Baby Babble

Fertility problems? Caffeine may worsen them

In a study from the Netherlands, researchers have found that women with low fertility may reduce their chances of pregnancy even further if they drink too much caffeinated coffee. Researchers studied women who received In-Vitro Fertilization and found some were able to conceive naturally--but not those with high coffee consumption. Among those with four or more cups per day, pregnancy chances were cut by 26 percent. Alcohol and cigarette smoking also seemed to have a similar affect on fertility--those with poor fertility were greatly affected by these substances, more so than for women with normal fertility.

It's hard to keep up on the varying advice about coffee drinking and pregnancy, or among those who are trying to conceive.   Generally, up to 300 mg of caffeine a day for a pregnant woman seems to be okay.

What are your thoughts on fertility, pregnancy and coffee? What advice did you receive?  Did you cut back, or not?  Write us here with your experiences by clicking onto "comment(s)" just below.

Is Cable Television to blame for rising autism rates?

Autism rates among children have risen sharply in this country.  Where once autism affected 1 child out of every 10,000, not it is more like 1 out of every every 500 today--a good reason for trying to figure out what is causing it.  Over at the Stroller Baby blog, blogger Hannah Tennant-Moore  makes a plea for some serious study of the link between television-watching and rising autism rates among children. Ms. Tennant-Moore refers to a 2006 study done at Cornell University that shows in areas where television watching was higher among very young children, autism rates are also much higher.  The study also noted the rise happened at about the same time as the rise in cable television availability. Though the 2006 Cornell University study has raised some questions, no one has followed up on it. 

In his article "In Search of the Cause of Autism,  How about television?" reporter Gregg Easterbrook writes: "Study after study, most importantly this 2004 National Academy of Sciences review, has found no relationship between autism and the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal or the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine in general."

The possible causes are seemingly endless. Other possible causes? Parents having children when they're older; a greater survival rate among premature babies; babies surviving other maladies only to be afflicted with autism; pollutants.  Nobody has come up with the definitive answer yet.

What we do know, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report is that 1-year-old children now average almost an hour per day viewing television and videos, while children ages 2 and 3 watch television and videos an average of about two hours daily.

Do you have your own theory? Should a link to television-watching be pursued? Write us here with your thoughts.

Turns out men's biological clocks tick down too

Blogger Bethany Sanders from Parent Dish points out new research from France that shows men have biological clocks too--their fertility isn't necessarily guaranteed into old age, as some may have thought.  The French study showed that men over the age of 35 who get their partners pregnant may have an increased likelihood that the woman will have a miscarriage.  Over the age of 40, a man has less of a chance of getting someone pregnant.  Damage to the sperm is the culprit in aging, the study seems to indicate.  The new studies will no doubt go on to inform fertility treatments in older couples in the future.

Care to comment? Did you become an older dad, successfully, or are you married to one? Write us here using the "comments" feature just below.

What makes a population lull? Slacker fathers

In this Business Week article, it is suggested that every woman—from North America to Australia to everywhere in between—should birth 2.1 babies in order to keep the population stable. This is simply the replacement rate. The U.S. sits right at that 2.1 average. But some eastern and southern European countries have seen a drop in births—less than 1.3 per woman—giving their population the appearance that it will be cut in half within 45 years.

Why the sudden decrease in births? Is it due to families’ lower incomes? Or women’s struggles to get back into the workplace after raising her children? Nope. Interestingly enough, researchers have discovered that the birth rate is directly related to the home participation of men.

“In societies where women do 75 percent or more of the housework and child care, they are less likely to have another child than in countries where fathers share the load.”

Well, that makes sense to me. Why would a woman want to have several kids with her “partner” if her “partner” requires a mommy, too?

How are things run in your household? If you have/had/are a husband who didn’t share household responsibilities, would this affect your decision to have more children?

We’re apparently never right

A recent study out of Boston is saying that breastfeeding your infant and lathering him with sunscreen are two main culprits for vitamin D deficiencies in 40 percent of America’s babies and toddlers. This seems like an ironic twist, considering that one of these things—breastfeeding--is best and the other is essential in the prevention of a tragic disease.

Vitamin D helps absorb calcium, so it is necessary for healthy bones, and it also helps in maintaining the immune system. Human breast milk lacks sufficient amounts of vitamin D and, although cow’s milk has enough, babies can’t drink it and toddlers aren’t drinking enough of it. We also get vitamin D naturally from the sun, but sunscreen limits the amount of sun that is able to get to the body. Since it’s very difficult to consume too much vitamin D, some doctors now recommend supplements for breastfeeding infants and lactating mothers, and a multivitamin containing vitamin D for older children.

Is this something that’s affected you? Did you ever think breastfeeding and using sunscreen would be two strikes against you?  Write us with your thoughts using the "comments" button just below.

Subcribe to The Baby Babble and get these entries direct to your email in-box. Just fill in the little box at the upper left of this main page.

Want a boy? Eat cereal

In some fascinating new research out of Great Britain, scientists have determined that what a woman is eating around the time she conceives greatly influences the gender of the child when he/she is conceived. It seems low-calorie dieting, for example, produces a girl, while high-calories diets produces a boy.  Among the women studied, those who ate a wider range of nutrients--such as potassium, calcium and vitamins C, E and B12--were more likely to produce boys and, most intriguing, a woman who ate at least one bowl of breakfast cereal daily were more likely to conceive a boy. Researchers say this could explain why developing countries where maternal nutrition is poor seem to be producing more girls than boys, and that the indication is there is a "natural mechanism" at work determining gender. Here's another story on this same research.

Care to comment? Click through to "comments" just below.

Autism's causal theories seem to be endless

Over at the ParentDish Blog recentlly, blogger Christina Sbarro took a look at some recent research on autism, that perplexing disorder affecting an estimated 1 out of 150 children in the United States.  There is no definitive answer as to what causes autism. Theories abound. Now, new research out of McGill University in Canada may be pointing toward premature births as a potential cause, according to Sbarro's notes.  The research seems to indicate that as many as 1 in 4 premature babies may develop autism. Among premature babies, those who were smaller and born to women who had had infections during the pregnancy were at greatest risk. The findings are preliminary, but surely a 1 in 4 ratio is cause for concern and should be investigated further.

April is Autism Awareness Month. Learn more here.

Do you have your own theory on autism? Write us here by clicking onto "comments" below and leaving your thoughts. Do you know of prematurely born babies who seem to be displaying autistic tendencies? Write us here.

Boys preferred among some Asian groups in America

U.S. Census Bureau researchers have just released their findings from the 2000 census of the United States and they seem to reveal that the likelihood of an Asian family having a boy for their second child, after the birth of a daughter, is higher than statistically probable.  In the general population,  there are 1.05 boys born for every 1 girl born in the United States. However, these new findings show that, in a second birth in one family, the likelihood of a boy being born to certain Asian groups is 1.17 boys to 1 girl.  If two girls precede the third birth, there are 1.51 boys to every one girl born.

It seems this is a pattern that holds true for some--though by far not all--Chinese, Korean and Asian Indian children. This difference did not exist in the 1990 Census of the United States. 

The theory is that among certain groups of Chinese, Korean and Asian Indian families in America, boys are still preferred for cultural and traditional reasons and, therefore, a very small minority within these groups are practicing some type of sex selection.  Researchers have long seen an imbalance of boys versus girls in the home countries of Chinese, Korean, and Asian families and, one expert noted here, it's likely that preference has carried over with recent immigrant groups. 

Researchers in the study say they do not know what method of sex selection is taking place, but said it is likely that there is a fetal ultrasound conducted, followed by abortion of the females.

What do you think of this practice? Take our mini-poll below to let us know, or just drop us a comment by clicking onto "comments" just below.

Want your child to succeed? Sign up for stuff

 A study of British children, by the University of Sheffield, seems to conclude that if parents are out and about in the world--joining volunteer groups, participating in trade unions, and other ways of being "sociable"--their children will fare better in school when taking exams.  In reading, math and vocabulary, those children who had active parents did better than those whose parents had low levels of social interaction. The scores were not affected by the length of time parents spent at these sociable activities, nor were they affected by children socializing, or socializing within the family. It appears that parents interacting with other groups provides them some support that is ultimately beneficial to their children.  In other words, socially active parents may be better able to find appropriate resources when help is needed, for example.

What do you think? This was a British study. Would this hold up in the United States?

Write us here by clicking onto "comments" just below.

Kids in high traffic areas may fare worse on intelligence

In a distressing study from the Harvard School of Public Health, we learn that children who are growing up near high traffic areas don't do as well in tests of their intelligence and memory than other children as a result, they believe, of breathing the dirtier air. The effect of pollution on children is roughly the same as in children whose mother's smoked 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant or in children who had been exposed to lead. The new study measured exposure to black carbon, which is a component in automobile and truck exhaust, particularly those which are diesel-fueled.  The more the children were exposed, the lower their test scores. IQ dropped by 3.4 points, for example, and scores were lower in the areas of vocabulary, memory and learning.  Researchers have long studied the effects of heavy traffic on respiratory illness, for example, but this is the first study to look at effects on the brain.  It's not known exactly WHY the traffic fumes have this effect, but it's assumed the carbon is causing inflammation and oxidative damage to the brains. More study is needed, say the folks at Harvard.