Sometimes it can be really hard to sit on some of these newly released studies all week and not freak out about them. But this way, it only ruins the weekend:
- The BBC's headline which took a new Institute of Child Health study's useless conclusion bait, hook, line and sinker: "Working mothers' children unfit". Well that settles it, then! Except that the study lumps moms into just three work buckets: 0 hrs/wk, 1-20 hrs/wk, and 21+. And one of the evils they looked for is whether kids watched 0-2 hrs/TV or 2+. With such granular, nuanced data, it must must be true! You're ruining your kids with your job! And by you, of course, I don't mean dads, who researchers assumed were all too busy to care about baby stuff. [bbc; abstract, via dt reader dana]
- A study in the Lancet says that half the babies born in 2007 will live to be at least 100. Willard Scott is not gonna like that one bit. [guardian via kottke]
- When it comes to fetching a ball, your kid would literally be better off being raised by wolves. [sciencedaily via kottke]
- A new study from the Salk Institute in Barcelona finds that "human umbilical cord blood cells may be far more versatile than previous research has indicated," and that it's a "convenient source for generating cells with a theoretically limitless potential." Wait, so was last week's "cord blood is useless!" freakout just a ploy so they could get their hot little hospital hands on your kid's placenta? [sciencedaily]
GodGot breastmilk? I hope it's timestamped. Turns out day milk peps kids up, and night milk puts them to sleep. Formula users, just keep adding caffeine or alcohol as needed. [sciencedaily]- A study of the linguistic educational effectiveness of Sesame Beginnings videos found that the only verb kids under 3yo could learn on their own is "staring." [sciencedaily]
- An EU study showing that language immersion for preschool works doesn't do US any good because--hello!--they already speak foreign languages over there. [sciencedaily]
- Go ahead, early vaccination will not overwhelm your baby, says a noted Swiss vaccine expert/ Obammunist. [sciencedaily]
- You can't avoid male genitalia-deforming phthalates no matter what you eat, so you might as well circumcise the kid and feed him Doritos all day. [sciencedaily]
Your typo (or at least I'm assuming it was a typo) puts a whole new spin on the breastmilk study!
I'm currently taking a graduate course about bilingual education so thanks for the link to that study.
Bless you, my child, I fixed it. Love how the actual results are so all over the map, the best the study can say is that immersion preschool is "feasible."
If that's true then why is that every breastfed baby I have ever known -- and that's really a lot considering I work in an infant room of a child care center, will sleep for hours and hours during the day and according to their moms still wake up every two hours to eat at night?
And I'm totally all for breastfeeding...
I'm just saying.
What I've heard is that breastfed babies prefer to get their milk right from the source, and so will sleep when they're away from mom and then stock up when she's around.
I make it a practice not to pay too much attention to studies anyway. The first one you mentioned is the very reason why. They are typically funded by a special interest, and they are not interested in finding real answers, just supporting already established opinions, and that's not science. Yeah, that. Although, I gotta admit that breastfeeding one is pretty interesting.
Yeah, the breastfeeding thing sounds great- but I must be deficient in whatever it is that makes the kids sleep at night!