Baby

Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos are actually creating baby Homer Simpsons, scientists said today. For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old watched such popular video series as Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein, they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. The makers of the videos sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth each year to parents aiming to put their babies on the fast track, even if they are still working on walking.

Three years ago, Julie and Michael McCalpin had the foresight to circle their magic date: April 9, 1999.Long before they married, or even so much as picked out a china pattern, the couple had staked out their reproductive future.In two weeks, the McCalpins will spend what could be politely termed as "quality time" together to fulfill their long-held goal: conceive a "Millennium Baby," a little Y2K bug of their own."It's a unique opportunity that few people have ever had," said Julie McCalpin, 28, who spends the balance of her day restoring a 90-year-old home in suburban Portland, Ore. "When Mike and I first started getting serious, we knew we wanted children, and we saw this date coming up and we thought we should be ready to go."

DENTON -- A Guatemalan teen-ager who faces a first-degree murder charge in the Feb. 1 death of her newborn son was ordered held without bail yesterday after an assistant state medical examiner testified at a hearing that the death was a homicide caused by drowning or asphyxiation.Seventeen-year-old Erminia Escalante-Berduo, who entered the country illegally shortly before Christmas and moved in with relatives in a trailer park near Marydel in rural Caroline County, delivered her baby in a toilet, then placed the child in plastic grocery bags, investigators say."

Victoria Rose Dobbin's father said yesterday his "beautiful bug" was healthy when he left her with her baby sitter in the 9100 block of Blues Alley on June 2."She was just like the same old Tori," said John J. Dobbin, Jr., 21, of Laurel. "She was a very happy and loving baby."Later that day, she was rushed from North Laurel to Children's National Medical Center in Washington. Doctors determined she suffered a subdural hematoma, a hemorrhaging between her skull and brain. She died 16 days later.

Coming soon to a store near you: a diaper that fights diaper rash.A what?"We tried to design a diaper that is not just about containment, but is actually about caring for the child's skin," says Mauricio Odio, a toxicologist with Procter & Gamble, maker of the new Pampers Rash Guard.The rash-dashing diaper still does the dirty work, but it also lubricates a baby's bottom with petrolatum, the ointment that's the core ingredient of Vaseline."Petrolatum," Odio says, "is the standard for treatment of diaper rash.

THE TRUTH of the matter is that raising children is colossally important job but also a monumental drag.Thus, skeptics may make crooked smiles at Rep. Bill Paxon's announcement that he is sacrificing a successful political career to spend more time with his 21-month-old daughter, Susan Ruby. Her mother is Susan Molinari, a former GOP representative from New York.Only last week, Mr. Paxon, a Republican from Buffalo, was feverishly working the phones to replace Texan Dick Armey as House majority leader.

GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala -- When she was six months pregnant, Gabriela de Leon's husband told her he couldn't afford -- and didn't want -- another child.After he beat her and threatened to kill her and her other two children, de Leon agreed to give the newborn to a lawyer specializing in international adoptions.Her husband received the equivalent of $650 for what was considered by the Guatemalan government a private, legal transaction. Within weeks, de Leon, a 23-year-old school teacher, had left her husband.

Ah, the joys of pregnancy: cramping, swelling, throwing up ... choosing a name. Of all the suffering that expectant parents endure, the most extended might be figuring out what to call the kid. Hamilton or Harpo? Dakota or Dylan?For those who haven't visited a nursery school of late, names have entered a new dimension. Parents are tossing off the chains of normalcy, mediocrity, tradition and sometimes good taste to outfit their offspring with a title of distinction.A tyke's moniker needs to sound aesthetically pleasing, needs to set him or her apart, needs to conjure a positive image.

The poor American Association of Retired Persons.Its political enemies are its future members. The AARP created the richest retirees in history by putting baby boomers and Gen-Xers in deep hock. Now the lobbying group is starting to realize which side of the aisle its next dose of Geritol is coming from."We must remember our obligations to future generations" when deciding how to spend the federal budget surplus, says John Rother, AARP's chief lobbyist. "American families are expected to save and spend wisely.

An Anne Arundel County Circuit judge ended the baby-killing trial of Zenon Cantu Jr. yesterday by saying the state failed to prove its case.The evidence would not allow him to find Cantu guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, said Judge Robert H. Heller Jr. "I cannot convict Mr. Cantu of suspicions I hold against him on my gut feelings."Cantu, 26, of Pasadena was charged with second-degree murder and two related counts in the death of Nicholas R. Alford, 17 months, whose parents found him dead in his crib at 9: 30 a.m. Jan. 14 in their Crofton home.

A Pasadena father pleaded guilty Monday to manslaughter, admitting that he had shaken his 1-month-old daughter too hard as he tried to calm the crying infant. The child, Lilyanna Alora Wirick, died Jan. 15, six days after she was taken to the Baltimore Washington Medical Center in Glen Burnie, then transferred to Johns Hopkins Children Center. In a low, sometimes-hoarse voice, John Wayne Wirick, 32, answered the questions posed by Anne Arundel County Circuit Court Judge Paul A. Hackner.

Robin Coxson suspected something was amiss when she heard Monday that her one-time foster daughter suddenly had a 4-month-old baby. After not seeing her for months, the young woman sought out Coxson, who allowed her and the baby to stay at her East Baltimore rowhouse. But Coxson said in an interview yesterday that she didn't believe that the woman, nicknamed "Nay Nay," had given birth to the baby. She pressed the woman for details on the child while the woman swore the baby was hers. "I said, 'Nay Nay, you had a baby?"

The state's highest court ruled yesterday that a man can be charged with rape if he ignores a woman's calls to stop - even if she had previously consented to sex. With this expansion of the legal definition of rape, Maryland joins seven other states whose courts have determined that a woman can revoke her consent after intercourse begins. "This goes to the heart of women's autonomy," said Lisae C. Jordan, legal director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which filed a brief in the matter.

It was about 8 a.m. June 11 when Heather Lowe drove her best friend to the Parkville home of the married man who got her pregnant. "She wanted to talk to him about the baby," Lowe testified yesterday of her friend, Elizabeth Walters. "She got upset. A seven-months-pregnant woman with hormones raging, you want answers. You get upset." More than two hours later, the man, David L. Miller, finally answered Walters' repeated phone calls and told her to meet him at a nearby shopping center, Lowe told jurors.

The baby's eyelids were swollen with fluid. His head was misshapen and marked by dark reddish-purple bruises. And the 15-day-old boy suffered multiple fractures that stretched 14 inches across his skull. The infant's father, Kenneth G. Ryan, told police last year that he blacked out after inhaling the spray from a can of electronics cleaner and awoke to find his son injured. Yesterday, the 21-year-old Catonsville man pleaded guilty to charges of second-degree murder and child abuse, admitting that he inflicted the injuries that caused the baby's death.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Jurors unanimously agreed yesterday that Lisa Montgomery should be put to death for killing Bobbie Jo Stinnett and stealing her unborn daughter nearly three years ago. Before the decision ending the four-week trial was announced yesterday afternoon, the federal judge ordered spectators to control their emotions or leave the Kansas City courtroom. People obeyed him, but Montgomery began shaking after she heard the verdict. Jurors, who deliberated about four hours over two days, declined to talk to reporters afterward.

A 37-year-old taxi driver in Ocean City was charged this month with murdering a newborn. Days before, she had been rushed to a hospital, bleeding - and denied being pregnant even though doctors found a placenta in her womb. Christy Lynn Freeman's deceased, day-old son was discovered wrapped in a towel below her bathroom sink. The murder charge, however, stems from another baby's death, in 2003 or 2004. Investigators found the remains of three other newborns on her property. Few crimes generate greater public reaction than neonaticide: when a mother kills her baby, or leaves it to die, on the day she gives birth.

Standing 2 feet tall and weighing 20 pounds, three-time pretty-baby contest champion Alex Wilmeth retired Saturday after a knockout performance as Elvis at the Howard County Fair. His father, Michael Wilmeth, offered this statement on his son's victory in his final year of eligibility: "He is the Michael Jordan of baby parades." In 2005, the Cooksville native debuted in the nonwalking division as Harry Potter. At the age of 1, he steered his "Black Pearl" wagon as Pirates of the Caribbean character Jack Sparrow.

Parents hoping to raise baby Einsteins by using infant educational videos are actually creating baby Homer Simpsons, scientists said today. For every hour a day that babies 8 to 16 months old watched such popular video series as Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein, they knew six to eight fewer words than other children. The makers of the videos sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth each year to parents aiming to put their babies on the fast track, even if they are still working on walking.

When prosecutors charged an Ocean City taxi driver with murder Thursday in the 2004 death of her newborn baby, they opened a window onto a crime that occurs more often than most people would expect. In the United States, a baby is killed within 24 hours of birth at least once every three days. In fact, the risk of homicide on the first day of life is 10 times greater than the risk during any other 24-hour period, experts say. "A lot of [cases] we never find out about because the baby is never discovered or the woman is under 18 and it never hits the newspapers," said Cheryl Meyer, a psychologist at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, and author of a book about mothers who kill their children.