Eye-Opening Books on Motherhood

From The Stir

Now that you've read all the pregnancy, baby care, and breastfeeding books out there, your thoughts might just be turning to what exactly is going to happen to you once your baby is here. How exactly is this going to change your life? How will your emotional makeup be different once you have this little person around?

The fact is, you can't know until your baby gets here ... your transformation into a mama will be unique to you and your baby. But luckily, there are a lot of fabulous women writers who have left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow as you find your own path. And there are some books really worth reading. Stock up on these books for some cozy, and illuminating, winter reading for the mom-to-be.





For just about any mom-to-be: Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott. It's a classic for a reason. Lamott retells the story of her first year of raising her son Sam in funny, sad, heartbreaking, and hopeful detail.





For the political mom-to be: The Mommy Myth: The Idealization of Motherhood and How It Has Undermined All Women, Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels. This book outlines how we're all being sold a bill of goods by the media in terms of what mothers are supposed to be and do. The only drawback: The writers frequently come across as if they don't like children or motherhood at all, but that doesn't dull the importance of their message.





For the mom who loved Food, Inc.: The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver became beloved by sustainable food advocates when she wrote Animal, Vegetable Miracle with her family in 2007. It chronicles their adventures feeding themselves from their farm and neighboring ones; this, though, is her first novel and and her lovely, lyrical writing shines through as it has in every one since. Heroine Taylor Greer finds herself unexpectedly becoming a mother when a total stranger places a baby in her car and pleads with her to take the little girl. She does, and opens herself up in the process.





For the mom-to-be who bonds with her yoga class: Little Earthquakes, Jennifer Weiner. Three moms meet in a prenatal yoga class and become fast, if unlikely, friends when one of them goes into labor when her NBA-star husband is out of town. The story follows them through their first year of motherhood, along with all the relationship upheaval and life adjustment that goes with it.





For the mom who marches to her own drummer: A Big Storm Knocked It Over, Laurie Colwin. Colwin writes with amazing clarity and a gentle humor ... you'll feel like her characters are right in the room with you, and you'll find yourself liking even the ones who drive you nuts. Like many of Colwin's books, there's not a lot of plot; it follows Jane Louise Parker through early marriage and motherhood and the family they construct from friends.

What's your favorite book about motherhood?

New Report Surfaces: BPA on Money

from Safe mama



A while back we all found out just how much BPA is present in a simple store receipt and several people blogged about it, bringing it to the forefront. It’s become more apparent that BPA lurks in places we don’t realize.  So is the case with paper money too.  My friends at SaferChemicals.org published an article today about a new report that illustrates how much BPA is in paper money.

The Washington Toxics Coalition along with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, who authored the report, said that 95% of bills tested came up positive for amounts of BPA.  It’s more disheartening evidence that avoiding BPA is virtually impossible… no matter how hard we try.

Researchers found that half of the thermal paper receipts tested had large quantities of unbound BPA; 95% of the dollar bills tested positive for lower amounts.  Unlike BPA in baby bottles and other products, BPA on thermal paper isn’t chemically bound in any way: it’s a powdery film on the surface of receipts.  Data from this report indicate that this highly toxic chemical does rather easily transfer to our skin and likely to other items that it rubs against.  In tests mimicking typical handling of receipts, BPA transferred from receipts to fingers.  Just ten seconds of holding a receipt transferred up to 2.5 micrograms. Researchers transferred much higher amounts, about 15 times as much, by rubbing receipts.

You can read/download the full report on the Washington Toxics Coalitions website. (PDF)
WA Toxics has great tips for avoiding BPA but in a nutshell regarding paper money and recipts:

• Keep receipts/bills seperate in your purse or wallet.  Its been shown that the BPA on receipts is not embedded into the materials like in plastic so, it’s in a powdery film form that can get onto hands and into mouths easier.
• WASH YOUR HANDS after handling money or receipts.
• Don’t allow children to handle money or hold receipts, or at the very least wash their hands afterwards.
• WA Toxics suggests refusing a receipt when you can.  BPA Free receipts are starting to pop up but it’s not all that common yet.

Now my question is, what about paper checks? Mail? Magazines? Where else can it be lurking?

Moms, Don't Forget Tummy Time

from Fit Pregnancy

12.07.10 Experts say extended periods on their stomachs in infancy linked to babies' long-term health, development.

The success of the 1992 Back to Sleep campaign from the American Academy of Pediatrics has had unexpected consequences on infants, Slate online magazine reports.


While it's helped curb sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) cases, the sleep-on-their-backs emphasis has scared parents away from tummy time at all, which is essential for infants to develop neck and back muscle strength, among other benefits.


According to the Slate article, "the less time infants spend on their stomachs, the slower they generally are to acquire motor skills during their first year, which means the potential delay of simple feats like lifting their heads as well as more complicated movements like rolling over, crawling and pulling to stand."


However, when a baby reaches these motor-skills milestones before he or she walks is proving crucial and can factor into long-term health and cognitive ability (delayed motor skills, lower IQs, even school-related problems), according to a growing number of studies cited by Slate.


The Slate writer goes on to note that doctors are not sounding any alarms on this trend because "children usually walk shortly after their first birthday regardless of how much tummy time they've had."


Not only is tummy time helpful in muscle development, it helps prevent flat head in babies. Babies usually begin to lift their heads when they're on their bellies at about 2 to 3 months old, making their way up to "baby push-ups" at about 4 to 6 months old. To help your baby get to these milestones, give him or her plenty of stretches of tummy time.

And remember, every baby reaches milestones at his or her own rate—there's no one-size-fits-all "normal" milestone chart.

Maria Vega is Fit Pregnancy magazine's copy editor.

Get the white out of baby's first foods, pediatrician says

from By Liz Szabo, USA TODAY



Almost every child care book offers the same advice about a baby's first meal.

When infants are ready for solid food, experts say, start them first on rice cereal, available in a box, mixed with breast milk or formula. Babies have launched their eating careers this way for 60 years, says Alan Greene, a pediatrician at Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children Hospital.

In the 1950s, Greene says, baby food companies trumpeted the benefits of white rice cereal, telling mothers that it was easier for babies to digest than anything they could make at home. "The ads said, 'You can't feed children as well as we can,' " says Greene, author of Feeding Baby Green.


But David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston, says "there's no scientific basis for this recommendation. That's a myth."

Concerned about increasing childhood obesity and growing rates of diabetes, some pediatricians want to change how babies eat.

Greene is encouraging parents to abandon white rice cereal in favor of more nutritious brown rice cereals or even a homemade brown rice mash or vegetable purée. "They won't mind," says Greene, who launched a "WhiteOut" campaign last week. "They'll thank you for it."

He is concerned that babies are getting hooked on the taste of highly processed white rice and flour, which could set them up for a lifetime of bad habits, such as a weakness for cakes and cookies.

White rice — after processing strips away fiber, vitamins and other nutrients — is a "nutritional disaster," Ludwig says. It's "as processed as anything in the food supply" and "the nutritional equivalent of table sugar."
White rice and flour turn to sugar in the body "almost instantly," Ludwig says, raising blood sugar and insulin levels "while providing virtually no other nutrients."

The USA Rice Federation, which represents the rice industry, counters that white rice has no fat, cholesterol, sodium or gluten, a protein in wheat to which some people are allergic, says spokeswoman Stacy Fitzgerald-Redd. Even fussy babies can tolerate white rice without an upset stomach.

It's "as nutritionally sound as any other carbohydrate," she says.

Babies certainly eat a lot of it.

It's "the No. 1 source of calories for kids in the first year of life, other than breast milk or formula," says Greene, noting that, "by 18 months, most children get no whole grains each day."

Greene says parents don't have to abandon instant rice cereal, which offers the advantage of added iron, an important nutrient for babies, especially those who are breast-fed. Most cereal manufacturers already offer a brown rice alternative.

Though offering whole grains seems like a smart idea, nutrition expert Walter Willett says white rice is far from the only culprit in childhood obesity. Most kids also drink too many sugary beverages, such as fruit juice, punch and soda, says Willett, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of the June diabetes study.

"I don't want people to feel guilty," Greene says. "I have four kids and I figured this out just recently. But it's time to change."