NIH to Docs and Hospitals: Drop VBAC Bans

Concerned that doctors and hospitals are thinking more about legal ramifications, rather than a woman’s health, the National Institutes of Health issued a statement today essentially telling doctors and hospitals to stop banning vaginal births after cesareans.

Instead, a NIH consensus panel recommended that pregnant women and their caregivers use evidence-based decision-making in deciding whether to attempt a trial of labor rather than scheduling a c-section. In other words, enough with the anecdotes, we know you’re putting potential lawsuits ahead of patients, look at the science. Continue reading »

Should You Have Kids?

Wondering whether or not you should have kids?

Momlogic has you covered with this decision tree that walks you through all the important questions prospective parents face.

Like, “Are you grossed out by poo?” and “Do you like people barging in on you when you’re having sex?”

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Moms Breaking Up With Friends

I don’t wish to blame the victim here, but we mothers — especially the new ones — can sure be hard on our friends. And not just the childless ones. Judging from two guest posts over at the Motherlode, even other mothers are no fun to be around.

Sasha Brown-Worsham, a writer in Boston, broke up with her childless friend. Granted, said friend offered to pop in a DVD to shut her blob of a baby up and also mentioned relief that she didn’t have the author’s daughter’s “wild mane of hair” to comb. What mother wouldn’t be miffed? Continue reading »

Mean Girls On The Playground

Mean girls. Those pretty, popular, cool girls who use their social power to hurt those less blessed by social fortune.

The specter of a popular, predatory prom queen taking down the class nerd with a cutting remark or vicious prank is the stuff of legend, many popular movies, and sometimes a sad fact of real life.

That kind of cruelty isn’t just for prom anymore. An article in the Boston Globe explores how girls are practicing “mean girl” tactics on the playground.

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How to Talk to Your Child About Sexting

Chances are, that by the time your kids hit their teens, they’ll have cell phones burning holes in their hot little pockets. Cell phones with cameras. Some of them will almost certainly use those cameras to take nude or sexually explicit photos of themselves, their girlfriends, or that guy on the back of the bus that dared them to do it.

Then a few will use the magic of modern cellular networks to forward those pictures to their crushes, their friends, or just maybe their entire English class.

And unless current laws change, they’ll be creating and trafficking in child pornography when they do it. Those are federal felony charges that can send kids to prison, and create criminal records that will haunt them for life.

How can you persuade your kids not to sexts? Anne Collier talks to Lenore Skenazy and the crew at Free Range Kids about sexting, kiddie porn, and what parents can do.

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Special Needs Kids Get Their Own Theme Park

To call Gordon Hartman a devoted dad would be an understatement.  Once a successful real estate developer, the 46-year-old San Antonio man sold his business so that he could spend more time with his daughter, who suffers from severe cognitive delay.

While hanging with 16-year-old Morgan, Hartman came to realize that she needed something more than time with dad:  She needed the chance to experience the joys of childhood that were often denied her because of her special needs.  Continue reading »

Walmart Slashes Prices on Black Barbies

Today’s shopping tip:  buy your daughter a dark-skinned Barbie.  The African-American beauties can be had for a song–at least at Walmart.  Prices of the black dolls have been found in some stores to be cut way, way back–down to less than half of the white dolls.

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10 Foods You Should Never Let Your Kid Eat

Parents are hypocrites. We seek to ingrain the best eating habits in our kids, yet we wake up at midnight and hork an entire box of Girl Scouts cookies (Tag-a-Longs, you’ll be the death of me!) Sure, we indulge because we’re adults and life sucks when you’re an adult, so yeah we’ll be having the deep fried cheesecake. Perhaps we let our kids have a bit of the naughty foods, but here are some doozies collected by Momlogic, from liquid cereal to gravy-filled bowls of “whatthehellisthat?” that children (and maybe even adults) should never wrap their lips around.

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New National Academic Standards Released

This morning, a coalition of governors and school chiefs from 48 states and the District of Columbia issued their proposal for new, national English and math standards for students in grades K-12.

The standards are a move toward ensuring that every student is expected to leave school with the same body of knowledge and abilities no matter where they are from, so that they will be fully prepared for college or work after graduating high school. It would replace the current state standards, which some critics believe states have watered down in response to the high-stakes testing of No Child Left Behind, and which vary wildly. Only Alaska and Texas rejected the standards, which will be available for public comment until April 2.

The standards require, for example, Continue reading »

Study Finds Bottle-fed Babies Get Most BPA

If you’re a parent who reads the news, then you’ve probably worried about BPA.  But a new study suggests that it’s parents of newborns, especially bottle-fed newborns, that should worry the most.

BPA is found in polycarbonate bottles, food cans, dental fillings, and even in the air.  But when Swiss researchers examined how different types of BPA exposure could possibly affect nine different age groups, they found that it was bottle-fed babies who were at the greatest risk.

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