Growth Curve
The inexact science of raising kids
- Health & Medicine
Backwash from nursing babies may trigger infection fighters
A nursing baby’s saliva may get slurped back into mom’s breast, where it stimulates an immune response.
- Health & Medicine
Five reasons to not totally panic about ticks and Lyme disease
We’ve been trained to panic about tick bites and Lyme disease. There are risks to both — and here are some key facts.
- Health & Medicine
Study finds early signs of bookishness in a child’s brain
Children from book-friendly homes show higher brain activity when they hear a story, but there’s more to learn about how reading affects growing brains.
- Health & Medicine
Antibiotics early in life may have lingering effects
A study in mice show long-lasting effects from courses of antibiotics early in life.
- Health & Medicine
In children, a sense of time starts early
Minutes, hours, days and years start to take on new meaning as children acquire a deeper concept of time.
- Health & Medicine
Should you eat your baby’s placenta?
More women are choosing to eat their baby’s placenta after giving birth, but the evidence for benefits isn’t there yet.
- Health & Medicine
Unlike moms, dads tend not to coo in squeaky voices
American English-speaking moms dial up their pitch drastically when talking to their children, but dads’ voices tend to stay steady, a new study finds.
- Health & Medicine
Why breast-feeding really can be easier the second time around
The body remembers how to make milk, a mouse study suggests. Something similar may happen in humans.
- Health & Medicine
Playtime at the pool may boost youngsters’ bodies and brains
Learning to swim early in life may boost kids’ learning in language and math.
- Health & Medicine
Birth-weight boost tied to cleaner air during Beijing Olympics
Babies whose eighth month of gestation fell during the 2008 Beijing Olympics were born slightly heavier than babies born a year earlier or later, a stark indication of the effects of pollution on development.
- Health & Medicine
Children’s cells live on in mothers
A baby's cells knit their way into a mother’s body.
- Health & Medicine
How baby cries bore into mom’s brain
Mouse moms’ brains are sculpted by pups’ pleas for help, which make her into a better mother.
