A Bouncing Bundle of Kidnappable Joy

Hi Readers! Feeling a little sane and optimistic today? Shame on you! It is your DUTY, as an AMERICAN to live in a state of CONSTANT FEAR for your children starting the minute they pop out! To that end,  here CNN explains how to avoid the scourge of baby snatchings.

Well, maybe scourge is not exactly the right word. Eventually the network admits that baby snatchings happened all of once last year, and three times the year before (in a country where about 4 million children are born annually). But, hey! That’s no reason to EVER let down your guard. Because “HALF” of all these snatchings — i.e., I guess, half of the baby last year — occur in the mom’s own room! So please, new mom, for God’s sake never go to the bathroom “EVEN FOR A SECOND” (thanks, CNN!) without bringing your baby with you, or summoning someone to GUARD the little snatchable.  Because your distrust of EVERYONE at ALL TIMES must NEVER LET UP!

What happens when you DON’T pay close enough attention? Well, if it isn’t immediately clear to you, you silly sap, here’s a note from a reader that should open your all-too-trusting eyes:

Dear Free-Range Kids: Speaking of doctor craziness. 3 weeks ago I gave birth to my 3rd child. I thought I had seen it all, until they gave me a card with several blood dots on it. They gave me a sealed sample of my newborns blood “in case he gets taken, you have a DNA sample for identification.” Um… So congratulations on your baby, here’s a DNA sample for the foregone assumption that one day he’ll be kidnapped and killed. WTH? Why are we so freaked out that we’re providing DNA samples at birth now? It wasn’t done 5 years ago when I had my last baby. Culture of fear. — A Reader in Oregon

So, new  moms, here’s the drill: GUARD your baby at all times. SUSPECT EVERYONE of nefarious motives. ASSUME your baby is the focus of the world’s evil intentions. And remember: Your darling could STILL end up in a ditch.

But don’t forget to coo at their tiny little toes! — L.

“For the Good of the Children”??

Hi Readers — Just had to share the story I heard yesterday when I went to get some blood drawn. (I’m fine.)

The phlebotomist and I started chatting and somehow she ended up telling me that three weeks ago her 6-year-old son badly burned himself when he accidentally spilled a bowl of soup into his lap. His dad rushed him to the hospital — they got there at 10 at night. And there they waited for three hours, the boy crying and crying.

“My husband is not very loud,” explained the phlebotomist, meaning, her husband is not very assertive. So it took her arrival, three hours later (she was at work, far away), to shake things up. “WHY HASN’T MY SON BEEN SEEN BY A DOCTOR?” she screamed.

The answer? (Sit down.) “The social worker hasn’t arrived yet.”

Yes, the social worker. Who apparently had to interview the child about  whether his parents had done this to him — scalded him — BEFORE the hospital could treat him.

Maybe this was legally required. If so, damn the law. Maybe it WASN’T legally required. If so, damn the hospital. But basically: Damn us. Damn a society that is so obsessed with abuse that it ends up abusive.

It’s fine to ask the kid what happened. I’d like to ferret out abuse, too. (I do worry about, deliberately or not, the child being mislead into an accusation. But that’s for another post.) My point is: USE COMMON SENSE! Do this AFTER someone has taken care of the child’s PAIN!

The idea of a 6-year-old going through that is hell. But hey — at least the hospital was following protocol. — L.

Wow! Many Kids Possibly Mis-Diagnosed as “Allergic”

Hi Readers! This is news to me: The well-regarded St. Louis Children’s Hospital has a program whereby they take kids who have tested positive for food allergies to see if they really ARE allergic. To that end, they feed the kids a steadily increasing amount of the allergen for hours on end, while closely monitoring them for adverse reactions. Turns out that in about half the cases, there aren’t any.

Well I’ll be a Mr. Goodbar! Another study, published last month in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (no, I don’t read it — I heard about it in the same story I just linked to, above), the University of Manchester performed these “food challenges” on 79 kids who’d tested positive, via a skin or blood test, for peanut allergies. Guess how many turned out NOT to be allergic?

A whopping 66 of them! That means only 13 WERE allergic!

The problem — the BIG problem, it sounds like, to me — is that blood tests measure the antibodies present when a particular allergen is introduced, and skin tests measure hives produced by a prick with the food extract. But it turns out that merely producing antibodies doesn’t mean a person will have any other symptoms, and neither do hives produced via prick. Who knew?

Anyway, I alert us to this info not because I want anyone doubting the veracity of another child’s diagnosis, but only so parents can be aware that perhaps their kids are not living under the allergen-covered Sword of Damocles. I only wish it were easier for the kids to take this “challenge,”  to see if they can relax and eat what they want. (Apparently the waiting list can be a year.) Fewer allergic kids could also mean fewer schools having to outlaw peanuts or homemade goodies. Anything that brings homemade cupcakes back into the mix is something I can get behind. — Lenore

Is the allergy test nuts? PHOTO: Gilles Gonthier. CREDIT: http://bit.ly/ctkHiD

Outrage of the Week: Maternity Ward Edition

Hi Readers! Here you go!

Dear Free-Range Kids: I just had my first child a couple of months ago and within a day had our first experience with extreme safety proponents. I was in the hospital and a friend had come to meet my son. We decided to go on a walk around the ward, just so that I could stretch my legs. I picked up my son and we had a nice stroll around the ward. As we were heading back to my room one of the nurses yelled at me for carrying my baby around. Apparently, in that hospital, infants are only safe if they are transported in bassinets. Parents need not apply.

I’m sure this is only the beginning! — J.

It sure is, J. But congrats on starting the journey! (Even if the hospital says you did it wrong.)– Lenore