There’s lots of tweaking left to do, but at least it seems to be working OK overall.

Wish this technophobe some luck, will ya?

You gotta love how the author assumes that 1) mainstream parenting has exactly one method of dealing with any given situation, regardless of age, 2) any negative outcomes are portrayed as a direct result of not APing (because, yanno, APed toddlers never yell “I don’t wanna!” at their parents…) and 3) children and adults are exactly the same.

It’s almost as if I asserted this with regards to an AP parenting practice (excuse my amateurism. In case you were wondering, that was supposed to be a family in bed).

…OK, I actually gave a good belly laugh.

A few short phone calls (to our local infectious disease consult, the Health Ministry’s epidemiology dept. and the virology lab in Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv) confirmed that there have indeed been cases of mumps in our area, and that we should regard this little boy as a suspected case, quarantine him, and check if he has an acute antibody reaction (IgM antibodies) to the mumps virus. I’m also giving him antibiotics on the chance that it’s bacterial lymphadenitis and not a viral infection, however.

Of the 3 viral infections the MMR vaccinates against, the mumps vaccine is the least effective – the vaccine strain most often used in the west used to vaccinate against mumps (Jeryl Lynn) is about 75-90% effective in a highly vaccinated population, possibly lower in an epidemic situation. Hence it’s not surprising that most of the people who contacted mumps in the New York outbreak were themselves vaccinated (for further explanation of why this happens, see here). That’s far from saying it’s worthless: While complications are rare in young children, it was a leading cause of deafness (uni- and bilateral) in children before vaccination programs began; in fact, Japanese researchers – in Japan, mumps is endemic,as the vaccine is optional – suspect that it’s more common than previously thought. Mumps is also a cause of sterility in young men acquiring it, and rarely may also cause pancreatitis and encephalitis – severe and often fatal diseases.

Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this little boy doesn’t have it.

Of particular interest to me, though, is the interview with Michael Commons and Patrice Miller, the husband-and-wife team of psychologists from Harvard responsible for the notorious Harvard non-study. You can find it about 3:55 minutes into the video:

Other than the self-satisfied looks on both their faces, I have to say they weren’t quite what I was expecting. I certainly wasn’t expecting them to sink quite so low with comparisons to Hitler and Saddam Hussein’s supposed parenting – which Miller tries to soften just a bit (probably because she belatedly realized how off-the-wall her husband sounds). Even if much of the interview was sane and edited out for brevity…they did say it. Contrast the absolute certainty Commons displays in 2008, as compared to this relatively cautious interview 10 years previously…and it’s not because the duo has done further research into the matter, mind. Nor has anyone else come up with actual research corroborating their conclusions in the interval.

What do you think?

Seasonal flu vaccination is in full swing in our clinic. Spurred by the death of a local woman (she was not a patient of my clinic, but lived across the street) and her full-term fetus from swine flu, patients have been getting themselves and their children vaccinated in record numbers this year.

The first H1N1 vaccine doses arrived here in Israel about 2 weeks ago from Switzerland, but in typical Israeli fashion, the Health Ministry decided not to allow their use in pregnant women (who are 4-5 times as likely to die if they contract the flu) and children under 3 years of age. I was told by our local infectious disease specialist this week that the reason for this was because they contained squalene as an adjuvant, and because squalene is not FDA-approved, the Health Ministry decided to await the arrival of vaccine which doesn’t contain it to vaccinate these groups. The rest of us will be getting the vaccine starting December. (Hebrew link to the Israeli Health Ministry’s FAQ on the subject).

Yes, that sound you hear is my head banging on the desk in frustration.

Anyhow, if you’d like some reliable, alarming (but not alarmist) actual information about swine flu, you’ll want to go to the CDC’s website on the subject. I’m putting their flu widget on the sidebar for now as well, so that if you can access the site from anywhere on the blog if you want to be up on the latest.

Of course, no matter what vaccine is under discussion, you can count on the usual anti-vax crazies to come up with horror stories and conspiracy theories. Dr Val Jones and crew give Dr Joe Mercola (and I use the term ‘Dr.’ very loosely here) a well-deserved tongue-lashing; factcheck.org also has an excellent response to all those hysterical emails you might be getting on the subject (like the one on my local email list today, which quoted liberally from websites such as healthfreedomusa.org and naturalnews.com).

Orac, of course, also weighs in on a story being put out by anti-vaxers about a young woman who allegedly developed dystonia after receiving a flu vaccine. The verdict: most probably a psychogenic disorder. (I have to admit that I thought the same thing when I first saw the video in question, but not being an expert on the subject, I would have hesitated to state this categorically without an expert opinion).

EDITED Nov 5th TO ADD: Sure ’nuff…

And I really can’t talk about vaccines – H1N1 or otherwise – without exhorting those of you (yes, all 3 of you ) who haven’t read this fabulous article at wired.com yet, to go and read it. Now.

This picture seems to be making the rounds of the crunchyboardz, with lots of tut-tutting about the snotty, woman-intimidating OB-GYNs with God complexes.

I have nothing against doulas in general (though I saw no reason to use one myself. I find certain specific doulas insufferable, however). I also studied the Bradley method in preparation for my first birth (somehow missing the woo-ier aspects of Bradley philosophy like endorsing the Brewer diet for preeclampsia). And I’m not entirely sure what a “birth contract” means- an overly rigid birth plan with the implicit threat of legal repercussions if the OB swerves from the script, perhaps?

But when I first saw the picture, I suspected the doctors put up the sign as a result of bad experiences with former clients who’d been brainwashed by local doulas and Bradley instructors into believing that OBs are the one obstacle between a woman and her ‘perfect birth experience’.Hence OBs need to be shackled by contracts, and the information they provide should be suspect until corroborated by more ‘natural’ sources. Did one or more of those external ‘advisors’ perhaps endanger a client by giving bad advice? If I were in a private OB practice and had the opportunity to pre-select my patients, I’d also state my preference for those patients who were willing to trust that I wasn’t out to hurt or undermine them.

Another point I’ve seen in the mommyboard hysteria about this sign is that this must mean that ‘natural’ birth is nigh impossible at this practice. Because, yanno, it’s quite impossible to have an unmedicated, low-intervention birth without doulas, Bradley claptrap and ‘birth contracts’….pffft!

Ironically, the director of the Aspen Women’s Center, Dr. Thomas Judd, seems (at least from the little I can glean about him on the Internets) to be an old-school doctor who knows his way around forceps and vaginal breech births, though he’ll not hesitate to recommend a C-section when he feels it’s necessary. The sheeple…oops, excuse me, women who go to him seem, for the most part, very pleased with his manner and professional demeanor. In fact, here’s a comment from a local CNM who claims to know and admire Dr. Judd:

I am a CNM in the area, and I can tell you that He is the only MD who is willing to back us up so we can be midwives. So patients who want birth plans, doulas and bradley…he kindly refers to our Clinic. Dr. Judd has saved a few of my patients from C-sections with his brilliance in forceps, I normally wouldn’t advocate forceps but he is overly safe with them and knows when to use them and when not to.

When all’s said and done, I wish all OBs were as upfront about their preferences (and previous bad experiences with certain types!)…

…in an extreme case that has made headlines across the nation, a court has been asked to consider whether a mother’s love for her son — and that of his grandparents too — was so intense, it could be considered a form of child abuse.

The case centers on the overprotective mother and grandparents of a 12-year-old boy known only as Luca in the northern city of Ferrara. Prosecutors say the three built a wall of protection so high around the boy, it stunted his development. The boy’s mother and grandfather have already been convicted of child abuse and are appealing the verdict. The grandmother appeared before a criminal tribunal earlier this month to face a similar charge. All three defendants have denied any wrongdoing, and the child has remained in the mother’s custody while the case is being adjudicated.

According to the evidence presented by prosecutors, Luca was not allowed to play with other children, go to church, participate in sports or leave the house before or after school. The boy’s teachers said he was sent to school with his snacks already cut into bite-size portions for him. Investigators say the teachers noticed that he was both physically and psychologically stunted from such around-the-clock doting. “He didn’t know how to run. He had the motor skills of a 3-year-old child,” Andrew Marzola, the lawyer representing the boy, told the Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The Time article intimates that overcoddling mamas (though not usually to this extent) are common in Italian society. In the US, however, the Jewish mother is similarly stereotyped, and here in Israel, the Polish (or rather, Polish-Jewish) mother has the same reputation. Recent trends in parenting – “Don’t push the kid, he’ll do it when he’s ready”, for example – tend to lend an air of legitimacy to this kind of mothering.

Luca’s example is obviously an extreme one, and I certainly am not suggesting that every overindulgent mother is abusing her child. But overindulgence doesn’t do a kid any favors, either. It can be hard to find a happy medium between loving your children and wanting to do for them, but also allowing them their space and set appropriate limits.

Nearly 12 years and 3 kids later, this Jewish mother is still searching for that balance…

Just because I was busy, however, doesn’t mean I gave up my online life entirely. Those of you who blog can probably attest that reading other people’s stuff, and even reacting to written stuff in comments or messageboard posts, is a lot easier than composing blogposts. So I kept up with my reading, and found a lot of material in the past month which made for worthy sequels to things I’d already written about here.

For example, just about a year ago, we were discussing why Gardasil is not likely to be responsible for deaths that occur immediately following vaccination. This point was driven home by the recent tragic death of 14-year-old Natalie Morton, who died unexpectedly a few hours after receiving the Cervarix vaccine, which also protects against acquisition of HPV. Turns out she had a large, previously undiagnosed tumor in her chest which infitrated her heart and one of her lungs, and that was the true cause of death. Not that the kkkonspiracy-minded kkkrazies were convinced, of course, but I hope it was an object lesson for the saner among us.

Remember those British Mums who thought some classic fairy tales were too scary for their children? Well, apparently, some parents have similar concern about the movie based upon one of my children’s favorite books*, Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild things Are. Sendak himself, however, has told these worrywarts exactly where they can go. In other words, Sendak roared his terrible roars and gnashed his terrible teeth and rolled his terrible eyes and showed his terrible claws…and good for him .

Our last stroll down deja vu lane today concerns this old post, in which I rolled my eyes at the lactofanatics’ outrage over breastpump manufacturer Medela’s advertisement of bottles, in apparent violation of the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes (which, to some, seems to surpass the Holy Bible in its involability). Well, do I have news for you: You thought Medela was bad? Turns out that Medela is purer than fresh-driven snow compared to the sins of … Lansinoh.

Yes, the makers of breastfeeding aids best known for their wool lanolin nipple ointment (which has surely saved many a breastfeeding relationship), though not themselves code breakers, have committed a grievous sin when they allowed themselves to be purchased by a Far East bottle manufacturer named Pigeon, which had the temerity to advertise their products in ways the lactofanatics disapprove of (again, invoking the draconian and outdated Code), and by donating bottles for use during natural disasters in the past. The latter especially annoys me. While we all realize that, and especially in sites of natural disasters where food and clean water are scarce, breastfeeding should be the method of choice for feeding infants, possibly followed by cupfeeding (as cups are easier to clean than bottles), we also must realize that natural disasters cause a lot of chaos, not to mention a lot of dead or absent mothers, and mothers who may lose their milk due to dehydration and stress. Which means that unless NGOs on the site have a brigade of wet-nurses and/or experienced cup-feeders on hand, bottles are going to be needed in such a situation. The giving out of bottles to the public should be at the NGOs discretion, but they need to get them from somewhere.

Apparently, even the ILCA (International Lactation Consultant Association) has deemed Lanisnoh’s products kosher; however, for the really ultra-orthodox among the lactofanatics, this isn’t quite enough. One might even think this is less about breastfeeding support and more about the eeeeevil capitalistic corporations for these people…sigh.

—————————————————————————————-
*To the point where, though I haven’t read it for years, I still know it by heart.