Strollerderby : crying babies

Baby-Crying Contest Held in Tokyo

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:00:00 GMT

I’m sure there are oodles of jokes just begging to be cracked about this story. I’m just a little too disturbed to think of them. Yesterday, at the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo, babies faced off in a popular annual contest involving amateur Sumo wrestlers. In case you’re unfamiliar with the sport of “Baby-Cry Sumo,” here’s how it works: parents turn over their infants to Sumo wrestlers, who make the babies cry by gently shaking them and scaring them with their giant stranger faces. The baby who cries the loudest is the champion! Would we expect anything less from the country that brought us vending machines selling live turtles and human breast milk? (Disclaimer: do NOT buy human breast milk from a vending machine in Japan—even if you happen to be eating warm chocolate chip cookies. Trust me on this one.)

The purpose of the contest is to pray that babies will grow up to be strong and healthy, since, according to a Japanese proverb, frequent crying in babies is a sign of good health. (And here I thought it was a sign of colic.)

I’m sure that, in addition to being HI-larious, this story has a lot to teach us about tolerance for other cultures. Perhaps, for instance, “Baby-Cry Sumo” is not so different from handing our youngsters off to a tubby stranger wearing a fake white beard and bright red bodysuit. The only difference is that we don’t want Santa to make the babies cry. We want him to promise them lots of consumer goods.

Then again, I’m still disturbed. How 'bout you?

Photos: Reuters

Parenting From the Left Brain

Amy Kuras — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 20:34:00 GMT

Since moving to this area of town, I've gotten to know several professors at our two local universities and other assorted academic types. Many of them became parents within a year or two of when we did, and it's been interesting to watch how these very intelligent people approach their parenting. It seems to be much the way they approached their dissertation -- every decision is backed up with tons of research and is the result of thoughtfully focused inquiry. It's not my way (I'm very much an emotion-based decisonmaker), but it certainly seems to work well for them and their kids, and beats the hell out of clueless apathy.

So this article in the Chicago Tribune piqued my interest. It looks at "left-brained parenting" – the tendency of scientist-parents to approach the usual parenting problems the same way they would a puzzling issue in the lab.

Physicist Dan Sisan, for example, Googled "colic and crying" and found only about 100 references, while there were something like 12,000 for "black holes."

So he did his own research and posted it on his blog, dansisan.blogspot.com, complete with footnotes and everything. "Since both black holes and crying babies are singularities that suck in all nearby resources," he wrote, "you would think scientists would focus on the ones in people's living rooms before looking 1,600 light years away — wouldn't you?"

One would think, Dan, one would think. But as it turns out, my parents were right after all – babies pretty much cry for no reason at all. And all that folk wisdom we all hear is not actually supported by any valid science.

Not that I didn’t sort of know that already, but its nice to have someone with a lot more IQ points than me validate it with evidence.

Tell Us Something We Don't Know: New Moms Often Feel Lonely and Isolated

Kelly Mills — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 13:36:00 GMT

More than half of 2,000 new moms polled admitted they feel "lonely and isolated." Also: "Nine out of ten also lament the loss of the social life they enjoyed before baby arrived and around two-thirds say they 'feel cut off from normal life'." Is this news? Not that I mind drawing attention to it, since the first year of motherhood is a bitch-and-a-half in a number of ways, but yeah, lonely. This article points to the fact that nowadays we often live far from family and rarely know our neighbors, and I do think that's a big part of it. The idea that two bleary-eyed people whose lives have just changed dramatically should be raising a kid alone seems silly. And note that I'm avoiding using that phrase about it taking villages.

The poll also found that a third felt "tearful" and I'm guessing another third were so sleep-deprived they forgot they just sobbed the morning before. They also discovered the women spent only an average of 90 minutes a day in the company of people other than their spouses. That's actually pretty good. I just remember the supreme effort it took to actually leave the house, what with the giant diaper bag and the nap timing and the inevitable poop explosion as we walked out the door. And then once you make your engagement you're expected to be able to speak coherently and focus on conversations while your baby screams bloody murder. I think this is why moms groups are helpful to some--you need buddies in the trenches.

Tokyo Crying Baby Competition: May the Loudest Bawler Win!

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:33:00 GMT

As far as bizarre human tests of strength and skill go, Japan's ~~creative~~ crazy competitions have everyone beat. From speed drinking to battling large-breasted women to the hot dog-inhaling champ Kobayashi, no one holds a candle to the Japanese.

Is it any surprise then, that an annual crying baby showdown would be held in the land of the rising sun?

For this competition, unsuspecting babies are pitted against each other sumo-style. After being ~~harangued and tormented~~ scarred for life by a priest (let's just let that marinate a moment...), the first baby to lose their shiznit is declared the winner.

Should both babies cry at the same time, the loudest wailer is declared the champ. In the case of the photo to the right, it's not hard to tell who was victorious there. Let's hope that along with the trophy, parents are given access to free counseling services redeemable anytime.

World's Worst Sounds: Surprisingly, My Toddler's Whining Didn't Make the Cut

Stefania Pomponi Butler (CityMama) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 22:02:00 GMT

Researchers in Britain led by acoustic engineering professor Trevor Cox, have spent the past year trying to identify the worst sound in the world. I am shocked that my two-year-old's endless "Nnnnnno! I can do it mySELF!" rantings didn't take top honors. In fact, it didn't even rank.

The top prize actually went to the sound of a person vomiting (realistically recreated by slopping diluted baked beans into a bucket). Second place went to microphone feedback, with crying babies rounding out the top three.

Top 10 Worst Sounds in the World

1. Vomiting
2. Microphone feedback
3. Wailing babies
4. Train scraping on tracks
5. Squeaky seesaw
6. Poorly played violin
7. Whoopee cushion
8. Argument in a soap opera
9. Mains hum
10. Tasmanian devil

(I'm telling you, "whining two-year-old" should at least be above whoopee cushion. And how come "poo-splosion" is nowhere on the list?)

If you care to listen to the worst sounds in the world yourself (or with your family), slap on your headphones (for maxiumum enjoyment), and click here.

[via The Guardian]

A Possible Cure For Colic? Why Didn't You Tell Me Four Years Ago?!?

Alisyn — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:32:00 GMT

File this one under “Why the hell didn’t you tell me this 4 years ago?!” Scientists at the University of Turin, Italy, conducted a study of 83 breastfed, colicky infants divided into two groups: those treated with probiotic, a live culture of a bacteria commonly found in the intestinal tract, and simethicone, a gas remedy.

The babies in the probiotic group, after just one week of receiving five drops of probiotic daily, showed amazing progress. After four weeks, a phenomenal 95% had responded favorably to the treatment, with no negative side effects, compared to just 7% of the babies treated with simethicone. The simethicone babies were crying three times as much as their probiotic counterparts at the end of the 28 day study – 145 minutes daily, as opposed to 51.

Writing for Slate.com, Dr. Sidney Speisel, pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics at Yale University, hypothesizes that antibodies produced by cells in the intestinal walls, which protect us from disease throughout our lives, also produce bacteria which ferment lactose, thus producing gas – and pain – in the intestines. This is thought to be colic. Probiotic may work help lessen the uncomfortable effects of the gas-producing cells with live bacteria.

Speaking as the mother of a colicky baby, who grew up to be a food-sensitive toddler and kid, I have had tremendous success with probiotic. Our pediatrician recommended it as a remedy for a stomach bug when my older daughter was about a year old. She’s four now, and I still use it regularly for stomach aches, diarrhea, and as a preventative if I know she’ll be eating a lot of dairy. For under $10, you can buy 50 capsules that dissolve tastelessly in liquid. I wish I had known enough to turn to probiotic when simethicone left both me and my newborn crying and frustrated.

Probiotic is not yet being prescribed as a “cure” for colic, but may be, pending follow-up research. For millions of desperate parents, and unhappy babies, this may just be the best thing since disposable diapers.