NEWS: Amber Alert In Mass. For Infant Boy

7/14/2011
UPDATE: Man arrested and child and mom found safe according to Enterprise News.

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7/13/2011
8:45pm

Massachusetts State Police have issued an Amber Alert for Raymond Slocum, a four-month-old boy. Raymond's father, Matthew Slocum, is wanted by New York officials fhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifor questioning in a triple homicide.

Police said Slocum abducted his son and his girlfriend Loretta Colegrove, the boy's mother in NY and then drove off to Mass. Raymond was last seen in Adams, Massachusetts, in a black 2003 Ford Mustang two-door, with New York license plate DED1769, a Reuters' article wrote.

NEWS: Target Recalls TWO Circo-Brand Items

Target announced a new Circo-brand recall today, add this to the Circo Booster Seat recall from June 15, this one on their Aloma Infant Girls Sandals. No injuries have been reported yet.

The sandals have decorative white plastic flowers attached to the toes and side areas. The flowers can be detached and pose a choking hazard. For a full refund, bring the shoes into any Target.

An additional 10 injuries have been reported since Target's 2009 recall of the Circo Child Booster Seats, bringing the total number of injuries to 18. The additional injuries prompted Target to expand the recall of the product from those seats sold between Dec. 2008 and June 2009, to all seats sold as far back as 2005. The constant issue is the restraint buckle or safety buckle can suddenly detach and allow the child to topple out. This could pose some serious consequences depending on the circumstances, so Target's pretty lucky there haven't been any permanent disabling or fatal injuries.

Visit the Consumer Safety Product Commission for more information on these and all recalls.

NEWS: Musical Shaker Recall

About 9,000 of these Woodstock Percussion shakers are being recalled because they pose a choking hazard and can cut babies. No injuries were reported, however.

The handle of these shakers can detach and expose a rough edge that can cut babies/children/whomever. If detached, there are other " small steel pellets and a plastic plug" that pose a choking hazard as well.

The shakers are made in China, even though the company is a NY-based one. Contact Woodstock Percussion for a $7 refund if you own one of these and stop using the product ASAP, the company warns.

Full recall here.

NEWS: Genderless Baby?

I really don't understand the real point of this one. This family wants to raise their child "genderless" until it becomes necessary to make the sex of their child public. The full story is here.

Ok.....why is it such a big deal to be a girl and act like a girl and know that the baby is a girl? Or boy? People get so wound up in gender-roles, I get it, but that doesn't mean you can't be a scrappy girl or a bit butch just because you know you're a girl. I used to be in a skirt, with short hair, running after boys I liked and beating up the ones I didn't. Did that make me friendless and made fun of? Only sometimes, but most of the time I was able to convince a few other girls to join me in my fun.

And this therapist Susan Stiffelman brings up a good point, what about the siblings that know the gender of this baby and are told to keep it a secret? Stiffelman says, "...there's the contradiction that they want to raise their children with a sense of freedom and a lack of restraint in terms of gender expectations and, at the very same time... they are confining their other children."

Is this a family reaching for 15 minutes of fame and doing so using their child? Possibly. Is this a human/social experiment with their own child? Definitely. And to me that is just wrong. They are experimenting with their child's happiness and thrusting this newborn into the public view in an unfavorable way. As parents we're meant to protect our children, not force them from day one into the limelight with a giant question mark.

NEWS: Reannouncement of Maclaren Stroller Recall (2009)

Additional fingertip amputations and cuts have caused the Maclaren company to reannounce their stroller recall from November 2009. An additional 112 injury incident reports have been filed since 2009, making the total reported injuries at 137.

About a million strollers are being recalled in total (from before 2009 and now) after a total of 17 fingertip amputations were reported and multiple laceration and finger-entrapment and bruising reports.

The strollers being recalled are the double-wide and single-wide umbrella strollers.

For many women, buying a stroller brand new is not an option. If you buy a used stroller, however, make sure there are no recalls on the item by checking online through the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission website.

NEWS: BPA Linked to Baby Breathing Issues

So all that water I was drinking while I was preggo could lead to my little one wheezing, how sad. :( I hope not! I was good and bought a metal water bottle, but I quickly found it wasn't dishwasher safe (the exterior) and wound up reverting back to my plastic water bottles at least three out of the five work days. Hopefully nothing will happen to the little one because of it, but researchers from Penn State University Hershey Medical School, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and Simon Fraser University found that exposure to BPA while in the womb could lead to childhood wheezing. Yikes!

[What is BPA? Click here]

The study reads that 398 children and their mothers were studied and 99 percent of the moms had detectable BPA levels during their pregnancy. The higher the level of BPA the more wheezing. Although this is far from a large study, the presence of wheezing definitely begs the question, what is happening to the development of the lungs in these babies? That much is unclear and what's also strange is the wheezing did appear to diminish with age (after 6 months).

My daughter doesn't wheeze, thankfully, and besides water bottles there are a number of ways to get BPA in one's system, so hopefully if I had any it wasn't enough to amount to much. Hopefully for you all too!