Palaestra articles from July 1999

Palaestra archives from July 1999

AN EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE.
July 1, 1999... IN THE DAYS AND WEEKS FOLLOWING THE Columbine shootings, everyone walked around in a daze. Some watched everything on TV. Others didn't talk about it. We were all in shock. No one knew what to think. I had written the editorial "Children...

YOUR LETTERS.
July 1, 1999... Love Letters I was introduced to Mothering 18 years ago by my midwife when I was pregnant with my twins. In fact, you published a story on their birth! Now, here I am again-expecting a new baby in June at the age of 41. I was hoping...

ERRATA.(Corrections to May-June 1999 issue:)(To p. 45)(To "Full Palette," p. 40)(To "High school hero")(To "Circumcision isn't necessary, academy decides," p.32)(Tp "Hepatitis B vaccine: more dangerous than the disease?" p. 34)
July 1, 1999... Environmental Building News, listed as a resource on page 45 of the May-June 1999 issue, doesn't offer pamphlets or a newsletter as reported. They do, however, offer an article, "Carpeting, Indoor Air Quality, and the Environment," which is...

Expelling the Corporate Bucks.
July 1, 1999... PUBLIC EDUCATION HAS A NEW FOE: corporate culture. The nonprofit Center for Commercial-Free Public Education reports that Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and Taco Bell may be sneaking into your child's cafeteria -- and classroom. Across the nation,...

Doctors Need Teachers, Too.
July 1, 1999... IF REFLEXOLOGY IS NOT IN YOUR doctor's vocabulary, tell her it should be. Of 109 physicians who participated in a recent Office of Alternative Medicine study at Hennepin County Medical Center, 58.7 percent agreed that they should be...

Shining Lights.
July 1, 1999... IN THE HEART OF A CITY CHALLENGED by racial divisiveness, Operation Understanding DC is working to illuminate the blessings of diversity. The nonprofit works specifically with African American and Jewish teens, drawing on the connection the two...

New American Dream.
July 1, 1999... "HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?" IN ASKING this question, the Center for a New American Dream hopes to motivate Americans to protect the environment and improve the quality of their lives by consuming less. In its effort to help people reduce and...

Let There Be Sleep.
July 1, 1999... GETTING A GROGGY TEENAGER OUT of bed and off to school is a struggle to which many parents can relate. But while most parents prod their children to go to bed earlier, one is pushing schools to start later. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren has...

Cesarean Rates Now On-line.
July 1, 1999... FOR A WOMAN WHO WANTS THE EXPERIENCE of a vaginal birth, the thought of having a cesarean can be a source of anxiety or fear. A new Web site seeks to empower women by identifying cesarean rates for hospitals in two states, New York and...

Vaccination Maze.
July 1, 1999... A BABY BORN IN 1998 WHO RECEIVES ALL recommended vaccinations will undergo 24 inoculations by the age of 16. That's twice as many inoculations as a baby born just a decade ago. So why not combine all of the vaccines in a single shot? One...

Tyson Family Update.
July 1, 1999... IN SEPTEMBER 1998, KATHLEEN TYSON of Eugene, Oregon, tested positive for as six months pregnant at HIV. She was six months pregnant at the time and took the recommended antiretroviral medication for six weeks before discontinuing. Her healthy...

Ending Mercury Madness.
July 1, 1999... IF YOU THINK MERCURY POISONING DISAPPEARED WITH MILLINERS OF OLD, consider this: Over 37 states have rated their fish unsafe to eat due to contamination by the toxin. Health Care Without Harm suggests one small step toward halting the damage:...

Bad News for Bottles.
July 1, 1999... JUST BECAUSE A PRODUCT IS CLEAR does not mean it is pure. In a recent Consumer Reports study, heated bottles made from polycarbonate, a clear rigid plastic, were shown to leach the chemical bisphenol-A into simulated baby formula. Bisphenol-A...

No Sweat.
July 1, 1999... AS A FOLLOW-UP TO MOTHERING'S May-June Bulletin on sweatshops, here are some organizations that are working for change: Corporate Watch, c/o Transnational Resource and Action Center PO Box 29344, San Francisco, CA 94129 Tel:...

mysting.
July 1, 1999... FAMILY LIFE AS A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE Three other men and I have taken the morning off to meet in the local Starbucks to drink mochas and lattes and reflect on The Meaning of Life. In another time and place, we might have been tilting out...

Fever in Children: A BLESSING IN DISGUISE.
July 1, 1999... A BLESSING IN DISGUISE Fever is not a disease but rather a symptom of an illness. We have devoted this section to fevers for three reasons. First, childhood fevers frighten grownups. Second, fever is maligned and misunderstood. Finally,...

A Toddler Picnic.
July 1, 1999... FINGER FOODS FOR THE YOUNGER SET What better way to celebrate summer than to take the kids on a picnic? Eating outdoors is always a treat for everyone. And no one enjoys a change in dining scenery more than young children. This menu...

Homemade Toys.
July 1, 1999... why nothing can beat a paper pinwheel When I told the students in my fourth grade class we were going to be making kites, they were both excited and skeptical. None of them had had much experience with homemade toys, so they assumed kites...

EPIDEMIC epidural.
July 1, 1999... DRUGS IN LABOR: ARE THEY REALLY NECESSARY... OR EVEN SAFE? The use of epidurals is so common today that many perinatal professionals are calling the 1990s the age of the epidural epidemic. Believed by many in the medical profession to be...

comfort measures for LABOR.
July 1, 1999... WOMEN respond differently to labor, depending on the nature of their labors, their sense of readiness, their coping styles, and their goats and expectations. As you prepare and rehearse for labor, learn various comfort measures and then adapt...

ECO-MAMA.
July 1, 1999... Why Breastfeeding Is Best for Babies... and the Environment In the past few decades we have become increasingly aware of the need to radically alter our lifestyles in order to draw less upon our natural resources. Breastfeeding is probably...

Old Love Letters.
July 1, 1999... I SAW THE BRIEFCASE NEARLY EVERY DAY. IT SAT ON THE FLOOR OF THE CLOSET, gathering dust next to the shoes as I selected a blouse to wear to work or poked around looking for my sandals. Of course I knew what was in it, hut its contents were...

Putting the NAKED Back in Marriage.
July 1, 1999... When we mix together our busy schedules, nursing babies, and an unforgiving budget, my husband and I rarely get away together as the marriage experts advise. Our vacations are usually visits to friends or relatives, or family camp-outs. Our...

TRASH.
July 1, 1999... trash heart the daddies are dreaming the daddies dream they are on the moon dream of big, helium balloons circling this earth. the daddy dreams, wrapped like a baby in the sunday paper,...

REFLECTIONS Adolescence.(Review)
July 1, 1999... Far and away the best current general book on teens is Patricia Hersch's A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescence. From 1992 to 1995, Hersch immersed herself in the teen culture of her hometown, Reston, Virginia, a...

Top-notch Pre-teen Media.
July 1, 1999... VIDEOS AND CD-ROMS WITH A DIFFERENCE THE FOLLOWING VIDEOS AND CD-ROMS WERE CHOSEN FOR Mothering by KIDS FIRST!, a project of the not-for-profit Coalition for Quality Children's Media (CQCM). KIDS FIRST! evaluates children's media utilizing...

Sweet Softness.
July 1, 1999... Snuggling up to Organic Cotton IT'S SUPER SOFT, YES, BUT WHY ELSE BUY ORGANIC COTTON? CONSIDER THIS: Conventional cotton is grown with an enormous amount of toxins. According to the Pesticide Action Network, it consumes 10 percent of the...

Living Treasures: William G. Crook.
July 1, 1999... WILLIAM G. CROOK, MD, IS A WORLD-RENOWNED PEDIATRICIAN AND the author of 13 books, including The Yeast Connection and Women and the Yeast Connection Handbook. When Dr. Crook left Johns Hopkins in 1949 and opened his practice in general...