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The hidden force behind milk formula conspiracy

Blog Posted by Users
Written by Abel Cheng
It freaked me out when I read this. This is the second time I felt this on the same topic. I can’t stand “conspiracies” that stop humans from being humans. Worse still, for their own benefits. Let me explain. We all know that breastfeeding is the best food for infants and babies. Taking from a dad like me, you may ask, “What the heck that you know about breastfeeding? You can’t even nurse!” Well you don’t need to be a nursing mother to figure out breastfeeding is THE way to go. There’s no need to argue which is a better option: breastfmilk or formula. Why? It shows in Mother Nature. Take a look at all mammals. What do baby mammals eat? Milk. From where? Their mothers. And human beings are in the same class too! It’s only natural for humans to breastfeed their babies as other mammals do. I used to think the decision to breastfeed lies in the hand of mothers. Because they are the one who does the “work.” But how wrong was I to make such an assumption until I read this article about two weeks ago, and today’s article. Both by the same author George Monbiot. His writing is provocative and bold. And I like it so much! For those who promote breastfeeding awareness, now they face a bigger challenge than just educating mothers or mothers to be to go the natural way. There’s a bigger player here trying to convince mothers that some milk formula is "closer than ever to breastmilk". And they are willing to put behind chidlren’s health for the sake of raking more profits. If you think it happens only in poor and developed countries, take a look at this statistics. “In a recent survey of 16 European countries, the UK comes second to last, beating only Belgium. When our babies are six months old, just 21% receive any breastmilk, while in Norway the rate is 80%; 24% of British babies never taste breastmilk at all - in Norway it's 2%. Remember this next time someone tells you that the rate can't be increased because lots of women can't produce milk. The constraint is not biological but political. The Norwegian government has passed laws that make breastfeeding as easy as possible: all women are entitled to a year's maternity leave on 80% pay, and state employees are given special breastfeeding breaks.” I like this phrase. Let me repeat once more here: “Remember this next time someone tells you that the rate can't be increased because lots of women can't produce milk. The constraint is not biological but political.” Sounds scary, huh? No I have no intention at all to meddle in politics when I started this website as this website is for parents and about parenting. But who would have guessed politics has a hand in preventing the growing of breastfeeding community. Okay, back to my point. What am I trying to arrive here? For all mothers, do whatever it takes, for heaven’s sake, to breastfeed your baby as long as you can. Don’t listen to naysayers. Whether it’s your mother, your friend, or even the prime minister. I know there are many problems you might face at work or at home when you breastfeed (as in everything else we do in life), but you can always get help from other nursing mothers. Don’t let excuses take over your children’s health. My wife and I did not argue when we had our two babies. Both of us agreed breastmilk was the best for our babies even though I knew my wife would be the one who made more sacrifices than I did. What I could do was to provide support and encouragement. Add Comment (3)

Infertility: What Causes It And What Can You Do About It?

Articles

Written by PW Editorial Team

Infertility is the inability to produce a baby by natural means of conception. There are many reasons why men and women aren’t able to produce a baby naturally. Some of them are easily remedied while others are more difficult to work with. If you and your partner have been trying for more than a year to conceive a baby, you should start by both of you having a thorough exam by a doctor.

Find Out Who First

In most cases, the cause of infertility lies with either the male or female. Only a very small percentage of infertile couples are the result of both parties having an issue with infertility. The focus isn’t on who is infertile, but rather why and what the options are. Sometimes men are infertile because of the type of underwear they use. They could be too tight, restricting the development of sperm. This can be taken care of by switching to looser fitting underwear. Low sperm counts can be helped with male enhancement supplements and penis exercises. Other reasons for infertility in men include exposure to dangerous chemicals, injuries to the testicles, and the use of some prescription drugs.

Female Infertility

Females sometimes have infertility problems that have to do with their reproductive organs. They may have irregular ovulation patterns, cervical issues, or tubes that won’t allow the egg to be fertilized. Thyroid problems can affect fertility as can the drugs that women use for a variety of health issues. Both prescription and over the counter weight loss drugs can reduce a woman’s ability to conceive.

While some infertility issues can’t be resolved, many of them can be resolved by making some simple changes to your lifestyle and the items you consume. Seeing your doctor will help determine the underlying reasons for your infertility, helping you find a successful way to conceive a baby naturally.

What Is On Their Minds?

Just because babies can’t talk doesn’t mean they don’t have lots to say. Especially as they approach their first birthdays, babies understand a good deal about the world and even a great many of the words adults use to talk about it. “Go get your diaper, Taylor,” and 12-month-old Taylor happily toddles off and grabs a diaper. “Time for your bath, Mason,” and 13-month-old Mason heads to the bathroom as fast as his wobbly legs can carry him.

But ask Taylor or Mason why they are crying, and although they understand the question and know full well what the answer is, all they can do is cry harder. The problem is with the painstakingly slow development of the ability to produce words. To say even a simple word like “milk” or “juice” requires the intricate sequencing of a complex assortment of tiny muscles. The task is particularly challenging because at birth, Taylor and Mason’s vocal tract more closely resembles that of a chimpanzee than an adult human’s!

The Baby-Created Solution

Fortunately, babies are a good deal more adept at controlling the movement of other parts of their bodies – and they know it! As our research studies in the mid-1980s documented, in their desperation to communicate, many babies spontaneously create gestural symbols or “signs” to stand for the things they want to talk about. They may emphatically blow-blow-blow when their food or bath water is too hot, delightedly pant-pant-pant to let you know they see a dog, or even combine the pant-pant-pant with a knob-turning gesture to tell you the family dog wants to go out! All of these are self-created “signs” we saw babies using in their desperation to find a way around the frustrating barrier of not being able to talk. In fact, the very first baby we saw do this was Linda’s own 12-month-old daughter, Kate, way back in 1982. The sniff-sniff-sniff she adopted to label flowers was what set this whole signing movement in motion!

Making It Easy for Babies

Once you know that babies are eager to use simple gestures to stand for things, the natural next step is to make it easy for them by purposefully modeling signs for things they are likely to want to talk about -- like they are hungry, thirsty, or want more; like their bathwater or food is too hot: like they hear a dog barking or an airplane flying overhead. Providing sign suggestions and tips for teaching is what the Baby Signs® Program is all about. Drawing on simple signs from American Sign Language (ASL), as well as a few baby-created suggestions, we’ve designed wonderful resources and fun classes that can make learning signs a breeze for everyone in the family.

But Will They Learn to Talk?

“If you encourage a baby to use signs, won’t that slow down learning to talk? If she can get what she wants with signs, why bother to learn words?” It’s the most common concern we hear parents voice and it’s the specific question we have worked very hard over many years to answer. With the help of a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), we carefully compared signing babies to non-signing babies from the same communities on standardized tests of verbal language development. What did we find? In test after test the signers were more advanced than the non-signers in language skills. They were learning to talk sooner, not later! Here’s how we like to explain it: Just as crawling doesn’t slow down walking, signing doesn’t slow down talking. In fact, it adds to a baby’s enthusiasm for doing so. We’ve even discovered that the children who had used signs as infants scored significantly higher than the non-signers on IQ tests at age 8!

More Important Benefits

As glad as we were to discover that signing had such positive effects on learning to talk and on intellectual development, we believe very strongly that the most important benefits are emotional ones. As you will soon discover for yourself as you open this window into your baby’s mind, when you truly understand and communicate with someone, you feel more connected. Here are just a few of the specific ways this sense of connection benefits families…

Using signs with a baby….

REDUCES tears, tantrums, and frustration
ALLOWS babies to express needs and share their worlds
ENRICHES interactions between adults and babies and strengthens the parent-child bond
REVEALS how smart babies are and increases parents’ respect for them
HELPS BUILD babies’ self-confidence and self-esteem

Who wouldn’t want these things for their baby? Who wouldn’t want to make even sweeter this magical time when babies are discovering the wonders of the world around them? That’s why all of us at Baby Signs® are so dedicated to helping families experience these joys – and more – for themselves.

For more information about Baby Signs® Programs and resources available to make signing fun and easy, visit us at www.babysignsmalaysia.com. Please contact Jamie Solomon at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or call her at +6(03)-80765936 to find out more.

Copyright (c) 2005 Baby Signs, Inc.

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Ten fun and simple ways to play with balloons

Articles
Written by PW Editorial Team
Balloons are easily available and fun to play with. And they are cheap too! Why not have a game or two with your kids and at the same time foster a closer relationship with them through fun. Here are the fun ideas you can play with balloons: 1. Static balloons. Rub a balloon with a piece of cloth to create enough static electricity to attract light objects like pieces of paper or hair. 2. Swinging balloons. Hang an inflated balloon on the ceiling with a rope. Let your toddler hit the balloon with hands. To get creative, you can show them to use a toy to hit the balloon (not the sharp ones!). Or you can even carry your child and use their legs to kick it. 3. Catch balloon. This is a simple game. Just throw the balloon to and fro without touching the ground. It’s quite a challenge though for toddlers. 4. A magical moment with balloons. Stun your kids with this trick: deflate a balloon without popping it. Blow up a balloon to its proper size. Tie off the balloon. Stick cellophane tape to the balloon, either side of it or top. Take a needle and pierce through the tape slowly and pull it out slowly. 5. Hide the balloon somewhere in the house. And ask your kids to find it. 6. Balloon rockets. Blow up a balloon and hold it tight at the opening. Then let it go off as a rocket. If you want, you can have a contest with your kids to see whose balloon travels the furthest. 7. Balloon faces. Use a felt tip marker pen to draw a face (smiley) on an inflated balloon. Draw different expressions. 8. Create animal balloons. I mean the long balloons a clown uses. For example, you can create a dog out of a balloon. 9. Popped balloons. Blow up balloons until they pop. 10. Teamwork. Stand face to face with your kid and put the balloon in between your bellies or chests. Without using your hands, move together toward a designated finishing line. Bonus tip: Balloon balance. Try to balance the balloon on the end of the finger. Keep it in the air. Take turns with your kids. Or do it together and see who can keep it balanced and in the air the longest. There you go. Get some balloons and let’s get cracking! Sidenote: If you need to blow up many balloons at one go, say 100 or more, here’s an interesting way to tie up balloons without taking its toll on your fingers. IMPORTANT: Never let your kids play with balloons when you’re not around. Dispose of deflated and burst balloons to avoid any choking hazards. Add Comment (0)

Weekend only activity

Blog Posted by Users
Written by Abel Cheng
It’s always good to sometimes break your routine. What we normally do on weekends with children is the same as what most parents do: shopping. Sad but true, that’s the most favorite past time for family. Deep inside, I know this is not healthy for our kids. But I just can’t help it (or just another excuse?). Okay at least I am trying to do something better. It just happened yesterday. And the idea came while talking to a friend the other day. Since the idea was so good, we both agreed and set it on Sunday. I took my kids to a park. The idea is not something fantastically new but I am happy as I took the effort to change the routine and the kids just loved it! This is the thing. When we decide what to do especially on weekends, we always make up our mind on things that we (read parents) like to do. We hardly think for the children. That’s why we always see kids tagging along parents involuntarily in the mall -- more than anything else. Back to the story… Since my friend and I decided to go to the park together, she brought along her kids. Apart from my kids got the chance to play in the park (most of the things there were new to them), they got the chance to meet and play with my friend’s children. I believe this is an excellent opportunity for the kids as they learn to socialize, communicate, share and play among themselves. At least with someone other than the always familiar family members. As for the parents, we can exchange parenting tips and latest gossips while we closely monitor our kids enjoying themselves in the playground. I got a tip on increasing the appetite in children – a.k.a picky eaters – and I will share with you once I tested it out. During the trip, we still haven’t had the chance to enjoy the park to the fullest as my son was already worn out after a few rounds of walking and running. The place is good for him to perfect his walking skill as it’s carpeted. So we were not so worried if he ever fell down. Another idea that we came out of the conversation is we should visit friends who are also parents more often. With this we can kill two birds with one stone. One is for the kids to know each other and play each other’s toys! Second is for parents to catch up. Finding time to drop by and say hi to old friends is as rare as hen’s teeth because everybody is busy with their own lives. With this, this idea of visiting each other fits in naturally well in a cold-hearted society like ours. In fact, the solution is simple. Reduce the time you spend in shopping malls and make more visits to your friends’ homes. And don’t forget the park too… Add Comment (1)

What is Attachment Parenting?

Articles
Written by Dave Taylor
After all these years of writing about attachment parenting on this Web site, it dawned on me a few days ago that we've never actually defined the phrase "attachment parenting". This point was reinforced when a new friend of mine commented that he'd read through the articles on this site, but that he still didn't really get what attachment parenting actually was, even though he agreed completely on what it appeared we were using as our basic approach to parenting. And so, let us define what we mean when we talk about attachment parenting -- a phrase that we didn't coin, by the way. I think William and Martha Sears, authors of The Attachment Parenting Book, might have come up with it, but in any case, it's a good name for our general philosophy of parenting! First off, the main elements of attachment parenting to us are: extended breast feeding, co-sleeping, non-violence towards children, and carrying or otherwise being with babies (especially newborns) every hour of the day. You can tell us attachment parenting types, actually, by the slings we use to tote our babies. :-) Underlying these ideas is the basic philosophy that parenting is about really loving each stage of your child's life, from newborn to toddler, infant to kid, child to teen. Rather than push newborns into a crib and separate room as fast as possible, attachment parenting folk believe that newborns and babies need to be as close to their parents as possible, even throughout the night. We believe that newborns even learn healthy sleeping and breathing patterns from sleeping close to their parents at night. We, as well as the other AP parents we know, have had the experience of co-sleeping with a young newborn only to have them stop breathing for an increasingly noticeable period of time. If one of the parents takes a deep breath, in all cases it prompted the baby to breathe again and the breath rhythm was reestablished. Overall, we prefer to cuddle, hold, play with, and generally interact with our little babies as much as possible, day and night. Pushing children to become independent from the earliest possible age is a definite trend in our society and has been for decades. Attachment parents don't aspire to have our children become so independent so quickly. Pushing independence from such a young age also tends to sever the deep attachment a child needs to feel with his or her parents, a connection that forms the foundation of trust and attachment for the rest of his or her life. I can remember about six years ago a pal of mine telling me proudly how he and his wife had traveled to France for two weeks and that their five and eight year old children didn't even miss them. He was proud of how independent they were. Me? I was horrified: while I want my kids to be independent and able to live their own young lives, I certainly also want them to miss me, to want to see me and show me what's important to them every single day, to know that I'm there to protect and love them. But it's what we see as this "pushing away" trend that us attachment parenting folk are fighting. Name any element of parenting and I can show you how there's an element of separation involved. From the shorter and shorter times that women breastfeed to the use of strollers instead of carrying babies, to cribs and separate nurseries at earlier and earlier ages. We go even further from the mainstream by embracing Waldorf education too, and the anti-media philosophy that is a common underpinning of Waldorf. The truth is that our kids watch some TV (mostly at restaurants) but never in our house. Total TV and movie time, annually, for our kids? Probably 5-10 hours total. But that's another long posting... Are there challenges to attachment parenting? Oh yeah, there's no question that it's probably a lot more difficult than following the more contemporary parenting approach of TV and video game as babysitter, kids pushed into their own rooms as soon as possible, nannies, au pairs, childcare in lieu of having a parent at home with the children, etc., but for us, at least, this is the path that resonates with our hearts, that illuminates what we're trying to accomplish on this most important of journeys, the journey to create a whole, responsible, engaged, loving adult. Or, in our case, three. Originally published here. Copyright 2007 by Dave Taylor, Apparenting.com Add Comment (1)

New Depression Rx: Get Married

The News
Written by Administrator
People who are looking to ease depression may have a new treatment option--marriage. A recent study suggests that marriage provides a greater psychological boost to depressed people than to happy people, even if the marriage is so-so. Full report: LiveScience Add Comment (0)

The effective way to say "no" to your toddler

Blog Posted by Users
Written by Abel Cheng
When I had my first child, I used to take an approach that I am shy to tell when I said no to her. This is what happened. When my daughter did something that she’s not supposed to, for example playing with a sharp object, drawers, or switches, I’d beat her hand mildly and say “no” to her, while trying to make a serious look at the same time. My friend once told me if I do that the message that is getting across to a child is the RIGHT thing to do when someone does something WRONG is to beat or punish. (Wasn’t that what our parents did to us?) Now with my second son into toddlerhood, he’s more curious than anyone else. Touching and exploring seem to be in his job scope. But I approach this differently this time. When he touches things that he’s not supposed to touch, I will tell him this is not something he can play with (of course, no violence involved but be firm). Alternatively, I will give him another option. Take for example when he wants to grab the TV remote and land his little fingers on the buttons while I’m watching Desperate Housewives, I will tell him “no” and this is not a toy that he can play with. To teach him to differentiate, I’ll grab a soft toy and show him that he can play with that instead. Did it work on the first time? Of course not. He cried as though he didn’t care what I said. But after a few attempts of showing, telling and teaching him what he can grab and play, he seems to be getting the message recently. He doesn’t cry anymore when he doesn’t get what he wants except for some grumbling. But after that, he’ll forget what he wants in the first place. It simply works. You don’t need to resort to beating (I mean mild) your child’s little hand to tell him “no.” A little diplomatic communication will do the trick. Now why don’t you try it yourself? Add Comment (3)

Don't listen to what the rich world's leaders say - look at what they do

The News
Written by Administrator
Take the thousands of Filipino children who die every year courtesy of the formula milk corporates, backed by US lobbying. Look at what is happening, right now, in the Philippines. This country has many problems, but one stands out: just 16% of children between four and five months old are exclusively breastfed. This is one of the lowest documented rates on earth, and it has fallen by a third since 1998. As 70% of Filipinos have inadequate access to clean water, the result is a public health disaster. Every year, according to the World Health Organisation, some 16,000 Filipino children die as a result of "inappropriate feeding practices". Full report: The Guardian Add Comment (0)

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How to be a Good Father: An Interview with Mark Brandenburg

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