Unscripted

Like so many self-appointed social critics, I worry about the role models on TLC’s hit reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Will we soon be a nation of road-kill-eating, pig-petting beauty pageant contestants? Right, too late. But, in a victory for the traditional family, Honey Boo Boo’s parents, Mama June and Honey Bear, have finally tied the knot after spending more than 8 years as “shack ’em up mates.” Leaked photos reveal that both the bride and the groom wore camouflage. The ceremony was prolonged, as it took the couple several hours to locate each other in the brush.

Photos.com

The girl who played with pacifiers

Speaking of petting pigs, it’s not only a fun and rewarding hobby, it’s a great way for kids to avoid developing allergies, asthma, and eczema. The “hygiene hypothesis” of allergic disease seems to grow stronger every day, proving that I was right when as a child I told my mom, “But if you make me take a bath, I’ll require inhaled corticosteroids for the rest of my life!” (I was precocious.) This week’s biggest pediatric headline provides yet more evidence to suggest that when it comes to kids and allergies, the grosser the better.

The new, rigorously conducted study comes from Sweden, which is pretty much the last place that comes to my mind when you say “germs.” And yet, in a country so spotless that even their rock bands wear white jumpsuits, half the parents clean their babies’ pacifiers with their own spit. The other half do what I would do, which is to boil them, only because home autoclaves are so pricey. But the joke is on us: Who was most protected from developing allergic rhinitis, asthma, and eczema? Yep, those kids whose parents saw their binkies fall in the gutter then picked them up, gave them a quick lick, and popped them right back in their infants’ mouths. Who’s gagging now?

Which brings me to my newest business venture: Swedish parent saliva. That’s right, the oral secretions of mothers in the land of ice and snow are the only drool scientifically proven to prevent potentially deadly asthma. Carefully maintained at body temperature so as not to kill the precious microbes within, I will make this stuff available to select American parents too squeamish to lick dog hair off their own babies’ pacifiers. I’m still recruiting donors, but my brother-in-law is a Swedish MBA, and he assures me that if we offer a January trip to the Bahamas we can fill a tanker truck. Skål!

Fears for tears

Is there anything more depressing for a parent than having a baby with colic? I still have dark circles under my eyes, and my daughter is thirteen. But apparently there is one thing even worse: inconsolable crying. I know, isn’t colic inconsolable crying? According to the authors of a new study in Pediatrics, no, and the difference matters even more than picking a high-quality eye cream.

The authors asked mothers of newborns to record their babies’ habits in a research tool called the Baby’s Day Diary (“Tuesday: Cried until I thought my eyes would bleed. Took a breath. Cried again. Mom picked me up, changed me, tried to nurse me. Cried until my face was purple. So far a pretty good day.”) Then they correlated the entries at age 5-6 weeks to moms’ scores on the Edinburg Postnatal Depression Scale at 8 weeks. (The Edinburg scale determines whether new mothers are more or less depressed than Scottish people.) Compared with garden-variety colic, inconsolable crying turned out to be much more depressing, presumably because mothers like to console crying babies.

The researchers suggest pediatricians should be especially attuned to the possibility of maternal depression when they hear reports of inconsolable crying. If mom also has eye bags and a brogue, drive her to the psychiatrist yourself.

You must be this tall

Who doesn’t love the cheap thrill of amusement park rides? Me, that’s who. If it goes around in circles then it goes faster and then upside down, I’ll be waiting by the little gate labeled “Exit,” asking the carny where he got that cool tattoo. We all know to be terrified of the rides at large amusement parks and traveling fairs, but what about the little ones at the mall? Or at that pizza restaurant with the costumed characters where your child absolutely must have his next birthday party on Migraine Night? Does anyone know how many children get hurt at those places?

Actually, no, not until last week when Gary Smith and his colleagues from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital published their findings in Clinical Pediatrics. Of the 93,000 children treated in US emergency room for ride-related injuries between 1990 and 2010, 11,000 were hurt at malls, restaurants, and arcades. Fewer than 2% of injuries required hospitalization, a rate that probably compares favorably to those restaurants’ rates of food poisoning.

I suppose I should find those results reassuring, but I still have a recurring nightmare about a TLC reality show in which a backwoods beauty pageant contestant is filmed on a mall merry-go-round. In my dream the show is called, “Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, Here Comes Honey....”

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets.

Like so many self-appointed social critics, I worry about the role models on TLC’s hit reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Will we soon be a nation of road-kill-eating, pig-petting beauty pageant contestants? Right, too late. But, in a victory for the traditional family, Honey Boo Boo’s parents, Mama June and Honey Bear, have finally tied the knot after spending more than 8 years as “shack ’em up mates.” Leaked photos reveal that both the bride and the groom wore camouflage. The ceremony was prolonged, as it took the couple several hours to locate each other in the brush.

Photos.com

The girl who played with pacifiers

Speaking of petting pigs, it’s not only a fun and rewarding hobby, it’s a great way for kids to avoid developing allergies, asthma, and eczema. The “hygiene hypothesis” of allergic disease seems to grow stronger every day, proving that I was right when as a child I told my mom, “But if you make me take a bath, I’ll require inhaled corticosteroids for the rest of my life!” (I was precocious.) This week’s biggest pediatric headline provides yet more evidence to suggest that when it comes to kids and allergies, the grosser the better.

The new, rigorously conducted study comes from Sweden, which is pretty much the last place that comes to my mind when you say “germs.” And yet, in a country so spotless that even their rock bands wear white jumpsuits, half the parents clean their babies’ pacifiers with their own spit. The other half do what I would do, which is to boil them, only because home autoclaves are so pricey. But the joke is on us: Who was most protected from developing allergic rhinitis, asthma, and eczema? Yep, those kids whose parents saw their binkies fall in the gutter then picked them up, gave them a quick lick, and popped them right back in their infants’ mouths. Who’s gagging now?

Which brings me to my newest business venture: Swedish parent saliva. That’s right, the oral secretions of mothers in the land of ice and snow are the only drool scientifically proven to prevent potentially deadly asthma. Carefully maintained at body temperature so as not to kill the precious microbes within, I will make this stuff available to select American parents too squeamish to lick dog hair off their own babies’ pacifiers. I’m still recruiting donors, but my brother-in-law is a Swedish MBA, and he assures me that if we offer a January trip to the Bahamas we can fill a tanker truck. Skål!

Fears for tears

Is there anything more depressing for a parent than having a baby with colic? I still have dark circles under my eyes, and my daughter is thirteen. But apparently there is one thing even worse: inconsolable crying. I know, isn’t colic inconsolable crying? According to the authors of a new study in Pediatrics, no, and the difference matters even more than picking a high-quality eye cream.

The authors asked mothers of newborns to record their babies’ habits in a research tool called the Baby’s Day Diary (“Tuesday: Cried until I thought my eyes would bleed. Took a breath. Cried again. Mom picked me up, changed me, tried to nurse me. Cried until my face was purple. So far a pretty good day.”) Then they correlated the entries at age 5-6 weeks to moms’ scores on the Edinburg Postnatal Depression Scale at 8 weeks. (The Edinburg scale determines whether new mothers are more or less depressed than Scottish people.) Compared with garden-variety colic, inconsolable crying turned out to be much more depressing, presumably because mothers like to console crying babies.

The researchers suggest pediatricians should be especially attuned to the possibility of maternal depression when they hear reports of inconsolable crying. If mom also has eye bags and a brogue, drive her to the psychiatrist yourself.

You must be this tall

Who doesn’t love the cheap thrill of amusement park rides? Me, that’s who. If it goes around in circles then it goes faster and then upside down, I’ll be waiting by the little gate labeled “Exit,” asking the carny where he got that cool tattoo. We all know to be terrified of the rides at large amusement parks and traveling fairs, but what about the little ones at the mall? Or at that pizza restaurant with the costumed characters where your child absolutely must have his next birthday party on Migraine Night? Does anyone know how many children get hurt at those places?

Actually, no, not until last week when Gary Smith and his colleagues from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital published their findings in Clinical Pediatrics. Of the 93,000 children treated in US emergency room for ride-related injuries between 1990 and 2010, 11,000 were hurt at malls, restaurants, and arcades. Fewer than 2% of injuries required hospitalization, a rate that probably compares favorably to those restaurants’ rates of food poisoning.

I suppose I should find those results reassuring, but I still have a recurring nightmare about a TLC reality show in which a backwoods beauty pageant contestant is filmed on a mall merry-go-round. In my dream the show is called, “Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, Here Comes Honey....”

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets.

Like so many self-appointed social critics, I worry about the role models on TLC’s hit reality show Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Will we soon be a nation of road-kill-eating, pig-petting beauty pageant contestants? Right, too late. But, in a victory for the traditional family, Honey Boo Boo’s parents, Mama June and Honey Bear, have finally tied the knot after spending more than 8 years as “shack ’em up mates.” Leaked photos reveal that both the bride and the groom wore camouflage. The ceremony was prolonged, as it took the couple several hours to locate each other in the brush.

Photos.com

The girl who played with pacifiers

Speaking of petting pigs, it’s not only a fun and rewarding hobby, it’s a great way for kids to avoid developing allergies, asthma, and eczema. The “hygiene hypothesis” of allergic disease seems to grow stronger every day, proving that I was right when as a child I told my mom, “But if you make me take a bath, I’ll require inhaled corticosteroids for the rest of my life!” (I was precocious.) This week’s biggest pediatric headline provides yet more evidence to suggest that when it comes to kids and allergies, the grosser the better.

The new, rigorously conducted study comes from Sweden, which is pretty much the last place that comes to my mind when you say “germs.” And yet, in a country so spotless that even their rock bands wear white jumpsuits, half the parents clean their babies’ pacifiers with their own spit. The other half do what I would do, which is to boil them, only because home autoclaves are so pricey. But the joke is on us: Who was most protected from developing allergic rhinitis, asthma, and eczema? Yep, those kids whose parents saw their binkies fall in the gutter then picked them up, gave them a quick lick, and popped them right back in their infants’ mouths. Who’s gagging now?

Which brings me to my newest business venture: Swedish parent saliva. That’s right, the oral secretions of mothers in the land of ice and snow are the only drool scientifically proven to prevent potentially deadly asthma. Carefully maintained at body temperature so as not to kill the precious microbes within, I will make this stuff available to select American parents too squeamish to lick dog hair off their own babies’ pacifiers. I’m still recruiting donors, but my brother-in-law is a Swedish MBA, and he assures me that if we offer a January trip to the Bahamas we can fill a tanker truck. Skål!

Fears for tears

Is there anything more depressing for a parent than having a baby with colic? I still have dark circles under my eyes, and my daughter is thirteen. But apparently there is one thing even worse: inconsolable crying. I know, isn’t colic inconsolable crying? According to the authors of a new study in Pediatrics, no, and the difference matters even more than picking a high-quality eye cream.

The authors asked mothers of newborns to record their babies’ habits in a research tool called the Baby’s Day Diary (“Tuesday: Cried until I thought my eyes would bleed. Took a breath. Cried again. Mom picked me up, changed me, tried to nurse me. Cried until my face was purple. So far a pretty good day.”) Then they correlated the entries at age 5-6 weeks to moms’ scores on the Edinburg Postnatal Depression Scale at 8 weeks. (The Edinburg scale determines whether new mothers are more or less depressed than Scottish people.) Compared with garden-variety colic, inconsolable crying turned out to be much more depressing, presumably because mothers like to console crying babies.

The researchers suggest pediatricians should be especially attuned to the possibility of maternal depression when they hear reports of inconsolable crying. If mom also has eye bags and a brogue, drive her to the psychiatrist yourself.

You must be this tall

Who doesn’t love the cheap thrill of amusement park rides? Me, that’s who. If it goes around in circles then it goes faster and then upside down, I’ll be waiting by the little gate labeled “Exit,” asking the carny where he got that cool tattoo. We all know to be terrified of the rides at large amusement parks and traveling fairs, but what about the little ones at the mall? Or at that pizza restaurant with the costumed characters where your child absolutely must have his next birthday party on Migraine Night? Does anyone know how many children get hurt at those places?

Actually, no, not until last week when Gary Smith and his colleagues from the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital published their findings in Clinical Pediatrics. Of the 93,000 children treated in US emergency room for ride-related injuries between 1990 and 2010, 11,000 were hurt at malls, restaurants, and arcades. Fewer than 2% of injuries required hospitalization, a rate that probably compares favorably to those restaurants’ rates of food poisoning.

I suppose I should find those results reassuring, but I still have a recurring nightmare about a TLC reality show in which a backwoods beauty pageant contestant is filmed on a mall merry-go-round. In my dream the show is called, “Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, Here Comes Honey Boo-Boo, Here Comes Honey....”

David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (AAP Publishing, 2012). He is also vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, N.C., and  adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He serves as Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and as an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets.