Baby

If you've been wondering about Elise Armacost, who left this page a few weeks ago for a six-month maternity leave, I can report that at last she has had her baby.Although Elise never misses a deadline, her daughter did not inherit the same flair for punctuality. Juliet Anne arrived on Tuesday -- exactly three weeks overdue. This little girl has a promising future with the Baltimore post office.In The Sun's Anne Arundel County bureau, we're relieved this baby has finally been born. We've been anticipating her arrival for months now and talking about the changes she will bring.

WAUCHULA, Fla. -- A glaring inconsistency has emerged in the story of a former nurse's aide who says doctors at a tiny Central Florida hospital conspired to swap Kimberly Mays with another baby 14 years ago.Patricia Webb, 59, announced this week that she was ordered to make the baby switch by a physician and that she refused, only to find later that someone else had made the swap. She heard three doctors discussing why they did it, she said in a nationally broadcast interview on the CBS Evening News.

Q: Are cold hands a sign of sickness in a baby? My child's hands are always cold even though her body is warm.A: The temperature of the center or core of the body -- where the vital organs are housed -- is quite strictly regulated. That's why we measure body temperature through the mouth or rectum.Body parts that are far away, such as the hands and feet, are often cooler. Like the outer rooms of a house, they are more affected by environmental variations.When it is cold, the body conserves heat and energy by restricting blood flow to the extremities, making the hands and feet even cooler.

Pat Stoffey and her husband, Joe, weren't planning on having any more children. They already had two sons and a daughter, the youngest of whom was eight years old. It was exhausting even to think about going through the baby routine again. The Stoffeys were on to the next phase of their lives.Yet when Pat became pregnant again and delivered a fourth child, a girl named Patty, everyone in the family was delighted."We fought over Patty," Pat recalled the other day. "We all wanted to feed her and change her. Patty was a present.

City police today were awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death for an infant girl whose body was found yesterday in Leakin Park.The state medical examiner's office was to conduct the autopsy today.Police found the baby at Wetheredsville and Franklintown roads about 5 p.m. after a tree-trimming crew spotted two bloody plastic bags and called police.Apparently, the baby had lain there 24 hours before being discovered, said Homicide Detective Sgt. Jack Barrick."It looked like a full-term baby,"said Lt. Donald F. Haupt of Southwestern District.

Cari Allison would rather start her own business than deal with finding another baby sitter.The Davidsonville mother of two sons, Joshua, 4, and Ryan, 2, had a steady baby sitter, but is losing her because the sitter is moving. Mrs. Allison, who knows the troubles of finding a reliable sitter, decided to make it easier for herself and others by creating a directory called the Baby-Sitting Network.The publication, which she hopes will come out quarterly, will list about 50 sitters from five areas: Annapolis, Bowie/Crofton, Arnold/Severna Park, Glen Burnie/Pasadena, and Deale/South County.

We set out with a sense of foreboding. If you ever feel a boding, and later on something bad happens, that was a foreboding. We were traveling from Miami to Minnesota, a state located near, or possibly inside, Canada. The reason we felt a boding was that we were carrying a live baby, and we had stupidly elected to travel by airplane. I think that, instead of making such a big deal about weapons, the airlines ought to start cracking down on babies. Ask the average airline passenger: "Would you rather sit near a gun, or a baby?"

A 19-year-old East Baltimore man was charged yesterday with murder and child abuse in the beating death of his girlfriend's 11-month-old daughter, who was found unconscious in bed Monday. The baby's 20-year-old mother also will be charged with the child's death, police said.The baby, Renae Hicks, died Tuesday evening at University Medical Center after she was removed from life support systems, Agent Arlene K. Jenkins, a police spokeswoman, said.The state medical examiner's office ruled the death a homicide after an autopsy showed that the child had died of blunt trauma to the head, police said.

Testimony is set to begin this morning in a Westminster doctor's appeal of a decision by the state's malpractice court that he didn't do enough to save a baby boy who died shortly after birth in 1986.InJuly, a three-member Maryland Health Arbitration Board found Dr. Karl Green negligent in his care of Brett Morris, the infant son of Robert and Barbara Morris of Westminster. The panel awarded the Morrises $550,000 in damages.Carroll County General Hospital also was named in the original suit, but was not found liable by the malpractice panel.

Choosing a child's name is a tricky business. Consider these tips for choosing names that will stand the test of time. Who are you?: Naming children after cherished ancestors is a timeless tradition. Are there relatives you want to honor for roles they've played in your life or because they possess personal qualities you hope your child will emulate? What's important to you?: Identify values and characteristics important in your family, then find names associated with these. For example, if sports are important to you, the Irish name Colin, which means strong and virile, might have lasting meaning.