• Last updated 3/20/13 by mamazee

I’ve napped every day this week! Okay, it’s only Day Four but I’m going to hoot and hollar a bit anyway, especially as I was convinced that on Mothers Day I’d completely space out and forget to nap. I had already composed the “Loser Napper” blog entry in my mind. But, miracle of miracles, I remembered. My lack of normal brain fog might have been because Saturday night I returned with my hubby from two nights of hiking bits of the Appalachian Trail in West Virginia and Maryland and getting – please be seated – a total of twenty-one hours of sleep! I think the... read more

• Last updated 6/8/10 by Mothering Editorial

June 09, 2010Meet local health workers and the children they help to survive with the See Where the Good Goes™ campaign. Each year, almost 9 million children in the developing world die of largely preventable and treatable illnesses before they reach the age of five – that equates to approximately 24,000 child deaths a day. However, every 4 seconds a child survives thanks to the basic health care provided by local health workers.Save the Children and the Ad Council are working together to mobilize citizen action in the U.S. to help local health workers save more children... read more

• Last updated 9/5/10 by Mothering Editorial

My sister was recently advised that a risk of leaving the cord to pulse is increasing the baby's blood volume to such an extent as to create an increased risk of jaundice that the baby won't be able to handle. is there any research to this effect? it seems to me to be an answer given off the cuff by a doctor not entirely willing to try something 'new'. Wondered if there is some info I'm not coming across.There has never been any randomised study evaluating the risks of severe jaundice in relation to the time of cord clamping. However, having a personal experience of... read more

• Last updated 5/6/10 by Mothering Editorial

Marilyn, My son is 18 months old and he seems to be fully retracted. Is the advice for leaving it alone still applicable? Or should I be cleaning it every once and awhile. The urologist said to pull it back as far as it will go without forcing and to clean the smegma. Is the white film something that should be cleaned or left alone? I have heard different things and was hoping you could clear them up for me.There was no need for anyone to check to see if your son's foreskin is fully retractile at his age, although I understand that sometimes the information simply... read more

• Last updated 3/30/13 by mamazee

Sometimes I wonder when the drama of running a family ever ends or whether family life is just one big drama that morphs into comedy, tragedy, and the ridiculous? This morning I woke up to the realization that I’m starting my once-a-day nap this freaking Sunday and my head is still thinking about Dancing With The Stars, the urgent message from Jacob’s school to have a meeting about his smirky-end-of-fifth-grade-attitude towards a kid who’s bugging the bits out of him,  and that I may have overdosed on liquid iron (is the kitchen supposed to spin when... read more

• Last updated 9/5/10 by Mothering Editorial

How do I live with the deep regret of having our son circumcised? He is almost 10-months-old now, and I am still struggling with this. Sadly, I did not find out the facts until it was too late.Of all the questions I'm asked, this one is the most difficult for me to answer because I have three circumcised sons. I believed the doctor who told me circumcision didn't hurt, only took a minute, and would protect my babies from terrible things that would befall them if they weren't circumcised. Many years later, as a nursing student, I witnessed a circumcision, which literally... read more

• Last updated 5/2/10 by Mothering Editorial

May 02, 2010 McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, has recalled certain over-the-counter liquid medications for infants and children including Children's and Infants' Tylenol and Motrin, and Children's Benadryl and Zyrtec. According to the McNeil website these products "may contain a higher concentration of active ingredient than is specified; others may contain inactive ingredients that may not meet internal testing requirements; and others may contain tiny particles." 1 Parents who have these products shoud stop using them and should report any... read more

• Last updated 5/2/10 by Mothering Editorial

About two years ago our infant son passed away. My two older children were clearly affected. My son has autism and found his brother in the crib already gone. My daughter has since been paranoid about not having me around. At first, that meant coming downstairs every five minutes to make sure we were still there. It then spilled over to checking on us even from another room. Lately though, I was wondering why she is still doing this. We had another baby who is now four-months-old. Our son, Daniel, died at six-months-old. Things are clearly stressful in the house right... read more

• Last updated 6/20/10 by Mothering Editorial

Hello Dr Rubin, As far as you know, are there any non-invasive tests that can show a pre-disposition to autism that would be brought out by vaccinations? Anything in the area of BioFeedack devices? Thank you, anne marie annemarie.dani@gmail.comI cannot answer this question because (1) I am not a medical professional but instead am a computer scientist who manages VAERS data for the Medalerts.org website and (2) There is nothing in the VAERS data that would suggest such a link because VAERS only reports adverse outcomes and rarely mentions any tests that may have been... read more

• Last updated 3/14/13 by mamazee

by Jake Aryeh Marcus Find Sustainable Mothering on Facebook and Jake on Twitter. A recent episode of the PBS program Frontline was called “The War on Vaccines.” The title alone should have been the tip off that the producers’ goal was to inflame and incite – to assume this was an entirely adversarial discussion between diametrically opposed viewpoints. But I knew that my colleague Jennifer Margulis, Contributing Editor at Mothering where I am Politics Editor, was interviewed on the program so I felt obligated to watch. I knew also the show would feature... read more