• Last updated 9/21/12 by Mothering Editorial

By Karen BurkaIssue 132, September/October 2005 Routine infant circumcision continues to be the most commonly performed surgery on children in the US, with about 1.2 million newborn boys circumcised each year.1 The US also continues to be the only industrialized nation that circumcises the majority of its newborn baby boys for nonreligious reasons. The health-based reasons have been criticized and are controversial.2 Despite these facts, the rates of routine infant circumcision (RIC) in the US have steadily declined for more than a decade, and dropped more than 11... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that protection from whooping cough wanes quickly after the final dose of the vaccine is administered to children around age seven. Most children whose parents chose to follow the recommended schedule receive the vaccine in five doses beginning as an infant. Acellular pertussis is just one of the three vaccines contained in this DTaP series, which also includes diphtheria and tetanus. The new results showed a dramatic drop in continuing protection from the vaccine after the final dose... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

When talking to children about tragic events, understanding individual temperament can be a great help. In my earlier 9/11 post, I focused mainly on two important aspects for the parent: the fundamental need for some measure of self-possession and calm amidst outer events a level of honesty and clarity in speaking to the child about the events that is not the norm in our culture Especially related to that second point — honesty and clarity for the child — I want to dive a bit deeper and look at the importance of knowing your individual... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

Eleven years since 9/11. Eleven years ago last night, our daughter Eve — then ten years old — was so excited that the next morning she was going to wake up by herself for the very first time, using the radio alarm clock we had given her for the occasion. She chose the station carefully (classical was it? maybe soft pop?), but when the radio clicked on at six a.m. in her Los Angeles bedroom it wasn’t music that woke her up. The second plane had just hit its target. Nobody yet had clarity on what was happening, let alone the news media. A fragmented noise... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

Bike blogs and cycling advocacy sites have been steadily gaining momentum over the past few years. Among the many blogs dedicated to the growing bike culture in North America, a smattering of those focus on family cycling. A Simple Six, Totcycle, Tiny Helmets Big Bikes, and my own blog, Simply Bike, are just a sampling of the blogs focused on cycling with kids in mind. While all of these blogs present diverse family structures and biking set-ups, they overlap in showing just how doable and enjoyable it is to integrate cycling into your family’s daily... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

  Image: CC 2.0 by Mike Baird Today’s kids are awash in environmental toxins from conception on. Some of those chemicals are implicated in the ever-earlier onset of puberty plaguing many girls. Over the last 100 years, the average age when puberty arrives fell from around 16 to 17 years of age to 12. It continues to drop. Experts say some of this can be attributed to better health. And some of it has to do with high rates of childhood obesity. But there’s a growing body of scientific evidence linking it to a variety of toxins. The... read more

• Last updated 10/19/12 by Melanie Mayo

(For more information about homeopathy, visit www.impossiblecure.com.) Parents who write to me often ask a question of the following form: “Will homeopathy help -X- if my homeopath is treating my child for -Y-?” (Usually, -Y- is autism.) This question is rooted in a confusion most of us have between allopathic and homeopathic medicine. A conventional doctor (and even many holistic doctors) will give you one medicine for -X-, another for -Y-, etc. However, the way homeopathy works is really fundamentally different. Reading Impossible Cure,... read more

• Last updated 9/7/12 by Mothering Editorial

By Paul M. FleissIssue 85, Winter 1997In one of our most-requested articles, Mothering explores why circumcision is hardly ever necessary, and how parents can empower themselves to avoid ceding to the "claims" of the billion-dollar-a-year circumcision industry. Western countries have no tradition of circumcision. In antiquity, the expansion of the Greek and Roman Empires brought westerners into contact with the peoples of the Middle East, some of whom marked their children with circumcision and other sexual mutilations. To protect these children, the Greeks... read more

• Last updated 9/7/12 by Mothering Editorial

By Stacey Greenberg Web Exclusive In the land before children, my husband and I had many a circumcision debate over dinner and drinks with friends. I always humored him as he made the comparison between circumcision and female genital mutilation, secretly knowing that I would trump his concerns with my Judaism card. He had agreed to a Jewish wedding and a Jewish household, and well, Jews circumcised their boys. End of story. I'm not the most religious Jew ever, and my friends and husband have often wondered how I can even call myself a Jew. (Obviously they... read more

• Last updated 10/24/12 by emilyfrischmann

Many people, mostly those who advocate for synthetic skin care, will have you believe that our skin is a barrier and protector from the contaminants of the outside world, that it is virtually impenetrable and water-tight.  Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.  Our skin is our largest organ, and is capable of absorbing up to 60% of what we put on it.  Pathways for absorption include hair follicles, sebaceous glands and sweat ducts.  Once absorbed, substances that we put on our skin, including water, vitamins, minerals, oxygen and many potentially... read more