Is cannabis harmful?

It's all over the news today - a longterm New Zealand study shows that regular use of cannabis by young people results in a decrease in IQ. Well, as Captain Hotknives sagely observed, Jimi Hendrix won't help you with your maths exam, and regular use of anything by adolescents, whether alcohol, dope, glue, or tobacco, is not a good idea. They should be outside playing football, goddammit!

However, I can't help noticing that the bit of the report showing that the same effect is not present in the cannabis users who started as adults is strangely absent from the British news reels...

Should we be allowed to die on our own terms?

It was sad news this week that Tony Nicklinson, the man with locked-in syndrome who recently lost his High Court battle to end his life his own way, died after refusing treatment for pneumonia. It was sad because he wanted to end his life on his own terms and was refused permission to do that by the court; on the other hand, he did, in the end, die quickly with his family around him which is perhaps all any of us can ask for.

During his High Court case Mr Nicklinson sought assurance that it would not be unlawful for a doctor to assist him to die, which is contrary to the current law which prevents assisted suicide or euthanasia. While having the deepest sympathy for his predicament, and that of others in his situation, I have to agree with the judges in this matter.

Adventures in dyeing a wrap, part 1

Dying is fun.

Oops, sorry, dyeing is fun. My dye arrived in the post today and I'm excited about it, because I'm trying to make my woven wrap into exactly the colour I want. If you don't know what a woven wrap is, it's a long piece of material you carry a baby in. Or a todder. Or an older child, should you so desire. Find out more here.

Anti-parenting tip 1

Our little bundle of need is not so little any more, although still very needy. In fact she is 15 months old and on a developmental ramp to walking, talking and throwing tantrums.

I've read a lot about positive parenting and gentle discipline and hope to put some of it into practice, but one thing I've learnt in the past year is that you can't know how you're going to parent until you're actually doing it. You can however, store up little ideas of what not to do.

Vaccine myths

There is a cut-and-paste list of vaccine "facts" that has been doing the rounds for years. It tends to appear on any internet argument about vaccine safety, comments on news stories, even pages by actual doctors (eg http://getwellstaywellathome.com/blog/2012/07/vaccine-damage-alert). Not, generally, medical doctors.

When I first encountered this list I knew very little about vaccine safety, so I spent a few hours researching. What a shocker, most of the "facts" turned out to be either untrue, badly reported or distorted.

Dr Miriam Stoppard undermines breastfeeding

Dr Miriam Stoppard wrote a piece about breastfeeding in the Mirror this week.

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/when-should-you-stop-breast-feeding-1259599

Much of it was bollocks. If you want to know why, read on. My comments follow each paragraph of her text (which is in italics).

There’s no keener fan of breast-feeding than me. I always advocate breast milk as the perfect food for babies from birth to weaning.

That’s right, must get the breast-is-best message in first so that nobody can tell you off.[1]

So this is me

In order to avoid shouting at the TV, alienating my friends and generally annoying people on Facebook, I think I need a venting forum. Aka a blog.

I may also talk about things I like, such as knitting, my family, babywearing, books, music and science.

But mostly I expect I shall be shouting at people who are wrong on the internet.