A little research...

I have recently discovered that over 90% of children are toilet trained before the age of one. Of course, most of those children are not in the United States or other westernized countries. The fact is that diapers are too expensive or simply unavailable in most developing countries. I ordered the book "Diaper Free!" from Amazon to read about this phenomenon.

Basically, from birth babies are able to know when they go to the bathroom. We train them to ignore these signals by keeping them in diapers and teaching them go in the diapers. My pediatrician told me not to start potty-training Caroline. I did my own research and learned a few things. The AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) recommends that toilet training start at 24 months or later. Any sooner and you risk damaging the child. The article is here. The interesting thing about this article on toilet training is that it was supplied to the AAP by Proctor and Gamble (the company that owns Pampers) and their "Advisory Board" of Pediatricians. That's right. The diaper manufacturers (Pampers) is telling the AAP when potty training should begin. Conflict of interest anyone? AND, to make matters worse, the adivce they give conflicts with the studies that the AAP does. I am OUTRAGED!! There is a lot of the AAP site about TT and the surprising thing is that some of the conclusions do not support the recommendations of the AAP (namely, beginning after 24 months). Studies on the AAP site have shown that beginning earlier causes no problems, but results in a longer period of training. Yep, that's right. So we should just keep them in diapers until the age of four and then teach them. That will be easier.

No more Pampers for us. We are potty training now and it seems to be going well. Caroline had two accidents today and used the toilet 3 times. Yea!


Another story of the doctor giving me bad information:

When Caroline was a few weeks old, her pediatrician told me to give her vitamin supplements because breastmilk is lacking in iron. I reluctantly tried giving her the supplements (they tasted terrible) and she hated it. I then did some research and found that babies do not become anemic from exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months (anemia is the problem doctors worry about, because breastmilk is low in iron). Breastmilk is low in iron, but that does not present a problem for the baby. There is a biological reason that breastmilk is low in iron and it is a very good reason. Iron in in the body is used by bacteria and can make a baby very sick. The iron is breastmilk is bound to a protein called lactoferrin which ensures that most of the iron is absorbed (more than 70%) and is not used as a feeding ground for bacteria. Most formula is iron fortified and it has a lot more iron than breastmilk. Unfortunately, no formula can recreate the protein lactoferrin so only around 7% of the iron is absorbed. Where does the rest go? I quit doing the supplements and Caroline never became anemic. Interestingly, most women become anemic at the end of pregnancy (I did) because the baby stocks up on iron in the last months. If a baby is born prematurely and misses out on the iron in utero, the breastmilk compensates and is iron-rich for premature babies.

A little research goes a long way...