Are you about to have a second, third, or-so-on baby? If you're delivering at a hospital in Maryland, chances are that your new bundle's older siblings won't be able to visit you and the newborn in the hospital.

As Kelly Brewington and Meredith Cohn report today, it's because of swine flu. (Isn't everything?) Hospitals want to protect their patients and the public at large, and even children who appear healthy are known spreaders of flu.

On the other side of things are moms like Kimberly Franklin, shown in the picture on the left, who would love for her 3-year-old to be by her side right after she has a scheduled C-section at St. Joseph Medical Center next week to welcome his new brother.

I would have been very sad if my daughter, then 2, hadn't been allowed into my room to see her new brother the day after he was born. I still remember how she charged into the room, newly confident in her role as big sister, and proclaimed: "I wanna pick him up."

Then again, I wouldn't have wanted to expose a vulnerable new baby to the flu.

(Baltimore Sun photo by Barbara Haddock Taylor)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

Just when you thought you'd heard it all comes the story of an Arkansas woman who conceived a baby...after she was already pregnant with another. No, they're not twins, but separate pregnancies 2 1/2 weeks apart.

Fortunately, as a Greater Baltimore Medical Center fertility expert tells ABC News here, it's a rare case.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Health
        

If you are thinking of starting a family, you may want to head to Anne Arundel Medical Center tonight, where clinicians will be speaking about how to best prepare for a baby. They'll be available for questions after each speech. The event is free and will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the AAMC Clatanoff Auditorium.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Expecting
        

Salma Hayek got lots of support for breastfeeding a child that wasn't hers. But have you read Hanna Rosin's piece in the upcoming Atlantic magazine, on "the case against breastfeeding"? It's in the April issue of the magazine, but the controversy is already rolling along.

In the piece, Rosin, who breast-fed her three children, questions the notion that breastfeeding delivers all the benefits that popular science and lore say it does -- and whether it's become a modern shackle of domesticity for women, something like the vacuum cleaner once was.

The backlash has started already. Here's the case against the case against breastfeeding at Strollerderby.

And here's Rosin on the Today show:

Here's my perspective: I breast-fed both my kids for their first year. After I went back to work as a reporter, after about seven months each time, I pumped during the day. Toward the end of the year I gradually tapered off pumping and supplemented with formula, breastfeeding in the morning and the evening.

It wasn't as hard for me to accomplish as Rosin portrays, but I was lucky enough to have access to a room with a lock, blinds and a phone. With a hands-free pump with a quiet motor, I could actually interview people on the phone while I was pumping. And fortunately I was never caught out at a news event when I really needed to pump.

The thing that's sad, I think, is the mother-to-mother judginess that's crept into our modern thinking about every element of parenting, from how many activities your kid should have to whether they can eat candy before dinner. Breastfeeding has become a lightning rod for that kind of judginess, and a mom can feel it from the moment she becomes a mom.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)
        

Today's Guest Dad is Tony Chen, who writes in Chicago for the web site/community Savvy Daddy. He has some observations on how life has changed now that his family includes two children.

Here's Tony:

Continue reading "Father's Day Friday: Reflections on having baby #2" »

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
        

Even though breastfeeding is the recommended way to feed your baby, women still get heat in some places for doing it in public. That's become something of a hot topic again, since Salma Hayek was shown recently on Nightline breastfeeding a hungry baby while on a goodwill trip to Sierra Leone.

Then this post from breastfeeding123.com caught my eye; it's a pretend rant/campaign against public bottle-feeding. Tongue-in-cheek, obviously, but it makes its point. (Example: "Bottlefeeding Parents might try to argue that BIP is done for the baby who needs to eat, but that baby doesn’t need to eat! Bottlefeeding Parents are just doing it for the attention!")

I'd love to know what those of you who've fed babies either way have to say about it, and about Salma Hayek's nursing of a baby that wasn't hers.

(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)
        

Your infant has been crying -- a lot. That's what babies do. But how do you know if your baby actually has colic? I asked Dr. Charles Shubin, director of pediatrics at Mercy FamilyCare, a division of Family Health Centers of Baltimore, to provide today's Consult.

Colic, Shubin explained, is not a defined medical disease but a diagnosis that's made when doctors and parents have ruled out other reasons for a baby's discomfort. But here are some of the signs he said might lead you to talk to your pediatrician about colic: Your baby is 1 to 4 months of age; she cries for long periods at a time, after you've tried feeding her, burping her and changing her to help; and the extended crying has something of a daytime pattern that often occurs in the late afternoon and early evening. "They cry continuously or a lot, or they're not well consolable," Shubin said.

What can you do if the doctor can't find a physical cause of discomfort and says your child does have colic? Shubin says some parents have had success swaddling the baby -- wrapping her tightly in a blanket like a burrito, which you might have done when she was first born. Vibrating baby chairs and swings might also calm the baby, but Shubin cautions that you shouldn't prop the infant on top of a clothes dryer -- the vibrations might be soothing, but the baby could fall off.

The good news is that time is on a parent's side. Most babies stop extended crying at about the time they learn to sleep through the night, around 4 months, Shubin said. If yours is still crying for hours every day much beyond that, it's time to talk to your doctor again.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, The Monday Consult
        

If you're expecting or just had a baby, you'll want to check out this piece from the Boston Globe that examines which is better for the environment -- disposable diapers, or cloth. The story may leave you more confused than ever, though, because it says it's far from clear that one has a better overall carbon footprint than the other.

There's a useful discussion among parents who have used both kinds of diapers here.

(Associated Press photo/Danny Johnston)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

Infertility is a growing problem that some of you have probably faced. So it may be no news to you that there's an emerging network of blogs dedicated to the quest for a positive pregnancy test, as our story says today.

It's an incredibly intimate subject, so the anonymity-yet-community of the blogosphere seems the perfect forum for sharing tips and travails about this. Have you visited infertility blogs?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Expecting
        

That's the message of this interesting (but -- warning -- long) Reason magazine piece about the coming "depopulation" crisis. It says, in essence, that after worrying about overpopulation for years, countries around the world now fear alling fertility rates (though not so much in the U.S.). In turn, gender roles in those countries are changing.

If we move to Europe to have our babies, the article says, the moms among us might get a lot of great bennies (time off, subsidized day care, etc.) ... but also, a not-so-subtle message to "return to home and hearth."

What do you think?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Expecting
        

Need dinner delivery after your own delivery? Let's Dish!, the meal-assembly company, has an offer for new moms -- free delivery of its 8-meal DishDelivery orders for up to three months after a baby is born.

Details and rules of the offer are on the Let's Dish blog.

If you know someone who's expecting, a nice group gift might be to spring for the meals, then take advantage of the offer for free delivery of them. I know that when I had babies, all I really wanted was for dinner to be taken care of (and cleanup too!).

When my first was born, one of our favorite gifts was a big spiral sliced ham with biscuits, with a tray of fresh fruit. Whenever we were hungry and had a moment to eat, we'd grab it.

What food gifts have you received in the early days of having a baby that you liked best?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Food and Recipes
        

This ABC news piece brings some discouraging news for expecting parents: Just 16 percent of employers offer fully paid, six-week maternity leaves, according to a study by the Families and Work Institute -- compared to 27 percent a decade ago.

The study also found that despite technological advances that might make more working from home and job-sharing possible, employers aren't offering more of those options. One upside: employers are becoming more accommodating to mothers who need private spaces to breastfeed (or pump, I gather).

As our economic picture gets bleaker, I imagine it will be harder for some employees to feel they can leave their jobs for long to have a baby or care for a family member. In retrospect, I feel supremely lucky to have been able to take 6 months or so with each child. Yet I would love to have been able to take more time.

How much time did you take for your maternity leaves?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: Babies and Toddlers, Expecting, Work-life balance
        

Our expecting friend Amy asked an interesting question the other day that you may have missed:

Any suggestions on how to gently decline Mother's Day wishes when one is still about a month away from being a mom? I know folks have the best of intentions, and I am probably just being superstitious, but it doesn't quite feel right yet...

I never faced this one myself -- because my first baby was born in early spring, I wasn't pregnant on Mother's Day. But I'm sure many of you were. What did you say when someone wished you Happy Mother's Day before you were actually a mom?

I guess I would have done what I did when people meant well but had other kinds of unwanted things to say or do. Like touching my belly when I didn't really know them. Or saying I was obviously carrying a boy or a girl. Or telling me their delivery horror stories.

I'd just smile, smile, smile, until they stopped or went away.

Anyone have advice for Amy?

(Photo of Bono kissing Gwen Stefani's belly at the 2006 Grammy Awards, by Richard Hartog, Associated Press)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: Expecting
        

Thanks for all the great comments, gear recommendations and other pieces of advice for Amy and other moms (and dads) to be. I'm sure we all appreciate them, with the possible exception of Amy's friends and relatives, who will now have to deal with a supersized registry of all your suggested items.

Even with all those recommendations I found myself wanting to know more about some of the gear (Lea Orlando, what's a bumbo seat?). So I'll do a little more research and save that list for later. Meanwhile, with your comments and some advice I've been thinking about, there's more than enough for a tip sheet on Things We Wish We'd Known before that first baby came.

Here goes. (Click below for the list and see why in the world Coco Chanel is pictured in her little black dress. ...):

Continue reading "Tip Sheet Thursday: Advice for the expecting" »

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
        

Well, ladies, we can't say that on some level we haven't wished for this....

Did you see the pregnant man on Oprah yesterday? If not, you can catch up on Thomas Beatie's story here. Beattie says he is a transgender male from Oregon who kept his female reproductive organs. Because his previously-married wife could no longer conceive, he told Oprah, they had him artificially inseminated. The baby girl is due this summer.

The couple are also telling their story in this week's People magazine.

Obviously this is a very unique case, but do you think it will give men more awareness of what mothers go through to bear children?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Expecting
        

There's an interesting story on the Los Angeles Times web site today about parents wrestling with the circumcision decision. It's interesting to read the statistics behind the debate: In 1965, the story says, 85 percent of boys born in the U.S. were circumcised. In 2005, slightly more than half were.  

How did you make this decision for your son/s? And if you're expecting a boy, is this a topic of debate in your house as birth approaches?

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)
        

The Chicago Tribune reports that by tricking the body with medication, herbs, or pumping, adoptive mothers can breastfeed a child without giving birth. The newspaper included stories of mothers who made it work.

This Web site is dedicated to supporting the practice. Here's an older story about adoptive breastfeeding from the Web site of Mothering magazine.

Have any of you readers who've adopted tried to breastfeed? Were you successful? I'm interested in the pros and cons.

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Adoption, Babies and Toddlers, Expecting
        

The Associated Press reports that because of concerns about a chemical used to make plastic baby bottles, glass bottles are making a comeback. But there are concerns about those, too -- they're breakable, for one thing, and more expensive.

Have you used glass baby bottles? Let us know the pros and cons, and if you have any local sources for them, please share in a comment below.

(Associated Press photo of Dr. Brown's Natural Flow glass bottles)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

You may have missed Amy's great comment over the weekend. She's an expectant mom who would like a blog category for moms to be. She rightly points out that she probably has more time now to read the blog than she will when her baby comes in June. And now's when she could use our help with the following:

I'd love to know of a local place to look for cribs and such so I don't have to resort to a chain. I'd love to know if any Baltimore moms use diaper services (I've had a hard time finding any on the internet) or use gdiapers to try to be a bit more green ...?

 Does anyone have advice for Amy? (She got two good tips under her comment already, but I know there's more intel out there.) Please give us some ideas for her crib purchase, which as we all know is one of the most important and nerve-racking a new mom will ever make. And I'd love to hear about cloth diaper services; I'd like to post more on green parenting later, but if you have any leads now I'm sure readers could use them. Meanwhile, there's now a new Expecting category along the right rail, where you'll find posts of use to families awaiting a new addition. Thanks for the idea!

(Sun file photo, 2006, of Graco Windsor Travel Lite Crib)

Posted by Kate Shatzkin at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Expecting