Whoops, only 15 minutes to midnight. I hope I haven't upset your freakout schedule too much this weekend:
Take the sushi, leave the mercury. A Harvard Medical School study of 25,000 Danish women and their kids found that moderate fish consumption during pregnancy is linked to improvements in the kids motor and cognitive development. [press release: eurekalert; abstract: ajcn, sept 2008]
After Chinese officials announced the death of an infant related to tainted formula, the FDA reminds us that Chinese-manufactured infant formula is illegal in the US and should not be used. Some Chinese brands were found in Chinese community stores during a 2004 FDA investigation. So if you've been picking up your kid's formula at the same time you get your tiger penis elixir, STOP. [reuters via dt reader dt]
Speaking of dubious cures, a CDC review has determined that alternative therapies involving art, play, or drugs, don't provide demonstrable benefits for kids suffering from trauma, at least not as much as classic, talk-it-out cognitive therapy. So please use your words. [boston.com via dt freakout correspondent sara]
Fathers and sons influence each other throughout their lives in very important ways. Perhaps the only thing to freakout over in this review of clinical psychologist Michael Diamond's book of case studies, My Father Before Me: How Fathers and Sons Influence Each Other Throughout Their Lives, is the relentlessly declarative sentences. Still, an interesting-sounding read. [int'l soc sci review via bookforum]
And in other cognitive developmental news: thanks to the sticky mitten study, we now know that infants as young as three months are developing a sense of mind and self through direct experience and interaction. In other words, you're already on the hook; none of this, "I'll hang with him when he finally gets a personality at two" thing. [timesonline via bookforum again]
A domestic violence researcher at the University of Montreal says that it's beneficial for "Every father, even the worst delinquent" and for the kid, to allow fathers to see their kids. A third of single fathers in Quebec apparently don't see their kids at all, and another third only see their kids sporadically. [press release: eurekalert]
