While waiting for Will and Mary to be outfitted with expanders and retainers at the orthodontist, I was reading Parents magazine. This is one of those rags that makes moms feel guilty for not being the perfect mother who has polite, quiet, well-adjusted, social, clean their plate, thin, beautiful, sleeping through the night at 2 months, and constantly smiling babies and toddlers. I have never even been tempted to subscribe to such a stress-inducing periodical, but will indulge if I have nothing else to do, such as in yesterday's environment.
After screening out all the garbage and ads, I was surprised to learn that hauling around box fans all over creation for white noise has perhaps saved our children from SIDS. Theoretically, at least.
In the October issue of the Archives of Pediatric Adolescent Medicine, researchers at Kaiser Permanente looked at whether the use of a fan in the room where a baby sleeps can help reduce the incidence of SIDS. Kaiser researchers found that infants who slept in rooms ventilated by fans had a 72 percent lower risk of SIDS compared to infants who slept in bedrooms without fans. Using a fan appeared be most effective with infants in high-risk environments, such as those sleeping in overheated rooms or on their stomachs. Researchers hypothesized that fans may improve ventilation and decrease the chance that babies will rebreathe exhaled carbon dioxide (an explanation for SIDS known as the "stale-air hypothesis").
The other interesting tidbit was a study at the University of Arizona who tested all kinds of public surfaces. They found that shopping carts were loaded with more saliva, bacteria and even fecal matter than escalators, public telephones, and even public bathrooms. Somewhere in the article it said that over 50% of cart handles were contaminated with fecal matter. Yuck! I always looked at those new moms who swathed their toddler in huge fabric seats at the grocery store to be a little overly neurotic, but I am certainly going to start wiping down the handles before plopping Timmy in the seat from now on.
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1 comment:
Ewww! Thanks Kat, here I always had the false impression that the cart was like my safe little buffer zone in the store. lol Ewwww!
Tracy, who's going to go wash her hands now, just in case
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