Long-time MomSquawkers will know that I’ve been known to build a website or two. Some more serious than others. We’ll I’m up to it again with a new business, and I’d like to get your help.

BackupMyMail is a new site that can backup your online email account. Right now, we’re giving away free 1GB backups for Gmail and Hotmail users. All you have to do is sign up and we’ll email you a link to your new backup. Your backup will be available for 7 days, and then we’ll delete it along with your personal info.

Since it’s a new product, we may run into a snag here or there, so please let me know how it’s working for you. You can email me at damon@momsquawk.com.

Thanks a ton! I’m sure that with your help we can build a much better product.

You can sign up here: http://backupmymail.com/trial_signup

Damon Cali
MomSquawk Admin

PS To be clear, BackupMyMail has absolutely nothing to do with MomSquawk. I’m the only common link.

Things are a little slow on the MomSquawk Blog these days. So how about it, MomSquawkers? You have anything you want to share? If so shoot me an email at damon@momsquawk.com.

Everyone told me that going from two children to three would be easier than going from one to two. I could honestly not see how that was possible. With two kids, at least you have one arm per child! But what I didn’t know as I anxiously contemplated how on earth I’d manage to wrangle three children under the age of four all by myself, including bath and bedtime, is that after a certain point, chaos is chaos. A certain zany Zen takes over (some days more than others!) and you just do what you have to do.

I have found, however, that things do change significantly with three kids. Granted, my youngest isn’t old enough to fully participate in everything yet, but she definitely makes a difference! For example:

Baths with one child: Thorough cleaning, relaxing, playtime. Maybe you even bathe with your kiddo.
Baths with two kids: Every other night, splashfest, mop up the floor once they’re in bed.
Baths with three kids (older two together, baby alone): Eh, you don’t reek from where I’m standing. It can wait another night.

Mealtime with one child: Nutritionally perfect meals, little mouth and hands wiped after every few bites.
Mealtime with two kids: Take it or leave it. Runs for the camera instead of a napkin when spaghetti face happens.
Mealtime with three kids: If I start a food fight, maybe you can aim for each other’s mouths?

Storytime with one child: I would never dream of skipping a page of any of your favorite three books every night!
Storytime with two kids: Dr. Seuss gets creatively edited here and there; you pray the kids don’t pick up on it.
Storytime with three kids: You can recite One Fish, Two Fish in your sleep (and occasionally do). You sometimes dream of a place with lovely padded walls where not everything rhymes in singsong cadence.

And you know, I still wouldn’t trade it for the world. The world, a soundproof reading room, and a huge basket of chocolate little hands haven’t touched…now we’re talking.

Posted by Sunshine.

Some of our MomSquawkers have firsthand experience with the beast that is preeclampsia, or pre-e, a potentially fatal hypertension-related complication of pregnancy. Worldwide, it causes more than 76,000 maternal deaths every year, and many babies of mothers with pre-e are delivered prematurely (delivery is the only cure considered reliable at this point).

Now, Yale researchers may have discovered something about pre-e that could allow earlier detection and could possibly eventually lead to preventative measures before full-blown preeclampsia shows up.

In a study of 111 pregnant women, the researchers identified key abnormal proteins in the women’s urine weeks before they showed clinical signs of preeclampsia. The urine test designed by the researchers was based on a dye that sticks to misfolded, or incorrectly formed, proteins.

“These results support the hypothesis that preeclampsia is a pregnancy-specific protein misfolding disease,” Dr. Irina Buhimschi, an associate professor in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and the study’s lead author, said in a Yale news release.

Maybe someday, maybe even within our lifetimes, we will start to gain the upper hand over preeclampsia and this terrifying condition will lose its status as one of the more common but serious pregnancy complications mothers face.

As members of the MomSquawk community, we are hardly strangers to the amazing benefits of peer support during so many of the trials and challenges of motherhood. We share so much of ourselves and our lives, knowing we can depend on others who have been through similar things to come through for us with advice or even just a reminder that it will get better.

But did you know that peer support and counseling might even combat postpartum depression (PPD, also known as the “baby blues”)?

A new study (one of two PPD-related studies mentioned in the article) found that women at high risk for postpartum depression who received counseling by phone from other moms who had gone through PPD were less likely to develop PPD themselves. Wow!

In this case, 701 women who were at high risk of postpartum depression were randomly assigned to standard postnatal care or to standard care plus telephone support from women who had experienced postpartum depression themselves.

The researchers found that women who received peer support were 50 percent less likely to develop postpartum depression 12 weeks after giving birth than were women who didn’t get the support. In addition, more than 80 percent of the women who got telephone support said they would recommend this type of support to a friend.

The other study in the article also noted that women who received “talk therapy” or counseling after delivering, whether they were high risk for PPD or not, were 40% less likely to develop postpartum depression than women given only standard postnatal care.

New mothers, whether it’s their first baby or their fifth, need support. I don’t know a mom out there who wouldn’t wholeheartedly agree with that statement. It’s reassuring that the medical community seems to be more readily acknowledging that and going further to research the best ways of providing that much-needed help.

If counseling in some form — yes, even (especially?) by a fellow mom who has already battled PPD — were to become part of the standard procedure in postnatal care, I am certain that fewer women out there would struggle with postpartum depression in silence, alone.

With all of the new toys our little ones probably racked up for Christmas, it seems like a good time to take a moment to make sure their joy doesn’t turn into tears (and parental nightmares) because of preventable toy-related injuries.

Thousands of children are injured by toys every year, but with these tips from the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital, our children are less likely to be among them:

* Never let your child play with a toy that is not safe or appropriate for his or her age. Before your child plays with a new toy, always read the label and safety instructions.
* Watch your child to make sure toys are used appropriately.
* Make sure your child uses toys in appropriate settings. For example, keep bikes and wheeled toys away from stairs.
* If you have an older child, keep those toys away from younger children.
* Inspect your child’s toys frequently for damage that may injure your child, and be aware of toy recalls.
* Check your young child’s toys with a “small parts tester,” which can evaluate possible choking hazards.

For more detailed suggestions and further reading, check out this article on toy safety for kids of all ages.

Listen up, MomSquawkers!

Are you on the fence about joining the next round of MSBL? Have you been looking for a reason to sway you one way or the other?

How about this? A new study found that when there’s a monetary reward involved, people actually do lose more weight than if they’re working toward some other, more long-term reward.

Researchers developed two different monetary reward systems, then assigned 57 obese but otherwise healthy people to one of these two groups or a control group, in which people were simply weighed at the end of each month. All were aiming to lose 16 pounds (7.26 kg) by the end of four months.

People in the incentive groups lost far more weight than those who got no pay for their efforts, with about half of the participants in each group meeting their weight loss goals.

The incentive groups lost averages of 13 and 14 pounds, while those in the control group lost an average of only four pounds in the same amount of time. Wow!

We’re human; we need motivation to achieve our goals. Not only does MSBL offer tangible rewards for weight loss, but you also have access to the most supportive group of women imaginable. I know that for the rounds I’ve participated in, I could always count on someone to help me get refocused after a bad week, or to cheer me on when I was doing well (and the thought of winning the weekly pot didn’t hurt a bit, either!).

I’m looking forward to joining the next round to have a reason to round out this pregnancy with healthy choices, and to start losing the baby weight. Save a slot for me, girls!

Maybe you’ve already received this humdinger of a question; maybe you’ve got a few more years to puzzle out your answer for when the time comes.

How does Santa do it? How does he fly around the world with reindeer and enough presents for every good boy and girl? How does he know who’s been naughty or nice?

Well, to hear one professor from North Carolina State University tell it, Santa is very tech-savvy.

“He exploits the space-time continuum,” says Larry Silverberg, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. […] “He understands that space stretches, he understands that you can stretch time, compress space and therefore he can, in a sense, actually have six Santa months to deliver the presents,” Silverberg told Reuters.

“In our reference frame it appears as though he does it in the wink of an eye and in fact there have been sightings of Santa, quick sightings, and that’s in our reference frame, but in Santa’s reference frame he really has six months”.

And that’s only the beginning. All of those presents? Don’t look to an impossibly overloaded sleigh as the answer; how about nanotechnology instead? Santa just takes raw materials and grows your gifts under the tree!

Satellite-type surveillance assists in his list-checking for naughty and nice children, and his reindeer are genetically bred to have the powers they do.

How’s that for an answer, little Johnny? Somehow I think “It’s magic” will have to do for my own kids when the time comes.

When we go out to eat, especially if it’s a nice sit-down meal, I’ll be the first to admit that I order whatever kids’ menu items I think will keep my kids content. If they’ll eat it, fine. But after reading through the kid-focused restaurant report cards from menshealth.com (thanks to DH for the link!), I’ll be reconsidering that practice — and perhaps even where I take my family.

The good folks over there at Men’s Health were doing research for a sequel to Eat This, Not That! that focuses on kiddie foods, and their results were pretty startling. Would you willingly sit your child in front of a plate of 900+ calories worth of mini cheeseburgers? You would be doing that if you ordered that item at Ruby Tuesday. (To be perfectly fair, they also offer kiddie chicken with only 267 calories.)

Yes, it’s all about choices — but not all meals are created nutritionally equal across the restaurant board. Some highlights:

Cold Stone Creamery received a C. Thumbs down to 900-calorie shakes and crushed candy bar add-ons. Thumbs up to their smallest portion, which is satisfying and a fairly reasonable 300 calories. The real fruit available as an add-on is another feather in their cap. Not bad for an ice cream place!

KFC scored a B, believe it or not. Yes, they do fried chicken. But they also offer much healthier Snacker sandwiches and several vegetables (now, whether those veggies are drowned in butter and salt is another question altogether — but corn is better for little tummies than fries any day!).

On the Border barely squeaked by with a D-. Most kids’ meals have over 1,000 calories (and Mom and Dad? You’re not faring any better, for what it’s worth — not even close, since your meal is likely to fall in the 1,900-calorie range!). Yikes.

Big winners: Wendy’s, Subway, and Chik-fil-A (all in the A/A- range with several healthy options for kids of all ages). Several restaurants received automatic Fs for refusing to provide nutritional information (including my favorite, Olive Garden — although honestly, I probably don’t want to know!).

Ear infections are thankfully not something we’ve had experience with in this household, but I know we’ve been lucky. Plus, as it turns out, my kids have the odds in their favor…at least according to these common risk factors from the American Academy of Family Physicians:

* Being around cigarette smoking.
* Having had ear infections before, frequent colds, or having a family history of ear infections.
* Going to a day-care center.
* Being born premature or at low birth weight.
* Going to bed with a bottle or using a pacifier.
* Being male.
* Having allergies that cause congestion.

I would never have thought that some of those factors would be on the list (like gender). The things you learn!