

New research into "shaken baby syndrome" puts convictions in peril - splat
http://reason.com/news/show/136176.html

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maarek
This headline should read "New Research ... could free hundreds grieving
parents wrongly wrongly convicted of killing their own child."

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ilyak
Why ever shake babies? That's insane.

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diN0bot
i agree with you, but i've seen SO many public service announcements about Do
Not Shake Babies that i've stopped questioning this. now, when i hold babies,
i'm overly cautious not to jostle them.

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btilly
Which is sad. Babies in the first 3 months of life respond very well to the
right kind of jostling. The 5 steps that every new parent should learn are:
Swaddle, roll on Side, make a Shushing sound, Swing the baby back and forth,
then finally Soothe with a pacifier. (I almost never went to the last one.)

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Afton
Babies, like people, start to act differently from one another almost as soon
as their born (earlier, if you ask my wife).

My friends had a colicky baby, and there was simply no way whatsoever to
convince this child not to cry/scream. None. No way. There was no set of
jostling, shushing, swinging, rocking, jiggling, singing, twisting, or hopping
in place that would stop it. And as for the last one, neither of my two
children could ever get the hang of a pacifier.

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dasil003
What about swaddling?

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Afton
> there was simply no way whatsoever to convince this child not to cry/scream

Colicky-ness lasts for months. Everything was tried.

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DannoHung
I wonder if there would be a market for a baby muzzle with some sort of tubing
mechanism to ensure that the little snotball didn't choke to death on their
own mucus.

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dmoney
Assuming you could make it safe, probably. It would need a built in alarm, so
you didn't forget about them for too long. It should be held closed by
electromagnets, so that if the battery runs out it releases.

There would probably be a market for automating lots of other aspects of
parenting as well, but most of them (including the baby muzzle) would probably
be pretty bad ideas.

