We’ve all heard that in order to keep our marriages strong post-baby, we’re supposed to carve out time alone together, roughly once a week. Book a sitter, put the cell phones on vibrate, and hit a restaurant or movie. The marital “date night”.

But new research suggests that merely spending time together may not be the optimal approach. Rather, we should spend time together trying new things.

Rather than visiting the same familiar haunts and dining with the same old friends, couples need to tailor their date nights around new and different activities that they both enjoy, says Arthur Aron, a professor of social psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The goal is to find ways to keep injecting novelty into the relationship. The activity can be as simple as trying a new restaurant or something a little more unusual or thrilling — like taking an art class or going to an amusement park.

The theory is based on brain science. New experiences activate the brain’s reward system, flooding it with dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the same brain circuits that are ignited in early romantic love, a time of exhilaration and obsessive thoughts about a new partner. (They are also the brain chemicals involved in drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder.)

Research in this area supports this theory:

In one of the earliest studies, the researchers recruited 53 middle-aged couples. Using standard questionnaires, the researchers measured the couples’ relationship quality and then randomly assigned them to one of three groups.

One group was instructed to spend 90 minutes a week doing pleasant and familiar activities, like dining out or going to a movie. Couples in another group were instructed to spend 90 minutes a week on “exciting” activities that appealed to both husband and wife. Those couples did things they didn’t typically do — attending concerts or plays, skiing, hiking and dancing. The third group was not assigned any particular activity.

After 10 weeks, the couples again took tests to gauge the quality of their relationships. Those who had undertaken the “exciting” date nights showed a significantly greater increase in marital satisfaction than the “pleasant” date night group.

I’m in! Next step, come up with something new and different, and lure my husband out of the house…suggestions welcome!

Posted by MommaSteph.

Binge Drinking and Pregnancy: A new study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health finds that while heavy drinking throughout pregnancy has been associated with birth defects and neurological problems, there is little evidence that binge drinking harms a developing fetus. Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks on one occasion. While the researchers recommend more study in this area, and caution that practitioners advise pregnant women to avoid binge drinking, they note: “When pregnant women report isolated episodes of binge drinking in the absence of a consistently high daily alcohol intake, as is often the case, it is important to avoid inducing unnecessary anxiety, as, at present, the evidence of risk seems minimal.”

Really? An expert in divorce issues cautions that Brittney Spears and Kevin Federline are majorly screwing up their kids as they dissolve their marriage. “They are doing almost everything wrong,” said Larry Ganong, professor and co-chair of the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences and professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing. “Interparental conflict is so damaging for kids. The message is that parents need to cooperate as much as possible, put the children’s needs first, stifle anger and take the high road. I don’t get the sense that Brit and K-Fed are doing that.”

Gain Weight, Get a Boy? A new study of 220,889 women who had successive pregnancies between 1992 and 2004 finds that an increase in body weight from the beginning of one’s first pregnancy to the beginning of a second seems to increase the chances that the second pregnancy will produce in a boy baby. “The results are provocative because few biological factors are known in humans to influence the chances of either conceiving or carrying to term a baby boy or girl. Our study suggests that maternal nutritional factors might play a role,” said Eduardo Villamor, assistant professor of international nutrition at HSPH and lead author of the study. However, the researchers caution against gaining weight in order to try to influence the sex of a baby. “Weight gain before pregnancy carries significant risks to the mother and the baby, and should not be practiced to influence the odds of having a boy,” said Villamor. “Other factors of which weight gain is only an indicator could be at play here.”

Good News for Barry White: A new study published in the journal Biology Letters finds that men with low-pitched voices have more offspring than those with higher-pitched voices. Previous studies have shown that men with low voices have more “reproductive success” because women tend to find them more attractive, dominant, and healthy-sounding. Men, meanwhile, have generally been found prefer women with higher-pitched voices, finding them to sound younger, more subordinate (hmmmmm…), and healthy than women with low-pitched voices. For this current study, the researchers looked at the Hadza of Tanzania, who have no birth control. Of these people, the men with low-pitched voices had more children than their high-talking peers.

Dumb Move: Former Australian cricket champion Shane Warne reportedly blew his last chance to save his newly-reconciled marriage because of an errant text message. Mr. Warne sent the following electronic missive out from his cell phone: “Hey beautiful, I’m just talking to my kids, the back door’s open.” The message that came back: “You loser, you sent the message to the wrong person.” It was from his wife.

Toy Recall: The CPSC announced a recall of duck watering cans sold at Jo-Ann Stores. The paint on the duck’s beak contains lead, which is toxic if ingested by young children. Consumers may return the watering cans at any Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store for a full refund.

Gestational Diabetes and Childhood Obesity: According to research published in the current issue of the journal Diabetes Care, proper treatment of gestational diabetes can be a preventative measure against childhood obesity. Looking at mother and child medical records of over 9,000 mother-child pairs, the researchers found that treating gestational diabetes while the mother is pregnant lowers the later obesity risk for the child to that of women with normal blood sugar levels. One of the researchers offers, “My advice to pregnant women is three-fold: Discuss gestational diabetes screening with your doctor, usually between weeks 24 and 28 of pregnancy; if you have gestational diabetes, work with your physician to treat it, and stick with the treatment during your pregnancy. It’s the best thing you can do to reduce your child’s risk of obesity.”

For what it’s worth… In a study of more than 17,000 people in 28 countries, George Mason University researchers have found that live-in boyfriends do more housework than married men. The co-leader of the study sees this as an indication that marriage tends to have a “traditionalizing effect” on couples.

This week I heard that some good friends were getting divorced. They seemed to have a good relationship, but apparently they were facing problems for over two years. I was in shock and speechless. Then I spoke to a woman who wanted to move to somewhere in the States to help her daughter, but she didn’t want to leave her husband. She did tell me that they have been living in separate rooms for almost fifteen years, but he still was her husband.

Marriage is a difficult road that changes from day to day. Those first months are priceless. Love is in the air and the challenge to impress the other person keeps the relationship alive. Once you have kids, priorities are change and spending time with your soul mate is almost impossible. This is a work in progress and a never-ending task. Children often sense whether or not their parents are happy in their relationship. Unhappy parents equals and emotional rollercoster for youngsters. Young people often grow up with little or no direct experience with a good and lasting marriage. If children don’t have good role models, how can we expect healthy relationships in their adult lives?

Whether or not a child wishes to get married, they will have numerous relationship during their lifetime. They will need to learn how to develop healthy relationships and in the process they need to acquire whatever tools they need to handle pitfalls. Florida is the first state in the nation to require a course in relationships and marriage for all high school graduates. Many parents are now searching to provide alternatives for their kids.

A six-year old was asked this: What exactly is marriage? His answer: “Marriage is when you get to keep your girl and don’t have to give her back to her parents”.

I was not given back to my parents and I’m happy to say that after many years together I still get butterflies in my stomach when I see my husband.

Posted by Momcrazyforkids.

If you and your husband don’t use condoms, just maybe, says a researcher out of the State University of New York in Albany. Dr. Gordon G. Gallup has been looking at data that suggest that women who have intercourse without condoms are less likely to become depressed or kill themselves than those who do not have sex or who use condoms. In addition, women who do not use condoms become increasingly depressed as the time since their last sexual encounter lengthens, while no such correlation exists for women whose partners generally use condoms. The no-condom women also tend to be quicker to seek out new relationships when old ones end.

This suggests, notes Dr. Gallup, that the hormones contained in semen that may be absorbed through the vaginal wall, some of which are known to elevate mood, may be creating an addiction and subsequent withdrawal symptoms.

Gallup controlled for variables including method of contraception, frequency of sexual intercourse, as well as the women’s perception of their relationship. He concedes that women who regularly have sex without condoms might share personality traits that make them less susceptible to depression. But the behavior most often associated with non-condom users is sexual risk-taking, and studies have found no correlation between high-risk sexual behavior and lower rates of depression.

It’s an interesting idea, from an evolutionary biology point of view. If women get hooked on semen, the species is more likely to survive. But my husband just laughed and called it a “guy study”. Well, maybe it’s both.

Posted by MommaSteph.

Military Wives and PPD: According to research out of the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, pregnant women whose husbands are deployed are at a much higher risk for postpartum depression. For this study, over 400 women were screened for PPD six weeks after delivering their babies. 1/4 of those whose husbands were deployed during their pregnancies screened positive, compared with 13% of the remaining women.

Hand Sanitizer Hazard: April alerted us to this over on the boards: Hand sanitizers and wipes, which seem to be ubiquitous among germ-conscious parents and teachers these days, contain a surprising amount of alcohol - for example, Purell is 62% Ethyl Alcohol. Ingesting it can lead to alcohol poisoning, as happened to a couple of young children recently. Keep such products out of reach of children.

Frequently my husband emails articles to me that he thinks might be worth mining for the blog. Imagine my surprise when this one turned up in my inbox: A profile of Joan Sewell, author of the controversial�book I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido. (Humph! I’m trying not to take it personally.)

…Sewell claims that women are just not that into sex. Biologically, they are not as sexually driven as men - they don’t even come close. They think about it less, they want it less and, if they’re in relationships, they constantly lag behind their male partners in terms of desire, often perceiving sex as something of a chore which they perform because they’re scared that they’ll be left if they don’t; if they’re single, they don’t yearn for sex nearly as much as they yearn for other things, like physical affection, and companionship, which is hardly surprising because as women, they could go out and get sex if they wanted to - but they don’t.

I don’t think I’ll read Sewell’s book (which apparently contains lots of intimate details on how she and her husband negotiate their sex life - no thanks!), but the article piqued my curiosity.  So I threw a poll up over on the boards to test the waters, libido-wise, with my fellow MomSquawkers.  On most nights, I asked, which would they choose:  A good book or magazine, chocolate, marital intimacy, television, or other. Half chose TV. Next up was a good book. Just under 15% chose sex.

Knowing that most of us have at least one young child, I figured exhaustion might be skewing the results. (For the record, Ms. Sewell and her husband do not have children, but she shares her belief that having kids is just another excuse to avoid sex. A biology refresher might be in order there.) But a follow-up poll revealed that over 90% of us believe that our libidos are as strong or stronger than before we had kids. So…we always prefered Lost or Scientific American to sex? And yet Michele put up a poll that revealed that almost 60% of us are having sex with our husbands at least once a week.� Are we putting out, or are we all getting it on because there’s nothing good on� (Or perhaps double-dipping, indulging in sex and television, chocolate, or whatever, at once?)

Well, there’s nothing particularly scientific about my forced choice polls, I guess. After all, just because a woman prefers TV to sex doesn’t mean she doesn’t like sex. (Just not as much?)  If I had really wanted to be thorough, I would have asked the ladies to poll their husbands, but I didn’t want to inadvertently open sex negotiations in homes across the globe when there might be a crucial Grey’s Anatomy on. I did, however, ask my own husband. I started to list off his choices: A book, chocolate, sex - “You have to ask?” he interrupted.

Anyone else want to ask her man and weigh in� Or do you even have to ask?

Posted by MommaSteph.

Sex? A survey of 128 new dads published in the Australian Journal of Midwifery reveals what we probably already know: Men tend to experience a decrease in the frequency of sexual relations with their wives during pregnancy and once the baby arrives. “One father said his sex life had decreased during pregnancy and had not resumed after the birth, because of physical factors that affected his partner during labour. Another said they were too tired for sex, because of night feeds, getting up for another child and bringing work home.” Yep, sounds about right!

Cup feeding not worth it? Cup feeding has often been recommended over bottle feeding for newborns who are not able to breastfeed in order to make an easier transition to the breast.  However, a new study finds that cup feeding, which can be difficult to manage and may necessitate a longer hospital stay for the baby, does not lead to higher rates of breastfeeding at three or six months when compared with babies who were given bottles.

It does if you’re dealing with a difficult infant, says a new study published recently in Infant Behavior & Development.

Researchers rated couples on marital strength before the arrival of a new baby (for many of the couples, it was their first child) and then rated their “coparenting” skills and overall relationship when the infants were around 3 1/2 months old.

The results showed that couples who showed a good marital relationship before the birth seemed to do better when dealing with a fussy and uncooperative baby when compared to those couples whose relationship was not as good.

Couples who did not have a strong relationship were more critical of each other when dealing with a challenging infant.

While I wouldn’t have classified my daughter as a difficult infant, she did have a very trying period from about 8-10 weeks of age. Nothing I did made her happy sometimes, and it was so frustrating that I wanted to sit down and cry with her. She also had sleep issues until she was over 18 months old.

I was so grateful to have a partner who stepped up - and didn’t just take over. My husband has always been great with her and with knowing how to support my role as a parent without foregoing his own. He built my mommy self-esteem back up when it dipped, and showed me some techniques he was using with her that worked better than what I had tried - without belittling my efforts. We were, and are, a great parenting team, even when we’re not a model couple overall.

Additionally, a lot of what you learn from parenting together can be applied to your marital relationship. Learning and sharing alongside your spouse as a fellow new parent is a real lesson in partnership.

How well couples coparent can have long-lasting effects on their children, say the researchers. Children with parents who do not have a strong coparenting bond - even if one parent is fabulous with them - are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems.

One other kink: Coparenting strength and marital strength don’t necessarily match up, as I mentioned briefly above. You could be great together as parents, but only have a so-so relationship overall, or vice versa. This can also have detrimental effects on the children, as kids do pick up on these things (even when they can’t articulate or fully comprehend it).

Solid coparenting - or a lack thereof - also appears to be an indicator of later marital strength. (Interesting!)

Posted by Sunshining.