Preggos' Flashmob

This flashmob is supposedly pregnant women breakdancing in London. YEAH RIGHT. :)
Anyway, the idea is cute and promotes a consciousness campaign about women who die during pregnancy and birth due to the lack of health care. More info on their site.

Don't Forget to Laugh! :)

Your baby can learn sign language! Here's how to say:

• "Please change my diaper": Turn beet red and make straining expression, then smile.
• "I'd like something to eat, please": Cram fist in mouth and suck wildly.
• "I'm tired": Make a series of weeping gestures before closing eyes and lolling head backward.
• "Please pass me that thing up there that I can't reach": Point and grunt, then continue pointing and open mouth into screaming position.
• "No thank you. I think I've had enough": Throw food or object to floor with exaggerated grin.

From BabyCenter's newsletter

New moms' brain may grow after childbirth

Fri, Oct 22, 2010 (HealthDay News)

The brains of new mothers actually get bigger within months of giving birth, according to new research.
The researchers, most from the Yale University School of Medicine, said that the growth was likely fueled by changes in levels of certain hormones just after birth. They reported finding expansion in areas of the brain associated with behavior and motivation.
The researchers also found that mothers who were most enthusiastic about their babies had more growth in key parts of the mid-brain -- areas linked to maternal motivation, rewards and emotion processing -- than did mothers who were more reserved about their infants.
The findings, from a small study reported in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, suggest that a new mother's desire to look after her baby may be driven less by instinct and more by active brain building, according to two neuroscientists whose commentary on the study was also published in the journal.
Led by neuroscientist Pilyoung Kim, the study compared MRI images of 19 women taken two to three weeks and three to four months after they gave birth at Yale-New Haven Hospital, in Connecticut. The women averaged about 33 years old, all were breastfeeding, nearly half had other children and none had postpartum depression.
The brain scans revealed small but significant increases in gray matter volume in various parts of the brain, including areas associated with maternal motivation (hypothalamus), reward and emotion processing (substantia nigra and amygdala), sensory integration (parietal lobe) and reasoning and judgment (prefrontal cortex).
In adults, gray matter generally does not change size over a few months without significant learning, brain injury or illness, or a major shift in the environment, according to background information in a news release from the American Psychological Association.
Hormonal changes that occur immediately after birth, including increases in estrogen, oxytocin and prolactin, may make new mothers' brains more susceptible to reshaping in response to their infant, according to the researchers.
Mothers who suffer postpartum depression may experience reductions, instead of growth, in these same brain areas, the researchers suggested. They added that further research into what occurs in the brains of at-risk mothers could lead to new treatments.

-- Robert Preidt

Found this in here. 

Celebration

For the 1st time, my dear baby Lior (10 and a half months old) slept  through the whole night - from 7:30pm to 5:30am, a total of 10h straight!! Oooo-hoooo! :D
I only need to get him to sleep 'till 6:30 in the morning, and we're done!.....

The answer to that misterious question

Sadly True

Don't forget to laugh!.... :)

Mila's Daydreams is closing up

So, no more Mila's Daydream pictures in the blog. I wanted to keep that first one there, because it means everything to me. The flowers she is picking are from that bouquet I got in hospital after giving birth. Well, I knew this was going to end some day anyway. I will continue taking photos every now and then, while Mila is still a baby, but this time I won't publish them at my blog, just to avoid misusage and violation. But this ain't the end of this blog either. I still want to be in touch with you people and share something from my maternity leave with you. So maybe this blog is going to be more like "While my baby is taking her nap, I try to blog about something." And sure there's going to be some creative things in the future too, let's see what we can come up. Maybe Mila is going to take pictures of me, or maybe I'll write some haiku's about her first words, or maybe there's going to be some other creative outbursts from my not-so-desperate housewife life. Mila is a great muse for sure.

 

Read the whole story here.

In defense of my messy house

by Carolyn Robertson

A friend of mine whose kids are just about grown recently passed down to me a memento of motherhood that she’d had for years. It’s a magnet that is now proudly attached to my own fingerprint-smeared fridge that reads, in black and neon pink: “Good mothers have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids.” Here’s hoping.

Reading Kristina Sauerwein’s post on dirty houses last week I was glad to learn that I’m not the only one with a home that doesn’t quite sparkle. Things here tend to be smudgy and cluttered and no matter how often I vacuum there are still clumps of dog hair that roll across the floor like tiny tumbleweed. A toy storage center in bright primary colors stretches across one wall of the living room. The liquor cabinet is now home (well, in part) to craft supplies, there’s a preschool-sized table and chair set next to the couch and the floor is usually strewn with dropped teether toys and an ambitious Thomas the Train track. Add the usual baby paraphernalia – swing, bouncy chair, Jumperoo – and there’s not much room to move around here.

But you know what? I’ve stopped worrying about it. I’m not saying we live in filth – I wipe away, sop up and tidy as best I can. But after too much time and frustration spent trying to keep on top of it all I had an epiphany of sorts. There will be plenty of time down the road for spotless floors and a gleaming bath tub. Hell, it’ll be something to keep me busy as I wait for my teenage daughters to come home from their first dates. But right now is the time for toys, for clutter, for watercolor paint splattered on the side table and greasy little fingerprints on the faucets.

My house may not make the pages of any magazine, but I’m okay with that. It’s lived in. More specifically, it’s lived in by kids.

Read original article here at Momformation blog

Dads changing diapers :)

Pretty funny.... But having a helpful husband like mine it's hard to believe people actually act like that. I hope your husband change diapers better! :)

2bMommy - Blog for parents

Blog for parents (in Hebrew): http://www.2bmommy.com/

Out the Door, On Time! 12 Strategies for Speeding Up Your Mornings

No one ever told you that motherhood was synonymous with chronic lateness. But from packing the depleted diaper bag to getting your dawdlers motivated, there are plenty of reasons you probably feel like you haven’t gotten anywhere on time since your babe was born. Let’s face it: Kids dilly-dally, moms nag -- and no one gets out the door any faster. To the rescue: solid strategies from organization experts and real moms like you for getting your kids (and yourself) out the door.
 

Read the whole article here.

A dog may help guard against childhood eczema

Thu, Sep 30, 2010 (HealthDay News) -- Man's best friend protects against eczema in young children, but his nemesis, the cat, does not, new research shows.
Children with a dog in the home at age 1 had a significantly reduced risk of eczema at age 4, but children who had a cat were more likely to have the ailment at the same age, the study found. Dog ownership also conferred protection against becoming allergic to cats.
"It's speculative, but possible that the protective effect is due to a sort of natural immunotherapy where children who are exposed to dogs become tolerant over time in the same way that people on allergy shots develop tolerance to allergens," said study author Dr. Tolly Epstein, an assistant professor in the division of immunology, allergy and rheumatology at the University of Cincinnati Medical School.
Or, dog allergens may have other effects on the immune system that are not yet understood, she added.
The study was done using newborns in the Cincinnati area whose parents had allergies or eczema, making the children more likely to develop the condition. Skin tests were done to see which infants were allergic to dogs and cats, regardless of whether their families had either.
Eczema is an itchy skin inflammation and may be associated with allergies (atopic eczema) or not (non-atopic eczema), Epstein explained. Between 15 percent and 30 percent of children have had eczema, which can come and go, or disappear by a certain age. Both genetics and environment are thought to play key roles in the development of the condition.
Epstein said eczema rates have risen dramatically in the past 30 years, and researchers want to understand the causes.
The study found that children who tested positive for a dog allergy and did not live with a dog had four times the risk of getting eczema than those who tested positive and did own a dog by age 4. People can test positive for an allergy but not have any symptoms, according to experts.
The higher the dog allergen levels were in the homes, the lower the risk was for the child developing eczema by age 4, according to the study.
Most of the 636 children in the study were white. Among the 131 black children, few had dogs as pets, but those whose families got a cat by the time they were age 1 were 12 times more likely to have eczema at age 4. However, due to the small numbers, the results were not significant.
The study also looked at the association between eczema and eggs, milk and nuts, some of the most common food allergies in infants. Some experts recommend delaying common allergic foods as a strategy to protect children against allergies but the study findings did not support that.
"We tend to be so focused on food allergies with young children, but the study showed aeroallergens [airborne allergens such as pet dander or auto emissions] may be more important than has been previously understood," Epstein said.
The study found that delaying the introduction of eggs into infants' diets may have no impact on their risk for getting eczema in later years, with some indication that it benefited babies when introduced early. However, those findings were not statistically significant. Findings relating to nuts also were inconclusive.
Diet guidelines for infants recommend no solid foods until 6 months, with cereal introduction after that to monitor the effect, said Dr. Wanda Phipatanakul, an associate physician at Children's Hospital in Boston.
Phipatanakul said the study, published in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, was carefully done, but was not definitive. Other research had shown conflicting results on the impact of cats and dogs, she said.
"The jury is still out," said Phipatanakul, who is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. "I don't think anyone, including the authors, is saying to go get a few dogs, or don't get a cat to reduce your risk."
People with allergies should avoid what causes their allergies, "or you will keep getting symptoms," she said.
"They did a lot of advanced analyses and looked at it [the data] in detail," Phipatanakul said, adding that she encourages more research to help doctors "learn more and employ better interventions or strategies."

-- Ellin Holohan

How to Raise the Men We'd Want to Marry

Attention mothers of sons: Women of the future are counting on you. Valerie Monroe tells how to bring up a good, kind, happy, mindful, nongrunting husband-to-be.

Read the whole article here.