Pregnant? Put down the phone! Studies show that cell phone usage while pregnant can potentially harm your child. Using it as few as 2 or 3 times a day can increase the chances that your child could have hyperactivity or other emotional problems. On top of that, letting children under seven use cell phones can cause problems for them as well.

Researchers have not advised pregnant women to stop using them altogether, but until further research is completed moderation is a good idea. So, if you want to have a one hour chat to your best friend, do it from a land line!

More worries for pregnant gals. Wait a minute - this one is telling you NOT to worry… studies show that women who are stressed while pregnant may give birth to baby’s predisposed to allergies and asthma. So, they are considering stress as a “social pollutant” that when “breathed into the body” it can influence the immune system.

Well, with all these warnings about what a pregnant woman can not or should not do these days, no wonder they are stressed!

Don’t fret about those plastic baby bottles. At least that is what the FDA is saying. They do not see it necessary to tell consumers to stop using these products. But some groups are crying foul. They think the government is not concerned enough about the dangers, and are pressuring them to ban any children’s products with the potentially harmful chemical. So I guess the jury is still out, continue to use your best mommy judgment.

Add the “plastic or glass” choice to the ever growing list of things for pregnant women to worry about!

Longevity is decreasing. Children of today may be the first generation who live a shorter life span than their parents. We are (not so) slowly but surely destroying our future health with the obesity epidemic. Obesity in children has tripled since the 1970’s. I guess this is not so surprising when you consider that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Yup… two-thirds.

More and more children are getting adults diseases, such as Type-2 diabetes. It is called “advanced aging” and it means that these children will have a lower life expectancy. And it is important to point out again that annual health care costs of of treating obesity and its complications currently run at $70 to 100 billion a year.

And it is also important to consider not only the life expectancy, but the quality of life, which probably will be hindered if dealing with obesity and its further complications. So please do your children a favor and permit them a childhood where they grow up with healthy and active habits.

A bowl of cereal a day to have a baby boy. It has been proven that a woman can further influence the chance of having either a boy or a girl by the foods she eats. Eating a bowl of cereal (calcium), more bananas (potassium), salty foods (sodium) and eating generally more calories overall can increase chances of conceiving a boy. 59% of women eating a bowl of cereal per day had baby boys, compared to 43% of women who ate 1 bowl or less per week. To be honest, I am not sure how that works considering it is the male sperm that determines gender, but apparently it does. Go figure.

Watch out for lemonade! A dad in Detroit has his son removed from the home by authorities for a few days while they determined whether or not he was negligent. He was at a ballgame with his 7 year son and accidentally got him drunk on “Mike’s Hard Lemonade”. Dad did not realize there was alcohol in the drink. In the end, the child’s blood test showed no signs of alcohol and the family has since been reunited.

Pregnant? Keep buckling up! Yes, it can be uncomfortable, but is definitely can save you and your baby in an accident by preventing you from hitting the steering wheel or the windshield. Worried about the belt hurting the baby? Worn properly, low under the bump, damage is minimized as the pelvic bone will absorb most of the shock.

In an accident at 20mph, an unbuckled mom has a 70% chance of loosing the fetus, while buckled moms only have a 12% chance of losing theirs. Approximately 370 fetuses are killed each year in car accidents, which somewhat surprisingly is less then newborn children killed in their first year in car accidents. So when you are considering the most perfect/safest carseat for your newborn, don’t forget to protect him before he is born too!

How much sex is good sex? It’s not necessarily about how many times you do it, but more about how long you do it each time. Of course, this is an individual thing, but research shows that intercourse between 3-13 minutes is most satisfactory. And 1-2 minutes is “too short” (tho I have to admit that on those few occasions that I give in when I really am not in the mood, 1-2 minutes is just fine with me!). To clarify - they are talking about actual intercourse here, foreplay does not count and I am sure most of us gals appreciate a nice warm up before the show!

A “teen repellent” under controversy. An English father to a 15 year old daughter who was harassed by groups of teens has created an interesting devise called the “Mosquito“. It emits an annoying, high-pitched noise that only youths can hear thus encouraging them to scram from wherever they are loitering. (The noise is heard by most under 20 years old, yet by hardly anyone over 30 years old.)

He has sold over 4,000 of these devices so far, mostly by word of mouth. The inventor has pointed out that the device is not harmful to children’s hearing, just like an annoying alarm clock. He also stated that he is not anti-teens, he is just wanting to discourage “anti-social behavior.” Civil liberties groups have signed petitions to get the device banned in Europe, but earlier this week the European Commission has confirmed that hey will not ban it.

New research supports the long-held hope that sex education does help teens avoid pregnancy — if the program is comprehensive, including information on birth control options instead of the abstinence-only approach.

Researchers found that 1 in 4 teens received abstinence-only sex ed, another two-thirds received comprehensive sex education, and almost one in ten (mostly from rural areas or very poor families) had no sex ed at all. Of these teens, the ones who received comprehensive sex ed were slightly (very slightly; the researchers termed the gap “not statistically significant”) less likely to engage in vaginal intercourse, but no group was less likely than the others to receive sexually transmitted diseases.

Also, according to research results, teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or to get someone pregnant than those who received no sex education.

Says the study’s lead author, Pamela Kohler of the University of Washington in Seattle, “There was no evidence to suggest that abstinence-only education decreased the likelihood of ever having sex or getting pregnant.”

Is anyone surprised?

Posted by Sunshine.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Being a red-haired lass with Irish origins myself, I am making my ancestors proud and wearing some green socks today!

No smoking means a happier baby? Well, I imagine that no baby likes breathing smoke, so perhaps that is stating the obvious. However the researchers are at it again and they have somehow figured out that women who quite smoking while pregnant tend to give birth to happier babies. And it gets more interesting - the “moms who smoked and quit” group had even happier babies than the moms who never smoked. So researchers are wondering if there is something in the actions/personality of those mothers that was even better.

Momma Berry. Halle gave birth yesterday to a 7lb 4oz baby girl! No news yet on the name.

Minnie is pregnant! Minnie Driver announced her pregnancy on The Tonight Show. She is struggling to pick a name that goes well with her last name. And she is tight lipped about who the baby daddy is.

Guess that bump! People has a fun little quiz where you have to guess the baby bump of 9 celebrities. I scored a perfect score, although I do admit the clues helped for a few! Give it a try - fun for a Friday!

Don’t forget gym class! With all the pressures these days for even the youngest to perform academically, it is important for children to still get to gym class. And no, it is not only to discourage childhood obesity and encourage good health. A recent study on girls shows that girls who regularly attend gym class will score higher academically than girls who don’t.

Researchers believe that physical education is very important for children. But schools are very slow to catch up. These days, most schools offer phys-ed only one or two times per week. And only 12.5% are following the Healthy People 2010 objective of daily participation in phys-ed. If your child does not have the opportunity to attend gym class regularly, please contact your school board to request this.

Toys for Tots expanding to books. With the great success of the annual Christmas toy drive, Toys for Tots have decided to expand their program with a year-long book drive. They are working with Scholastic and UPS.

The program is called “Buck a Book“. How it works is that UPS will accept $1 donations in any of their stores. They have an agreement with Scholastic who will provide age-appropriate books for $1 each. UPS will cover all overhead costs, ensuring that 100% of the donations will go to the children. Also to note that the books will be distributed in the same community that the donations are received. If you ever find yourself with the opportunity to donate, please do so for this worthy cause and help stop illiteracy in America!