Drop-side cribs have been recalled by the thousands this year due to hardware malfunctions that could cause infants to be wedged between the mattress and crib wall.

Aaron Smith and Ben Rooney
CNNMoney.com staff writers

The federal agency in charge of product safety announced the recall of 2.1 million cribs Monday, citing defective hardware that can cause toddlers and infants to suffocate.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission said parents should immediately stop using Stork Craft drop-side cribs, which are made by Stork Craft Manufacturing Inc., of British Columbia, Canada.

About 1.2 million of the cribs have been distributed in the United States and 968,000 units distributed in Canada.

The recall includes about 147,000 Stork Craft drop-side cribs with the Fisher-Price logo, the CPSC said.

Keep Reading...

Mary Peterson's daughters, 3 and 1, will not be getting the new vaccine, she said.

Elizabeth Landau
CNN

Mary Peterson of Des Moines, Washington, doesn't believe the vaccine for the novel H1N1 flu has been studied enough to get it for herself and her daughters, who are 1 and 3 years old.

"I wrestled with it," she said. "I think the side of caution in this case is just waiting until we have more information."

Peterson is one of many parents who are discussing - whether in real life or on Twitter - their skepticism of the vaccine. The vaccine is being distributed as an intranasal spray this week, and will arrive next week in injection form, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, earlier this week.

The CDC and other public health authorities say the new vaccine is safe, and are encouraging everyone to get it, especially those in high risk groups. But experts acknowledge that many people struggle with the decision.

"I bet half the people in the country have concerns," Dr. Mehmet Oz, host of the "Dr. Oz Show" and professor of surgery at Columbia University, told CNN's Anderson Cooper earlier this week.

Keep reading...

Ruby Takanishi
Foundation for Child Development

We've become a nation of fortune tellers. As we enter another month of recession, we look for every potential sign of recovery in the job market. We watch the stock market for patterns pointing to our economic future.

One key measure, however, has been largely left out of our tea leaf reading - the well-being of America's children. Yet how our children fare during and after the recession is a powerful gauge of how we as a nation rose to the challenge.

How much damage will the "recession generation" experience? And are there ways we can minimize it?

A new report from my organization, Foundation for Child Development, is the first report to project the impact of the recession on our children.

The forecast is grim.

This recession will wipe out virtually all the progress made in children's economic well-being since 1975. Not only are family incomes dropping, but the decline will also drag down other areas. Social relationships are projected to become more fractured as home foreclosures force families to move. An increase in violent crime-and cuts in afterschool and summer programs-will threaten children's safety. Obesity is expected to rise as parents rely more on low-cost fast foods. The impact will be especially severe for low-income children of color and immigrant children.

Keep reading

Lindsey Tanner
BlackAmericaWeb.com

A striking new study says almost one in five American four-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age.

Overall, more than half a million four-year-olds are obese, the study suggests. Obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters, too, but the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double that of whites.

The lead author said that rate is worrisome among children so young, even in a population at higher risk for obesity because of other health problems and economic disadvantages.

Read more...

Editor's Note: To hear Erica Hill's full report tune in to AC360 tonight at 10 p.m. ET.

Joyce Alla
The Examiner

In the past few weeks, 6 Cape Cod teens, and 3 teenagers from Mansfield, MA have been caught “sexting,” or sending sexually explicit material via cell phone texts. In all of these cases, police are considering charges of child pornography, which is a felony.

Consider this real-life scenario described by a parent I know. A boyfriend and girlfriend (14 years old) were evidently experimenting with their sexuality, and the girl thought it would be a nice treat to text a topless photo of herself to her beau. The girl then asked the boy, repeatedly, to return the favor with a photo of his private parts. Young love is fickle, and when this couple finally broke up, the girl forwarded the photo of her ex-boyfriend’s private parts to her friends, and so on. So the boy, feeling betrayed, also forwarded his explicit picture to his friends. Who’s guilty in this scenario?

Read more...

Dr. Sanjay Gupta
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

A few years ago, a woman called me in the middle of the night to tell me her son-in-law had been taken to jail. This was a woman I knew pretty well, and I was stunned to hear the story she proceeded to tell me. Her grandchild (his daughter) had been found unconscious at the house and taken to the hospital. Doctors there quickly figured out the child had been shaken. Just a few months old, her little neck muscles had not been strong enough to stabilize her head, which in young children is relatively bigger with respect to their bodies. She developed a blood collection on her brain and shearing of small blood vessels deep inside. Ultimately, she never recovered; she died in her mother’s arms. The little girl’s dad had been the only one in the home and subsequently admitted to handling the child in a rough manner when she was persistently crying.

In a moment of anger, he had killed his child and essentially sentenced himself to imprisonment. As a dad, I can’t imagine the incredible grief he is still suffering today, so many years later. As a neurosurgeon, I have seen this story play out more times than I care to remember.

Read More...

Tonight’s reporting on 360° about the murder of a gay teenager coming out of the closet is really about tolerance and the lack of it.  When we see our children, teenagers and even adults bullying people, it never feels ok.

But it's common. And we need to understand that it could a one-time incident or the 31st incident that bullying behavior can make someone so angry that they lose control.

We see this played out in many ways, from suicide to homicide. None of this should be acceptable to our society.

Some studies have shown that half of our children are bullied in school and as high as 10% are bullied on a regular basis.

Bullying can be physical and emotional and it still hurts. This pain can affect all areas of their life.

We need to do a better job as parents to educate and support our children to better know themselves and better tolerate others.  If we accomplish this, we have served our children well.

Parenting is the place to start. It's one of the toughest jobs that any of us will ever do.

The outcomes vary but I think it’s important that we wrap our arms around significant and shared parenting values.

Knowing yourself and understanding the concept that parenting begins with YOU.  Yes, YOU.  It's important that you as a parent are as whole and balanced as you can be.

I offer a simple tool to be able to keep your check and balance system afloat. It's my SWEEP technique:

Sleep - are you getting enough quantity and quality of sleep? When you wake up do you feel good? Work – Are you fulfilled enough at work, even if staying home is your work, to be happy at the end of the day?

Eating – are you using food to stay healthy and energetic? Is meal time a time for relaxation and communication?Emotional expression of self – Do you let the important people in your life know how you are feeling? Do you allow yourself physical and emotional intimacy?

Play - are you letting yourself enjoy life? Do you have a way to let go of worry and direct your energy to a positive place?

To learn more, see www.drsophy.com

- Dr. Charles J. Sophy