Practice Walking Helps Infants Walk Earlier

In fact, contrary to all of the early anecdotes claiming that practice has no effect on the onset of walking, one carefully controlled study has shown that special exercise can indeed accelerate it. In this study, a group of newborns were given just ten minutes per day of "practice walking." Every day between one and nine weeks of age, the baby would be held upright by a parent, with his feet on a table, and allowed to exercise his stepping reflex. Two additional groups of babies received, re...

 Effects of Smoking on the Fetus

Most women also realize that smoking is bad during pregnancy. Unfortunately, it can be a very hard habit to give up, even for the best-intentioned parent. Smoking is not as detrimental to fetal brain development as heavy alcohol drinking, but it acts on many other organ systems. like the heart and lungs, that compromise the baby's health in a lasting way. Babies born to heavy smokers are substantially smaller than babies born to nonsmokers, averaging about half a pound lighter. In fact, smoki...