To Vitamin or Not To Vitamin

I've been seeing a lot of news and articles on vitamins lately (probably because they are all over "Preparing for Baby" books but they have been in mainsteam, non baby world, as well. Did you catch the Today Show clip on Echincea this morning? Echincea, once proven to not work at all, now has a scientific review showing that it does work - so much for the word "proven". Anyway, I digress, the thing that confuses me is that when you are pregnant (or trying to conceive) you are advised to take vitamins, especially Folic acid, for fear of birth defects. Yes, mommy guilt now starts pre-conception. If you, mom to be, selfishly do not take your prenatal your child could be born with a birth defect or less then optimal brain health (take your Folic, take your DHA). Now this is all strange because it seems in all other scenarios doctors (and the media) are advising people away from vitamins as useless, possibly doing more harm then good, etc... If vitamins are good for pregnant women then it seems that they may have some merit for the rest of the population as well (especially since mom's to be seem to be more vigilant over their nutrition then typical non baby growing folk on the street). Adding to the strangeness is that almost everything else a pregnant women would normally ingest is now off limits - peanut butter, deli meat, sushi and the big one ... caffeine... have you tried going to Starbucks and not ordering decaf yet??
I'm glad that science knows more about nutrition and that mom's are taking better care of themselves and baby to be but this dichotomy in the world of vitamins has really got me wondering - who hates vitamins so much, mommy's sure like them!

Bugaboo versus Chicco… Stroller Wars Have Begun

So who knew that finding the right stroller for the baby would be sooooo difficult? I have read Consumer Reports for Infant Care (both the old and new versions) I have read books about best baby deals. I have even “test driven” multiple strollers through the store and tried to heave each up to a level of three feet; if I can’t pick the think up, I can’t put it in my trunk.

With all of those challenges, here is what I have found….

Bugaboo is nice, and if I had $1000 and a stronger back, I may be interested in it. I pushed one around babies R us this weekend, and it looks and feels great. Unfortunately, it weighs a ton. The stoller is very versatile and of the highest quality, but I can’t afford it, and I could never lift it. As a result, it would not get used.

Peg-Perego was actually our stroller and car seat of choice. We put both the seat and the Pliko-3 stroller on our registry in the hopes of getting both. In the mean time, we spent more time in the stroller isle and found that the Pliko-3 stroller had the two handles separated, which made it impossible to steer single handedly, and almost no place to store stuff up around the handle area. In further reading about the stroller, the number one complaint about the product was that the drink holder was useless, not a big deal, and that the tray was not deep enough to keep baby’s distractions in place. The Peg-Peregp Arai had terrible reviews all the way around.

This brings me to the Chico Key Fit system. We actually changed our registry and decided on the Chico system and the price, with car seat, was just $70.00 more than just the car seat of the Peg Perego. At Babies R Us, it was about $279.00. A far cry from the $1000 Bugaboo which was not on my wish list.

Overall, I am happy with the Chicco system, although I have yet to try it on anybody… that comes in a couple of months. However, the stroller is easy to steer, the car seat got good reviews, and I think that I will be happy with this purchase.

TAGS: Peg Perego, Chicco Key Fit, Bugaboo, Stroller, stroller wars, babies r us, baby registry, stroller reviews, consumer reports baby

Great guidelines for prenatal nutrition

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