BAD GRANDPA
... and Grandma. They mean well, writes Vanessa Milne, but you might need to update them on these baby safety guidelines.
When Alanna was about 37 weeks pregnant, she was talking to her dad about how she was nervous to go on a road trip, in large part because she hadn’t got around to installing her car seat. Don’t worry, he told her: Car seats are only required for babies born in emergency situations. She didn’t even know what to say. But she understood it was just a generational gap — especially once she watched the 1982 video of Princess Diana being driven away from the hospital holding Prince William in her arms, when car seats weren’t yet mandatory for babies.
Updates to safety guidelines can cause friction between new parents and grandparents, who insist their kids turned out fine. Here are some key recommendations that have changed since your parents had babies.
1
Putting babies to sleep on their stomachs
Doctors used to tell parents to place babies on their stomachs to sleep, so the Back to Sleep campaign, which said putting babies on their backs would lower the risk of SIDS, shocked some, says Richard Stanwick, chair of the Injury Prevention Committee at the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) and chief medical health officer for Island Health in B.C. Canada made the switch after similar campaigns in the U.K. and elsewhere. It was the right move: Since the campaign started in 1999, SIDS rates in Canada have declined by more than half.
2
Using drop-side cribs
Over the years, millions of dropside cribs have been recalled due to safety issues, and have been linked to hundreds of injuries and dozens of deaths. Because drop-side cribs are less likely to be structurally sound, babies have been strangled and suffocated from being caught in them. At the end of 2016, Health Canada made it illegal to sell them — new or used — or give them away. And Health Canada and CPS recommend putting only your baby — no pillows, blankets, stuffies or bumper pads — inside the non-drop-side crib to ensure a safe night’s sleep. 3
Using baby powder
Baby powder used to be ubiquitous, but now the American Academy of Pediatrics and Canadian pediatricians recommend against it, because the powder can get into babies’ lungs. That’s especially worrisome for preemies and asthmatic babies. U.S. lawsuits have also linked talcum powder (found in some baby powders) with cancer, but the connection remains unclear.
4
Spanking
In the early 1990s, Statistics Canada found about 50 per cent of parents spanked their children. Since then, research has shown the discipline tactic doesn’t change kids’ behaviour, and it can actually be harmful. A metaanalysis from 2016 looked at 75 studies and found spanking was associated with negative outcomes — including aggression and mental-health issues — in all but one of them.
5
Not following car seat rules Babes could ride in their caregivers’ arms (à la Prince William) until the early 1980s, but Stanwick holds no nostalgia for that era. “I did my residency in the late 1970s, when kids used to sit on their parents’ laps, and I saw a lot of kids die.” Nowadays, car seats are taken for granted, and pediatricians urge parents to keep toddlers rear-facing until at least age two, because rear-facing seats spread the impact of a crash along their body rather than letting the head fling forward — a motion that’s especially damaging to toddlers and babies whose heads are larger and whose spinal cords are more flexible.
6
Introducing solids early What mom hasn’t fought with a well-meaning grandmother who secretly slipped her baby a bite of applesauce? (“He looked hungry!”) In the late 1960s, mothers started giving their kids purées as early as one month old, and in the 1980s, they were told to start giving their infants solids at three or four months. Today, doctors advise parents to wait until around six months old. Starting earlier than that might make a baby consume less breastmilk, which is more important to their diet because it reduces the risk of infections and anemia. Starting solids earlier also increases the chances of choking, and a baby’s gut flora isn’t developed enough to process foods yet at that age. 7 Using teething gels When you were teething, your mom probably relied on teething gel that numbed your gums to soothe the pain — and silence your crying. But over-the-counter teething gels often contain Benzocaine, which can cause methemoglobinemia, a rare but serious condition that can dangerously lower oxygen levels in the bloodstream. Teething gels are approved for toddlers over age two, but for a baby, stick to a chilled teething ring.