What do you think about the mother in this case? A 26-year-old North Dakota mom was arrested for breastfeeding her baby while she was drunk.

Police were called to her home to investigate a domestic disturbance, and found Stacey Anvarinia breastfeeding her 6-week-old baby. The officers believed that she was drunk and arrested her. Last week she pleaded guilty to child neglect charges, and is due to be sentenced next month.

North Dakota authorities said that they believed that the police were correct to make the arrest, even if the mother hadn’t been breastfeeding, out of concern that the child was being taken care of by someone who was intoxicated.

Getting falling-down drunk then breastfeeding is one thing. But having a glass of wine in the evening – is that something that a mom could be arrested for? I hope not. Unwinding at the end of the day when baby is in bed with a little TV and a glass of wine is sanity-restoring to many moms.

The La Leche League says that light drinking is compatible with breastfeeding, and that one drink a day or less isn’t harmful to your baby.

So can you drink alcohol if you are breastfeeding? And should you be worried about being arrested? Alcohol certainly gets into breastmilk in small quantities.

So the most sensible thing for nursing mom to do is just a little planning. It takes a couple of hours for your body to process one drink – like a glass of wine or a bottle of beer. So if you have a glass of red wine in the evening just after you put baby to bed, knowing that the next time you’ll need to nurse won’t be for a couple of hours at least, then you and your baby should be fine.

And if you have more than one drink? What if you are going to a wedding, or a night out? Some mothers avoid breastfeeding their babies for several hours after drinking, either pumping breastmilk beforehand to feed the baby, or using formula. Then, after drinking alcohol, pumping milk and dumping it eases any engorgement and gets rid of any milk which may have alcohol in it.

What do you think? Are you a nursing mother who drinks alcohol? How much is too much? Or should nursing moms never drink alcohol?

It may seem somethings straight out of the Jungle Book or Tarzan but there is nothing cute or romantic about the plight of the 5-year old Russian girl Natasha who was raised by dogs and cats – right within the four walls of her home. She was found in a little flat in Siberia whom she shares with her father, grandparents, and other relatives. Despite the presence of adults in this remote Siberian household, the motherless child – the mother is alive but not living at home – is apparently constantly left alone with the animals. It is speculated that she may never have left the flat at all. Natascha shows the classical signs of “feral upbringing”, also called the “Mowgli Syndrome” – she barks, lunges and eats like a dog. She understands Russian but can’t speak and communicates through barking instead.

There have been stories of feral children – in myths but also real documented cases. The most popular are Tarzan of the Apes and Mowgli of the Jungle Book. Feral children lack the social skills that children with normal upbringing learn during the first years of their lives. They may not be able to walk upright and definitely have undeveloped language skills.

The Russian authorities have removed the girl from her home and placed in an orphanage. Her parents may face charges of child negligence and abuse. I really hope that wherever she is now, Natascha is getting the physical and psychological care that she needs.

Sleek, glossy and the best possible taste in cell phones? The Apple iPhone might be these things but a game recently approved by Apple for use on the iPhone is none of the above.

The Baby Shaker game depicts black-and-white drawings of babies, and plays a crying sound while challenging the user to shake the phone to shut the baby up. Shaking the motion-sensitive phone draws cartoon-style red Xs over the baby’s eyes.

Baby Shaker was developed by software company Sikalosoft, and described by the company as follows:  “On a plane, on the bus, in a theater. Babies are everywhere you don’t want them to be! They’re always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker, there was nothing you could do about it. See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!”

So the game was approved by Apple, put on sale for 99¢ in the iPhone store on Monday, and after a barrage of complaints, withdrawn on Wednesday.

Just about everything has become a subject for humor these days. But this is plain not funny. What was Apple thinking approving this game?

Shaking a baby can have horrific consequences. About one quarter of severely shaken babies die from their injuries and many of the survivors suffer brain damage, blindness, and other debilitating injuries.  About half of all infant fatalities in child abuse cases were shaken to death.

Sikalosoft posted a statement on their website “Yes, the Baby Shaker iPhone app was a bad idea. You should never shake a baby!” with a little information on Shaken Baby Syndrome.

A better place to get information about shaken baby syndrome is the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome. Ironically, April 20-24 is National Shaken Baby Week, designed to raise awareness of the damage shaking a baby can cause.

Hey, maybe  the outrage over this game will actually have a positive result in promoting the work of NCSBS and other child abuse prevention organizations. Let’s hope so.

And I’m still lusting after the iPhone. It will have to wait until I have a spare $199 plus a spare monthly $80 for the plan. This is unlikely. And also until Daycare Baby stops trying to eat any cellphone that comes within range. Daycare Baby will search diaper bags to find cellphones to eat, and tries to climb up my boyfriend’s leg to get his phone out of his pocket – this is before she can walk. See what ingenious creatures our babies become when they aren’t shaken.

Over the years, the science of genetics has given us insights into our health and behavior. A recent study published in Nature Neuroscience suggests that experience of abuse during childhood can leave scars on the genetic make up that last for life.

A previous study in rats revealed that baby rats reared by negligent or indifferent mothers had increased the amount of methyl compounds on a region of DNA that regulates the expression of a receptor for glucocorticoid hormones. Glucocorticoids play an important role in metabolism and stress management. The neglected baby rats had fewer receptors for glucocorticoid hormones than normal, thus affecting the animals’ ability to handle stress.

In another study, researchers at Montreal’s McGill University analyzed brain samples from people who had committed suicide. The research study revealed that suicide victims with a history of child abuse had a methylation pattern similar to that previously observed in the neglected rat pups. In addition, they also had fewer glucocorticoid receptors compared to those without history of abuse.

The findings of the study suggests that experience of abuse as a child leaves scars on the DNA that may fact stress management later in life. Several studies demonstrated that childhood experiences can affect adult behavior. The Canadian study is the first to demonstrate that the effect of abuse can go far down to the genetic level.

In January, someone abandoned a baby girl in a Toronto parking lot stairwell. The little girl, believed to be about 8 months old at the time, was discovered about two hours later in freezing temperatures.

Since her abandonment, the baby, named Angelica-Leslie by rescuers, has been living with a foster family, and has been thriving and happy.

And late last month, police tracked down a couple who they belive to be her parents. The married couple lived nearby the parking lot at the time of the abandonment, and have been charged with several counts relating to abandoning Angelica-Leslie.

The couple have three older children, aged 5, 4 and 2. The court ordered that the older children be taken into foster care, and this weekend several more charges have been filed relating to the care of those children, including assault, and assault with a weapon.

I wonder if the older children will be reunited with their baby sister?

Assuming that the allegations of neglect are true, then the abandonment of Angelica-Leslie, awful that it was, has ultimately lead to the rescue of her older siblings from an abusive situation, and I hope that the children will be placed together and can grow up safely in a new, and loving family.

In April of this year, almost 500 children were taken from their mothers and their Texas ranch home. The authorities were acting on anonymous complaints from a pregnant teenage girl who claimed to live at the ranch, and accused her middle-aged husband of abusing her. The police made the decision to raid the ranch, the home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The police found plenty of evidence of polygamous marriages to very young girls, some as young as 12, pregnant teenagers, and children who didn’t know what crayons were.

Abusing young teenagers is utterly heinous and I hope that the men responsible end up in jail for a long time. The police found no evidence of abuse of young children, and nothing so far has suggested that the babies and toddlers taken from their mothers were in any danger – at least nothing that warranted a mass removal of every child in the compound.

I miss my son when he goes to the park with his dad for an hour. I can’t even begin to imagine the distress of these mothers, not having any idea when – or if – their children would be returned to them,

On Monday, after months of separation from their children – many of them babies, and most of the children were under 5 – the Texas supreme court ruled that there was no evidence of immediate danger, and the raid was unlawful. The children have been ordered to be returned to their mothers.

With conditions attached – the children may not leave Texas, the parents must be photographed and agree to cooperate with any further investigation, and must attend parenting classes. The parents must also allow the children to undergo psychiatric or medical exams if required.

The children are being collected, and are returning with their mothers to the ranch where they previously lived. Some commentators are criticizing the courts decision to let the children return, knowing they would go back to the ranch. But where else would the mothers, unfamiliar with the outside world, and many alienated from their own families, take them?

I hope that, after two months separation from their children, the Texas authorities can now do something to help the women at the ranch. Hopefully they can take more appropriate action to help these families leave the ranch to start life outside if they desire, and remove and punish their abusers, and perhaps that would be some compensation for those separated mothers, babies and children.

Niurka Ramirez, a 22 year-old mother of a toddler, with another on the way, decided that she would “try to calm” her child who was throwing a tantrum by spraying her with high-powered water from a carwash nozzle. What she didn’t know was that it would be videotaped and broadcast nationally. It has sent many viewers into a frenzy, calling for her to lose her children, to go to jail, to face the consequences.

The young mother saw the video too and I believe she did the best thing in the case; she turned herself in. She had her 2 year-old daughter examined, and has been cooperating with police and child case-workers to prove that the incident was a mistake but that she is a “great mother”. She is also taking parenting classes.

I’m not a child abuse expert, but I do know that our foster system is overwhelmed with children they’ve taken in, and understaffed at the same time. Mothers have frustrating days, and no, I do not believe that what she did was right. However, I also don’t think it would serve her toddler and unborn child for her to be punished by going to jail. She’s a single mom. There has been no talk of a father in the picture. Who would care for these kids? Is she really a monster? How many of our parents and grandparents grew up in the spare the rod and spoil the child era who would think nothing of doing the same thing but whose children grew up just fine?

I hope that they give this mom a chance if they don’t find a true case of abuse. Probation and definitely continuing parenting classes are more of an appropriate sentence. What do you think?