How cuddling saves the world

WebMD (the hypochondriac's dream) reports on a study by Celeste Johnston, et. al, that shows that skin-to-skin contact (evocatively called Kangaroo Mother Care) decreases the pain of premature infants. In full-term babies as well, cuddling helps fight infection, facilitate breast feeding, and emphasize parental bonds.

Another study by Johnston (PDF) describes immediate post-birth physical contact between mother and baby as one of the primary indicators that the woman will perceive her child's birth positively, no matter the type of birth.

In adults, especially women, affectionate physical contact reduces stress and the NIH reports that skin-to-skin intimate contact generally produces positive feelings and better relationships (between adults and between adults and their children).

Why? Oxytocin. Feel the love.

Overheard Everywhere

Why Kids Shouldn't Watch Cinemax After Dark
Six-year-old girl, gyrating hips: Mommy! Mommy! This is how babies are made!
Mother: That's nice.

Gap Store, Stanford Shopping Center
Palo Alto, California

Overheard by: this is why I don't shop at the gap

via Overheard Everywhere, Apr 30, 2008

This Week in Editorial Images of Babies

A joint post by JillEmily.

You know how all articles come with snappy pictures that perfectly illustrate the deep and probing analysis of the author? Well a lot of those come from databases, such as Getty Images. Emily and I enjoy deconstruction; thus, we have done the inverse, deducting article titles from pictures of babies. Enjoy.



Recycling your Baby: What to do When Your Baby Hates the Environment.


Daddy Do's and Daddy Don'ts: The Hairstyling Perils of Stay-At-Home Fatherhood in 21st Century America.


Raising the Post-Modern Child: Socializing Outrage at Cartographic Injustice.


Two important notes:
1. Feature is a work in progress. We anticipate much skill at this in the near future.
2. We're liberal arts students; the idea that a title could take any form other than Pretentious Initial Title: Descriptive Subtitle is completely foreign to us.

The vital importance of Cheerios

The latest in pop science: Pregnant women with high-calorie diets are likely to produce baby boys while pregnant women with low-calorie diets produce more female offspring.

Louise at The F Word does a great job of breaking down the methodological weaknesses in the study.

The actual article is available here and actually doesn't seem to say all that much. Fetal sex is only predicted by maternal diet prior to conception and the only food that significantly correlates with producing a baby of a particular sex is breakfast cereal (with males).

So, breakfast cereal for boys, starve yourself for girls. One of the authors of the study, "Mathews says that her findings provide hints of a cheap, 'natural' way to select the sex of a child". Designer babies are, to risk placing an overly normative judgment, creepy, and certainly situated in a scientific-ethical gray area. But the problem is moreover emphasis.

The fount of the study is a minor decrease in male babies born in industrialized nations. Very minor. One tenth of one percent minor. And of course the answer is mothers because the answer is always mothers. Inhospitable maternal environment. Never mind that anyone who's made it through marginally informative sex ed (though I suppose that might be a smaller proportion than we'd like) knows that sperm are far more determinative of fetal sex than cereal.

In other news:

Lolbabies

Hello friends! In order to set the serious, academic tone of this blog, I have decided to explore the relationship between babies and that most elusive of creatures: the lolcat.

Lesson 1: CATS EAT BABIES:


Lesson 2: BABIES EAT CATS:


Lesson 3: Although babies and lolpigs appear to have a peaceful relationship, we can see that this baby is simply biding its time until the bacon is, in fact, done.




Conclusion: Perhaps babies aren't as cute and helpless as they would have us believe?

Nah, that's not possible. Look at that baby's face! He's so happy!

This Week in Babies: Introduction

Hello blogosphere. We like babies. You like babies. This will be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

We will write about babies, post videos of babies, and enjoy general baby-related news. We hope you will join us on this journey. Of babies.