Strollerderby : dangerous

Disturbing Baby-Swinging PSA

Cole Gamble — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

In this hilariously disturbing (is that possible? discuss) PSA we see drinking and baby throwing don't mix.

This comes PSA comes from Australia, where they're apparently in the midst of a baby swinging epidemic. Is this effective or laughable?

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Is Going Hard on Handmade Bad for Parents?

JeanneSager — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:36:00 GMT

After a year and a half of ominous warnings that toxins are lurking in our kids' toyboxes, you would think parents would be celebrating the feds' decision to move in and start busting heads.

So what's the problem here?

The over-generalized, blanket "reform" regulations of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) will be putting a lot of parents out of business.

Now who's guilty of making a broad, sweeping statement? Perhaps, but I'm not just talking about moms who make toy food and sell it on etsy. They are the parents who have spent countless hours tweeting updates on Twitter, blogging about the Handmade Toy Alliance fight, and urging us all to write to our Congressman (click here to find out how they voted on the issue, by the way, in the House and in the Senate). And there are a lot of them. I have friends who do the craft circuit for extra cash, and the "children" section on etsy has no less than one thundred fifty thousand items up for sale at the moment - most of them made by a parent. Throw in the kids clothing makers, diaper sewers, and the list goes on - even if it's highly unlikely to have lead to begin with (in organic cotton?), it will have to be tested and tagged - to show parents it doesn't.

Yes, this law will undoubtedly put these parents out of business. But I'm also talking about the parents who like to buy little doodads for their kids - be it on etsy or at the local craft fair - because they're better-crafted and often more intriguing for the little minds, because the clothes are will withstand the test of being crawled and jumped in (where do I get clothes, by the way? The CPSIA calls for anything kids can "reasonably put in their mouths" - for those of us with kids, that's everything but the kitchen sink . . . on second thought, she has tried to suck water from the spigot . . . ).

They're being given one choice now - head to the big box store and stock up on the toys and clothes every kid on the block will have under the Christmas tree. Oh, and because each and everything must be tested by an independent lab to ensure it's lead, phthalate and cootie-free, and those labs like to charge a pretty penny - the price of THOSE toys is going up too. Overall, the big manufacturers will be better able to stomach the costs, but they are sure to pass on any added processing fees to us - the big ol' saps who fall for their kids' wide-eyed, "please, oh pretty please, I want it sooooo bad, I'll be so good."

Should we be making efforts to keep toxins away from our kids? Absolutely. Lead poisioning as one mother said in TV interview I watched, does not discriminate. She said the federal government shouldn't either - at least not in their efforts to keep lead out of kids' systems. Unfortunately, the CPSIA discriminates against parents when it comes down on the side of big business. A lack of research has resulted in blanket legislation in what is supposedly a quick response to a nationwide problem (a year and a half later).

If the government wants to help parents, maybe they should check with a few before the write laws "for us."

Image: Homespuncity (an etsy buy for me - that my daughter has tried sucking on)

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Boy Injured Car Surfing on Mom's Ford

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 19:54:00 GMT

This is one of those awful stories in which parents did something so reckless that you want to mercilessly berate them--but you can't because they have already learned their lesson the very hard way.

In this case, a Utah mother discovered that car surfing is not the best way to bond with your kids. The mother of a 8-year-old and a 10-year-old son routinely let her kids take a ride on the outside of her Ford Expedition while she drove around the block at about 5 mph. The kids would stand on the running board, and hold onto the sideview mirror and the handles inside the car.

This was all fun and games until her son took a fall as she went over a speed bump. He had to be flown to a hospital, where he was treated for critical head injuries. He is now in stable condition. His mother has been charged with child abuse.

As horrible as this accident was, it could have been much worse. A report from 2000 found that nearly 500 people were killed car surfing over a five-year period.

Photo: Mochinbach/Flickr

Two women found guilty of illegal midwifery

Brett Singer — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:00:00 GMT

This is a serious issue, but I have to say that the term "illegal midwifery" sounds like something out of a bad Shakespeare parody.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, here's the story:

"Tonya McGlade was found guilty of Attempting Midwifery Without a License. Linda McGlade was found guilty of Principal to Practice Midwifery Without a License.

"Prosecutors say the women helped Linda McGlade's other daughter-in-law deliver her baby boy. She died of internal bleeding two days after giving birth back in 2004."

In other words, they attempted to deliver a baby without having a license to do so. Sadly, the mother died; the baby survived. This site has a lot more detail if you're interested (fair warning: it's very sad).

What I'm wondering is, just how prevalent is this practice? If someone decides to give birth at home without a trained person present (midwife, doctor, nurse, whatever) and nothing goes wrong, would they be prosecuted as well? Judging by what I've seen on Babble, home births are far more common than I realized. If I had to guess, I would say that a large percentage of these births are against the law. And something else: isn't the problem that the patient died and received poor treatment, rather than the midwife's lack of license? I mean, you can get a midwife license online. (CORRECTION: according to a commenter, that web site only offers the coursework; to get licensed you have to complete your training under supervision.)

Image/source: mysuncoast.com

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Is Home Birth a Civil Right?

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Most people agree that where and how to give birth is a personal choice. But what if your choice is one that many doctors feel is dangerous for you and your baby?

A resurgence in the home birthing movement has doctors and midwives grappling with this question, and Babble’s own Ada Calhoun has researched the heck out of the issue for Time.

Women who opt for home births argue that this method allows them more control over their birthing experience, making it unlikely that they will undergo interventions, such as C-sections or episiotomies, that they don’t feel are necessary. Midwives only assist at home births for low risk patients, and are trained not only to deal with emergencies themselves—often in the exact same way an obstetric nurse would—but they also know when it’s necessary to bring a patient to the hospital as quickly as possible.

But many doctors argue that the best medical care can only be accessed in the hospital—period. The American Medical Association is urging lawmakers to restrict the home birthing movement, in part by making it more difficult for direct-entry midwives (who don’t have nursing degrees) to get licensed.

Currently, only 1 percent of U.S. births occur in the home. So midwife Joan Bryson seems justified in defending home birth’s safety in these terms: “We [the U.S.] rank 42nd in the world in live births, and we spend more money than anyone else. You can’t blame it on home birth.”

My personal experience makes me naturally inclined to side with Bryson. Both my sister and I were born at home with a midwife, and my parents describe the experience in near ecstatic terms (honestly, their extreme enthusiasm when recounting my mother's 12-hour labor can be a bit disconcerting). Also, my older sister never exhibited the jealousy and sense of displacement that many older children feel after the birth of a sibling. I believe this was in part because she was present in the house while my mother was in labor, and was able to see my mother and me almost as soon as I was born. There was no sense that her mother had disappeared, and then returned carrying the reason for her disappearance.

It goes without saying that giving birth at home is not for everyone—but neither is giving birth at a hospital. Competent midwives should not be subject to prosecution for allowing women to opt out of a traditional hospital birthing experience.

Photo: Time

The Biggest Driving Mistakes Moms Make

Amy Kuras — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:32:00 GMT

As responsible parents, we'd never drive drunk, tailgate out of road rage, try to apply makeup or read while driving, right?
But turns out some very common behaviors are just as dangerous. According to this story from MSNBC, a recent University of Utah study found that subjects using cell phones in a driving simulation had three accidents, while those who were drunk had none (although I take major issue with the story for this: "Tempting as it may be to use free minutes to schedule a playdate…." Sure. Because everything we do as mothers has to be about our children. It's not like we have jobs or friends or volunteer activities we might need to check in with, no, we're just shopping, cooking, cleaning, playdate-scheduling machines.).

Other dangerous behaviors are eating behind the wheel, drowsy driving, and tending to our kids while in the car (passing out snacks and handing over sippy cups, for example). It all comes down to driver distraction. Distractions of just three seconds cause fully 80 percent of accidents.

I know so far, I've been lucky – the multiple times I've reached or glanced back to tend to my kids while driving have resulted in other drivers not hitting me, (but probably wishing they could because I'm driving like an idiot). I must say, my cell phone's been broken for about a month now and while I miss the convenience of catching up on calls while I am out and about, I'm glad I have had a chance to break the habit.

When Granite Attacks

Brett Singer — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:00:00 GMT

Those shiny granite countertops in your kitchen may be emitting harmful radiation, as well as radon, a radioactive gas.

Yes, you read that correctly. According to a piece in today's New York Times, "there have been…reports of 'hot' or potentially hazardous countertops" in recent years. Granite countertops have become extremely popular in homes across the country.

Now, before you grab your sledgehammer, it needs to be pointed out that not all granite emits nasty, invisible, and difficult to detect radiation. (Anyone seeing why this is freaking me out a little bit?) The Times says that "the more exotic and striated varieties from Brazil and Namibia" are more likely to contain the bad stuff than other types of stone.

Then again, who knows? The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that radon gas levels higher than "4 picocuries per liter of air" is potentially hazardous – "about the same risk for cancer as smoking a half a pack of cigarettes per day." HALF A PACK PER DAY. (Sorry, but like I said, this freaks me out more than stories like this usually do.) One former granite-kitchened individual in the article had readings of "100 picocuries per liter". So that would be, what, 250 cigarettes per day? (Math isn't my strong suit; sorry if that's incorrect.) And Lou Witt from the EPA is quoted in the Times as saying, "There is no known safe level of radon or radiation…any exposure increases your health risk."

What to do? The article says that you can hire a tester from the American Association of Radon Scientists and Technologists. If you want to test for radon yourself (note that this doesn't test for radiation) you can visit http://epa.gov/radon or http://epa.gov/iaq/whereyoulive.html. Something tells me that the testers may get a few calls after people read today's Times.

Source/image: NYTimes.com

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Unassisted Birth -- Help Me Out

Madeline Holler — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 22:46:00 GMT

When I read stories about women who opt to give birth at home allllll by themselves -- no help from a midwife or a doctor or a staff of nurses -- I think to myself, "can you blame them?" I know, I know, a lot of you are thinking these people are just trying to be heroes or adhere to some kind of radical hippie code that shuns any relationship with established authority. Or you think they're narcissistic idiots who put their own childbirth dreams above the health and safety of an innocent child. Homebirth moms get that kind of talk too.

But I think all that's wrong. Quite wrong.

Pregnant women in the U.S. are in this totally weird position where our reproductive rights are, on both ends of the conception and pregnancy chronology, narrowing quickly. State judges, with the eventual help of the Supreme Court, are shrinking options on the early end of the spectrum. Doctors, hospital administrators, and insurance companies and legislatures (who make midwifery a crime) are taking away choices at the latter end.

Let's focus on the latter:

More than one third of all childbirth in the U.S. results in surgery -- a c-section. Some are, of course, necessary (but, like, 10 percent). A tiny percentage are the "too posh to push" variety and not indicated, but allowed (and hey, it's your choice, I won't stand in your way.). More are the "once-a-c-section-always-a-c-section," variety and then the rest, a significant number, could probably have been avoided all together.

It's the last two that, I think, push women to go the DIY route. In loads of hospitals all over the country, VBACs have been banned. Doctors and midwives are not allowed to do these vaginal births after ceseareans because of some studies that say there is an increased chance for uterine rupture in VBACs. Which may or may not be true, but that chance of which they speak is actually quite small. So what do you do? Avoid the hospital.

And avoidable c-sections? There a loads of ways to decrease one's risk of being pushed to have a c-section, but many can't be done in the hospital. Get in a tub, move around, stay off IV fluids, don't get hooked up to continuous fetal monitors, blah, blah, blah. They were in the birth plan! But the pressure! Look at what the quoted doctor has to say:

"What women need to appreciate is that the few hours of labor are the most dangerous time during the entire lifetime of the soon-to-be-born child," said Dr. Frank Chervenak, Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. "Because of this, I would argue ... all soon-to-be born children have a right to access immediate Caesarean delivery, and women who are denying this right are irresponsible."

So what do you do in your next pregnancy? That's right. Avoid the hospital and that attitude toward pregnancy and childbirth.

What about the child? Well there are risks to childbirth and those risks play out in different ways in each of the settings a woman might want to give birth in. Don't think women and babies don't die after childbirth in hospitals, which is NOT saying death in the hospital is certain and likely. Just like it's not certain and likely at home or unassisted.

What I'm trying to say is that women/patients/clients want what they want. Because there are so many possibilities. So many ways to do it right. So few ways that make it wrong (smoking crack comes to mind -- but who am I to judge?) Yet hospitals, midwives and doctors only allow for (without battles) a certain range of them. And that's fine for them and their jobs. But not fine for some women. So some women opt for birthing centers with midwives or doctors, or homebirth with midwives or (the few remaining homebirth) doctors. And some women opt to go it alone.

Unassisted birth is not for me, but like I said, who can blame them?

PS: Is it me or is that a fake belly on the woman in the picture? Just asking ...

Photo: ABC News

Are Your Holiday Decorations Really Instruments of Death?

Kelly Mills — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:29:00 GMT

Or something. Actually, the article is titled: "Can my holiday decorations kill me?" and the answer is: Yes, yes they can if they include a lead-leaching plastic tree and strings of lights. So by "holiday" they mean "Christmas" unless some other holidays have co-opted the fake tree shtick unbeknownst to me. 'Course your menorah or your Kwanzaa candles could also burn the house down, but right now we only care about lead danger, because we see our society falling like Rome over lead secreted in every damn thing we own.

Okay, maybe decorations "killing" is a little strong, and there is a solution: wash your hands after you fondle the pine. See, "Artificial trees are made of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, in which lead is used as a stabilizer and softener. Research has shown that lead dust tends to leach out from fake trees over time, so if yours is more than a dozen years old, be careful." But of course, kids are slightly less likely to swallow lead trees than they are to put their playthings in their mouths, so you probably ought to focus your hysteria on the toy presents this year. And I loooove this: "...parents should be more concerned about the shock danger if their kids are mouthing electrical wires." Ya think? Gee, we always let Junior chew on electrical cords because it is so darling to see him suddenly freeze and levitate, but what with the combined risk of lead and electrical shock, why this year we'll keep him away from the strings of lights. Here honey, play with these Aqua Dots instead.

Children's Clothes Taste Better with Lead ... Until Recalled

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:00:00 GMT

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a recall of two children's outfits made by Samara Brothers Inc. -- not because the two-piece overall sets are a horrible debacle of '70s-era plaid knockoffs mixed with modern-day atrocious. But because the overall snaps contain lead. Lots of it.

That's right, despite well documented proof of the damage lead can do to children if ingested (and what kid doesn't ingest everything), there's a company making children's clothing with lead-tinged snaps. In fact, a perusal of the CPSC web site shows many, many companies have recalled children's products because of lead poisoning dangers. Gemstone Rings. Metal charms sold with DVDs. Even a toy chest. A freaking toy chest!

As the CPSC recalls show, these are not isolated incidents. Each of the recall notices say no children have been hurt, but I have to wonder about all the other products out there laced with lead? All the other companies that maybe make innocent mistakes vs. the companies that use the cheapest materials (that Samara "web site" looks fancy) and hope no one finds out. You'd think it would be a no brainer: If you're making crap that could be licked by kids, don't use lead. And by all means, stop with the plaid.

Witches and Tigers, Oh My! How To Calm Childhood Demons?

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:30:00 GMT

When I was four or five, I was deathly afraid of our family's kitchen witch, a crafty old bag who hovered above our sink. With a burnt prune face, a mottled broom and piercing, evil eyes, it was, somehow, supposed to bring good luck. But I envisioned it flying into my room late at night to size me up for its blazing, doll-sized oven. No amount of comforting could ease my fears and eventually the witch flew off to bake other children.

Of all things, a graphic story about a tiger mauling brought back my fears and left me wondering how I'll calm my own child when she cries out against the demons lurking under her bed or in her closet.

The story goes that a few days before Christmas father Vikram Chari brought his 6-year-old son to the San Francisco Zoo. They watched in horror as a Siberian tiger mauled a zoo keeper, eating her hand and leaving the single mother, well, it ate. her. hand. My thoughts are definitely with her and her family -- but also with the young boy, who was afraid of tigers even before the attack.

"He's always scared that there are tigers under the bed at night, so this confirmed his suspicions, " Chari said. "Now he wants the light on and he wants me to go in there with him."

Chari continued, "(My son) said when we left the zoo, 'The next time, let's see the penguins being fed instead of a tiger eating a woman.' I did not want to scare him by saying that this was unusual."

What's a parent supposed to do when a child's worst fears come true? How can you assuage the fears when your kid has seen them in action? It's one thing to say, "Witches aren't real -- or at least not very good cooks." It's another thing to say, "tigers won't eat you," when your kid has proof to the contrary.

What methods work best for battling childhood demons, Babblers?

It's Just A Flesh Wound: The Most Dangerous Toys Ever

Dad Gone Mad — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 13:03:00 GMT

I recently threw away one of my son's toys -- and let me tell you: he was none too thrilled. It was a set of colored plastic triangles that connected to each other magnetically. It also came with six shiny metal balls, about twice the size of a pea, which my son saw fit to put into his mouth and let them crash against his teeth. I trashed it because my cooking is enough of a choking hazard and I frankly don't need the competition. ("I know it looks like white Jello, honey, but trust me: it's chicken.")

The modern class of dangerous toys pales in comparison to the stuff we had when I was little. Choking hazards were a dime a dozen back then, but what really got kids of the 70s excited were the toys that shot stuff and hurt people. In particular, I remember having a bitchin' Battlestar Galactica space ship that fired red plastic missiles out of its wings. My sister might still have welts from when I fired those missiles at her.

Radar Magazine has published a list of the 10 Most Dangerous Toys Of All-Time, and I think I had about half of them. Shockingly, the list does not include M-80s. These were quarter-sticks of dynamite that my friend Mark got from his dad, who was a cop. We used to light them and drop them into the manhole covers in the street outside my house.

Mark is in prison now.