Life360

There are hundreds of parenting books published each year, but how trustworthy are they? Can parents make informed decisions without reading them, or is that irresponsible? NPR’s Tell Me More talked with the authors of two very different parenting books. The first as Ada Calhoun, who wrote Instinctive Parenting, which urges parents to trust their intuition. The second as Po Bronson, co-author of NutureShock, which tells parents to go against their gut.

The arguments are pretty strong from both sides. Calhoun says she feels better ignoring studies and “experts,” taking advice from friends, family, and her pediatrician instead. Trusting your instincts is OK more often than not.

Bronson disagreed. He says that expert advice is largely beneficial, as it takes into account years and years of research from many different people.

“It probably seems to people out there like one scientist says this and the other scientist says that,” Bronson says. “That is not the case. The scientists have been reproducing each other’s research and been saying one thing for 10 or 20 years. And we as a society haven’t been listening to that.”

Both Calhoun and Bronson raise compelling points. Who do you think is right?

Read more at NPR. Photo by cafemama.

PUPPIES! There’s nothing more exciting than bringing a young pup home, but taking the time to fully puppy-proof your home will make sure that your house is the safest possible environment for your new family member. You want your puppy to feel at home and give him/her space to explore. Just make sure that you’ve explored everything yourself first and made it safe.

Dr. Wendy McClelland, author of The Top 10 Ways to Keep Your Pets Healthy and Happy, says pet owners should keep an eye out for heavy objects that could be knocked over, electrical cords, small items that could be swallowed, and exposed garbage cans or food left out — basically, all the things you want to look out for when baby proofing your home.
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A new poll found that 40% of children who are required by law to use a car booster seat do not. Laws vary some state to state, with requirements as low as age 5 in some places, but parents should take as much precaution as necessary. Booster seats can reduce risk injury in car crashes by up to 50%.

“There have been many times driving around this area when I’ve seen cars with young children who obviously aren’t in safety seats,” writes Kathy Lauer-Williams at the Lehigh Valley Parenting Blog. “Why wouldn’t you put your child in something proved to save lives AND required by law?”

Rather than an age-specific limit, the National Highway Safety Administration recommends that children use a booster seat until they are either 4′9″ because that is the height at which a regular seatbelt fits a child safely. The average child doesn’t reach that height until 11.

More at the Lehigh Valley Parenting Blog. Photo by gracobaby.

In the “Doctor and Patient” column, Dr. Pauline W. Chen asked: when is the worst time to be a patient in the hospital? While people can’t often control when or why they need to be seen, there does exist a certain cut off point when patient safety is compromised at a hospital. But how do you identify it?

Analyzing the records of almost 40 hospitals and nearly 175,000 patients, researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor found that four factors — high hospital occupancy, weekend admissions, nurse staffing levels and the seasonal flu — can affect a patient’s risk of dying in the hospital. But while these factors universally influence in-hospital mortality, they can also interact with one another in such a way that each hospital ends up with its own particular threshold of risk.

The key is identifying not some universal cutoff point, but an individual hospital’s limits.

Unfortunately, there’s not much we, as patients, can do to identify that cutoff, but hospitals could theoretically work with each other to help alleviate the threshold of occupancy and staffing.

The full thing at Well.

Babble declared the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 the best stroller you could buy. Reviewer Kate Bayles writes, “Once your babe is ready to face forward (recommended after the first year), the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 is your best bet… A steel-reinforced interior, deep head wings and EPS foam provide safety support while the 3-position recline, full body pillow and armrest with cup holder add comfort.”

But do other parents echo Babble’s praise? Cathy of Chief Family Officer ran into trouble soon after purchasing the spendy carseat when the belt frayed: “After less than one month, the belt on one of the Nautilus seats began to fray – and since it was the belt that you pull to tighten the harness, it would get stuck and the belt would be impossible to tighten or loosen. In other words, the seat became unusable.”

On the upside, this only happened to one of the two Nautilus 3-in-1s that Cathy owned, and Graco customer service was quick to send a replacement part. She still recommended the carseat.

Great Dad also had high praise for the Nautilus 3-in-1, but also listed a few critiques about it: the carseat can be difficult to install, it’s a little bit too heavy to move between cars, and it’s forward-facing only. Great Dad said, “If you’re looking for the Fort Knox of Sturdiness, look no further!”

Overall, it seems like the complaints are minor about the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 carseat, and that it’s strongly recommended.

Why do we cry? The cop out answer, according to evolutionary biologists and neuroscientists, is simply because we’re human. But researchers are looking for better, more specific answers. Though they haven’t come up with anything conclusive yet, here are a few interesting nuggets from a recent LA Times article:

• “Regardless of age or gender, the students overwhelmingly ranked the pictures showing tears as conveying more sadness than the same faces without tears.”
• “I propose that humans evolved the ability to shed tears as a means to alleviate stress, and evolution favors this because it has survival value.”
• “Emotional tears are chemically different from tears that simply lubricate the eye… Among other things, they contain more protein.”
• “Precisely why women cry more is not known, but researchers do know that male and female tear glands are anatomically different. Female lacrimal glands, which produce tears, have smaller cells.”

Read the full thing at the Los Angeles Times. Photo by emrank.

In a study of 1,300 sixth graders, University of Michigan researchers found that students who bought lunch at school consumed twice as many fatty meats and sugary drinks than kids who brought lunch from home. They also collected information about the students’ height, weight, and cholesterol levels over three years, which revealed that a 14.4% increase in obesity among school-bought lunch eaters.

I can understand why kids who buy lunch at school are more likely to consume “sugary beverages” — most lunch rooms have a soda vending machine — but it’s more concerning that they’re more likely to consume fatty meats (25.8% vs. 11.4%) and eat fewer vegetables (16.3% vs. 91.2%). Unless schools now have a fatty meats vending machine that I don’t know about.

Add this to the piling evidence that Michelle Obama is on the right page in her war against child obesity.

More at Endocrine Today. Photo by chidorian.

It’s no secret that we reveal a little bit too much about ourselves on the internet, but our privacy is safe as long as we avoid giving out our address, phone number, and Social Security number, right? Not quite. It turns out that using all of the other seemingly trivial information we put out there about ourselves can make it pretty easy to figure out a lot personal information from the harmless information we put out there. Think of it as profiling your Facebook profile.

For example, two students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, were able to predict with 78% accuracy whether a Facebook profile belonged to a gay male, by using only profile information and links to gay friends.

Here’s an even scarier example: Last year, two researchers from Carnegie Mellon University reported that they could predict the full, nine-digit Social Security numbers of 8.5% of people born in the U.S. from 1989 to 2003. That’s about five million people. Knowing that the first three digits are assigned by location, the remaining six can be figured out through projections using public data.

Luckily, all of this data mining is in the hands of university researchers, not identity thieves. But the risk potential is enough to leave one feeling uneasy.

The full story at the New York Times. Photo by robleto.

Last week, we wrote about baby slings as a safety hazard. Baby sling manufacturers, including Hotslings, Maya Wrap, Moby Wrap, and Wrapsody, have responded with an official statement. The companies make a distinction between “bag-style” slings, which they believe are dangerous, and a number of other variations that are safer.

In contrast [to bag-style slings], shallow pouch-style slings, ring slings, mei tais and wraps hold baby in proper alignment and they fit snuggly by design and instruction. They have been engineered, developed and tested by parents, often the manufacturers themselves with their own children. These carriers are often simple and without gimmicks. Dedicated and concerned manufacturers of these types of safe slings and carriers have sponsored this release.

It’s true that the Associated Press story identified a single type of baby sling that’s come under fire from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and it’s likely that all styles of slings will get a bad wrap.

Full statement at Kids Today. Photo by sean drellinger.

An award winning app may soon be the ticket to a healthier lifestyle, or at least healthier choices at the supermarket. The Augmented Living mobile app or AUG works by allowing users to scan the barcodes of grocery store items with a smartphone camera.

Scan a cucumber and you can find out how many beneficial vitamins it has on the display screen of your phone. Scan a parcel of salami to uncover how many calories it has. In addition to nutritional facts, the app can also provide data about pricing and even where the product was grown.
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