire. For some kids, scary equals fun. For others, though, it means sleeping with the lights on and a little league bat within arms' reach.

How do you know what ghost stories are appropriate for your child? Eric Wolf, a professional storyteller in Yellow Springs, Ohio, tells ParentDish in a telephone interview, "At certain ages your kids take what you're saying as fact. So the Bogeyman to them is not some mythical thing. It actually exists and it's going to get them at night. And that means, they're going to sleep with their parents. If the parents don't mind, that's all OK, but I think it's important for parents to realize that at different ages kids have different reactions to the same story."

He explains: "Kids see things as good or evil. There is no gray in their world. Even a 7- or 8-year-old sees the world as good and bad. When you tell them a very scary story they're going to think, 'Oh no, evil's in the world and it's going to come get me.' " Eric suggests stories for younger kids, ages 4 to 8, be gentler.

Tart or sweet, lemonade sells. Especially when stirred and poured by a cute and industrious neighborhood kid.

Kid-run lemonade stands have endured for a reason: they're easy to set up, cheap to run, and the profit margins are high. Any 10-year-old can do it. But some do it with a twist, putting their own personal stamp on the venture. Here are ways some kids have tailored their endeavors to fit the occasion:

1. Give it away for free. That's what Doug Mades of Newburyport, Mass., did and it paid off in spades. An only child with an introverted bent, his parents thought setting up a lemonade stand would help him meet more people while also garnering him valuable business lessons. Doug's father, Dan Mades, tells ParentDish in a phone interview that it was about the experience, not the money: "It's the best lemonade that money can't buy."

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But that didn't stop people from giving him tips or donations. Doug first set out at age 6 with a gallon of homemade lemonade and due to his early success, continued most summer weekends for the next five years. He is now 15 years old and retired from his lemonade-stand enterprise, but the money he made over that time is sitting pretty in a certificate of deposit, accruing interest for his college years. According to his father, Doug made more than just a few hundred dollars. "What Doug was able to save in his Certificate of Deposit is more on the order of a year's college tuition."

Amazing Dad: Dr. Andy Moore, founder of Surgery on Sunday, a program that offers free surgical care to uninsured patients in Kentucky on the third Sunday of every month

Andy's Family: Wife: Kitty, married 36 years; Kids: Andrew, 34, Cecilia, 32, and McKay, 25; Grandkids: Lee, 2½ , Gavin, 2 months, and one on the way

Andy Lives In: Lexington, Kentucky

Why Andy Is Amazing: They're what Dr. Andy Moore refers to as the "working poor." When he started practicing medicine 26 years ago, they were the farmers, the waitresses, the sales clerks. They paid their taxes and worked hard, but when it came to medical care, they are the ones who fell through the cracks. They were the ones who couldn't afford health insurance. When Andy would have a patient who couldn't afford medical care, he would make a call to the hospital and say, "I'm going to be taking care of this person for free and I expect you to do the same." But as hospital's financial coffers continued to get smaller, it was getting more and more difficult for Andy to take care of them.

About 15 years ago, he started thinking about how he could care for these people in a more organized fashion. The plastic surgeon's first few attempts were unsuccessful. About five years ago, however, he finally got the formula right and Surgery on Sunday (SOS) was born.

Since 2005, he and his volunteer medical personnel have cared for some 3,500 patients. SOS employs a whole spectrum of specialists including neurosurgeons, ophthalmologists, ear-nose-throat specialists and gynecologists. Everything is free, including the pre-operative and post-operative care, and they are treated like any paying patient, says Andy.

Since its inception, SOS has cared for people in 120 counties in Kentucky and has even taken people from Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Ohio and Tennessee.

"When we first started out we were just going to take care of central Kentucky and Lexington and the surrounding counties," he says. "But it's very difficult to turn down someone who walks into your office and really needs your help."

They also care for plenty of infants and kids, the most common procedures being the insertion of ear tubes and tonsillectomies.

"Once the new health care reform plan goes into effect, the number of uninsured people will go down from 52 million to 20 million," says Andy, adding that he's going to continue to work to help those 20 million who will not be served by the new bill. At any given time there are still 1,500 people on SOS's waiting list and some of them might wait over a year to finally get care. Andy says he'd like to increase it to two Sundays a month so he can help more people.

"Presently we're just doing it once a month in our community, but we'd like to step it up to twice a month," he says. "We've gotten each of the three local hospitals to agree to do an additional Sunday. We also have a commitment from SCA [Surgical Care Affiliates], the parent company of where we work out of now, to do this nationally ... I think that's going to make a huge impact."

Andy's Daughter Cecilia Says: "My dad is a hard worker and he's instilled that 'working spirit' in us. He's a dad who's always there, a dad who shows up. He's very involved with family, and he's passed that along to us. He's also a great grandfather. He's always calling to see if he can babysit."

Recognition: 2010 CNN Hero

Andy's Guilty Pleasures: He likes to work outside in the garden. He also owns a small farm and is in the process of building a cabin on it. "He loves to cook," says his daughter Cecilia. "But he's a messy cook; he likes to use every pot in the kitchen."

Andy's Best Advice: "Don't quit. A lot of people are going to tell you that you're nuts for doing it. But if you see a problem and think you have a solution for it, hang in there [and] you'll find a way to make it work. My personal process took over 15 years to do. After recognizing what I thought the answer was, it took me a long time. You have to recognize you're not going to have the full skill set to pull this off. We had to get lawyers and social workers. I needed a grant writer. I thought I had all those skills, but obviously I don't. I've been fortunate enough to have those people step up and make this a success. A lot of SOS has been focused on me. That's really not the case. I thought of the name and initiated this, but we have more than 400 volunteers and they're the people who actually make it happen."

Related: Amazing Dad: Dan Zanes

Want to see who else made the list? Click here for the rest of AOL's 2010 Amazing Dads!

Amazing Dad: Russell Jackson, founder of Kid One, an organization that transports medically-ill children and expectant moms to doctors and hospitals across the state of Alabama

Russell's Family: Wife: Mary, married 12 years; Kids: Harrison, 8, Mackenzie Grace, 3

Russell Lives In: Hoover, Alabama

Why Russell Is Amazing: Like many crusaders, Russell's mission was born of personal experience. After a 2-year-old child died in his arms while he was on the job as a firefighter, he coped with the subsequent mass of emotions by volunteering in one of Alabama's poorest communities. On one of those volunteer days, he met a 4-year-old boy who didn't speak. Instead, he grunted. His parents explained that the boy was retarded, but from Russell's limited training, he suspected that wasn't the case.

When he asked the parents what the doctor said, they said they'd never taken him to the doctor.

"Oh, so you don't have health insurance," Russell said. "No," they explained. "We have Medicaid, but we don't have a car."

So Russell put the boy in his car and drove 45 minutes to the closest hospital. A doctor discovered a lesion on the boy's brain, which was promptly removed. Russell and a friend took turns taking the boy for follow-up care and speech therapy. Soon after, other social workers began calling Russell to drive their child patients as well. And so, on his days off, that's exactly what he did.

Along the way, he discovered that this lack of medical transportation was a statewide problem in Alabama. But as the demand for his services grew, he began to feel overwhelmed.

So, in 1997 he left his firefighting job and founded Kid One, an organization dedicated to transporting Alabama kids and expectant moms to doctors and hospitals, all of which is funded by donations from the private sector. Since then, tens of thousands of sick children and expectant moms all over Alabama have been transported to doctors and hospitals across the state thanks to Russell's organization.

For the first seven years it wasn't uncommon for Russell to work seven days a week. Often he would rise at 2:30 a.m. to get a child into early morning dialysis or chemotherapy. Then, in 2004, a realization hit.

"I had a two year old boy at home who did not know me, who I loved more than life itself," he says. "And a wife who I was never seeing, who was very supportive."

But what ultimately made Russell decide it was time to pass the baton, "was when I heard my little boy say to my father, 'I think dad loves the kids at Kid One more than me.' I don't want my legacy to be Kid One. I want my legacy to be my family."

After helping to find his successor, he took a year off and did nothing but play with his son ("It was the best year of my life," he says) and followed that up with other kid- and parent-centric activities: He was the first male president of his son's elementary school Parent-Teacher Organization ("I'm ready for Congress now," he quips) and formed the Deer Valley Dads, a group that raises money for the school while engaging dads in service, development and networking opportunities at Deer Valley Elementary School.

This past January, Russell became the director of member services for the Alabama Association of Nonprofits. Although he says he misses being a firefighter, he's happy that he's still able to fulfill his passion of helping others. Indeed, his wife Mary says, "Russell is the real deal and possesses a true servant's heart. He is the one person I know who is truly living his dream because his dream is to help others and make a difference."

Russell's Wife Mary Says: "Russell is an amazing person and that transfers over to his parenting. As busy as he is and as many things as he is involved in, when he is with us he is there 100 percent. The kids adore and respect Russell and always know how much they are loved; he is a fine example to his children. One day, I believe, our kids will look back and agree that the words of the writer Clarence Budington Kelland, described their dad well: 'My father didn't tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.'"

Russell's Son Harrison Says: "My dad is amazing because he is always helping people and I really think it's cool that he quit his job to spend time with me and Mom."

Recognition: Kid One was recognized in 2005 by Johnson & Johnson as "One of America's Most Innovative Healthcare Programs;" 2008 CNN Hero; profiled in the July 2009 issue of The Costco Connection as a member who's changing the world.

Russell's Guilty Pleasures: Watching NASCAR and eating any dish originating from a Paula Dean recipe -- "you know, the ones with 12 pounds of butter in them," he says.

Russell's Best Advice: "Do your research: What is the need and if you're duplicating services or providing similar services to another organization, why are you starting a competing entity? Those are the two things that funders -- the people who are going to bring your dream to life -- will want you to justify."

Related: Amazing Dad: Bill Krissoff

Want to see who else made the list? Click here for the rest of AOL's 2010 Amazing Dads!

Amazing Dad: Bruce Feiler, author of "The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me"

Bruce's Family: Wife: Linda Rottenberg, married seven years; Kids: Twins Eden and Tybee, 5

Bruce Lives In: Brooklyn, New York

Why Bruce Is Amazing: This dad has it all: A stellar career as a nonfiction author (one of only a handful of writers to have four consecutive New York Times bestsellers in the past decade); a smart, beautiful and supportive wife; and two adorable daughters.

But a couple of years ago, at the age of 43, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer primarily found in adolescents and young adults. His first thought after learning that the seven-inch tumor in his left femur was malignant, was how his kids would fare growing up without a dad.

He soon devised a plan: He would create a "Council of Dads," consisting of six male friends representing different stages of his life and various aspects of his personality: MemoryDad, ValuesDad, TravelDad, ThinkDad, RebellionDad and DreamDad. They included his oldest childhood friend who lives in Georgia and his college roommate who lives in Washington, DC. The other four come from Vermont, California, Beijing and Brooklyn, New York.

"Five of them are dads and one isn't," says Bruce in a phone interview with ParentDish. "And this has created a problem. The one who is not a dad, Joshua, came to go trick-or-treating with them last year and it was nine o'clock and I was saying 'Come on girls. Let's go brush your teeth. Time to go to bed,' and I look around and he's stealing a candy bar from the trick-or-treat bag and giving it to them. So he's RebellionDad."

The Council has been around two years this summer, but didn't meet up as a group until this past April for the girls' fifth birthdays. "They all came to Brooklyn. And they're guys, right? So they're competitive with one another so each walked in with a bigger and bigger present. It's like, no wonder the girls like them."

In just two years, the girls have really bonded with their other six "Dads," especially thanks to email and social media like Facebook. "It's easier to feel in touch with them every day," says Bruce. "In fact, I think my kids are more in touch with some of these guys than they are with some of our neighbors. Just because there's this desire now to keep the connections alive."

In a lecture Bruce gave at TedxEast in May, he shared a pearl of wisdom gleaned from his oncologist Dr. John Healey: 'Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.' "It sucked the air out of the room," says Bruce. "People find it so inspiring. And in a lot of ways it captures my experience. This experience has been, rather than a weight on my shoulders, it's really been an engine at my back that says, 'Get out of bed. Get out of the house. Take a kid. Take a walk. Make a memory.'"

Click below to watch Bruce at TedxEast.



Bruce is now cancer-free, but reports that the Council is stronger than ever: "I feel like parenting has become a team sport for me now. When my kids ask me a question that I don't know the answer to, I feel like I have this wisdom of these dads at my disposal."

His daughter Tybee told him: "'Daddy, I have so much love in my body for you I can't stop giving you hugs and kisses. And when I have no more love left, I just drink milk. Because that's where love comes from.'"

And that makes him a very happy dad. The one thing he and his wife have been saying to the girls throughout this ordeal is, "'That the only way we're going to get through this is to stick together as a family,'" he says.

Bruce's Wife Linda Rottenberg Says: "From his first day as a father, Bruce has instilled in our twin daughters a love of language, creativity and expression. Now five, the girls relish playing made-up games such as "Super Story Saturday," "Thesaurus Thursday" or "Twenty Questions" with their dad. While encouraging this creative freedom, Bruce also sets clear boundaries. Bedtime cannot slip past 7:30 pm; poor table manners results in no special treats; not listening to Daddy yields a loss of "grown-up points." The girlies, as we call them, know who's in charge! While Bruce is now healthy and strong, the roles of his Council of Dads continue. In the process of creating this powerful idea, Bruce taught our daughters lessons about nurturing friendship and finding hope in difficult situations. That's an amazing dad!"

Bruce's Friend Ben Sherwood, aka "ThinkDad," Says: "Bruce is an amazing dad because he listens so carefully to his daughters and dials into their unique frequencies. He encourages them to pursue their individual curiosity, ideas and passions. And he loves them with all his heart."

Bruce's College Roommate Max Stier, aka "ValuesDad," Says: "Bruce combines fun, love and learning in a mix that kids love and that helps make them grow into the best adults they can be. He is an adventurer who makes learning fun."

Bruce's Guilty Pleasures: Eating his daughters' unfinished cupcakes and drinking milk straight from the carton

Recognition: Profiled in Time and USA Weekend; appeared on the Today Show; the subject of a half-hour special on CNN's Paging Dr. Gupta.

Bruce's Best Advice: "Take a walk with a turtle. In Paris, two hundred years ago, pedestrians used to take turtles for a walk and let the reptile set the pace. So to me this is sort of a perfect ode to slowing down and appreciating life, parenting, whatever it might be. Take a walk with a turtle. Behold the world and pause."

Related: Amazing Dad: Hal Colston

Want to see who else made the list? Click here for the rest of AOL's 2010 Amazing Dads!

Amazing Dad: Paul Antico, founder of AllergyEats, an online guide to more than 600,000 allergy-friendly restaurants in the United States

Paul's Family: Wife: Muffy, married 13 years; Kids: Tucker, 12 (allergic to tree nuts), Ashley, 9, Keegan, 8 (allergic to tree nuts, peanuts, sesame, dairy, eggs and fish), Callan, 3, Bree, 6 months

Paul Lives In: Cohasset, Massachusetts

Why Paul Is Amazing: If necessity is the mother of invention, perhaps frustration is the father of website creation. Paul Antico's inspiration for AllergyEats, an online guide that lists 600,000 allergy-friendly restaurants nationwide, was born out of a two-hour episode in which he was driving around Boston trying to find a restaurant that his two sons, both of whom have severe food allergies, could eat at with little or no risk.

That was four years ago, a time in which Paul's wife was the one who knew the most about all things food-allergy-related. Because she was out of town the night of the incident, Paul struggled to find a suitable eatery. Throughout the prolonged search he kept saying, "I wish there was a guide, I wish there was a guide."

And it wasn't just a local problem. Over time, Paul also discovered that dining out on family vacations was just as difficult, if not more so.

"I thought, 'Wouldn't it be nice when you go to a travel destination to immediately know where the places are that we'd have a better chance of having a comfortable experience?'" Paul recalls.

Since nothing existed, he decided to create the guide himself. Serendipitously, about a week after he began the arduous task of figuring out exactly how to create such a guide, he met the executive director of the New England Chapter for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). The timing couldn't have been more ideal. He had the idea, the passion, the energy and the drive, but he didn't have a model or a connection in the field. She went on to become Paul's mentor of sorts, offering advice and support throughout the process. He has since joined the board of her organization.

That process, which entailed, "Putting the idea together, getting consultations, hiring developers and figuring out where to get the data of all the restaurants," took him 20 months. "When I first started out, I thought I was going to do the development on my own and soon realized I was so far out of my league it was ridiculous," says Paul.

AllergyEats launched in February of this year and is slowly but surely building traffic and amassing reviews. It's a peer-rated guide, so Paul is counting on people with food allergies to go out and rate restaurants in their own cities and neighboring towns. And because the devoted dad lives in a suburb of Boston, that area has the most robust reviews, but other cities like Rockford, Illinois and Charlotte, North Carolina, have also sprung to life in the past few months.

The bonus? Every night Tucker goes into Paul's study and says, "Dad, can we check the stats?"

"He likes to see how many new ratings are in, how many new members we have, particularly when we go over to look at the page views, the new unique visitors and where they come from geographically and ... if they were referred," says Paul. "He loves watching it. He's a real statistics nut like me."

Paul's Son Tucker Says: "My dad is willing to do a lot of things for us. And he makes lots of sacrifices. In the winter I have hockey games early in the morning and they're far -- sometimes an hour away -- and he wakes up early to drive me there. He coaches my baseball and hockey teams and in the winter he builds an ice rink outside for us to play on. On vacations, he goes on rides with us if we're scared. And he always double checks labels for me and Keegan and talks to the chef to make sure the food is 100 percent safe for us to eat."

Recognition: AllergyEats has been endorsed by the Massachusetts Restaurant Association and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). It was also an Editor's Pick on Best Allergy Sites.

Paul's Guilty Pleasures: "My guiltiest pleasure by far is I'm a fantasy hockey freak. I've been the commissioner of a league that started out with just former work colleagues about 12 years ago and it's become a real hyper-competitive league. There's no money involved but boy, the pride on the line, you can't put a price on that. And by the way, I happened to win this year, after an 11-year drought."

Paul's Best Advice: "Take time during the development phase to make sure you get it right. Think about how the user will react to it. When I'm looking for feedback I don't want to hear how great it is; I'm really looking for the criticism. A lot of people are reluctant because I've taken a lot of time to build it, but the site was really built on a lot of constructive criticism. I knew what the ultimate goal was and I stayed true to that, but the path to get there adjusted a little bit as people had better ideas than I did. There's no way one person has the monopoly on great ideas. Plan far in advance, find some experts and incorporate their opinions."

Related: Amazing Dad: Dan Rooney

Want to see who else made the list? Click here for the rest of AOL's 2010 Amazing Dads!

It took four women to create a group focusing on dads.

Dads Make a Difference (DMAD), a Minnesota-based nonprofit that promotes the positive involvement of fathers, also educates youth about responsible parenting.

"Dads Make a Difference started in 1993, as a collective vision of four women who we fondly refer to as the 'Founding Mothers,' " says Jan Hayne, executive director of DMAD since 2006.

The women involved in the group's formation all approached the problems of paternity from different perspectives. Rose Allen was a family educator with the University of Minnesota Extension who was interested in a father's role within the family structure. Kathy Brothen was a middle- and high school health educator with a community clinic who lacked boy-focused curriculum on teen pregnancy prevention. Laura Kadwell worked at the Children's Defense Fund of Minnesota and wanted to promote the message that having a dad around is what's best for children. And Judy Wong Kidder, who came from the Ramsey County Attorney's Office, was focused on paternity and child support issues.