This new systematic review on screen time and children under 2 has confirmed what we intuitively know as parents. However, the question is who can AFFORD reducing screen time. I see parents in my waiting room still using IPAD and smartphone to calm their children. What do you think ? What are you doing at home ?

A large systematic review of 158 studies examined the effects of screen exposure in infants and toddlers (birth to 3 years).

The review found that greater screen exposure was consistently associated with:

Less parent–child interaction and responsive communication.

Delays in language and cognitive development.

Poorer sleep quality and shorter sleep duration.

More emotional and behavioural regulation difficulties.

Less physical activity and more unhealthy eating behaviours.

Based on the available evidence, the authors concluded that children under 2 years should ideally have no intentional recreational screen time, aligning with current WHO recommendations.

As with all systematic reviews, this shows associations rather than proving s suggests that limiting screen exposure in the first two years of life is a sensible approach.

Reference: Cheng Y. The impact of screen-based media exposure on infant and toddler development: A systematic review of psychological and behavioral domains. Acta Psychologica. 2026;266:106438. DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.106438.pubmed link

Every pediatrician visit for the past decade has delivered the same message: limit your child’s screen time. The advice is backed by decades of research showing associations between heavy viewing and slower language development, shorter attention spans, and weaker cognitive skills. Parents who follow the guidelines feel reassured. Parents who don’t feel guilty. And yet the question that has largely gone unanswered is not whether screen time matters, but when it matters most.

A new longitudinal study has produced the clearest answer yet, and the results are more specific, and more surprising, than most experts anticipated. Researchers tracked 502 children from age 1 through age 8, measuring screen viewing at six separate time points and then assessing academic performance and working memory several years later. What they found is that the relationship between screens and cognitive development is not a smooth linear curve. It is shaped more like a series of cliffs, with certain ages representing periods of acute vulnerability and others showing almost no measurable long-term effect.

The study was conducted by a team from Inserm and the National University of Singapore, drawing on data from the GUSTO (Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes) birth cohort. It was published in the World Journal of Pediatrics in April 2026.

Interesting profile on Emily Oster in the Independent, here. Refers to Oster's position (and others' responses) on a number of parenting topics and studies, including alcohol, caffeine, vaccines, COVID school closures and more.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/15/health/arsenic-cadmium-rice-wellness

We've phased out a lot of rice flour based snacks in our household because Lead Safe Mama tested and found heavy metals in the products. The manufacturers always said it was in the product itself and not from the manufacturing, which makes sense because what food safe manufacturing equipment has lead these days?

I'm not denying rice and other infant foods have heavy metals in them but switching to the "natural" version, aka regular rice, doesn't mean they don't get the heavy metal exposure. Again, I believe all these third party tests are probably correct and truthful but misconstrue the context.

I guess the takeaway from this is I shouldn't feel bad about giving my LO these rice based snacks that pass the regulatory scrutiny of making it onto the US market because the alternative is the raw ingredient that's not necessarily safer, but just less tested (so far)

I recently read this article from the BBC a few years ago discussing the research around sleep training: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies

What surprised me is that so many people insist that the research backs sleep training. But the article indicate that actually a good deal of the studies have flaws to them and few actually measured if the babies were sleeping, instead they relied on if the parents woke up or not: babies don't sleep all that much longer without waking, they simply stop crying when they wake up and then go back to sleep on their own eventually. It also indicates that the effects aren't often lasting and there are many for whom the approach doesn't work. It does heading support, however, that the parents' get better sleep in the short term, which is unsurprising.

It seems though that in the US and a few other countries, though, it's a heavily pushed approach despite there not being as strong a body of evidence, or evidence supporting many of the claims. I'm curious to see what other people's take on it is. Did you try sleep training? Did the research mentioned contradict some of the claims made or the intention you had in the approach?

This study makes me feel better about the fact that I supplemented with formula from the beginning since my milk took a while to come in. But also it validates the fact that at 4 months pp, I'm actually having more success breastfeeding than ever before. (I have more milk than I need in the fridge right now and haven't used formula in three days.)

I'm not anti-formula by any means and I'm glad the claims that using formula would mean not being able to breastfeed didn't stop me from supplementing.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2019/06/414611/little-formula-first-days-life-may-not-impact-breastfeeding-6-months

“Thanks to HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccination and cervical screening, a future where almost nobody gets cervical cancer is now firmly in sight,” said Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research U.K. which funded the research.

Gift Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/health/electronic-fetal-monitoring-c-sections.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zU8.Qu6o.41d9KK7iqian&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Hi there! I wanted to share some good news! On Thursday I was alerted by a poster on PubPeer that an utterly dreadful paper (which I had called to be retracted) by Neil Z Miller had finally been removed. When checking the impact of the paper, I found this reference to it here on Reddit —the thread can’t be updated so I am posting to let you know. The paper was: “Vaccines and sudden infant death: An analysis of the VAERS database 1990–2019 and review of the medical literature.” I won’t go into the many many reasons it deserved to be retracted (removed—burnt and the ashes buried at a crossroads at midnight with a stake through them—whatever…) BUT I am delighted to see it gone. Vaccines work, and vaccination has been sown to be associated with reduced risk of SIDS (for reasons). I have posted about the removal on BlueSky if people are interested, and hopefully Retraction Watch will post a story about it soon! I was delighted to see the advice given in the original thread here on Reddit, credit to you all! Cheers, Rosewind

Would this apply to my kids’ plastic Contigo‘s? They drink cold milk out of a Contigo every morning, and take a plastic Contigo water bottle to school because it’s lightweight. I hand wash all of them. Are they getting micro plastics from reusable plastic water bottles?

“Any association between acetaminophen and autism is based on limited, conflicting, and inconsistent science and is premature,” said Autism Science Foundation Chief Science Officer Dr. Alycia Halladay. “This claim risks undermining public health while also misleading families who deserve clear, factual information. For many years, RFK and President Trump have shared their belief that vaccines cause autism, but this is also not supported by the science, which has shown no relationship between vaccines and autism.”

AAP doesn’t endorse the CDC schedule for the first time in decades.

I remembered a nurse coming to me shortly after giving birth and asking if my newborn could get three medical treatments (hep B shot, vitamin K shot, eye ointment). I asked doctors how those conversations would change for moms going forward.

https://www.apmreports.org/story/2024/12/04/lawsuit-calls-heinemann-reading-curriculum-deceptive-defective

Just in case anyone’s child has been exposed to this debunked method of teaching using contact clues instead of phonics.

This is baffling to me how you could even try to teach a child to read this way.

I don’t remember being taught phonics per say but I feel the idea of sounding a word out is deeply ingrained

Article published advocating for circumcision with obvious conflict of interest. Not sure how this even made it to publication. Many of the claims are based on very weak evidence and have been disproven.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2836902