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Crying babies make dads cry and vice versa, says study
Colic usually goes away by three to four months old, but can be so frustrating that parents shake their babies, sometimes resulting in irreversible brain damage or death. The results of the study suggest that doctors should integrate colic awareness into pregnancy planning tips. Couples need to be aware of both dad and mom’s mental condition before birth to predict colic, but also to identify parents who may need help.
Unfortunately, the study was not able to correct for under-reporting of depression by people who did not fill out the surveys, or who underestimated the crying, so it likely underestimates the link between depression and colic.
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New Dadlabs book out in time for Fathers Day
Our friends at DadLabs.com are at it again with a new book that tries to put in prose what they do so well in video. And, they do a great job, with tongue in cheek article son everything about pregnancy through Year 1 (subsequent volumes will treat older kids).
The new book is DadLabs Guide to Fatherhood. It has many practical tips on subjects like picking a baby name and how to change a diaper, just as you will find on DadLabs TV, but much of the value of this book is the ability to laugh at the early stages of parenthood, just as your pregnant partner is taking it so seriously. There is a time for soulful feelings about incipient fatherhood, but also a time for having a beer and making some crude jokes using all the new vocabulary you’ve just learned in Childbirth class.
Recommended for nervous dads who need to see the lighter side, or as a fun shower gift (you are throwing a man shower, right?).
$16.95 on Amazon and other fine booksellers.
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Famous older dads
For you men hoping to have a baby at a more advanced age, here are a list of your potential heroes:
David Bowie (at 53), Mick Jagger (at 57), Michael Douglas (at 58), Rod Stewart (at 60), Paul McCartney (at 61), Eric Clapton (at 59), Pierre Trudeau (72), Charlie Chaplin (at 73), Saul Bellow (at 84), Pablo Picasso (at 68), David Letterman (at 56), Larry King (at 65 and 66), Woody Allen (at 51), Warren Beatty (at 62), Dennis Quaid (50) and Jack Nicholson (at 53)
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Older Dads Father Dumber Kids?
This one hits closer to home since I was already 43 when w had our first.
A recently released study finds that children of older dads score lower on IQ tests even after weighing socioeconomic factors.
Australian and US researchers analyzed test results of more than 33,000 US born children born to fathers between the ages of 14 and 66. The tests included reasoning, concentration, learning, memory and speaking and reading skills, at eight months, four years and seven years.
The lead author, John McGrath says that he was surprised by the results, since a lot of the “blame” for DNA errors usually goes to older eggs in the mom. Luckily, McGrath says the “effect we see is very small.”
Despite my advanced age, my kids are still among the smartest, most beautiful and well-behaved on the planet.
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From the “There but for the grace of God…” department
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?
The charge in the courtroom was manslaughter, brought by the Commonwealth of Virginia. No significant facts were in dispute. Miles Harrison, 49, was an amiable person, a diligent businessman and a doting, conscientious father until the day last summer — beset by problems at work, making call after call on his cellphone — he forgot to drop his son, Chase, at day care. The toddler slowly sweltered to death, strapped into a car seat for nearly nine hours in an office parking lot in Herndon in the blistering heat of July.
It was an inexplicable, inexcusable mistake, but was it a crime? That was the question for a judge to decide.
This is a particularly chilling article on how leaving babies in the back seat of cars to die in a closed car is a tragedy that happens to all sorts of people. As a society, we demonize these poor people who already have suffered the worst event that could ever happen to a mom or dad. And then, we subject them to criminal prosecution. The truth is that this is a horrible unintended consequences of an unrelated safety issue. When airbags were put in cars, new laws required babies and children to move to the back seat, putting them out of sight, and sometimes tragically, out-of-mind.
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