Archive for July, 2008

Generally, feeding water to your newborn baby is not recommended. Water fills up the baby’s stomach without any nutrition. This is the most important time to grow for your baby.

At this time, the brain of your baby starts to develop. So, feeding the baby with empty calories does not encourage the growth.

Too much water consumption stops your baby from receiving the necessary nutrients that he/she needs from the breast milk. Also, this can lead to imbalance of electrolytes and weight loss in your baby.

If your baby is exclusively breastfed, then there is no need to give him additional water, even in very hot climate.

If the baby is formula fed, formula milk itself contains 80% of water. So, giving additional water is unnecessary for the first six months [Infant formula].

Feeding the baby with water takes away the most important time spent at the breast. Supplementing breast milk rarely to your newborn baby can permanently stop the production of milk. So, breastfeeding is compulsory for babies until the age of 4-6 months.

Giving water to the baby on the first day after birth can increase the severity of jaundice. This condition makes them sleepy and lethargic.

According to a review of data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, from 1990 to 2004, 53 babies died suddenly and unexpectedly in bassinets.

According to Drs. Jodi Pike and Rachel Y. Moon of Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the cause of death in 85 percent of the cases was lack of oxygen.

Pike and Moon in their analysis of these deaths, also found that more than one third of the babies had been placed on their stomachs and one half was found on their stomachs.

In 74 percent of cases, items such as blankets [Baby Blanket], pillows, and plastic bags were found in the bassinets.

Nine infants died in bassinets that were not functioning correctly, either from misuse or mechanical problems.

According to a 2007 study, bassinets are most often used in the first 2 months of life, when more than 45 percent of infants sleep in bassinets.

Between 1992 and 2000, the percentage of infants sleeping in bassinets doubled, to almost 20 percent, Pike and Moon note in a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that mainly causes physical defects and mental retardation.

It is due to the existence of an extra copy of chromosome number 21.

This disorder is mainly called as trisomy 21.

Health problems that affect your newborn baby:

• Usually, Down syndrome causes mild to moderate mental retardation or gradual mental growth.
• There is slow development in your baby’s language skills if he/she has Down syndrome.
• Babies born with Down syndrome also have a chance to develop heart problems, among those some children need surgery.
• Intestinal problems, vision trouble, thyroid disease or hearing loss also develop in a baby with Down syndrome.
• The most common physical signs of Down syndrome include: small ears or abnormally shaped ears, upward inclined eyes, broad hands with little fingers, small head, and curved fingers.
• Your baby experiences difficulty in swallowing or he may also have blockages in his intestines or stomach. In order to fix these problems, surgery is essential.
• Frequent ear infection, colds and sinus infection are the most common problems in the babies with Down syndrome.

Flamingo Paradise Baby Bedding

Are you in search of wonderful baby bedding for your girl? Well! If you want to include something pleasant, you can go for this flamingo paradise baby bedding theme. With this island themed bedding, your newborn girl can experience sweet dreams in her own tropical flamingo paradise.

This 4-piece set includes one bed sheet, quilt, bumper and skirt. For extra options you can select extra sheets, mobile with arm cover, decorative pillows and also diaper stacker.

To know more details on this product, visit: http://www.poshtots.com

Pink Bamboo Organic Baby Bedding with Moses Basket

An excellent pink bamboo organic baby bedding attracts your little one’s attention. The Moses basket included with the bedding serves as great alternative napping place for your newborn.

The covering of the bedding includes words like giggle, drool, and hiccup written in Japanese phonetic letters.

The stylish insert in Moses is made with 100%cotton. This baby bedding set mainly includes a Moses basket, bumper blanket [Baby Blanket], one fitter crib sheet, and a crib skirt. You can get additional crib [Baby Crib] sheets along as an option.

To know more details on this product, visit: http://www.poshtots.com

Buying furniture for the baby nursery is a very big project for new parents.

Until the third trimester of pregnancy, mom gets too tired to enjoy in making the space to welcome the new baby to the home.

It is better for new parents to plan the baby nursery as soon as they know that a new baby is going to come. Here are wonderful tips that help you greatly in decorating your baby’s nursery.

Tips to buy baby furniture

1. Select the right theme and colors. If you are not aware of the gender of your baby, then it is better to plan the nursery all in white color and once after the arrival of your baby you can add splashes of color to it or you can also choose neutral colors like green and orange.

2. Search on the internet for various brands and styles of the baby furniture like changing table, cot, pram and chest of drawers. So, you will get a clear idea on what you like and understand the various choices that are available.

3. Remember one thing, spend more amount of money on long lasting items like the baby crib, changing table, pram, and save as much money as you can on baby accessories.

Science may have confirmed what most moms already know: When a woman sees her baby smile, certain areas of her brain activate, stimulating happy feelings.

“There’s a definite biological origin to these feelings that mothers have,” said study author Dr. Lane Strathearn, an assistant professor in the department of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

A woman’s crying infant, or even her baby with a neutral expression, doesn’t evoke the same type of brain response as occurs when her baby is smiling, the study found.

“The contrast that showed the most response in the dopaminergic system of the brain was when a mother’s own baby smiled compared to an unknown baby face.”

“A baby’s smile is a very powerful stimulus,” noted Strathearn. “It makes sense biologically. Babies are completely and utterly dependent on their caregivers.

It makes sense that nature would build in a system that would reinforce that relationship.”

For the study, the researchers recruited 28 first-time mothers during their last trimester of pregnancy.

At that time, Strathearn said the women completed “attachment interviews” to assess the types of experiences they had when being raised and what type of relationship these mothers had with their own parents.

Is your baby sleeping throughout the night? Most of the mothers will experience sleep less nights once after the arrival of their baby.

Here are the wonderful baby sleep products which encourage your baby to sleep well throughout the night.

Establishing a bedtime routine:

For this, you need to settle on a baby massage, a bath, and a story time as your baby’s bedtime ritual. You need to feed your baby, rock the baby for few minutes, place him on the bassinet or crib and then sing a lullaby for him before each nap. For this you need the products like a soft bath towel, soothing bedtime stories and glider or rocker.

Soft bath towel:

Binding your baby in a soft towel after the bath is a very comforting part of your baby’s routine. The best way to make the bath time cozier is to put the bath towel in the dryer for few minutes in order to warm up.

Bedtime stories: Select the bedtime stories that are rhythmic and include various repetitions. The stories must be the ones that you memorize yourself and must be chanting to your baby.

Safe glider or rocker:

The transmitting routes of HIV include breastfeeding, which passes the virus from mothers to infants.

This is a major problem in many areas of Africa, where HIV-positive mothers have no alternative to breastfeeding. So far, no practical and effective methods are available to prevent HIV transmission by this route.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a global epidemic threatening the lives of millions of people.

Because there is no known cure, prevention of the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), is critical for controlling the disease.

A team of researchers from Lavax (Palatine, Ill.) and the University of Illinois at Chicago is developing a new technology that prevents the infection of HIV by breastfeeding.

They have isolated a special strain of probiotic lactobacilli from the human mouth. It belongs to the same species as those found in dairy foods, such as yogurt and kefir. This strain captures the HIV virus by binding to its outer ‘envelope’.

Because it grows and reproduces itself in milk, once an infant is inoculated with the Lactobacillus, the protection may last until the infant is weaned. This technology offers an easily administered alternative to HIV vaccines, which are currently unavailable.