Newsweek published an article this week about baby brain development ("Reading Your Baby's Mind" via DaddyTypes). It might be easy to get all paranoid about your child's emotional development after reading the article, but you shouldn't. The main point is that babies develop more advanced brain abilities, especially distinguishing subtle emotional differences, faster than we'd thought. There may be some useful general clues to keep an eye on, to help catch developmental problems early on.
Obviously the article doesn't go into depth on research methodologies. But I'm wondering about this example:
Hart [the researcher] hands Cheryl Bateman a children's book, "Elmo Pops In," and instructs her to engross herself in its pages. "Just have a conversation with me about the book," Hart tells her. "The most important thing is, do not look at [6-month old Victoria.]" As the two women chat, Victoria looks around the room, impassive and a little bored.My question is whether the same thing would have happened if the research had not brought in the baby. In other words, was little Victoria getting upset due to jealousy at the other baby, or was she getting upset due to her mother's ignoring her (which was presumably not normal).After a few minutes, Hart leaves the room and returns cradling a lifelike baby doll. Dramatically, Hart places it in Cheryl Bateman's arms, and tells her to cuddle the doll while continuing to ignore Victoria. "That's OK, little baby," Bateman coos, hugging and rocking the doll. Victoria is not bored anymore. At first, she cracks her best smile, showcasing a lone stubby tooth. When that doesn't work, she begins kicking. But her mom pays her no mind. That's when Victoria loses it. Soon she's beet red and crying so hard it looks like she might spit up. Hart rushes in. "OK, we're done," she says, and takes back the doll. Cheryl Bateman goes to comfort her daughter. "I've never seen her react like that to anything," she says. Over the last 10 months, Hart has repeated the scenario hundreds of times. It's the same in nearly every case: tiny babies, overwhelmed with jealousy. Even Hart was stunned to find that infants could experience an emotion, which, until recently, was thought to be way beyond their grasp.
I was cleaning out old email today, and came across a link that Elizabeth sent to me. The link is to a story about IQ and whether environment or genetics is more important (i.e., the old nature vs. nurture debate). The answer? It depends on class. If you're poor, environment matters more. If you're middle or upper class, then the environment is decent and genetics plays a bigger role. Makes sense.
Elizabeth passed on this entry on BloggingBaby about a study from Britain suggesting that large doses of vitamins C and E (much larger than is found in prenatal supplements) might help prevent pre-eclampsia. Sounds very different from some of the suggestions we've seen before (besides getting a different father). We'll have to see what the follow-up study finds.
Elizabeth just sent me an interesting NYT story about child car seats. It's not totally conclusive, but historical data seems to strongly suggest that even a normal car seat belt is practically as effective in keeping children (ages 2 and older) safe as child seat belts. Of course, infant seats are required for babies. But the main point of the article was that, for the "bigger" kids (i.e., those aged 2 or 3 and up), any kind of restraint makes a big difference over being unrestrained, and there's little difference between normal car seat belts and child car seats.
DaddyTypes mentions an article that tries to (at least partially) answer the question: Why do we forget our childhood? The summary of the answer: Language is critical to forming memories, and so we don't remember anything from before we learned to communicate it.
For those who don't know, there's a large, on-going controversy as to whether or not thimerosol (a mercury-containing compound used as a preservative in vaccines) causes autism. Recently, both DadTalk (June 21) and DaddyTypes (June 25) posted about a story on Salon alleging a cover-up of evidence about a thimerosol/autism link.
Lots to read and think about. Luckily, thimerosol was taken out of all vaccinations except for flu vaccines a few years ago, so the question is mostly moot for newborns.
If you're a low-risk mother, apparently birthing your child at home requires fewer interventions than in a hospital (presumably because the doctors aren't around to worry about their schedules and their malpractice insurance).
According to a recent study, there is apparently a high rate of expulsion from pre-school. Yep, I imagine those three-yeard olds are the worst when it comes to dealing crack cocaine.
(The article states that it's easier to expel kids from pre-kindergarten, because it is not a publicly-required grade.)
Elizabeth pointed me to a very interesting NYT article (for non-registered users?) that claims eating meals (dinner) together as a family helps with language development, and teens were less likely to get into trouble.
Thanks to Dream Dinners (which I think we've neglected to review), we often don't have to spend time preparing dinners. Now we just need to engage in something other than baby talk. :-)
From today's daily email from the Wall Street Journal:
"The evidence is clear: Routine use of episiotomy is not supported by research and should stop," said Katherine E. Hartmann, director of the Center for Women's Health Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who led a study that found the incisions many pregnant women receive to reduce the risk of tearing tissue during delivery actually increase the risk of tissue tears, leading to more pain, more stitches and a longer recovery after childbirth, the Washington Post reports.
There's an interesting story from the BBC about preventing myopia in children. I'm not sure if you could get 5 year olds to wear contact lenses, but if you could, maybe those at risk could grow up with good eyesight.
We've seen news like this before, but here's the latest story on the likelihood that fathers play a role in whether pregnant mothers get pre-eclampsia.
So yes, once again, it's all my fault.
Recent research suggests that pregnant women could take Viagra to deal with pre-eclampsia (which is what Elizabeth was diagnosed with while pregnant with Dorothy, and which is why Dorothy was induced a month early):
The anti-impotence drug Viagra could be used to treat a pregnancy disorder which can prove fatal for mothers and babies, researchers suggest.
If you want your baby to sleep well at night you should try taking him/her for an afternoon stroll. After a good bout of afternoon sunlight, babies tend to have a much better night's sleep.That is an excerpt from a brief article titled "Afternoon daylight helps babies sleep better at night." It says that the same effect works for adults as well.
Apparently, milk is not the only way to grow strong bones, according to a story on CNN. Kids should also consume other calcium-rich foods (stock up on kale!), and get exercise (duh).
I'm starting a new category today, devoted to research related to pregnancy, birth, child rearing and child development. We'll start it off with a report from CNN on a study in the February issue of Pediatrics suggesting that juice consumption is linked to obesity in pre-schoolers. Go read the article for all the details.