CNN Cares About Molly's Teeth

This is one of the stupider things I've read today: A CNN article fawns over a study that recommends that babies transition "off the bottle" at 9 months in order to prevent tooth decay. If you read the article carefully, you will note that the author of the article (Miriam Falco) expands this recommendation to include weaning from breastfeeding, though it is not clear to me whether the study in question makes that claim.

Forget that the WHO recommends that babies continue to breast feed for up to two years (6 months exclusively, then gradually tapering off during the transition to an all-solid diet) and the AAP recommends a full 12 months. These recommendations do not appear in the CNN article, nor does any discussion of infant nutrition. It is solely focused on tooth decay.


It just seems like another example of the trend toward cutting people up into discreet symptoms instead of treating them as whole people. This researcher set out to study tooth decay, found that tooth decay in toddlers is often linked to the way they imbibe fluids, and concludes that pediatricians should change the way toddlers drink. Nutrition is not important because that was not the focus of the study. Then, Miriam Falco at CNN writes a lazy article that does not provide any additional information, lumps in bottles of juice with breastfeeding, and publishes it. Today, 10,000 fretting grandmothers are emailing the story to new parents whose kids are perfectly happy still breastfeeding at 1 year. Hopefully, the parents have the reading comprehension skills to notice how silly this article is.

In the Womb

FB and I just watched the National Geographic documentary In the Womb. Meh. It was not great.

Some of the footage was interesting, particularly the 3-D and 4-D scans, but the whole thing dragged on a bit. The segment on the second trimester was especially protracted.

I wish there had been more context. For the most part, the narration played over the same dozen computer-animated clips over and over again, without offering a lot of comparative information. The most interesting parts were when the camera ventured outside the womb to show an in-utero surgical procedure or . . . well, that was really the only time. There were 1,000 shots of pregnant women's abdomens — strangely, every woman in this movie wears midriff-baring shirts for the duration of her pregnancy — but those clips were generally static and context-free.

I would have liked to see more charts and graphs, more discussion of complications, and more discussion of worldwide practices and statistics. I suppose they wanted to focus on the "typical" development of a single fetus, but it was frustratingly vague and general. The narrator didn't even offer basic information like how much the baby weighed at birth, which took away from the particular birth story. If they wanted to do general development, they should have included more statistics and variations; if they wanted to showcase a particular case as typical, they should have given the specific details.

In all, it was unsatisfying. And long (90 minutes). And I found the weird blue, zappy-sounding neuron theme really unsettling.

16 and Pregnant

Ok, let's be honest: I watch 16 and Pregnant. I have my TiVo set up to catch it so that I won't miss an episode if I go to bed at 8:00.

I find this show incredibly depressing/infuriating, and I can only hope that teenagers who watch it are getting the same message I am: your expectations for your deadbeat boyfriend are totally unreasonable. I don't think it glamorizes teen pregnancy at all.

Anyway, I happened across an article about the show that showcased a novel criticism. Jami Quesenberry, mother of eight, says of 16 and Pregnant:

I found those shows so depressing that I am afraid they may encourage abortion . . . The one girl who responsibly decided to put her baby up for adoption, at least in the episode I watched of ‘Teen Mom,’ was still depressed with her decision after five months . . . The other mothers [on the show] had lives that seemed stifling . . . If a teen watched that show, she may decide to terminate her pregnancy rather than go through what these teens are going through.

Well played, madam. Quesenberry has blocked the show in her home, presumably so that her eight children don't get the wrong idea about teenage pregnancy being all depressing and shit.

Adorable

Focus Features has a new documentary called Babies coming out next year. The film will follow four babies (one from Namibia, one from Japan, one from Mongolia, and one from the US) from birth through their first birthdays. It doesn't seem to be overly analytical —more of an extended awww opportunity than a hard-hitting investigation.

The trailer is beautiful.

I especially enjoy the Mongolian baby's squishy cheeks.

Also, the American baby's name is Hattie, which is another name I love but FB doesn't (even though he has Harriets in his family tree and I most certainly do not).

Health Care

I have very good health coverage. I'm on FB's plan at his very solid job and am double-insured by my university, which allows me free, unlimited doctor's visits at the on-campus clinic. Also, we have some savings, so we could afford minor medical care even if our insurance fell through.

I am very lucky.

Most Americans are not nearly as fortunate as I am. Everyone in this country (including me) knows someone who has been shat upon by an insurance company. My complaints have been minor — my old insurance would only pay for birth control if I picked up the Pill at their pharmacy, one goddamn month at a time, their customer service reps were completely unable to deal with changes of name and address, they diagnosed FB with pneumonia by sending him a snail mail letter nearly a month after performing the tests, etc.

Other people have bigger problems. Some get their claims denied outright. Some die as a result.

But most people who get suffer at the hands of insurance companies aren't murdered — they're robbed. Take Sarah Wildman, who purchased maternity insurance, only to get stuck with a bill for $22,000 after the plan that promised to cover pre-natal care, delivery, and post-natal care covered none of those things. As a self-employed writer (some would say entrepreneur), she was not protected by the regulations governing employer-based insurance. Luckily, she was protected by having a soapbox from which she could tell a few million readers about the bandits at Blue Cross.

The point is that health care in America is broken. You may not like the Obama reform bill, but the cost of doing nothing is too high. What alternative have the Republicans offered? The status quo is not good enough.

I get so angry when I see things like this:
Conservative economist Arthur Laffer went on CNN today and said,

If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government.

A few points:

• WTF is your problem with the Post Office? For less than the cost of a pack of gum, I can send a letter anywhere in the United States. All I have to do is lick a stamp and put the envelope in the mail slot 10 steps from my front door. There's a fairly compelling argument to be made that American democracy could never have flourished without the efficiency of the USPS, so lay off.
• Waiting in line at the DMV sucks — it's the worst system, except for all the others. FB's mentor is an immigrant from India and he has repeatedly professed his undying love for the DMV. In the US, everybody waits in the same line and fills out the same form and, if you pass the tests and pay the very reasonable fees, you get the ID or license you wanted. In India, you have to know someone who knows someone and pay exorbitant bribes just to get a chance to bribe someone who might give you a license if he's feeling charitable. The DMV is a drag, but it's democratic.
• Medicare and Medicaid are already run by the government. Since I am unwilling to believe that Laffer doesn't already know that, I can only conclude that he is trying to muddle the issue in the minds of the elderly.
• If you're going to moan and complain about the government mismanaging everything it touches, intellectual honesty demands that you go on CNN and tell everyone just how shitty the military is.
  

The current state of health care in America is unsustainable. We can have honest debates about the type of reform we want, but the need for reform is indisputable. People who are screaming bloody murder about fascism and euthanasia need to take a good hard look at their own motives.

Har Har

Today, CNN has an article featuring 43 strange or inappropriate things that people have said during job interviews. Though these remarks are billed as "laugh-out-loud hysterical" and "jaw dropping," most of them are pretty innocuous. Asked to describe himself in three words, an honest candidate says, "I hate questions like this." Who doesn't? Another admits that he is homeless and living in a "gypsy camp," so he cannot give a permanent address. Are you shrieking with laughter yet?

But my favorite was this one:

"Can I get a tour of the breast pumping room? I heard you have a great one here and while I don't plan on having children for at least 10 or 12 years, I will definitely breast feed and would want to use that room."

LOLZ! A woman betrays an interest in the company's accommodations for mothers of young children, then realizes her mistake and assures the interviewer that she has no immediate plans to become a mother (because she wants the job). What a "weird" thing to say in a job interview!

I don't know why this stupid little article hit me so hard — maybe it was the tone of unbridled, compassionless glee at the hapless job candidates who do things like ask about benefits or reveal that they're going through hard times. At a time when so many people are looking for work, it seems in bad taste.
Bite me, CNN.