Pregnancy & Birth'S Today Newest Questions & Articles Featured

• Insurance (Aetna) & home birth
• I live in Washington state, I want a home birth but my insurance (Aetna) is anti-home birth....is anti-home birth. Has anyone gone before and had to do this fight? It also says some...where the baby was born?Please an information/help on this would be VERY much appreciated!!!!...
• "Natural" Family Planing?
• I've been hearing a lot about NFP in correlation with using/relying on many not-so-natural tools. I don't know that much about NFP, but the name makes me think of a more natural method than what I've seen (though I haven't seen much.) Is it that without these newer tools it
• holy crap its almost time.
• i just saw my ticker on ezboard and it says i have 3 weeks and 3 days until my due date. i almost passed out.omg.i haven't packed yet. i'm working on it today, but there's so much to do!i'm not ready!!!!!! :nut
• Baby No#2 on the way!
• I would just like to announce that I am pregnant again!I got my first BFP at just 6DPO!! Thinking this must be wrong i have been POAS like they are going out of fashion. But that faint line keeps coming up.EDD 25.10.07 which will be an 18month gap between DS and baby 2.DS was 7weeks premmie so h
• Prodromal Labor starting...
• I started having some very low pulling contractions real early Tues morning. Then I was all sore and achey yesterday, on top of spilling cloudy, swirly fluid that wasn't urine into the toilet around 11:30a. :p This being the fourth time I've labored like this, I knew it's just t
• Dentist..cleaning, teeth whitening...safe or not?
• I am going crazy since I found this site. I love how supportive everyone is, so I feel comfortable posting all the questions I had but never really thought of asking.So my questions are: Is it safe to have cleaning done while I am pregnant?Is it safe to have teeth whitening done while I am preg
• Maybe not...No baby yet!
• So I have been having regular contractions now for about 5 hours - they are 10 minutes apart but not getting any more intense. I dropped dd off at day care just in case and went grocery shopping to see if things would pick up - so far nada. I would love to take a long walk outside but it's
• I started spotting last night. This may be TMI, b...
• I started spotting last night. This may be TMI, but I will give details since I am looking for some input. I went to the bathroom and found a brown blood stain in my underwear (dime size maybe). I wiped and saw just a hint of pink/brown. I put a pad on and wore it all night - nothing. All d
• Zari Roses birth story (unassisted)
• Here is the birth story of our (previously unnamed) Halloween baby:Over the past few weeks I had been having some feelings of doubt about my birth plans. There was nothing specific I was worried about, just vague anxieties. We ate dinner on Sunday night with a family we know from church. The mom
• Show off our birth plans?
• Hi mamas!I know some of us have done it before, but for those who only just recently wrote yours, who wants to show off their birth plans? :)
• left hand & shoulder pain but no bleeding or abdominal cramps
• Baby didnot cooperate in u/s
• I am 20 weeks pregnant with my first baby.Today i went for an u/s .Everything looked fine but the baby was moving a lot and so the technician was finding it difficult to measure a few things.Moreover the baby's legs were tightly closed & so we were unable to know whether it is a boy or girl
• my newborn has chicken pox!
• i exposed my three older kids to chicken pox and although they are starting to get spots today, opal has the most and started showing the spots two days ago.. she seems unaffected and is acting totally normal though so maybe we will get all thier immunity at once! so much for nursing kids not g
• IVF - long/short cycle Lupron
• I have a question to all you IVFers out there... I did my first IVF cycle with the long cycle Lupron. This means I started Lupron on day 22 after the first day of my previous period. This time around (my second IVF) they have decided to do the short cycle Lupron. This means I start Lupron toni
• Singing, Shouting, Celebrating! (Long)
• The story of a great home birth for a first-time mama.On Sunday, I worked all day, including a full afternoon of stressful, emotionally draining and difficult meetings. I wrote in my journal, "I spoke more bluntly than I am usually able to do, & I don't know whether it will have an
• Umm, I am really sorry to bother everyone, but I&#...
• Umm, I am really sorry to bother everyone, but I've posted two different times this morning and they are not showing up. It counts them as replies but I can't see them. Am I doing something wrong, it is under the topic "pregnancy and maintaining pregnancy" I am also not seeing the ot
• herbs & preggo
• my therapist has requested i start taking Bach Flowers a herbal supp... My question is since i am TTC is this going to harm the baby in any way? The therpist said it is completly natural and nothing will happen but I would like some opionos.Thanks!
• Basal temps & cosleeping
• According to TCOYF (which I just read this weekend), you have to have been asleep for 3 consecutive hours before taking your waking temperature.I haven't been asleep for 3 consecutive hours since having DD 19 months ago.Thoughts? Workarounds? Should I just give it a try anyway?
• Abnormal Fetal Heartbeat at 23 weeks
• Today I had an appointment with my midwife.The midwife listened to the baby's hearbeat and commented that it was abnormal. She told me that this problem often resolves itself etc etc and not to worry...um ok...abnormal heartbeat+ paranoid mother= loads of worryI am supposed to come back in
• Anyone stimming on IVF now?
• HI! :wave: My husband and I are doing our first IVF after nearly 7 years of TTC, chlomid, injections, 2 laproscopic surgeries for endo, lots and lots more injections and 4 failed IUIs, blah blah. :dizzy: Anway! I'm so very excited and I gotomorrow morning for my first IVF follie check
• Thermometer Issues
• Before we conceived DD we had a very reliable mercury therm given to us at our NFP class when we were engaged. Unfortunately, it broke and we had a big mess. Needless to say now we have to use a digital and I don't feel like I get as good of results with it. I have had times where I'
• News on me & my bf
• Well things are moving right along. This weekend we told my parents and my boyfriend's mother. Everyone is so excited! We decided we are going to get married close to Christmas. My boyfriend is blabbing to EVERYONE (he blabbed to the guy who works on his bike at BMW Manhattan). Anyway,
• posting photos?
• hey, can anyone give me some direction on how to post photos? the (epic!) birth story is coming and i want to attach photos but can't figure it out... uh, mommy brain! :lol can i just use our digital photo program or shuttefly or something? help!
• Brown Discharge: What are the chances of her being pregnant?
• Me and my girlfriend had intercourse august 15, 2007,No protection, she took the plan-B bill 2 days after, I did not ejaculate in her.We then had unprotected sex september 13, 2007. She took the plan-b pill immediately after. I did not ejaculate in her.Last month, my girlfriend did not have her
• Veeeeery concerned about my girlfriend...
• Me and my girlfriend (I'm 20, she's 19) started sexual relations a few weeks ago. We used protection..yada yada yada, everything is fine. Last Saturday she was on the brink of her period and we decided to go at it. This mostly because the opportunities to do so are few and far betwe
• 6 weeks 5 days saw fetal pole
• :angel: hello to all the mommies..well i just wanted to post that my appointment went well besides all the scary things that have happend...for one my blood work did not double...along witht them seeing blood in my uterus...all signs of miscariage..but also signs of the pregnancy being fine..w
• 34 wk appt. - Im a liar!
• So I usually go in the afternoons on Mondays but they cancelled my appt Monday b/c of the hurricane and so I went in this morning and the scale said I gained 10 lbs from 2 weeks ago. Now we weigh ourselves and I usually subtract a lb or 2 (clothes and stuff!) but OMG my mw would have totally KI
• Help Pregnant Or Not??
• Hi, i have been ttc and this month approx.10 dpo( 2 DAYS AGO SUNDAY)i had dark brown staining first thing in the morning after I wiped. At first I got excited :lol: and thought it was inplantation bleeding but now im not sure and im getting sooo confused!! : The rest of the day I had some dark
• follicles?
• I read on my hospital report that I have multiple follicles in my left ovary. what does that mean? Is my body prep. to ovulate?
• UC in the news
• Dear Friends,Two of the UC articles I was interviewed for recently were published today. Going it aloneBy Viv Groskophttp://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,2075502,00.html Overall I was pleased with this article, although at the end of the article there is a birth story that ends in a t

 

Having Sex During Your Period

Deciding to have sexual intercourse involves many important considerations. After all, choosing to have sex requires knowledge about both the male and female reproductive systems, STDS, and birth control. Sex can become even more complicated when it comes to deciding when and where to do the deed; in particular, you may find that you or your partner want to have sex during your menstrual period. But is sex during your period safe? Here are some answers to a few of the most common questions regarding period sex.

Is it Safe To Have Sex During Your Period?
Many men and women worry that having sexual intercourse during a woman's period is unhealthy. Though frowned upon in many cultures and faiths, sexual intercourse during menstruation is entirely normal and completely healthy.

 

Can You Get Pregnant If You Have Sex With Your Period

Worries about this act generally stem from societal misconceptions about menstrual blood: most girls are taught from a young age that their menstrual blood is unclean and "dirty," and therefore should be hidden and contained at all times. However, menstrual blood is an entirely natural bodily fluid, and does not in anyway affect a man's penis or a woman's reproductive tract. As long as neither person has a sexually transmitted disease or infection, it is entirely alright for you and your partner to have sex during your period.

If either partner has an STD, there is a higher risk of infection during menstruation. Sex can be made safer by using a condom during sexual intercourse. However, if either partner has an STD, it is safest not to have sex at all.

 

What About Oral Sex?
Though some men and women may find the thought of oral sex during menstruation a little bit off-putting, many partners do engage in this act. If you and your partner are considering having oral sex during your period, rest assured, it is entirely safe to do so. However, if you have an STD, the menstrual blood can contain STD bacteria or viruses, and your partner should use appropriate protection. If you or your partner may be infected, oral sex can be made safer by use of a dental dam. However, if either partner has an STD, it is safest not to have oral sex at all.

 

Can You Get Pregnant During Your Period?
Though possible, it is highly unlikely that you will get pregnant during your monthly menstrual cycle. During your period, your body works to shed the uterine lining that it has been building up over the last month, in preparation for pregnancy. When you don't become pregnant, small uterine contractions begin, encouraging the unfertilized egg and unused endometrium to be shed from the uterus and through the vagina. This means that there is no egg in the fallopian tubes to become fertilized and no lining to help a developing embryo to implant properly.

This being said, there is a small possibility of pregnancy during your period. Women often mistake slight bleeding that can occur with ovulation as their period. Unprotected sex at this time can greatly increase your chances of becoming pregnant. Additionally, sperm can live in the female reproductive system for up to three days. Because some women ovulate at the very end of their menstrual periods, sperm may still be alive at this point, and able to fertilize an egg.

 

Does Sex Help to Manage Period Pains?
Many women find that sexual intercourse actually helps to relieve period pains and menstrual cramps. This is because an orgasm can cause your uterus to contract, enabling it to use up excess prostaglandins in the process. Prostaglandins are hormones produced by your uterine lining. They help to stimulate contractions that move menstrual blood out of the uterus, and are also responsible for those cramps that occur throughout your period.

 

 

How Babies Learn Their First Words

Like teenagers, babies don't much care what their parents say.

Though they are learning words at 10 months old, infants tend to grasp the names of objects that interest them rather than whatever the speaker thinks is important, a new study finds.

And they do it quickly.The infants were able to learn two new words in five minutes with just five presentations for each word and object, said study leader Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a professor of psychology at Temple University. Importantly, the babies paired a new word to the object they liked best, regardless of what object the speaker referred to.

"The baby naturally assumes that the word you're speaking goes with the object that they think is interesting, not the object that you show an interest in," Hirsh-Pasek said.

The result is not too surprising, Hirsh-Pasek said in a telephone interview. She says interest drives learning for older children, too, and even adults.

She cites six-year-olds she's heard talking knowledgably about baseball players' batting averages. "How in the world do they get it? They're not going to do decimals until 7th or 8th grade."

"Ten-month-olds simply 'glue' a label onto the most interesting object they see," said Shannon Pruden, a Temple doctoral student in psychology and lead author of a report on the findings in the March/April issue of the journal Child Development.

Later, around 18 months, children learn to use the speaker's interest—such as where the eyes gaze—as a guide to learning, the researchers say.

Still, Hirsh-Pasek thinks there is a lesson for parents and educators of children at all ages: "Sometimes we fail to take notice of what our learners are doing and what they're interested in," she said. "We all learn best when things are meaningful."

How Do Children Learn Language?

Language learning is natural. Babies are born with the ability to learn it and that learning begins at birth. All children, no matter what language their parents speak, learn language much the same way. This learning takes place in three basic stages.

Basic Stages of Language Learning

Stage One – Learning Sounds

When babies are born, they can make and hear all the sounds in all the languages in the world. That's about 150 sounds in about 6500 languages! However, no language uses all 150 sounds. The sounds a language uses are called phonemes and English has about 44. Some languages use more and some use fewer.

In this stage, babies learn which phonemes belong to the language they are learning and which don't. The ability to recognize and produce those sounds is called "phonemic awareness," which is important for children learning to read.

Stage Two – Learning Words

At this stage children essentially learn how the sounds in a language go together to make meaning. For example, they learn that the sounds m, ah, m, and ee refer to that "being" that cuddles and feeds them – mommy. That's a significant step because everything we say is really just a stream of sounds. To make sense of those sounds, a child must be able to recognize where one word ends and another one begins. These are called "word boundaries."

It's not exactly words, though, that children are learning. What children are actually learning are morphemes, which may or may not be words. That's really not as confusing as it sounds. A morpheme is just a sound or sounds that have a meaning, like the word mommy. The word mommies, however, has two morphemes: mommy and –s. Children at this stage can recognize that the –s means "more than one" and will know that when that sound is added to other words, it means the same thing – "more than one."

Stage Three – Learning Sentences

During this stage, children learn how to create sentences. That means they can put words in the correct order. For example, they learn that in English we say "I want a cookie" and "I want a chocolate cookie," not "Want I a cookie" or "I want cookie chocolate."

Children also learn the difference between grammatical correctness and meaning. Noam Chomsky created an example of this difference in the sentence "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." Children will know that although the sentence is grammatically correct, it doesn't make sense. They know that green is a color and can't, therefore, be colorless!

Language Development

Language develops at different rates in different children, but most children follow this pattern:

Birth

When babies are born, they can already respond to the rhythm of language. They can recognize stress, pace, and the rise and fall of pitch.

Six Months

As early as four months, infants can distinguish between language sounds and other noise, like the difference between a spoken word and a clap. By six months, babies have begun to babble and coo and that is the first sign that the baby is learning language. Babies are now capable of making all the sounds in all the languages of the world, but by the time they are a year old, they will have dropped the sounds that aren't part of the language they are learning.

Eight Months

Babies can now recognize groups of sounds and can distinguish one group of sounds from another. They can tell where one group ends and another begins. That is word boundary recognition. Although they recognize these sound groups as words, they may not know what the words mean.

Twelve Months

At this point, children are able to attach meanings to words, and once they can do that, they can begin to build a vocabulary. They begin to mimic new words they hear and by the time they are twelve months old will have a vocabulary of around fifty words.

Eighteen Months

In order to communicate, children must know how to use the words they are learning. In this stage of language development, children are able to recognize the difference between nouns and verbs. Generally, the first words in a child's vocabulary are nouns.

Twenty-Four Months

At this stage children have begun to recognize more than nouns and verbs and understand basic sentence structure. They can use pronouns, for example, and know the right order of words in a sentence and can create simple sentences like "Me cookie?" (which means "May I have a cookie?")

Thirty to Thirty-Six Months

By this age, about 90% of what children say is grammatically correct. The mistakes they make are usually mistakes like adding -ed to irregular verbs to form the past tense. For example, they might say "I falled down" instead of "I fell down." They have learned the grammatical rule to form the past tense by adding -ed to a verb, but have not yet learned the exceptions to the rule.

Further Language Development and Gifted Children

Children continue to expand their vocabulary and develop more complex language. Their language use really doesn't completely resemble adult language until they reach around age eleven. That's when children are able to use what are called although-type sentences. Those are sentences that show a concession: Even though the man was tired, he kept working. Young children would be likely to say "The man was tired, but he kept working."

Verbally gifted children often go through these stages more quickly than other children. Some go through the stages so quickly that they seem to skip right over some of them. It is not unusual for a gifted child to babble and coo and then be relatively silent. By age one they are not mimicking words and by age two they are not using even simple sentences. They may be saying "ma-ma" and "da-da," and a few other words, but not much more. Then suddenly, at 26 months, the child begins speaking in complete, grammatically correct sentences like a three-year-old. Other verbally gifted kids may be using sentences like "Me cookie" at age one. And some six-year-old gifted kids are using sentences like "I still love my Grammy even though she doesn't know how to use the computer."

The advanced language development of gifted kids may be one of the reasons that some of them are able to learn how to read before they turn five or even before they turn three.

26 Top Tips To Conceive A Baby!

You will be surprised and excited to know that alot of the top tips to conceive can be utilised from the comfort of your own home, and will help increase your chances of falling pregnant quicker, so with that in mind...

1. Learn to Monitor your Cervical Mucus

Your body can tell you plenty, and best of all it can tell you alot for free!

If you don't have the time or money to be purchasing fertility gadgets, or the desire to wait for test results from your doctor, this may be your most natural and cheapest way to predict when you are highly fertile. This is one of the best tips to conceive that you can follow.

By noticing your bodies own pattern, you can actually detect when you are most fertile through monitoring your cervical mucus, without the need for modern equipment or scientific testing.

Find out what cervical mucus is, how you can easily monitor it, and discover the age old secret of how women have used this method to detect their most fertile time of the month to increase their odds of pregnancy, before modern technology took over with expensive gadgets!

Monitoring your cervical mucus is still one of the most reliable, private, efficient and very effective way of detecting your most fertile time.

2. Chart your cycle with a Basal Body Thermometer

Another cheap and relatively effortless way to monitor your most fertile days of the month is to use a basal body thermometer (bbt).

If used correctly, this is a very cost effective way of telling you when the best time of the month to conceive is.

Rated highly in our tips to conceive, using a bbt can also have other benefits such as alerting you to things that may not be quite right with your body, such as your progesterone levels, a hormone imperative to maintaining a pregnancy being out of whack.

3. Use an Ovulation Predictor Kit (OPK)

Using an Ovulation Predictor Kit is a bit more of an expensive way to pinpoint your ideal time of the month for conception, compared with using a body basal thermometer(bbt)or by monitoring your cervical mucus, but it is still one of our other great tips to conceive. It will help you discover exactly when you are most fertile, or likely to conceive each cycle.

4. Stick To The Sex Positions Best for Conception

Although there aren't studies to show strong evidence of one particular way of intercourse being better than the other to help you conceive, some experts have suggested there are definately some positions that will increase your chances of conceiving more than others.

This is one of those tips to conceive you should really take a moment to see if you are giving yourself the best chance of getting pregnant!

5. Throw Away Most Lubricants and Oils

Is it okay to use lubricants or oils during intercourse when trying to conceive?

Generally it is best to avoid using anything artificial all-together, because it may inhibit the sperm making a clear path to the egg.

But if you feel you really need lubricant, there are ways... don't be fooled, this is in our tips to conceive section for a reason - because alot of women don't even realise it could be holding them back from pregnancy.

6. Take Pre-Natal Vitamins and Supplements

Would you run a marathon without practising or training for it?

Preparing your body for pregnancy is very important, and just like being prepared for a marathon, your body will go through many changes and challenges maintaining a pregnancy.

As you may know, even GETTING pregnant can be a challenge, but there are things you can do to make your body more 'pregnancy friendly'.

This is one of our more important recommendations in our top tips to conceive section.

7. Check your Medication isn't Interfering with Your Ability to Conceive

What you consume can go directly or indirectly to your baby during pregnancy, and infact some things you ingest may even prevent you from falling pregnant to begin with, so it's good to know what medications should be avoided (if it is possible for you to avoid certain types).

You should always consult with your doctor before stopping any medication, as your well-being is always first priority.

If you can't avoid taking a particular medicine, perhaps you may be able to discuss with your doctor finding an alternative?

Just knowing if a medication is hindering your chances of conception may put you in a better position to see what you can do about it.

Being on Medication While Trying To Fall Pregnant 

8. Use Acupuncture to Stimulate your Fertility

Recent studies have shown acupuncture to be of great benefit to those experiencing infertility, and infact, it is even becoming recognised by some Western Doctors as a way of increasing your odds of conception.

One of my close friends who went through endless fertility treatments, including failed IVF attempts ended up falling pregnant naturally after 3 months of acupuncture treatment – she swears by it after having countless attempts at trying to fall pregnant for years.

She was very thankful to have discovered acupunture because for her, time was ticking because as she had a problem where her eggs matured and were declining very quickly. Her eggs were that of a 47 year old, but she was only in her late 20's.

9. Not too Skinny, Not too Big: Maintain your Ideal Body Weight

Do you know if you are the ideal weight to fall pregnant? Do you know your odds of conception greatly increase being the right weight for your height? That means not being too underweight or not being too overweight, find out what your ideal weight should be, through a Body Mass Indexer (BMI) test.

It's quick, simple, and might give you a better indication of where your health is at, so you can find out if this is an area you may need to pay attention to, in helping you conceive.

10. Exercise to Increase your Fertility Levels

Exercise is not only important for your overall health, but it can be beneficial in helping you fall pregnant, and then maintaining a pregnancy.

Some women even have diabetes when they are pregnant, and the advice a Doctor may give to them is to eat healthy and to do some form of exercise.

11. Eat A Balanced Diet

No doubt you've heard the saying 'you are what you eat', well in many respects it's true! Eating healthily, or eating a balanced diet, helps your body run more efficiently.

Rated hightly on our must do's of our tips to conceive, eating well will do much more than help you to maintain your ideal weight - like choosing an optimum petrol for your car, it will help you run better too, if you are putting the right things into your body.

12. Adopt Good Sleep Patterns

Did you know that sleep is not only integral to your quality of life and overall health, but also greatly impacts on your fertility?

Lack of sleep can really affect your reproductive system. There is even some research suggesting that over-exposure to artificial lighting can wreak havoc with your reproductive system, so maybe you might want to shorten your time sitting in front of a lit computer screen or tv, maybe swap the bright lights for some good solid sleep.

13. Stop Drinking Alcohol!

It is best to avoid alcohol all-together if you are trying to fall pregnant, it's even more important to avoid alcohol once you have fallen pregnant, that's because there have been cases of babies having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome when born (FAS), this can lead to complications with your child during their life.

14. Stop Stressing!

Stress can affect your ability to conceive. There are many ways in which it can reduce your chances of conception.

It's in our tips to conceive because stress really does impact your health, state of mind, and for alot of women, their ability to conceive.

15. Quit Smoking

Tobacco smoking effects your chances of conception in many ways. It is best not to smoke at all. Don't underestimate the effects it can have on your fertility.

This tip actually has to be one of the most important ones for you to follow in our tips to conceive, if you are currently a smoker, or even around someone who smokes all the time.

16. Listen to Your Body-Clock

Many women are putting off starting a family later and later. That's why this important tip has made it into our tips to conceive.

Women today want it all - the career, to be able to travel, to enjoy life with their partner... the reasons are countless, but it's a sad fact that age does matter when it comes to a woman's fertility.

17. Eliminate Toxins from your Diet and Environment

Did you know there are some things that may be preventing you from falling pregnant?

For example, you may think eating tuna everyday is healthy - but did you know that if you eat too much, you may have high mercury levels which becomes a toxin in your body and may hinder you from falling pregnant?

18. Brush up on your Hygiene

Out of all the tips to conceive this is one alot of us don't give much thought to, but should.

Hygiene is very important, and that also goes for when you are trying to fall pregnant. Did you know your dental hygiene can even affect your fertility?

19. Enlist a Fertility Goddess!

Maybe you don't believe in all the hype, or statues and goddesses, but you know what, sometimes it's about creating a little more positivity, and maybe even putting lady luck on your side.

Yes this one has made it into our top tips to conceive! That's because many women have sworn by it, and if it works for others, why couldn't it work for you? 

Get Some Help From Your Fertility Goddess!

20. Keep the Testicles Cool

It's not just your fertility that matters when you are trying to have a baby, infact, his fertility is just as important.

Many women make the mistake of believing it is something that is wrong with them that prevents them being able to fall pregnant, but in alot of instances, the male may have the problem.

Here's the good news, alot of problems discovered, are fixable. And some are even avoidable!

21. Get a Sperm Test Done

If you are in doubt, it's always a great idea to have your partner get a sperm test done. This can just ease your mind or give you a better standing on matters if you are unsure as to why it's taking you both that bit longer to fall pregnant.

There are benefits in knowing if there is an underlying problem, that's because you can sometimes do something to rectify the underlying problem, putting you in good stead for improved chances on falling pregnant.

22. Have a Fertility Check-Up at your Local Doctor

One of our other highly recommened top tips to conceive is seeing a docotr or fertility specialist!

If you have been trying for a while now, don't sit there wondering and agonising, go to a Doctor. Have them do a fertility check-up on you and your partner.

23. Use An Ovulation Calculator To Time Your Intercourse

You can time your intercourse with the most fertile time of the month. Discover when that is by using an ovulation calculator.

Intercourse around the date you ovulate will certainly put the odds in your favour for conception.

24. Check Your Cervix

Checking your cervix is one way you can increase your odds of falling pregnant. That's because you can tell when your most fertile time of the month is. Best of all, this method is free, and can be done in the comfort of your own home!

This is one of the top tips to conceive that you can utilise for free, and in the comfort of your own home! 

25. Calculate From When You Menstruate

Wondering when your next period will arrive? Or, if you are planning to have a baby, when your next ovulation will occur?

With our Menstruation Calendar gadget, simply record when your last period started, how long it lasted, and the length of your cycle to find out when your next period should arrive and when you'll be ovulation.

This gadget is a perfect tool for women (and men!) who don't want to have to circle dates on a calendar every month just to guess what comes next.

26. Use Herbs For Fertility

One of the other top tips to conceive are the use of herbs!

Fertility herbs and vitamins may be able to help you fall pregnant quicker. That's because they might address deficiencies in your body that are preventing you from falling pregnant.

Use any of the above top tips to conceive, and you're likely to have an easier time trying to get pregnant!

How to Support Your Child’s Social-Emotional Development

Here are some ways you can support your child's social-emotional development.

• Develop responsive and consistent care-giving routines. Infants and young children benefit greatly when they feel that their needs are being met in a consistent, respectful, and responsive manner. Figuring out what they need is often a complicated process. It's one that requires you to observe and make sense of the signals your child is giving you through his behaviors. Sit and watch your child to learn what makes him excited or engaged and what soothes him. Then, you'll be able to make more educated guesses about how to respond to him in his moments of need. This sensitive attunement to his needs contributes to his feeling understood and valued. This, in turn, promotes self-esteem and trust in his caregivers.
• Provide safety and security while encouraging exploration. As young children begin the important work of exploring their world, they often feel uncertain and, at times, fearful of new situations. By helping your young child feel assured of the support and availability of his caregiver, you are helping to increase his confidence. This makes it easier for him to explore new experiences and environments. That's because he knows he can rely on you when he needs to return to a secure base. Encouraging the young child's drive for exploration and independence while continuing to be a responsive and consistent presence provides the child with a sense of safety and trust – in himself and in others. 
• Provide a nurturing and affectionate environment. Providing children with love and affection conveys to them that they are important and special individuals. Holding your children provides a physical "holding environment" in which they feel safe and contained. Comforting, singing, and talking to your children also provide an important emotional holding environment. This is where their feelings are talked about and managed with the help of their trusted caregiver. It promotes a feeling of safety and security within your young child. As children receive love and affection from their parents and caregivers, they are also learning important aspects of how they can express their love and affection to others.
• Encourage and support your child's emerging skills. Young children are continually learning and developing new skills. "Look what I can do!" is a phrase we often hear from our toddlers and preschoolers as they express their newfound excitement and pride in their accomplishments. Nurture children's learning by showing interest in their activities. Provide opportunities for them to do things on their own, helping when needed. As children master new abilities, they feel competent and self-assured.
• Promote expression of feelings in age-appropriate ways. Young children often struggle with how to express their intense emotions. They need help knowing how to appropriately manage their feelings. Using language to identify, label, and respect a young child's feelings helps. It not only allows her to feel respected and understood, but it also can help her to calm down and better manage her emotions. Over time, children are better able to identify and label their own feelings as their language skills develop. 
• It can also be helpful to tell and show young children other ways to manage their feelings. For example, it might help them to pound clay when angry or draw a picture and tell a story about how they are feeling. Helping your child to find appropriate ways to express his emotions will promote self-confidence and self-control. This will also help him to better manage conflicts with peers and to have empathy for his friends and others.
• Encourage respect and appreciation for differences. All children are born into families with certain beliefs, values, and expectations. These are often largely influenced by the culture of the family and their larger community. Culture plays a big role in our lives. It influences every aspect of parenting: feeding, sleeping, and toileting routines; discipline; ideas about schooling, development, communication, and disabilities; and how parents and children are expected to relate to one another. When you display an appreciation and respect for your own culture as well as the cultures of others, you are teaching your child acceptance of differences and an appreciation of the qualities in each of us that makes us unique. 
• Nurture your own social and emotional wellness. To provide optimal care for our children, we must also attend to our own needs. We need to ensure that we are nurturing and respecting ourselves. Parenting can be incredibly rewarding, yet it can also be continually exhausting and demanding. Did you grow up in a family where, for various reasons, your own needs for safety, security, affection, and respect were not well provided for? If so, it might be challenging to think about how to provide those experiences for your own children, despite your intense desire to do so. 
• Finding support through friends, family, or professionals can provide the comfort, encouragement, and reassurance that you need so you can be more available to your children. Seeking out this support also helps to teach your child that he lives within a loving community where individuals take care of one another.

Germ fighting tips for having a healthy baby

The word alone can put a room of new or expecting moms on high alert. After all, those pesky little microbes can be a big worry for parents trying to safeguard their tiny babies from sniffles, runny noses, fevers and worse.

But not all germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites) cause disease. In fact, all of us have a bouquet of normal bacteria on our skin, in our mouths and in our bellies that help us stay healthy (sounds gross, but it's true). They aid with digestion and building immunities, and, believe it or not, keeping them is as important as avoiding their disease-causing germ cousins.

The story of the germ is one of good versus bad, and the happy ending results from finding a balance in the approach to both. Despite Herculean efforts to keep baby's environment clean, germs happen. Most infants will have between six and eight respiratory infections (colds, ear infections, bronchitis) each year. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) doesn't think a child's environment can be "too clean," so do the best you can to police your collective space.

Baby in the icky, dirty woods 

Tips to keep your newborn germ-free

Since newborns have immature immune systems, every effort should be made to minimize their contact with bacteria and viruses that cause diseases. The big bad wolf has many friends, including respiratory syncytial virus, influenza, rotavirus, pertussis (whooping cough) and group B streptococcus. Even though it is impossible to completely control a newborn's environment, there are a few things that parents can do to limit a new baby's exposure without making themselves nutty in the process.

8 Adorable Ways Your Baby Says I Love You

• Hold all calls

Tell Aunt Sally with the runny nose to stay away! It's important to keep a young infant from anyone with symptoms of infection: fevers, sore throats, coughs, sniffles and sneezes. Remind excited relatives and friends that the gift of keeping their germs to themselves trumps any teddy bear or romper set.

• Clean team

Wash your hands. A 20-second scrub with warm water and soap is the best prevention of spreading germs. It's also the single most important thing a person caring for a newborn can do. So, scrub your hands every time before scooping up your little one; ask others to always do the same. It's especially important whenever you've handled raw vegetables or meat, played with your pet, visited the bathroom or shaken someone's hand.

• Smooch-free zone

We know, your baby is just so darn kissable. But for the love of germ prevention, keep the smooches away from her face. Saliva and mucus are two hotbeds for germs, and avoiding big wet ones on the cheek is another defense in protecting her health.

• House arrest

Avoid grocery stores, restaurants, malls, festivals and other large crowds for the first few weeks. Bypassing the adoring, baby-loving masses and their host of pathogens will help keep your little one sniffle-free.

Everything parents need to know about immunizations

• Open mouth, insert germs 

The truth about toys, pets and play groups

By the time baby's immune system has strengthened (with the help of recommended vaccines) your kid has discovered his mouth. Sadly, baby's cravings for mommy's keys don't disappear quickly. In fact, putting things, including his soiled hands, in his mouth will continue into toddlerhood and is a normal way for baby to explore and learn about his world. However, it's best to keep your little one from tasting too many dirty doodads, especially when they've previously hit the pavement, another child's mouth or Fido's doghouse. We know this isn't easy, especially since baby's world has grown to include playgrounds, play dates and trips to grocery stores, banks and other germy wonderlands. So keep these guidelines in mind to help minimize the guesswork and baby's overall germ exposure.

10 Mom-Tested Hand-Washing Tricks

• Wash up! 

At about 8 to 12 months, teach your tot how to wash his hands.

Regular soap and water does the trick (antibacterial types have not proven more effective). Get in the habit of washing baby's hands before he eats (including snacks) and after diaper changes, visits to the playground, petting an animal or coughing, sneezing or wiping his nose. If soap and water are not available, alcohol-based gels or wipes will suffice.

• The trouble with toys 

To clean or not to clean?

Most of the time, washing toys with soap and water and letting them air-dry every couple weeks is fine. But when there is a gaggle of kids manhandling baby's toys (or a play date with another drooly baby), the risk for bacteria rises. These times call for a regular household bleach wash (one-quarter cup of household bleach to one gallon of water or one tablespoon of household bleach to one quart of water). Wash, rinse thoroughly and air-dry the goods. Fuzzy toys are germ magnets and are harder to clean, so you might want to put these away during the next play date.

Et tu, fido?

The AAP does not recommend pets for families with children under the age of 5 because of germs and a child's immature judgment. But if Rover or Mimi are already members of your crew, make sure their areas and toys are separate from where baby plays. (Since reptiles and snakes frequently have salmonella, it's best they not be anywhere near children.)

• Shot in the arm (or leg) 

Vaccinations are not just important for baby.

Make sure both parents and caregivers are up-to-date on their immunizations as well. Most important are the influenza vaccine, which everyone older than 6 months should receive each fall, and the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis) vaccine, which is given to adults as a booster every 10 years. Consult your physician about when you're due.

Why Kids Get Sicker at Night

• Make-it-fun tip!

Sing the alphabet song while you help baby wash his hands. The song is just long enough to get his tiny mitts squeaky clean.

• Germ-O-Meter 

The dirtiest places in a baby's world (From least to most)

* Bed linens

* Bathtubs

* Shopping cart handles

* Playgrounds

* Carpets

* Kitchen Sink

• Germ magnet

Disinfect bath toys frequently or avoid buying ones that collect water and breed mold and bacteria. The five-second rule is a myth Bacteria and salmonella can live up to a month on surfaces, and it takes less than five seconds for them to adhere to that juicy piece of peach that fell on the floor. So, sorry to say, it's time to put the peach, and the five-second rule, in the trash.

6 ways to keep your child healthy at daycare

If your child is in daycare, he's probably sick more times than you care to think about, yet coming down with another cold or ear infection might actually be good for him. According to a recent Australian study, babies and toddlers in daycare were sick more frequently but were less likely to fall ill once they started school.

"Their immune system is getting  primed and it's growing in maturity," according to Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician and author of Seattle Children's Hospital's Seattle Mama Doc Blog,  who said all infants and toddlers are more susceptible to infections because they're coming into contact with illnesses they've never had before. So whether they're at daycare or at home, they're bound to get sick eventually.

Yet who wants a sick kid? Here are 6 things you can do to prevent your kid from catching a bug.

1. Boost immunity.

Experts agree that a healthy diet high in fruits, vegetables, and iron-rich foods as well as plenty of sleep are key to a strong immune system. If you're concerned your child isn't getting enough iron, speak with your pediatrician about an iron supplement.

2. Insist on clean hands.

"Hand hygiene is the number one way to reduce the spread of illness," according to Dr. Danette Glassy, a pediatrician and chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Early Education and Child Care.

Daycare staff should wash their hands frequently throughout the day and especially before feedings, after checking or changing diapers, after eating or using the restroom, and after wiping runny noses, spit up, or drool. If you have concerns, visit or stay for a bit to see if the staff are washing their hands thoroughly and using hand sanitizer correctly.

3. Understand the sick policy.

Most facilities require parents to pick up their child if he has a fever yet "so many infections are contagious before fever onset and after fever resolution," Swanson said. What's more, a child could have a fever and feel fine or have a severe cold without any fever. Be sure you understand and agree with the daycare's policy and find out if it's being enforced.

In addition, Swanson suggested asking the staff if they're able to go home when they're feeling sick and if they have the center's support when they believe a child should go home. "Asking the teachers is one of the most powerful things you can do," she said.

4. Advocate for vaccines.

Your daycare probably required your child's immunization record before he could attend, yet many don't follow up with parents to make sure subsequent vaccines are up to date. Some states have a database to look up a child's records, but if it's not something your daycare does, advocate to make it happen.

It's also important to find out if the staff has been vaccinated against life-threatening illness like Pertussis, especially because many do not have health insurance. In fact, only 26 percent of child care workers in day care programs have access to health care, according to a recent report by the National Research Council.

5. Control cross-contamination

Your infant puts everything in his mouth and at daycare, that same toy he just picked up has been in every other child's mouth as well. Contamination is inevitable, but there are things the daycare can do to keep things clean. For example, the sink the staff uses to wash their hands after changing diapers, shouldn't be the same sink where bottles are prepared.

Glassy said there's also a logic for what needs to be cleaned, disinfected, and sanitized and how frequently. Check out Child Care Aware of America's checklists when evaluating a facility and The National Resource Center for Health and Safety in Child Care and Early Education's book, Caring for Our Children for more information.

6. Ask about regulations, standards, and more.

Daycare facilities are required to adhere to licensing regulations yet it varies by state. If your daycare is accredited by a national professional organization, they may have standards that include health and safety practices that go above and beyond state regulations.

Be sure to ask the director what their policies are and if the staff have regular training and support. Glassy suggested parents find out if the day care has a professional child care health consultant that meets with the staff on a regular basis. The consultant can teach the staff about health and safety and work with them to adhere to regulations and policies.  

How young children learn English as another language

Young children are natural language acquirers; they are self-motivated to pick up language without conscious learning, unlike adolescents and adults. They have the ability to imitate pronunciation and work out the rules for themselves. Any idea that learning to talk in English is difficult does not occur to them unless it's suggested by adults, who themselves probably learned English academically at a later age through grammar-based text books.

Read the notes below about young children learning English as another language. You can also download these notes as a booklet. Right-click on the link below to download the booklet to your computer. You may print this booklet.

The advantages of beginning early

• Young children are still using their individual, innate language-learning strategies to acquire their home language and soon find they can also use these strategies to pick up English.
• Young children have more time to fit English into the daily programme. School programmes tend to be informal and children's minds are not yet cluttered with facts to be stored and tested. They may have little or no homework and are less stressed by having to achieve set standards.
• Young children have time to learn through play-like activities. They pick up language by taking part in an activity shared with an adult. They firstly make sense of the activity and then get meaning from the adult's shared language.
• Children who have the opportunity to pick up a second language while they are still young appear to use the same innate language-learning strategies throughout life when learning other languages. Picking up third, fourth, or even more languages is easier than picking up a second.
• Young children who acquire language rather than consciously learn it, as older children and adults have to, are more likely to have better pronunciation and feel for the language and culture. When monolingual children reach puberty and become more self-conscious, their ability to pick up language diminishes and they feel they have to consciously study English through grammar-based programmes. The age at which this change occurs depends greatly on the individual child's developmental levels as well as the expectations of their society.

Stages in picking up English

Spoken language comes naturally before reading and writing.

Silent period
When babies learn their home language, there is a 'silent period', when they look and listen and communicate through facial expression or gestures before they begin to speak. When young children learn English, there may be a similar 'silent period' when communication and understanding may take place before they actually speak any English words.

During this time parents should not force children to take part in spoken dialogue by making them repeat words. Spoken dialogues should be one-sided, the adult's talk providing useful opportunities for the child to pick up language. Where the adult uses parentese (an adjusted form of speech) to facilitate learning, the child may use many of the same strategies they used in learning their home language.

Building up English language
Gradually children build up phrases consisting of a single memorised word to which they add words from their vocabulary ('a dog', 'a brown dog', 'a brown and black dog') or a single memorised language to which they add their own input ('That's my chair', 'Time to play'). Depending on the frequency of exposure to English and the quality of experience, children gradually begin to create whole sentences.

Beginning to talk
After some time, depending on the frequency of English sessions, each child (girls often more quickly than boys) begins to say single words ('cat', 'house') or ready-made short phrases ('What's that?', 'It's my book', 'I can't', 'That's a car', 'Time to go home') in dialogues or as unexpected statements. The child has memorised them, imitating the pronunciation exactly without realising that some may consist of more than one word. This stage continues for some time as they child picks up more language using it as a short cut to dialogue before they are ready to create their own phrases.

Understanding

Understanding is always greater than speaking and young children's ability to comprehend should not be underestimated, as they are used to understanding their home language from a variety of context clues. Though they may not understand everything they hear in their home language, children grasp the gist – that is they understand a few important words and decipher the rest using different clues to interpret the meaning. With encouragement they soon transfer their 'gist' understanding skills to interpret meaning in English.

Frustration

After the initial novelty of English sessions, some young children become frustrated by their inability to express their thoughts in English. Others want to speak quickly in English as they can in their home language. Frustration can often be overcome by providing children with 'performance' pieces like 'I can count to 12 in English' or very simple rhymes, which consist of ready-made phrases.

Mistakes

Children should not be told they have made a mistake because any correction immediately demotivates. Mistakes may be part of the process of working out grammar rules of English or they may be a fault in pronunciation. 'I goed' soon becomes 'went' if the child hears the adult repeat back 'yes, you went'; or if the adult hears 'zee bus' and repeats 'the bus'. As in learning their home language, if children have an opportunity to hear the adult repeat the same piece of language correctly, they will self-correct in their own time.

Gender differences

Boys' brains develop differently from girls' and this affects how boys pick up language and use it. Sometimes mixed classes make little provision for boys, who may be overshadowed by girls' natural ability to use language. If young boys are to reach their potential, they need some different language experiences with girls and their achievements should not be compared with those of girls.

Language-learning environments

Young children find it more difficult to pick up English if they are not provided with the right type of experiences, accompanied by adult support using 'parentese' techniques.

• Young children need to feel secure and know that there is some obvious reason for using English.
• Activities need to be linked to some interesting everyday activities about which they already know, eg sharing an English picture book, saying a rhyme in English, having an 'English' snack.
• Activities are accompanied by adult language giving a running commentary about what is going on and dialogues using adjusted parentese language.
• English sessions are fun and interesting, concentrating on concepts children have already understood in their home language. In this way children are not learning two things, a new concept as well as new language, but merely learning the English to talk about something they already know.
• Activities are backed up by specific objects, where possible, as this helps understanding and increases general interest.

Reading

Children who can already read in their home language generally want to find out how to read in English. They already know how to decode words in their home language to get meaning from text and, if not helped to decode in English, may transfer their home language-decoding techniques and end up reading English with the home language accent.

Before they can decode English, young children need to know the 26 alphabet letter names and sounds. As English has 26 letters but on average 44 sounds (in standard English), introducing the remaining sounds is better left until children have more experience in using language and reading,

Beginning reading in English goes easily if young children already know the language they are trying to read. Many children work out by themselves how to read in English if they have shared picture books with adults or learned rhymes, as they are likely to have memorised the language. Reading what they know by heart is an important step in learning to read as it gives children opportunities to work out how to decode simple words by themselves. Once children have built up a bank of words they can read, they feel confident and are then ready for a more structured approach.

Parental support

Children need to feel that they are making progress. They need continual encouragement as well as praise for good performance, as any success motivates. Parents are in an ideal position to motivate and so help their children learn, even if they have only basic English themselves and are learning alongside their young children.

By sharing, parents can not only bring their child's language and activities into family life, but can also influence their young children's attitudes to language learning and other cultures. It is now generally accepted that most lifelong attitudes are formed by the age of eight or nine.

Sign language to improve speaking ability

Teaching baby sign language in its communication ability will make it easier in the future. Researcher have the result in sign language (non-verbal) done with the baby will ease the baby to communicate verbally when entering talks period.

Details of the research were mentioned, babies who are taught to use sign language can speak fluently at the age of 27-28 months, more rapid around 3 months than infants who did not learn sign language. 24-month-old baby who was taught sign language to compose a longer sentence is meaningful.

The research also mentions, the language skills of children aged 36 months being taught sign language similar to the language ability of children age 47 months aren't taught sign language. This study involved 140 families who had a baby at age 11 months.

Similar research conducted at the University of California back to prove the same result, even revealing anything else, i.e. a baby early on trained sign language has a high IQ test scores than babies. Linda and Susan continue to do his research based on the theory of psychological, neuro brain easy work with active when the picture was handed a (visual).

In theory, researcher classifies as a visual image of sign language. This means that baby will further enable his brain when he saw his parents using sign language.

It is realized or not, actually naturally many parents already do this, but not aware of it, let alone many not know its benefits. But when talking with children often do not deliberately we add some movement that children understand. When this is done consistently and continuously benefits felt in children. Therefore, Yuk Teach Children with sign language.

Communication: How Babies Learn

If you want to study how a baby's experiences influence his or her speech perception, the city of Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, is a good place to start. An increasing proportion of the population there speaks English as a second language. Many children are raised in homes where two or more languages are spoken, and an estimated 67 different languages are used with some level of frequency in the local schools. For Dr. Janet Werker, a leader in developmental cross-language and speech research, Vancouver offers a rich natural research environment in which she can study the speech perception and language learning abilities of young children.

 

A prolific author and fellow of both the Royal Society of Canada and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Werker is consumed with questions about how and when young children develop the skills to differentiate environmental sounds from meaningful speech.

 

A theory that Werker shares with many of her fellow researchers is that babies' language learning is supported by the development of perceptual systems that integrate listening and the visual cues  offered by the speakers around them. At one time, researchers thought that babies developed speech perception in a sequential process, Werker explained. Now, the research community is relatively confident that babies are listening at multiple levels,even very early in life.

 

"Children [with typical hearing] rapidly acquire language, and children with exposure rapidly acquire the language or languages in their environment," she said at the 2007 Talk for a Lifetime Summer Conference. "One of the mysteries that keeps me jumping out of bed every morning is how does this happen so quickly?"

 

What does listening at multiple levels entail, exactly? In brief, babies are learning the properties of a language - rhythm,acceptable sound sequences, language categorization and visual cues such as lip movements and hand gestures - simultaneously. In turn,those skills set the stage for language acquisition with a focus on word learning.

 

Despite the seeming complexity of this developmental process,most babies get a natural head start to listening in utero so that,by the time they are born, they already show a predisposition for their native language. Babies even have the ability to use the acoustic and phonological cues in words to discriminate between content words (such as nouns, verbs and adjectives) and function words, said Werker.

 

"Ultimately, by age 6 months, [babies] prefer content words. By 8 months, they hear a function word and know to expect a content word to come," Werker explained. "It allows them to learn when to listen for meaning, when to listen for structure. It's a kind of boot-strapping mechanism for learning the native language."

 

Speech Versus Nonspeech
Let's return to the concept of infant preferences at birth. In research published in Developmental Science, Werker and doctoral candidate Athena Vouloumanos outlined an experiment that gave babies the choice of listening to speech versus nonspeech. Babies were laid in a bassinette and given a pacifier connected to a system that enabled the researchers to measure the baby's sucking pattern. After establishing a baseline, the researchers "rewarded" babies with a speech or nonspeech sound for each high-amplitude sucking motion. The study showed that babies delivered more sucking sounds in order to hear speech.

 

Their research is corroborated by studies of adults that show how certain parts of the brain are selectively activated when hearing speech. In addition, brain imaging research conducted on newborn babies by Marcela Peña, Jacques Mehler and colleagues at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, shows greater activation in the form of oxygenated blood flow to the language areas of the brain's left hemisphere in response to speech.

 

Werker and colleagues have gone on to explore whether babies listen selectively to some languages over others. One recent study of word learning in bilingual infants tested whether babies exposed in utero to English, the Philippine dialect of Tagalog or both languages showed a language preference based on rhythmic differences. As in other studies, the babies exposed only to English showed a preference for English.

 

Sound Sequences
When it comes to sound sequences, adults often have difficulty hearing the differences among a language's nuances. Consider English speakers stumbling through the consonants and inflections of Russian or Werker's example of Japanese adults distinguishing between "ra" and "la." The ability to distinguish between consonants is simply a matter of tuning in to the sounds that makeup a listener's experience.

 

"Babies begin life with the ability to discriminate virtually all of the consonant distinctions they might need," she said. "Overtime, they become more specific about what they need to learn as a function of their listening experience."

 

To investigate this ability further, Werker used a procedure in which babies were conditioned to turn their heads when hearing a change between two slightly different "da" sounds that exist between English and Hindi. The babies were rewarded for the appropriate response with a visual of toy animals performing off to one side. Researchers then were able to count the number of correct head turns, indicating the children's ability to discriminate between the different speech sounds.

 

The study's findings showed that, early on, both English and Hindi learning babies could distinguish between the two variations in sound. By 10 to 12 months of age, however, babies learning English began to have difficulty making the distinction. The reason? The differentiation is not critical to the English language, whereas it is in Hindi. This example of phonetic discrimination illustrates how babies attune to the sound system of their native language.

Visual Cues
In another recent study, Werker partnered with Stephanie Baker of Dartmouth College to test babies' ability to discriminate visual signs. Their work was based on Baker's previous research conducted with Roberta Michnick-Golinkoff of the University of Delaware and other colleagues, which showed that both 4-month-old infants with typical hearing and adults with hearing loss who use sign language draw sharp distinctions between different visual cues. Yet after the first year, infants with typical hearing no longer demonstrate that same distinction or boundary.

 

Werker and Baker then tested babies using an eye tracker and replicated the finding that babies with typical hearing did, in fact, look back and forth between the face and hand, just like babies who were learning sign language. Babies who used sign as their native language continued to make the distinction, a finding that shows that the ability to discriminate between cues and to sharpen those skills is critical to both verbal and visually signed languages.

But do babies pick up other visual cues, such as how lip movements correspond to the sounds of a language? Research published in Science already had shown that adults can identify by sight a speaker who might be using their native language, but not very well.

So, Werker's team presented babies with a rotation of three bilingual English/French speakers reciting a series of sentences from a children's book, but in silence. One group of babies "saw" the sentences in English and the other in French. Once the babies were habituated to the speakers and grew bored, the team had each speaker either continue to present new sentences in the same language or present new sentences in the alternate language. The team found that at 4 and 6 months of age, monolingual babies responded to the change in language. By age 8 months, the monolingual babies no longer responded to the change; they simply treated language as language. The bilingual babies continued to discern the change, and Werker's team is now looking at how bilingual babies maintain that distinction.

Language Categorization
Werker's research is also heavily influenced by colleagues in her lab and around the world. Previous work conducted by Sebastian-Galles and Bosch (2005) with babies learning Spanish and Catalan showed that, at 4 months of age, both monolingual and bilingual babies could differentiate between "e" and "ε." By age 8 months, Catalan babies continued to hear the distinction but Spanish babies did not. Once again, the reason is simple: Catalan has nine vowels, whereas Spanish has only five.

 

Notably, bilingual babies learning both Spanish and Catalan also did not demonstrate an ability to hear the difference at this age. When tested again at age 12 months, however, the babies once again had started to discriminate between the vowels. Werker stressed that such a "hiccup" is part of a pattern common to bilingual babies in a number of areas of language acquisition.

 

Based on this and other research, Werker currently is exploring how bilingual babies learning French and English distinguish between the "bah" and "pah" sounds, used in both languages but with different meanings in each.

 

Language Acquisition
A major area of Werker's research is determining how the properties of speech, specifically the categorization of speech sounds, influence word learning. She describes the process as a "really long journey" because, although babies recognize highly familiar words by 6 and 8 months of age, they still have not developed a system for categorizing them, a skill that generally develops around 14 months of age.

 

To test whether infants could use speech sound categories to direct word learning, Werker's team used a "switch" procedure,creating two different consonant-vowel sounds, neither of which formed a recognizable word. They then paired each word with an object and taught the baby to associate the word and object. Next,they performed a test using two types of trials, one using the familiar word-object pairing and the other switching the word-object pairs to determine if the baby could discriminate the change.

 

The researchers found that the babies could perform a similar task with ease at 14 months if the words were recognizable. When discriminating between the made-up words "bi" and "di" for which they had no contextual support, the babies were not able to perform the task. In essence, babies appear to have difficulty with minimal pair word learning until age 17 months.

 

Predicting Language Development
Building on her research into minimal pair word learning, Werker's team partnered with Barbara Bernhardt, a speech-language pathologist at the University of British Columbia, to link the babies' performance on the "bi/di" minimal pair task to vocabulary acquisition and phonological development at 2 ½ and 4 years of age.The test involved a follow-up with the babies from the previous switch task study to determine how much longer they looked at the switch trial task.

 

The latest trial found a high correlation between performance on the minimal pair word learning task and the length of time a baby looked at the switch trial task as opposed to the familiar word-object pairing. The team now has funding to conduct a three-year longitudinal study to examine whether the switch task might be used as an indicator of later language delay.

 

The local health department has loaned the researchers its audiometric van so that the team can expand the study to include a diverse group of children from families representing a range of ethnic, linguistic and socioeconomic backgrounds. The team also is working with the Vancouver audiology clinic, located at the confluence of a number of heavily traveled bus lines, to expand participation in the study. In addition, speech pathologists working throughout the area helped to identify infants who had siblings with a language delay.

Through this new avenue, Werker hopes to build on what she and her colleagues already have learned about infants' discrimination of perceptual categories and minimal pairs to identify points at which practitioners can intervene to accelerate the development of infants struggling through their first steps of language learning.