Development
Communicating with Your Newborn
From the day that a baby is born, her cries are virtually the only way she has, to communicate her needs to you. Through cries, she lets you know whether she is hungry, she needs a new diaper, she is sleepy, she needs to be held … or she is overwhelmed by all the activity around her and needs some space and quiet!
After a little while, you’ll be able to distinguish her different cries and be able to respond to them accordingly.
Continue readingRecent Guidelines Discourage C-Sections Due to Risks for Mother and Baby
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published new guidelines that strongly discourage cesarean sections unless they are medically indicated, on grounds that they can lead to complications for the mother as well as the newborn. The report was published in the organization’s March, 2013 edition of its journal, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and appears online on ACOG’s website.
The group states that vaginal deliveries should be the norm, and that every attempt should be made to avoid early cesarean deliveries. The recommendations are an attempt to reduce the skyrocketing rate of cesarean sections, by limiting “maternal-request” C-sections and early deliveries for presumed big babies.
Continue readingMany Babies Are Fed Solid Foods Too Soon, CDC Study Finds
A study published in late March, 2013 in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics found that a majority of babies in the United States may be getting introduced to solid foods much too early, often leading to a variety of chronic illnesses.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed 1,334 new moms nationwide; they found that almost 93 percent had introduced solid foods to their infants before the babies were six months old, 40 percent had introduced solids before four months, and 9 percent had done so before four weeks of age.
Continue readingAt What Age Can Babies Understand What Others Are Thinking?
A new study shows that babies as young as 19 months can guess what other people are thinking! Scientists previously believed that the ability understand what others think developed at a later age.
Researchers from UCLA studied a group of around 90 children from three different communities, in rural China, the Fiji islands, and Ecuador. The youths ranged in age from 19 months to about 5 years.
Continue readingIt Takes Longer to Give Birth Nowadays than It Did 50 Years Ago!
Despite the startling technical advances that the field of medicine has made in the last few decades, women are taking longer to give birth now than they did 50 years ago.
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