New Scientistreports that size of newly born babies in the U.S. is shrinking in scientists do not know why.
A 52-gram drop in the weight of full-term singletons - from an average of 3.441 to 3.389 kilograms - has left Emily Oken's team at Harvard Medical School scratching their heads. It can't be accounted for by an increase in caesarean sections or induced labours, which shorten gestation.
The article says the light weight will not matter for regular size babies but it could be significant for premature babies if they are born even lighter.
Babies Cries Match Melody of Mother's Native Tongue
Here is more proof that babies start learning language very, very early. The L.A. Timesreports on research that found babies cry in their native tongue. During the study babies as young as 2 to 5 days old cried in pitched and patterns related to their mother's native tongue.
The researchers recorded the cries uttered by 30 French and 30 German newborns when they were hungry, having their diapers changed or generally out of sorts. Though the babies were only 2 to 5 days old, they cried in distinct patterns.
The wails of the French babies started out low and rose to a higher pitch, whereas those of their German counterparts started out high and fell to a lower pitch. The German babies also cried with more intensity than the French babies, the researchers found. These patterns matched the intonation patterns of spoken French (in which the pitch tends to rise over the course of several words) and German (in which the opposite occurs).
The L.A. Times says the scientists believe babies pick up on the "melody of ambient language" while they are still in the womb during the third trimester.
Report: 1 Million Babies Die Prematurely Each Year
USA Todayreports that a study released by the March of Dimes found that more than 1 million babies die each year because they are born too soon. The study also found 13 million babies are born prematurely each year, which is about 10% of all newborns.
The preterm birth rate in the USA is especially high: 12.7% of all babies are born early, according to the March of Dimes. That rate has increased 36% in the past 25 years, partly because of an increase in elective cesarean section, an increase in older mothers and the growing use of assisted reproduction, which increases the risk of twins, triples and higher-order multiple births, the report says.
Most of the increase in the USA is in "late preterm" babies, born at 34 to 36 weeks of pregnancy, the report says.
Some babies are at higher risk than others, the report says. In the USA, black babies are 1˝ times as likely as whites to be premature — a major reason that black infant mortality is so much higher than that of whites, says Christopher Howson, vice president for global programs at the March of Dimes.
You can see the complete report from the March of Dimes here (PDF file).
Wow. This does not look like a good idea. Hundreds of babies are tossed one at a time off the roof of a mosque in western India where they are caught in a bed sheet. The baby tossers think the fall ensures health and prosperity the baby's family. It goes without saying that many of the babies look sad, confused and unhappy. Take a look:
Are animated babies cute or weird? If you like them then you will like Evian commercials. It's a little weird but not as weird as the commercial with the baby trading stocks. ShoppingBlog.com says the soundtrack in the commercial is "Rapper's Delight" by Dan The Automator.
Lithuanian babies compete in this annual race for the fastest crawling baby. The trick for parents is how to lure their babies across the finish line. Computers and tech gadgets lured babies more than plush toys.
LeapFrog has a new device coming out called a "Text and Learn" that's targeted at young kids. The device is larger than a Blackberry and is being dubbed the Blackberry for Babies. The device does not really let kids connect with each other or to the Internet but it is meant to help them to learn spelling and computer skills. (via Shoppingblog.com)
Minnie Driver avoided the celebrity baby photo shoots and put a picture of her son Henry on her MySpace account instead of on the cover of a magazine. You can see the photograph here. There are hundreds of comments underneath it. It sure is a great picture. The BBC says Minnie so far has not named the baby's father.
The 38-year-old posted a photograph of one-month-old son Henry Story Driver on her page on the social networking site.
The picture shows the Good Will Hunting and The Riches star holding her sleeping child against her chest.
The Oscar-nominated actress, who revealed her pregnancy in March, has so far declined to name the baby's father.
Blog Focuses Solely on Barack Obama Holding Babies
The adorable pictures of presidential candidates holding babies always make the newspapers. Now there is a blog called Yes We Can (Hold Babies) which is dedicated to showing pictures of Barack Obama holding babies. It's a clever idea and a blog for John McCain holding babies can not be too far behind.
A new website called Aha Baby has launched. The site bills itself as a pregnancy search engine.
Pregnancy is an exciting journey filled with hopes, questions and new experiences. When trying to conceive and during pregnancy, expectant parents want information about the changes they are undergoing. Often, they conduct their own searches using the Internet since no single pregnancy site has all the answers they need. These searches become complex and time consuming as they weed through irrelevant data to find the right information for them.
Now, users can turn to ahababy.com to get the absolute best quality information in one trusted resource. Unlike a typical web publisher, it doesn't limit you to their content only. Aha! Baby has found the best sites pulled from all over the web to provide expectant parents everything they need to know based on their situation and those people most like them.
"I'm pregnant with twins and need answers to many different topics like specific medical symptoms, preparing our nursery and buying baby gear," said Nancy Luft, an Ahababy.com user who is 32 weeks pregnant. "I go to AhaBaby.com because it has the best quality information out there pulled from multiple, reliable sources on the web. AhaBaby.com is easy to use so now I have all this knowledge at my fingertips."
AhaBaby.com also lets users personalize their experience by entering their due date.
Can infants swim? No, but they can be trained to turn over and float on their backs according Infant Swimming Resource. Infant Swimming Resource offers aquatic survival classes that train infants so they might be able to survive something like an accidental plunge into a pool. The courses were developed by Dr. Harvey Barnett, a behavioral psychologist and former lifeguard. Of course, the training is no substitute for fences, gates and keeping a very close eye on infants that are anywhere near a pool or a body of a water. The American Academy of Pediatrics says that babies are generally not ready to learn how to swim until age four. They also say that "parents should be reminded that swimming lessons will not provide 'drown proofing' for children of any age."
A shocking national study has found that 1 in 50 U.S. infants have been the victims of abuse and neglect. In 30,000 of the 91,000 the infants were aged just one week or younger. MSNBC reports the news in this article.
The researchers counted more than 91,000 infant victims of abuse and neglect in the period Oct. 1, 2005 to Sept. 30, 2006.
The information came from a national data base of cases verified by protective services agencies in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
Other studies have looked at national child abuse and neglect cases, but this is believed to be the first to focus on infants, said Leeb, a CDC epidemiologist.
The 91,000 infants were age 1 year or younger. About 30,000 of those cases were infants aged one week or younger. About 68 percent of those cases were attributed to neglect.
The article says federal officials define neglect as "a failure to meet a child's basic needs including housing, clothing, feeding and access to medical care." So the study did not include mistakes made by new parents as they are trying to learn the process of raising and taking care of a newborn.
A number of U.S. workplaces do allow mothers to bring their babies to work. Savannah Guthrie from NBC's Nightly News says this is a growing trend. NBC says about 70 U.S. firms have formal babies at work programs. Advocates of the program say it improves moral which leads to increased productivity. The obvious downside is some workplaces may not be safe environments for babies.
Ricki Lake Creates Controversial Documentary on Birthing Industry
Actress and talk show host Ricki Lake is targeting the birthing industry in a new documentary called The Business of Being Born. Lake is concerned that other countries have lower infant mortality rates than the United States. She recently appeared on the Today Show to talk about birthing experience and about her documentary.
It's already stirring controversy as well as criticism from the medical community, which feels maligned by Lake's advocacy of giving birth at home, a course chosen by just 1 percent of American women.
"This movie is not about hospitals versus home," Lake told TODAY's Ann Curry in New York. "I'm raising some really major questions about the medical system and whether it's really servicing mothers and babies as well as it could."
The United States, she said, has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world.
According to "The CIA World Factbook," Singapore led the world with an infant mortality rate of 2.30 per 1,000 live births, followed by Sweden with a rate of 2.76 and Japan at 2.80. The United States' rate of 6.37 ranked just 37th, behind South Korea and Cuba and just ahead of Croatia. The highest mortality rate was in Angola, where the rate is 184.44 deaths for every 1,000 births.
"The fact that we have the second-worst infant mortality rate in the developed world is a statistic that I think people need to know about," she said. "We are the richest country in the world and the technology that we have is amazing today. Women in their 40s and even in their 50s can get pregnant today and carry children and deliver, babies are living at 23 weeks gestation. It's amazing the strides we’ve made. But in that process, we've lost normal birth."
Abby Epstein is the director of the film. You can see more details about it here on the film's website.
Photo: From the The Business of Being Born documentary - certified Nurse-midwife Cara Muhlhahn attends the homebirth of Mayra and David Radzinski.
USA Today 
Minnie Driver avoided the celebrity baby photo shoots and put a picture of her son Henry on her 
A new website called 
Actress and talk show host Ricki Lake is targeting the birthing industry in a new documentary called The Business of Being Born. Lake is concerned that other countries have lower infant mortality rates than the United States. She recently 