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Cloth diapers and health risks by Alison Manes
(Editor’s note: Here are more arguments in favor of cloth diapers. Everyone needs to make the best informed choice on this “paper versus plastic-type” debate, but it’s in everyone’s best interest to know the facts.)
Cloth diapering your young one’s bum is not only eco-friendly; it offers a solution to the highly absorbent chemicals found in disposable diapers. Consider the following.
*Babies in cloth diapers have fewer diaper rashes.1
*Cloth diapers are soft on baby’s delicate skin.1
*Disposable diapers contain sodium polyacrylate, a type of super absorbent polymer (SAP), which becomes a gel-like substance when wet. SAP has killed children after ingesting as little as five grams.2
*Scrotal temperature increases in boys wearing disposable diapers affecting spermatogenesis which can lead to infertility. 2
*Disposable Diapers contain Tributyl-tin (TBT) — a toxic pollutant pollutant, which has a hormone-like effect. The smallest concentrations of TBT can harm people’s immune systems and impair their hormonal system. 3
Sources:
1 http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu
2 Whitewash: Exposing Health and Environmental Dangers of Women’s Sanitary
Products and Disposable Diapers, what you can do about it. Armstrong, Liz and
Adrienne Scott. 1993. HarperCollins.
3 New tests Confirm TBT Poison in Procter & Gamble’s Pampers: Greenpeace demands world-wide ban of organotins in all products. May 15, 2000.
Alison Manes is the mother of six, and the co-founder of Go Green Sustainable Industries, LLC. Alison won Tucson’s Business Woman of the Year award from the American Business Women’s Association in 2003 for her marketing work. Go Green Sustainable Industries, LLC, manufacturers a remarkable new sustainable diapering system using organic and recycled fabrics. Go Green Sustainable Industries, LLC, is committed to manufacturing sustainable products made in the USA. You can view LolliDoo® Diapers at www.lollidoo.com. You can also view Alison’s blog at http://earthymommaodyssey.blogspot.com/.
Popularity: 2% [?]
More Problems With Plastics – US News and World Report
Wow. WOW! In case there wasn’t already enough data on BPA and phthalates, this article really freaked me out and you’ll soon read why. This birth defect, proven to be caused in rats by plastics, may be isn’t talked about much, but seems very common.
We are in the process of eliminating all plastics in the house, little by little. We started with #7 bottles, moving toward eliminating plastic bags and wraps, all plastic dishes, and soon plastic bottles entirely.
More Problems With Plastics
Like BPA, chemicals called phthalates raise some concernsBy Adam Voiland
Posted May 7, 2008
The urethra is supposed to emerge at the tip of the penis, but in 1 out of every 300 baby boys, its opening is elsewhere—sometimes just underneath the head, or midway down the shaft, or even at the base of the scrotum. No one knows what causes the defect, called hypospadias, but studies have shown that widespread chemicals called phthalates can reproduce it in rodents[From More Problems With Plastics - US News and World Report]
Popularity: 1% [?]
Dream Baby cable lock for simple home safety
This is a very simple lock for home 
safety, especially for things that need just a little extra security, such as the liquor cabinet or the medicine chest. It obviously won’t stop a determined thief, but can not be opened without obvious signs of tampering, making it good for kid- or nanny-proofing small doors or even a suitcase or a bag temporarily. The MSRP is $9.95, but only sold at the present time for $19.95 at Shop4Kids.com.
Dream Baby has other inexpensive security devices that make baby-proofing an easier chore.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Tooth Tunes toothbrushes for kids
I gotta say, 
Tooth Tunes from Hasbro, has been a big hit in our house. At first, my wife scoffed, but these toothbrushes really are a good incentive for little brushers, like my 4-year old boy. The cool difference is that they play music through vibrations through the bristles which makes it sound like music going on through your teeth and into your ears. The songs they have are a little hokey, like “Waking (originally Making) up is Hard to do,” by Neil Sedaka, but others are by more recent teen brushers, like the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus.
The brushes are available in two sizes, regular and junior. Music plays for a full two minutes to make sure the kids get enough brushing in. Too bad there is no “floss tunes.”
Popularity: unranked [?]
Ubimed Cleanoz Aspirator a good replacement for that gnarly rubber aspirator bulb
We had a chance to meet the inventor, Jose Bensoussan, of the Ubimed Cleanoz Nasal Aspirator Kit at the recent ABC baby and kids product show (2008) and he told a compelling story about this new device. The Cleanoz aspirator is meant to replace the rubber aspirator bulb given by hospitals to new parents. Many parents have been suspicious of the bulb since there is no way to really clean it out or sterilize it and it’s used inside the mouth and nose of very small babies. Better to leave it on the ground the next time it rolls off the changing table and use it as a dog pull toy. The Cleanoz does the job far better and easier using suction to gently pull mucous into a little balloon. After use, or the end of the day, you just throw away the balloon.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Baby Light and Clip – great gadget for fingernail-clipping dads
Baby Light and Clip – Nail Clipper for Babies If you’ve ever struggled to cut a baby’s finger or toenails, you’ll love this little gadget. It’s a very simple little tool that incorporates a basic baby fingernail clipper and a light so you can clip in the dark while they are sleeping. And, if you’ve ever cut down too close and actually cut your baby (yes, it does happen) because baby was struggling, or you couldn’t see, this clipper has finger guard so you can’t push in too deep. This may seem like just another gadget to some, but your kids will really appreciate it, up to eight years old. And the price is right at $14.99 MSRP and right now only $7.99 on Amazon (9/21/08).
Popularity: 1% [?]
Oobr Clek Booster
We love the look and practicality of Clek boosters. The Paul Frank design here on their new booster is very popular with kids. My daughter, at 8, thinks of the clek as “her” seat. Price TBD. Available in January in other colors and designs.
![clek_oobr[1]](http://www.greatdad.com/greatdadblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/clek-oobr1.jpg "clek_oobr[1]")
Popularity: unranked [?]
BPA or Bisphenol-A update
The FDA reported last month that small amounts of BPA that leach out of plastic bottles into liquids and food should not be considered dangerous. However, the National Toxicology Program, another federal agency reported concerns on the effects of BPA on brain development for fetuses and young children. The Yale School of Medicine did a study on primates finding that BPA “causes the loss of connections between brain cells” and could lead to memory and learning issues.
Our personal advice, and practice is to avoid BPA. The New York Times reports that scientists offer this advice:
* Avoid plastic containers that have the numeral 7 on the bottom. These are often made of BPA.
* Be careful of canned foods for children, which often have plastic seals with BPA
* Make a special effort to buy baby bottles that don’t use BPA
* Never microwave plastic food containers.
Popularity: unranked [?]
Parenting your kids internet activities
Here’s good food for thought on the whole dangerous playground that the internet has become. This dad just turned off his Net Nanny software, in favor of more active parenting.
Despite my wife’s initial disapproval, I have removed all forms of net nanny software from the kid’s computer. They now surf unhindered by the arbitrary limits of the ambiguous cyber-morality-police. The experience has been great for all of us because they do not need my approval to visit every new variant of Disney.com or Cartoon Network.
We started out with a few basic rules and have expanded slightly on them. First and probably most important, was the speech about “bad things” on the internet. I explained that just like on TV, there are things on the Internet that children shouldn’t be watching. If they find something they don’t understand, or think is inappropriate they should click Home and go back to Webkinz.
This is good advice, in the main. Nothing takes the place of more involved parents who actually are watching, talking, listening, communicating. However, you have to be free and omnipresent to make this work. And, I think there are several caveats that the author, Anton Olsen, does not mention.
First, if your kids are little, little, all this talking and communication isn’t going to help them if they see something that is really way beyond their comprehension. I don’t want my eight year old (or my four year old son for that matter) to be exposed to graphic sex just because she went searching for “doll toys” on the internet. That’s why we use a separate account for her on our home computer. She can only visit and add sites (in her Safari browser) as we see fit, and then can switch easily between Webkinz, Club Penguin or SeaPals to her hearts content.
Second, place the family computer, or the child’s computer, in a place where everyone can see and the community becomes the monitor. If your child strays, there is a good chance that nanny, brother, mom or dad might see.
That said, this is a good discussion on an approach for allowing 12+ kids to use the internet for free browsing, school research, and fun, without using software that takes the place of good old-fashioned parenting.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Parents to our parents – What one daughter wishes she had done differently with an aging parent
When you have kids of your own, you sense the changing of the generations. I hope your parents are young and you have thirty years before you have to think of elder care, but likely they are old enough you have to at least imagine the need some day. This article, written by a New York Times writer specializing in old age issues, still feels she made several mistakes in caring for her older mother.
What I Wish I’d Done Differently
By JANE GROSS
Looking back on the last few years of my mother’s life, with 20/20 hindsight and the belated knowledge that came from four years of reporting about aging for The New York Times, my single biggest mistake was not finding a doctor with expertise in geriatrics to quarterback her care and attend to the quality of her life, not merely its length.Given the crisis in supply and demand — too many old people and too few geriatricians — I may not have succeeded. But if I had, many of our crises might have been avoided. Those include unnecessary trips to the emergency room that left her in worse shape than she had been beforehand. It also includes surgery to remove a benign tumor from the outside of her spinal cord after it had already done the worst of its damage and with no regard for her advanced age.
Her other three mistakes were:
2. accepting the “conventional wisdom” that nursing homes are uniformly bad and barely fit for a dog, and to be avoided at all costs. While she liked assisted living, it did not provide enough care as her mother got older, necessitating many changes, all of which were added work and destabilizing to her mother and the family.
3. thinking that a move out of the home to assisted living was the best choice. Once the move is made out of the home, you lose all opportunities for home care, and a nursing home becomes the only option when assisted living is no longer possible.
4. not fully understanding the limits of her $7000/year long term care insurance policy. It would have paid for 24/7 in-home care, but helped very little for assisted living. Once her mother was in a nursing home, the money went directly to the nursing home along with all of her savings until she ran out of money (when Medicare took over because she was “impoverished.”
As Jane Gross, the writer, points out, it’s hard to know how to avoid any mistakes since the sands are rapidly shifting in elder care and benefits, but her biggest words of advice are to research the situation now before you need it, since “haste, often the result of panic, is the enemy.
Popularity: unranked [?]
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