Myth 27: “Natural” Childbirth Is Natural For Everyone

The tools and methods used or not used to deliver babies are “natural” subjective only to the culture with which one identifies.

Myth 26: “Better Safe Than Sorry” Is Rational Thinking

Wired.com has spoofed the syndrome that many of us concerned parents are vulnerable to — access to and believing too much scary information and believing our children are extremely vulnerable to harm. Their June 1, 2009 piece called “Alt Text: Beware Nebulous Internet Disease” starts with this jab, “The infection typically begins when the victim reads about an unusual affliction on a news site or current-events blog. Upon reading, the victim begins to experience one or more symptoms of that disease, typically minor symptoms such as a scratchy throat or slightly reddened area of skin.” – Wired

Announcement! Smart moms go underground

In our media-lead world where fear is pushed as a means to sell more product, there is a movement brewing. Moms, who by definition have the best intuitive sense of any creature on the planet, are standing up and saying, “We won’t be played like that!” These moms are examining the current parenting culture that brings us baby knee pads, professional baby-proofers, and child-tracking devices, and they are saying, “We won’t buy it.” Those moms are going underground…

They are saying a lot of other things too, in the titles of their books… “Homework Is Hurting Our Children & What We Can Do About It”, and “We Should All Stop Worrying & Start Living”, and “Ignorning The Experts May Be Best For Your Child”

They are saying it in the titles of their blogs.. “Giving our kids the freedom we had without going nuts with worry”, and “There is no “right way” to rear a child”, and “Lose the Guilt, Love Your Instincts”.

It is an underground movement of common sense that is raising the volume of the voice of reason. That movement now also has a homepage UndergroundMoms.com No, it isn’t another social networking site (one more of those and the internet might explode), it is simply a referral source of great reading for smart moms who share a common value, freeing themselves from baseless restrictions and “raising the volume of the voice of reason” If you are already reading this blog, you are probably an Underground Mom too. You will enjoy the reading referrals you will find there. Free the people! (At least free the moms.)

www.UndergroundMoms.com

Myth 25: Social networking sites are crawling with predators

The State Attorneys General put together a task force to get to the bottom of safety issues related to the internet. The group was called the “Internet Safety Technical Task Force” and it was run out of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. The group found that “Although identity deception may occur online, it does not appear to play a large role in criminal cases in which adult sex offenders have been arrested for sex crimes in which they met victims online.” Wait a minute, isn’t that double talk?

Myth 24: Breast is best

“In certain overachieving circles, breast-feeding is no longer a choice — it’s a no-exceptions requirement, the ultimate badge of responsible parenting. Yet the actual health benefits of breast-feeding are surprisingly thin, far thinner than most popular literature indicates. Is breast-feeding right for every family? Or is it this generation’s vacuum cleaner – an instrument of misery that mostly just keeps women down?” Excerpt from the new article “The Case Against Breast-Feeding” appearing in the April issue of The Atlantic written by Hanna Rosin.

Myth 23: Breastfeeding prevents obesity

According to David Barker, M.D., Ph.D., professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Southampton, UK and professor of Cardiovascular in the Department of Medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University and one of the authors of the report, “A longer period of breastfeeding was associated with lower BMI (a measure for weight) at one year of age. This relationship disappeared by the age of 7 years.” Similarly, there was no significant difference in BMI at the age of 60 years associated with duration of breastfeeding.

These findings may help explain why some studies that examined breastfed infants during the first year of life suggested a protective effect of breastfeeding and obesity, whereas other studies that examined the relationship later in life have found no such effect.

Myth 22: People who use genetic testing want designer babies

A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center found a high desire for additional genetic testing among consumers for life altering and threatening medical conditions including mental retardation, blindness, deafness, cancer, heart disease, dwarfism and shortened lifespan from death by 5 years of age. Consumers, however, are less interested in prenatal genetic testing for traits including tall stature, superior athletic ability and superior intelligence.

Myth 21: Carseats are safer than seatbelts for ages 2+.

Every child who is 1 year old and weighs 20 lbs. is allowed to ride in a front facing car seat (if only because they get too huge to fit rear-facing anymore) and at age 4 and 40 lbs they can graduate to a car booster seat until they turn 8 or until they are 4 ft. 9 inches tall. Endless studies show that carseats and booster seats are safer, safer, safer. But safer than what? And under what circumstances are they safer? Are parents even qualified to install the carseats they buy? Certified child passenger safety seat installers and Highway Patrol officers are required to complete a 4-day course on carseat installation. Do carseats and booster seats for children age 2 to 8 actually make your child safer or are you being bullied by carseat companies into spending $300,000,000 per year on complicated safety devices that have no more benefit than a properly used seatbelt? Is improved safety for small children through the use of carseats and booster seats a buckled down fact? Or is the sense that these seats provide more safety for your kids just a well marketed myth?

Myth 20: Avoiding peanuts prevents allergy.

Note: This myth is not 100% busted, but the premise is starting to show its slip a little. Read on.

New research casts doubt on government health recommendations that infants and new mothers avoid eating peanuts to prevent development of food allergy.  The study, published in the November issue of The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, shows that children who avoided peanut in infancy and early childhood were 10 times as likely to develop peanut allergy as those who were exposed to peanut.

Myth 19: Flu shots don’t work in “bad vaccine match” years.

Children who receive all recommended flu vaccine appear to be less likely to catch the respiratory virus that the CDC estimates hospitalizes 20,000 children every year — even during “bad vaccine match” years.