Will Getting Your Kids Outside Save Their Eyesight?

When her two elementary school-age boys were toddlers, New Jersey mom Ilana Friedman followed long-held conventional wisdom on children and outdoor time: the former should get lots of the latter.

“We always went for walks and went to the park–things like that,” she told BabyZone.

But with her youngest son, now 3, Friedman has even more reason to make sure he gets out of the house and into the sunlight.

“I don’t think many of us have been as aware as we have been in the last year or two about the increasing evidence showing that outdoor light is beneficial for children and visual development,” she said.

Friedman is a pediatric ophthalmologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

Read more at Yahoo.

Why Aren’t Baby Girls Given Their Mothers’ Names?

My mother-in-law’s name is Edith. Her mother’s name, not coincidentally, was also Edith.

“She liked her name,” Edith said of her late mother, a tall woman often called “Big Edith” in contrast to her daughter, “Little Edith.” (No relation to the Big and Little Edies of “Grey Gardens” fame.) “She wasn’t quite sure what to call me, so she named me after herself.”

A new study has confirmed what I’ve long suspected: When it comes to women being named after their mothers, my MIL doesn’t have much company.

Read more at Yahoo.

New Study Suggests Fast Food Companies Should Limit Advertising to Children

Michelle McCaffrey says her two young boys, ages 1 and 3, don’t know what fast food is.

“They haven’t ever had it, and we stream shows (online instead of watching TV), so they haven’t ever seen a commercial either,” the Pennsylvania mom said.

McCaffrey’s kids may be in the minority.

Researchers at the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity have found that on average, children between the ages of 2 and 5 see more than 1,000 advertisements for fast food each year.

Read more at Yahoo.

Early Warning Signs of Speech and Hearing Disorders

Two smiling parents gently encourage their little boy to speak. “Mama! Mama! Say, ‘Mama!'” they repeat to him over and over.

He talks back, but thanks to some special effects, it’s an answer only television viewers can hear: “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m almost 2 now and still not responding. That’s one sign of a communication disorder.”

The commercial, sponsored by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, started airing last month and is part of “Identify the Signs,” a new campaign targeting the parents of young children.

In a survey of nearly 6,000 audiologists and speech pathologists earlier this year, 64 percent said that the parents of young children are unaware of the early warning signs of speech disorders.

Read more at Yahoo.