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BREASTS – more specifically, my wife's breasts – have been a contentious issue since we arrived in Washington DC. Everywhere we go they seem to come up – after they come out. Breastfeeding, that's what this is about. I knew from previous travels here that there was a bit of prudishness about the place but I wasn't prepared for a debate about breastfeeding. I thought that one had been done and dusted. Our house in Sydney used to be like a dairy when the mothers' group mafia descended on us. All those slurping and burping little bundles, latching on and...

The semantics of immersion Some good conversation has come up lately about baptism. For the sake of clarity, I'm simply going to refer to it as immersion, because that is what the word meant to the first century believers. Why it has been transliterated in most Bibles rather than translated into English, I don't know. But the meaning of the word is really not in dispute by anyone. The semantics of Christian immersion is far more divisive than the Biblical treatment of the subject. No doubt some will read a few sentences and either assume I'm one "position" or the...

Sunday, March 06, 2005 - EVERYTHING stops the instant a newborn starts crying. Parents rush to figure out what's wrong. They change the diaper, feed and burp her. But the infant's cries crescendo -- inevitably grating on mom and dad's nerves. Frustration sets in. Parents begin to think if they can't even calm their baby's cries, what good are they? What if there were a way to hush a crying infant in seconds? What if parents could turn their baby's nerve-wracking wailing into happy and relaxed gurgling and elevate themselves to confident, successful parents? Dr. Harvey Karp, a long-time pediatritian...

AIDS among infants, which only a decade ago took the lives of hundreds of babies a year and left doctors in despair, may be on the verge of being eliminated in the United States, public health officials say. In 1990, as many as 2,000 babies were born infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; now, that number has been reduced to a bit more than 200 a year, according to health officials. In New York City, the center of the epidemic, there were 321 newborns infected with H.I.V. in 1990, the year the virus peaked among newborns in the...

AP Photo In this image released by March of Dimes, Navy Anderson is seen Nov. 11, 1997 at University of Utah Hospital, Salt Lake City, Utah in an incubator, one week after being born prematurely. AP Photo Navy Anderson poses at her home in Logan, Utah. Associated Press Tiny ''miracle babies'' make for heartwarming stories, but the reality is that nearly half of all infants born extremely premature have significant learning and physical disabilities by the time they reach school age, the largest such study found. Medical advances have allowed doctors to save earlier and smaller babies. While some...

The Groningen Protocol has left little doubt - there are those humans whose lives are so worthless they are deemed disposable. These useless, undesirable babies are better off dead because their doctors say they must be culled from our midst. Defective babies must be killed when their parents want them killed - and sometimes even when they don't want them to be killed: Under the Groningen protocol, if doctors at the hospital think a child is suffering unbearably from a terminal condition, they have the authority to end the child's life. The protocol is likely to be used primarily for...

A mass grave being excavated in a north Iraqi village has yielded evidence that Iraqi forces executed women and children under Saddam Hussein. US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s. The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said. They are seeking evidence to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity. It is believed to be the first time investigators working for the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) have conducted a full scientific exhumation of a mass grave. "It...

Canadian women have second-highest level in world, Health Canada finds The breast milk of Canadian women contains the second-highest levels in the world of a compound used as a flame retardant in computer casings and household furniture, according to a new survey compiled by Health Canada. The highest amounts of the contaminants, known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, were detected in the milk of nursing U.S. mothers. But women in Canada had levels about five to 10 times those in other advanced industrial countries, such as Japan, Sweden, and Germany. The amounts in U.S. women were double those in...

The World Health Organization Discovers Breastfeeding by Garrett Glass, Digital Freedom Network 03.24.04 The World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations specialized agency for promoting world health, recently launched a plan to promote breastfeeding. Apparently the WHO has discovered that there are health benefits for infants that are breastfed. According to the UN press release, "Virtually all mothers can breastfeed provided they have accurate information, and support within their families and communities and from the health care system." The press release announces the 30-page presentation titled Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding, which was produced by the WHO....

A very unusual baby was born in in Mexico this week. Blanca Rosa de Leon Garcia gave birth to a bouncing boy that weighs more than 13 pounds, about the size of a three-month-old infant. Here I was thinking this was Michael Moore's baby picture patriotedition.com STORY

FINDINGS Influenza has been added to the recommended schedule of shots for all infants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said yesterday. The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians recommend that, beginning in fall 2004, all children age 6 months to 23 months, as well as household and out-of-home caregivers for such children, receive an annual influenza vaccine, the CDC said. The CDC had been moving toward the recommendation even before this past flu season, which began early and featured a nasty strain of virus that killed...

KARACHI: Cradles on side walks save many babies KARACHI, April 11: The row of baby's cradles lined up on the pavement outside a welfare organization's office are empty. The sign above reads: "Do not murder, lay them here." It is a plea against infanticide. "We've installed the cradles to motivate parents who might choose to kill their babies because they're born out of wedlock or for other reasons," explains Anwar Kazmi of the Edhi Foundation. In February alone, 20 babies were found dead and discarded among garbage dumps and sewerage drains in Karachi. They ranged in age from one day...

Global Strategy: Breastfeeding critical for child survival UNICEF and WHO call for increased commitment to appropriate feeding practices for all infants and young children NEW YORK, 23 March 2004 – Calling on governments to promote and protect early and exclusive breastfeeding, UNICEF and WHO today jointly launched the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding. The document, developed over two years of global consultation, pinpoints the main problems affecting infant and young child feeding and identifies approaches to their solution. “There is no better way than breastfeeding to make sure that a child gets the best start in...

Wet-nursing makes a comeback in Hollywood By Martin Patience The Web site for Certified Household Staffing appears like a throwback to Victorian times, when the moneyed classes hired teams of servants. The site sports images of butlers with bow ties, nannies in black and white uniforms and gamekeepers dressed in tweeds. But the agency offers another service associated with times long past: wet nurses. Robert Feinstock, 65, the owner of the Beverly Hills, Calif., company, believes his business is one of the few in the United States that offers wet nurses, or women who suckle other peoples' children. He says...

Mother Wants Baby She Gave Up Back Case Is First Under Baby Moses Law POSTED: 12:31 pm CST March 5, 2004 SAN ANTONIO -- A mother who surrendered her newborn baby to a hospital now wants her child back. Baby Jacob Michael Doe, who was born premature, was taken to University Hospital on Feb. 22 by his mother, who is a minor. Under the state's Baby Moses Law, mothers who give up newborn babies are protected from prosecution. The law also protects the identity of the mothers. The process of possibly reuniting the mother and the baby, who is...

Researchers have found yet another reason why babies should breast-feed: Prolonged nursing can prevent them from getting fat later on. White babies who nursed 6 to 12 months were 30 percent less likely to be overweight at age 4 than similar babies who didn't nurse. Babies who nursed for longer than 12 months were 51 percent less likely to be overweight. However, researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found no such benefits for African-American and Hispanic babies or for white babies who nursed for less than three months. The study of 177,304 children was larger than...

Infants' remains are decades old 04:28 PM CST on Saturday, November 15, 2003Associated Press AUSTIN – The three infants whose remains were found in a Brownwood home's attic likely have been dead for more than 30 years, the Travis County Medical Examiner's office said. Deena Roberts found a bag containing the infants on Oct. 23 in the home she and her husband bought in July 2000. The bag was hidden in the second-floor crawl space of the home, which was built in 1987. A preliminary report submitted Friday by forensic anthropologist Dr. Harrell Gill-King suggests the bodies are decades old,...

(CBS) There is new evidence that age matters when it comes to introducing cereal to the diet of a baby at risk from type 1 diabetes. Medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay explains on The Early Show that those with type 1 diabetes have the misfortune of their immune system attacking and destroying the cells in the body that produce insulin. The medical community does not fully understand what causes it. But, Senay explains, a baby is at risk if there's a family history or genetic susceptibility. Two new studies in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association show a...

BOSTON - The bodies of two infants who died while in the care of a religious sect remain unclaimed in a morgue more than three years after they were exhumed from a makeshift grave. The remains of Samuel Robidoux and Jeremiah Corneau are at the state medical examiner's office because nobody from either family has tried to claim them, prosecutor Walter Shea said in an interview in Friday's Boston Herald. The children's parents are part of a small sect called the Body, which rejects modern medicine and government. Jacques Robidoux, who said he was following instructions from God when he...

Study: Chemicals in Texas Breast Milk LAST UPDATE: 9/22/2003 3:57:22 PM Posted By: CyberBob HOUSTON (AP) - The breast milk of Texas women might contain a higher level of flame-retardant chemicals, which research has shown causes brain damage in newborn rodents, according to a new study. The study, which looked at 47 women in the state, found that their level of contamination of PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, was 10 to 100 times greater than that found in European women, the Houston Chronicle reported Saturday. In Europe, PBDEs have been used less by industry and are now banned. In...