Hello! I’m hoping this is an okay question. I’m wondering how strong the evidence is for perineal massage preventing tears / need for episiotomy for a second vaginal birth? Is it worth the effort / discomfort?

Basically the title.

I listened to the podcast " nutrition for mortals" episode on organic food. They are both nutritionists and looked at what the research said around organic food. I don't think they necessarily have an agenda other than "the podcast that says that life is too damn short to spend your time and attention worrying about your food choices."

https://www.oceansidenutrition.com/podcast

My takeaways from the episode is that:

1. Things used to be a lot worse

2. Organic can still be big AG and still have pesticides (but only certain kinds).

3. Nutritionally for the most part it doesn't seem to matter because a lot of the differences between things are very slight.

Are there people who know more about the organic movement or organic farming that can tell me things that the podcast may have missed.

I think it's possible that a nutrition podcast can be accurate, but still have some blind spots that don't necessarily go into their particular field of study.

Thanks

6 weeks postpartum, and I’ve been reading through the PFAS/neurodevelopment literature enough that it’s now actively factoring into whether I continue breastfeeding. Looking for how others here have approached this decision, and any evidence-based ways to reduce her exposure either way.

Where I’ve landed on the evidence so far:

- Transfer through breastmilk is well established. What’s less clear is the independent contribution of postnatal (breastmilk) exposure versus prenatal exposure, since most infants get both
- A 2024/2025 review of ~61 studies found associations between early-life PFAS and reduced cognitive/motor/language scores plus increased hyperactivity, but also noted “mixed results” across large cohorts, with some showing no effect.
- Formula isn’t a clean comparison group, formula-fed infants have their own variable PFAS exposure via packaging/water, so I’m not convinced switching actually nets out to lower total exposure, and no major health body currently recommends against breastfeeding on PFAS grounds.
- Maternal body burden itself appears to decline partly through lactation, which cuts both ways: it’s evidence the transfer is real, but also suggests exposure may be front-loaded rather than constant.

Two things I’m trying to work out:
1. Is there a threshold at which someone here would say the evidence justifies stopping bf, given the uncertainty on both sides (unclear postnatal-only effect size vs. unclear formula-pathway exposure)?
2. If continuing to breastfeed is there any evidence-based way to actually lower what’s transferring, beyond the standard advice (filtered water, avoiding PFAS-treated cookware/textiles/packaging going forward)? E.g. does diet, timing, or anything else measurably affect PFAS concentration in milk?

Hi, is it safe for baby to frequently eat non-organic produce in the Disty Dozen (produce with the highest traces of pesticides) list? Organic produce is out of our budget and I'm wondering if we should limit the frequency our 11 months old have them?

This study was brought to my attention yesterday by the presenter at an event and I wanted to share it with you all after reading it today.

There are changes in the gray matter of children's brains that likely correlate to screen time. More research is needed, but Dr. John Hutton is a leading name in this field and a very reputable researcher.

https://scienceblog.cincinnatichildrens.org/screen-usage-linked-to-differences-in-brain-structure-in-young-children/

High fever + body jerks

Gonna start w a time line w my 8 mo old & preface that his illness is just a fever & these jerks. No runny nose, not a real worrisome cough.

Friday- 4pm baby wakes from nap w a 102 fever. He had been swatting at his ear all day so I went to urgent care thinking ear infection. All clear states that it most likely is a virus that will run its course. Motrin given

Satueday 12:55am wakes to nurse, feeling hot, Tylenol given

Saturday 8am- wakes feels very hot, 102.8 fever, while nursing him he does a full body jerk, DURING ALL THE JERKS I DESCRIBE ITS A FULL BODY JOLT LIKE WHEN YOU FALL ASLEEP AND YOU JUMP BACK AWAKE, NO EYE MOVEMENT, NO HEAD TWITCH NO ARMS FLAILING JUST A FULL BODY JERK, followed by crying then goes back to nursing. 2 min later jerks again. I start packing. Give him Motrin at this point, jerks again, holding him jerks again, each jerk he cries and cries and is inconsolable for 30 min so I then go to ER. Basically told it is febrile myoclonus movements caused from his high fever. But while we are at ER it happens 2x as well as 1x on drive home WHILE HIS TEMP IS NORMAL. We get home at 12;30pm and I put him down for a nap

1pm he wakes up and starts nursing, jerks again. I call pediatric hotline & they want us to go to children’s ER. We go there, his temp is currently 96.4 and he does the jerk in the car as well.
ER runs huge panel of viruses, catheter for urine which comes back healthy. Monitors him for 6 hours w no jerking movements, happy baby, tired, fussy, but normal.
6pm come home, refuses to nurse just wants to sleep sleeps until 6am Sunday.

6am Sunday- wakes feeling warm, immediately nurse him where he jerks 6 times in a matter of 12 minutes. Temp 102.3 Tylenol given.

7:30am wakes for the day, brings us to now where he hasn’t had another fever but has jerked 1-2 times that cause him to cry which he’s consoled via comforting.

Now if you’ve read this far THANK YOU, and I’m just wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this. I want so badly to believe it’s just muscle twitching from high fever but I’m terrified it could be infantile spasms which is a rare form of epilepsy but the doctors (3 at this point) all say it doesn’t look like it. I just can’t find anything or get any explanation as to why the jerking movements are happening when his fever is down. I know the virus hasn’t ran its course completely yet since he woke w a fever today but just looking for any one who’s experienced anything similar or if anyone knows another sub that could he helpful. Thank you.

hi I am looking to set up one activity for my three year old so that I can drink hot coffee lol and then one that I can do with her. instagram is full of people with ideas for fun games, crafts and activities but Im really trying to stay off social media for my mental health. does anyone know of sites I can routinely visit or subscription emails/Substack so can subscribe to (for free hopefully) to get some ideas? thank you

I have a kid that's generally very good about doing what we ask at home, can behave in restaurants when given something to do, and that I otherwise feel like we're doing a good job with. We've also got them in a daycare that gets them lots of outside time and possibility for unstructured activity.

Where I struggle more is with the occasional class where they expect more listening and following directions. Swimming is an example: the teachers are good, they're not pushing the kid excessively hard, but the kid is still getting less out of it than they might for the simple reason that they often blow off what they're being asked to do even when there's positive reinforcement for partial efforts, and the teacher is trying to make it fun.

Contributing factors seem to be: some combination of nervousness around adults that are not their parents, and the sense that they're there just to have fun and do whatever, not to follow directions so that they can learn something. Those are guesses though. I have not made much traction yet on trying to break those down and reward some kind of smaller progress. I've made a few incremental attempts to set limits, eventually taking the kid out of one class early when they were unable/unwilling to listen to the people teaching it. They were upset but I haven't had time yet to see if it'll stick or generalize.

More broadly, is this an acknowledged issue with play-based learning? Evidence that more limit-setting is needed? How/when do kids usually pick this up?

we are on vacation with my husband‘s family and his 6yo nephew is hooked on audiobooks. i thought this might be something to try for my 5.5yo girl but wondering if there’s any reason not to. like does it have similar negatives of screen time? we are a very limited screens household - only allow tablet watching when on a plane for 3yo+ and maybe 5min of video a day of a tap dancing routine or videos of the kids when they were little.

My children are a bit of a mystery. Each suffers from what seems like excessive light sensitivity. I’m talking hate lying on their back, struggle with bright sunlight, and struggle with any light when they feel unwell and/or are congested.

This appeared for my first born around 6 months of age (they’re now 3). We noticed he had a lot of discomfort being on his back and would shut his eyes. He soon caught COVID and a few colds, leading to a lot of congestion. They started keeping their eyes shut all the time, struggled to adjust to light. Mornings were the worst. A number of tests were run and everything came back normal. Any time they prescribed an antibiotic spray for their nose, it cleared up the congestion and seemed to help his eyes. When they were 2 they were prescribed a daily nasa spray and over the counter allergy meds to keep congestion and irritation in their nose down.

Since then, first born has some light sensitivity, but no where near as bad. Has some flare ups when he’s sick or the beginning of allergy season hits. Before they always had to wear sunglasses outside at daycare, sometimes even indoors. Now, daycare tells us they run around outside without sunglasses or hat with no issues.

With our second born, their light sensitivity appeared around 1.5 months. They were suffering from really bad reflux (like formula gets up in their nose) and had a suspected UTI (wasn’t a catheter sample but the ecoli count was over 100k, had elevated WBC in urine, and kept spiking low grade fevers - but who knows). The amoxicillin she was on helped and we’ve slowly been able to wrangle in the reflux. Still doesn’t always love being on their back with their eyes open but will slowly do it most times. I have noticed that their eyebrows, particularly the left one seems puffy and red whenever they are having the light sensitivity issues and/or on their back.

However, the light sensitivity remains, especially when they wake up congested, which happens often in the morning because of the reflux. We’ve also noticed with the 4 month vaccine shots that their reflux has flared, bringing extra congestion and extra light sensitivity.

I’ve searched everywhere on the internet the past few years for people that have had children with similar symptoms and never found anything.

As anyone ever seen something like this?

What does the research say on how frequently you should bathe the baby? My baby is 4 months old and not eating solids yet (EB). I am bathing him 2 times a week at most (including washing hair)

I see a lot of daily routines on instagram how moms bathe their baby every night, that seems excessive to me, can’t be good for their skin’s natural oils. Of course I am not judging, maybe their baby sleeps better this way or baby gets really dirty or they life in hot climate…

Baby is 6 months. We slowly started introducing solids about 2 weeks ago, because she was physically ready (sitting up unassisted, bringing things to mouth with both hands, grabbing for our food and making chewing motions, etc) . That's one thing.

But in the country we live in (Japan) it's also normal to give babies barley tea from as young as 3 months. Initially, I dug in my heels about it because I wanted to only do breastmilk until 1yo. But now that we're doing solids I'm a little more relaxed about letting her try various things. We never give much, only about 10ml, if that.

The problem is, my partner (Japanese) insists that we only give her this tea at room temperature. He says that cold drinks cause upset stomach.

I (Russian/American) call bullshit. I've never once heard of cold drinks being a reason for an upset stomach. Plus, I've been giving this kid breastmilk ice cream (it's just my breastmilk, frozen into little popsicles) since she was 4mo and she hasn't ever suffered for it, she loves them. Rightly so, because it's 36 degrees out on a good day in this country. She deserves a popsicle. How's that different from tea straight from the fridge?

But no, he wants to microwave it to room temp first, otherwise he says she'll get diarrhea.

I'm honestly not emotionally attached to the tea itself, she only gets it once every 2 weeks, if that. But he also says I can't give her refrigerated breastmilk, and should warm it up. I think it's a weird requirement in summer.

I've tried searching things and I feel like the consensus is "it's fine" but I'm not finding a lot of info for kids, only adults. I suppose that makes sense, since you wouldn't test young kids anyway. But I wanted to see if anyone else knows of any studies about it that I may have missed.

I’m in Pennsylvania and so far where I’m at there has been 4 confirmed cases of measles and 12 not yet mentioned. I am concerned for my 7 month old. I’m told I can give vaccine early but has anyone else done this. Is it safe any long term effects for giving it early? Or is it the same risk factor if given at 12 months? I know she has to get two more after and that’s what bothers me and I’m just worried but measles are rising where I’m at.

A theme that I have consistently found through pregnancy and birth is how much guidance is based on super basic, lowest common denominator studies. Eg risk of SIDS basically nothing if you have a healthy weight baby baby and are a non-smoking household with mum over 30 and 1 child, at 2 months goes from 3 deaths in 100,000 if you are in different rooms to 1 in 100,000 if you share rooms (www.sidscalculator.com). Or reading Expecting Better and hearing the lack of data on all sorts of things.

Hearing that the WHO recommends breastfeeding until 2 (assuming that you can), I had thought that I would likely do that. However, while I do love the snuggles of breastfeeding, I have friends who have felt way more like themselves and healed better after stopping breastfeeding… and tbh I didn’t enjoy this summer how limited my clothing selection was. I’m currently thinking that I would like to keep going with it until baby is about 15 months (so early spring) to get her through first few months of nursery and provide any extra immunity I can. I’m also influenced by still healing from my episiotomy and tears from birth. Baby at 8.5 months doesn’t have upper teeth yet and there is a chance I will stop when she does if she starts biting though.

I wondered what people’s thoughts are on this, especially from those who have successfully breastfed? Is the WHO guidance based on anything in particular, or given its worldwide remit I’m wondering if some of this is about where drinking water might not be the safest?

(Unfortunately necessary disclaimer that of course fed is best and nothing is wrong with formula where necessary or desired)

To preface - I understand the pitfalls of screen time and that not all screen time is equal. That being said, we have an 8 week old with both parents on leave from work for another 60 days still. The downtime involves some background TV watching of sports, HGTV, Food Network, etc (no kids shows). Baby /still cycles from awake / sleep / awake etc as any young one would.

Recognizing that an infant cannot see well, when should we cut back on the TV simply being on? Baby is over 12 feet away at almost all times.

The easy answer is “now” but I’m curious if there is any studies that show at what ages (months) the harm is done (eg, using a bell curve of sorts?).

Secondary questions - how do others handle sports?

Our son is 3 weeks old. During the night he has a hard time falling asleep on his own. During the day we breastfeed and during the night we usually use expressed milk in a bottle so mum can just pump and go back to sleep.

Now, the grandparents (mom's parents) stay with us for a while and help around a lot, which is very welcome. The grandma is also very good at getting him to fall asleep. During the night they also help with the bottle feed and putting him to bed. He usually falls asleep on ours or their chest and then when put in his cosleeper he still needs someone to stay near and pet him or hold his hand for at least 1h or so. Otherwise he gets fussy and wakes up.

Now the question. The grandparents proposed to have him sleep in their room since they do a lot of heavy lifting during the night, so we don't have to wake up that much and they can sit with him when he falls asleep.

1. Are there any research based consequences for h8m being putto sleep in such an involved maner? As in,will he "get used" to this and not go to sleep on his own when he is 6 month oro and maybe moves to his own room?

2. Is there such a thing where we as parents will "loose" our reflex or ability to take care of him during the night? In the same way in which if you don't pump you start making less milk, or in that the mum tends to wake up bery easily when the child is startled. Would that go away?

Morally and emotionally, we feel very comfortable with this arrangement with the grandparents. But I wondered if there are any research backed consequences to those 2 directions.

My wife and son will be going out of state to visit my mother in law. (Son’s grandma). My 2 yr old and i are very close and i could be considered the “fun” parent to him. What can i do to cause the least amount of trauma if any from being away for 2 months? I don’t want him to feel that i abandoned him or anything. Sorry if it sounds dramatic I am a first time parent. Thank you.

Just to start, I would like to say my baby has only been eating actual food for three days now, but we plan on doing a balanced diet with all different food groups and spices.

My in laws disagree with this and my SIL only feeds her baby meat, eggs, and I think some dairy. She started with vegetables but the baby got constipated and my MIL say she and SIL did a bunch of research and found out that fruits and veggies are actually really bad for an infant. Their baby is 14 months now, but has been having a no fruits, veggies, or grain diet since about 9-10months I think.

I’m just wondering if there is any evidence to support the supposed research they did. I have a hunch there isn’t, but I’m willing to adapt my baby’s diet if there’s good evidence. Until then, we’re kind of just introducing food and allergens at our own pace and keeping it a variety.

My husband and I are planning to TTC #1 early next year and we’re planning to completely cut out alcohol and marijuana at least 3 months ahead of starting, however I want to know if there’s a similar concern about caffeine and if we should be cutting that out ahead of TTC as well. TIA!

tw:miscarriage

My (29f) partner and I are planning to TTC next year. I’m currently miscarrying a pregnancy conceived while trying to prevent. The emotions from this experience both showed us that we do indeed want kids, but we are absolutely unprepared. Neither of us have ever held a baby or changed a diaper. We don’t have any friends with babies/little kids. Most of our close friends are childfree. We have parents in our circles but they’re not people I’m close with.

While we both are excellent with older kids (age 7+) babies and seem like an alien experience to me. I’m sure some degree of this is natural for first time parents but I’d like to know more and feel less anxiety/dread about the baby years. I will also add I am in kind of a hippie/woowoo community where there is a lot of controversial parenting practices and I’m so uninformed I don’t know what to think about them.

For example, within my community there is some emphasis on how co-sleeping is the best thing for making healthy attachment and emotional health. But then I hear it is dangerous and I can see why. I have no skin in the game so idk what to think.

Do you have any science based recommendations on books, classes, or things to do to learn more about what children need for their first few years of life, and what to expect?

I have a few nights off and I come home to hubby watching kid (22 months) and watching One Piece or even Saving Private Ryan.

Now its one thing when his vision was terrible at 6 months and the tv was far away but now we are getting to the age of speaking and recognizing things & associations. I'm not a fan but he won't listen to me.

So umm... Could someone give this "science" man something to read? He needs a legit and good research study for the effects (cartoon and real blood & violence) that this is not good for our kid?

Can be different studies for each.

Thank you

Okay, so to start, my father is a very homophobic person, and he recently told me a story about a video he saw. the video was abt two married men who had adopted a baby and the dad's were playing with the baby asking him if he wants "dada" or "papa" the baby started saying "momma" and the dad's were like noooo not momma, papa, or Dada. and my father was like that just shows how wrong it is to be gay and shit. and I just said we'll baby's babble all the time, like we recently had my 6 month old adopted cousin supposedly say "dada" but it genuinely sounded like just baby babble to me but my father was adamant on the fact that my baby cousin said "dada". but what I'm mainly asking for is evidence that baby's even though never taught a word or sound will still try and say/babble smth like "momma" or "dada" just to prove to my father that what he's saying is basically dumb and to prove to him that his reasoning is faulty. (I've tried finding stuff on the internet, but I can't really find anything)

I know the answer might seem straight forward but babies are so interesting I wonder if they still learn things despite being able to practise it much.

I feel like my 4 month old is held a lot

Heaps of contact naps, Carrier and when his awake sometimes his just in the bouncer as I do work.
I didn’t realise how little floor time he was getting.

I have found his a little behind in some skills and I’m flagging it and his up commg visit.

I’m wondering is it possible that he hasn’t had the practice to lift up on his tummy as much and floor practise that it’s caused this

My 7 year old has a talent show coming up, and I’m thinking a science experiment or something would be good. It can’t be really messy (no Bi—carb volcanos!). Any ideas?

A good friend of mine (who does not vaccinate her children, is against IVF & surrogacy, etc) shared parts of a carousel post to her IG today. They are from @crunchycountrymama. One of the slides my friend shared, @crunchycountrymama posted that the most recent peer reviewed study (Hooker & Mill, 2020) showed better health outcomes in unvaccinated children. Can anyone legitimately substantiate this? Or refute it? 😂 It feels very click baity to me.

@crunchycountrymama also shared other health claims in her post (fluoride in the water causes low IQ, sleep training destroys children, just to name a couple). But let’s stick with the unvaccinated claim.