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."

Radiation Worries for Children in Dentists’ Chairs

from NY Times




Because children and adolescents are particularly vulnerable to radiation, doctors three years ago mounted a national campaign to protect them by reducing diagnostic radiation to only those levels seen as absolutely necessary.

It is a message that has resonated in many clinics and hospitals. Yet there is one busy place where it has not: the dental office.

Not only do most dentists continue to use outmoded X-ray film requiring higher amounts of radiation, but orthodontists and other specialists are embracing a new scanning device that emits significantly more radiation than conventional methods, an examination by The New York Times has found.

Designed for dental offices, the device, called a cone-beam CT scanner, provides brilliant 3-D images of teeth, roots, jaw and even skull. This technology, its promoters say, is a safe way for orthodontists and oral surgeons to work with more precision and to identify problems that otherwise might go unnoticed.

But there is little independent research to validate these claims. Instead, the cone beam’s popularity has been fueled in part by misinformation about its safety and efficacy, some of it coming from dentists paid or sponsored by manufacturers to give speeches, seminars and continuing education classes, as well as by industry-sponsored magazines and conferences, according to records and dozens of interviews with dentists and researchers.

Last month, The Journal of the American Dental Association allowed one of the leading cone-beam manufacturers, Imaging Sciences International, to underwrite an issue devoted entirely to cone-beam technology. That magazine, which the association sent to 150,000 dentists, included a favorable article by an author who has equated a cone-beam CT with an airport scan. In fact, a cone beam can produce hundreds of times more radiation, experts say.

Cone-beam CT scans can help dentists deal with complex cases involving implants, impacted teeth and other serious problems. But many experts in dental radiation have raised alarms about what they see as their indiscriminate use. They worry that with few guidelines or regulations, well-meaning orthodontists and other specialists are turning to a new technology they do not fully understand, putting patients at risk, particularly younger ones.

Some orthodontists now use cone-beam CT scans to screen all patients, even though a number of dental groups in this country and in Europe have questioned whether the benefit of routine use justifies the added risk.

“All these different cone-beam CT scanners came out to a world that was unprepared,” said Keith Horner, a professor of oral radiology at the University of Manchester in Britain, who is coordinating a study of cone-beam scanners for the European Commission. “They are just pushed out there by manufacturers with the message that a 3-D image is always going to be better than a 2-D image, and that isn’t the case.”

One popular new brand of braces has helped cone-beam sales because it requires 3-D images, which doctors can obtain using either a cone-beam scanner with radiation, or a digital camera without it. Many orthodontists opt for radiation, because it is quicker.

Even those troubled by the widening use of cone-beam technology acknowledge that by itself, the risk from a single scan is relatively small. But patients often get more than one scan, and the lifetime risk increases with each exposure. Without a clear benefit, they say, there is only risk.

“So let me ask a question to the mother of a prospective orthodontic patient,” said Dr. Stuart C. White, former chairman of oral radiology at the UCLA School of Dentistry. “Would you like me to use a tool that is entirely safe — a camera — to record the position of your child’s teeth, or another method that may rarely cause cancer so that we can save time?”

The cone-beam business is lucrative for manufacturers and dentists. According to one industry estimate, more than 3,000 scanners and about 30 different models have been sold, at prices up to $250,000.

Dentists, some of whom charge several hundred dollars per scan, can profit by owning their own machines. “More profit per unit chair time,” promises Imaging Sciences, the cone-beam manufacturer.

Marketers increase interest in the technology by holding drawings for free cone-beam CT scanners and other gifts. A Washington State orthodontist, who gave an online lecture sponsored by Imaging Sciences, offers dentists coupons for free scans for their patients as a way to build referrals.

And then there is the “wow” factor, said Dr. Terry Sellke, an orthodontist in Illinois.

“Kids love to see that 3-D image,” Dr. Sellke said in a Webcast sponsored by Imaging Sciences. “They can go into our computer and look at their skull.” Another orthodontist talked about coloring 3-D skulls in green and purple. “Fun for the kids,” he said.

Dr. Allan G. Farman, president of the American Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, cautions doctors not to become overly enamored of the new technology, citing the example of how shoe stores once took X-rays of customers’ feet to see if shoes fit.

Click HERE to read the rest of the article.

CPSC Educates New Parents on Safe Babywearing

from CPSC.gov

Infant suffocation deaths in slings prompt renewed effort to warn moms and dads

WASHINGTON, D. C. - Infant slings and wraps have been used for thousands of years in many different cultures. For many parents across the United States, “babywearing” promotes a positive bond between child and parent. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) wants to make sure that parents and caregivers are aware of important safety information related to the proper use of slings.

CPSC is taking this opportunity to urge everyone to use slings and wraps safely, as CPSC has identified 14 infant suffocation deaths with sling-style carriers over the past 20 years. After reviewing numerous cases, child safety experts at CPSC have determined that parents with infants younger than four months of age, premature, low-birthweight babies, and babies with colds and respiratory problems should take extra care in using a sling, including consulting their pediatrician.

Suffocation/asphyxiation can occur when babies are contained entirely within the pouch of a sling with their face, including nose and mouth, pressed against the adult’s body, blocking their breathing. Suffocation can occur within minutes.

Because of the nature of the product and its use, some slings tend to keep an infant in a curled, chin-to-chest position, which can interfere with breathing. When an infant is in the chin-to-chest position, suffocation can occur. Both scenarios are serious concerns to CPSC. Many of the babies who died in slings were twins in separate slings and infants with breathing issues.
CPSC recommends that parents and caregivers:

• Make sure you can see your baby’s face or eyes in the sling and that your baby can see you. Also, you should place the baby’s face at or above the rim of a sling or wrap so that their face is visible.
• After nursing your baby, change the baby’s position in the sling, so that the baby’s face is at or above the rim of a sling or wrap and that their face is visible and clear of fabric and the mother’s body. You should be vigilant about frequently checking the baby in a sling.
• 
  

A new voluntary consensus standard for slings is being worked on by ASTM International. This is a positive step toward providing manufacturers with an effective safety standard.

This warning is not intended to characterize all slings as being dangerous to babies. CPSC has identified (1) specific situations that can pose a risk of serious harm to babies, and (2) simple safety tips that we hope the babywearing community can share with new parents.

Proper use of a sling. Baby’s face is at or above the rim of a sling or wrap and is clear of the fabric and obstructions.

Improper use of sling. Instead, keep the infant’s head above all fabric and away
from the mother’s body. Make sure the infant’s face is not covered by the sling.

Above and below: Improper use of a sling. Infant is in a curled position with chin touching chest. Suffocation can occur in this position.

No Benefit to Delaying Vaccines

from Pediatrics in Fit Pregnancy

Parents who mistakenly believe multiple vaccinations raise the risk for autism and are thus tempted to delay some of their infant’s shots should be reassured by a study of more than 1,000 children.  It found that babies who received all the recommended immunizations on time during their first year of life did as well, if not better, on cognitive tests at ages 7 to 10 compared with children who got their vaccines late or not at all.

Delaying or spacing out immunizations only prolongs a baby’s susceptibility to such potentially fatal diseases as measles and whooping cough.