April 16, 2011

Saturday Surfing

My house is a disaster and I have tons of work to do, but I have a bunch of things I want to share this week, so better late than never, right?

Cesarean Rates by State, 2009 on The Unnecessarian
DIY Paint Chip Easter Garland on Modern Parents, Messy Kids – A super easy, cheap, and cute Easter craft. What a creative idea!
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dumpster By Corbyn Hightower on Shareable – A post about how a woman who used to make 6-figures now dumpster dives for food so that she can keep her family on an organic diet. Also interesting is the film Dive! about the 96 billion pounds of food per year (a.k.a. 3,000 lbs per second) that we throw away in America.
Organic Junk Food is Healthier !? on Fooducate – This post really hit home for me after seeing Honest Kids drinks at a kids’ party recently. Ogranic or not, it’s nothing more than sugar water. Just because something is organic, does not mean it’s good for you…
Podcasts for Breastfeeding By Alison Stuebe, MD, MSc – Free iTunes Podcast to help with milk production. No kidding, this works!!! This tape is from a 1998 study by Stephen Feher, which studied 71 mothers whose infants were admitted to neonatal intensive care in two New Mexico hospitals. All mothers were given standard information about pumping for their infants. The 38 mothers randomly assigned to the study group were asked to listen to a 20-minute relaxation recording each day. The 31 moms in the control group did not get a tape. Moms in the relaxation tape group made an average of 90.1 ccs (about 3 ounces) – compared with only 55.4 ccs in the control group, for an average difference in milk production of 63%. Feher and his colleagues found that the tape was even more effective among mothers of babies who were so sick that they were on a mechanical ventilator – mothers who were asked to listen to the relaxation tape made 121% more milk than those who were not. They also found that the more frequently a mother listened to the tape, the more milk she was able to make.
A Simple Skirt Tutorial on MADE – I’m making one of these (or two or three!) this week!!!
The Super Green List: Connecting Human and Ocean Health – The Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Harvard School of Public Health and Environmental Defense Fund provide information on which fish is best to eat (most sustainable, least contaminated, etc.).
Too Young for Finance? Think Again By Ron Lieber for the New York Times – Teaching kids about money…with Elmo. Lieber interviewed Elmo about Sesame Street’s new focus on teaching preschoolers about money management. Watch the interview here.