I’m not easily shocked, but this chart shocked me. I didn’t realize we had this epidemic going on in the United States. Keep the numbers listed under the chart handy. You can be someone’s lifeline.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, English — (800)273-8255
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Spanish — (888)628-9454
For deaf/hard-of-hearing — (800)799-4899
Veterans Crisis line — (800) 273-8255
Old-school advice to new moms was not to hold the baby too much because you’ll spoil them, or they should just cry themselves to sleep, or they’ll become too dependent on us. A new study, which is a follow-up of one done 20 years ago, was published in Pediatrics. It says, well, HOGWASH! (A rough translation.)
It was found that cuddling babies, especially that skin-to-skin contact–helps them thrive both physically and intellectually as they grow. Yes, intellectually. The study saw higher IQs in kids who had been cuddled as infants. Also, those cuddled kids were calmer and less aggressive and had fewer school absences. As adults, they even earned higher wages.
Caveat: The study was done only on premature babies. I don’t care, though. I think the warmth of a human touch, with children or adults, is medicine for a less-than-warm world.
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After two very serious days of blogs, I need to lighten up a bit. To do so, I offer another origin of an often-used phrase, “break the ice,” meaning, of course, to do something when meeting a person to help get over that first discomfort, shyness, or embarrassment, to break through a feeling of formality.
The phrase came from the 18th century, when ice-breaking ships were invented to clear a path through the ice in a river so that harsh weather didn’t prevent trade. Because of these ships, which broke through to the Polar regions, people were able to communicate with and get to know people the ice had prevented contact with previously.
[For you pedants, this is known as a “dead metaphor”–a comparison that has been used so often that nobody remembers the comparison, or metaphor.]