Observational data – far from worthless

I’ve been following a discussion about CIO (crying it out) pros and cons over at iVillage that I found via a trackback to my blog stats. A poster had requested scientific information about the Ferber method/CIO in general. Someone (Thanks! ) had posted some of my critiques of the usual garbage that [...]

Parenting psychobabble gets results, after a fashion

One of the hazards of so-called ‘experts’ making unfounded claims about harm from parenting practices they don’t like is that – especially in the Internet Age – not only parents are reading their words. There are plenty of adults who are looking, rightly or wrongly, to blame their parents for their own issues. Being that [...]

Skeptical Parent Crossing #6 is up

And I blew it again…didn’t manage to submit an entry on time. Oh well, there are plenty of good blogposts to sink your teeth into in this edition over at Rational Moms.
Enjoy!

The politics of pumping

While I think it’s a good thing The Case Against Breastfeeding was written, I still found some of the assumptions underlying both the article and the podcast discussion a bit grating. The issue that bothered me the most, I think, was the discussion about whether the benefits from breastfeeding are all about the milk, or [...]

The case against breastfeeding

I was pointed to an article in the April 2009 issue of The Atlantic, The Case Against Breastfeeding. Hannah Rosin is a mother of 3 (and, to read the article, an ex-compatriot of mine) who dutifully nursed her first two children until they were a year old, as per the AAP’s recommendation. However, when her [...]

I’m officially a twit now.

I’m not the most sociable human being in the universe, and really not that much of a conversationalist, either. But I’ve decided that using Twitter has certain advantages, so you can now find my (mostly off-topic and boring, admittedly) ramblings at http://twitter.com/estherar , or just click on the pretty icon (courtesy of Siah Design) on [...]

A public cervix…

…oops, I meant service, or self-absorption in the extreme?
You decide.
If the point is to give an idea what cervical mucus looks at different points in the female cycle (e.g., for purposes of Natural Family Planning), wouldn’t pictures of mucus on a slide be better? Or is buying a gynecological speculum, learning how to [...]

Babies at work?

Bring your Child to Work Day happens quite often in my child-centered society. Given that the school and work year don’t always coincide, people who work in the evening can’t always find babysitter, and the school year, often as not, will start with a teachers’ strike, it’s not unheard for parents to bring their children [...]

Just Ask Prof. Elkind

I just finished rereading Prof. David Elkind’s The Hurried Child last week. Elkind, Professor Emeritus of Child Development at Tufts University, rails against the growing tendency to introduce into the preschool years and early grades themes and curricula better suited to older, more intellectually developed children (I’m happy to say that here in Israel, [...]

Is the NHS channeling Lamaze International?

Lamaze International, as I’ve mentioned in this post, has (rather arrogantly, IMO) decided to define what “normal birth” is for all us women. Needless to say, most of us mere mortals (98% of American women, according to the survey mentioned in that post and despite the large majority of the women being pleased with [...]