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From the moon walk to baby talk: How tech is changing parenting

© Dale Kiefer

by Dale Kiefer

Being a first time parent is no picnic. Yes, it's incredibly exciting and moving, and certainly it's rewarding. There's no other feeling in the universe, in my humble opinion, that compares with the profound sense of reverence and joy a new parent experiences while cradling his or her new baby for the first time. Or for the first two hundred times, for that matter.

But there's no doubt that it's also an incredibly taxing undertaking. The responsibility is heavy and constant. No days off, no holidays. The weight you feel on your shoulders will never really lift. Once a parent, always a parent. Regardless of how old or responsible your offspring become you'll always worry. In the beginning you face sleep deprivation, dramatic changes in your sex life, and more subtle changes in you social life. And none of that even takes into account the incredible financial commitment children represent.

But consider how much more difficult things were in times past. It's enough to make you grateful to be a parent in the 21st century.

In our parents' and grandparents' day, many infants were born only to be lost to tragic illnesses, many of which are now routinely avoided or beaten by medical science. Likewise, childbirth has become safer for both mother and child. Infants born pre-term are no longer consigned to certain death.

Defying what was once considered an absolute threshold for survival, one-pound "preemies" are becoming increasingly common in Neonatal Intensive Care units around the world. Polio no longer looms as a frightening, potentially crippling (or lethal) disease. Even chicken pox, that perennial rite of passage for young children, can be prevented with a simple inoculation these days. And sufferers of the most common inheritable diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, have enjoyed dramatic advances in treatment options in the past few decades, with significant improvements in life expectancy, if not outright cures yet.

Little more than 50 years ago, even common antibiotics were an unrealized dream. Parents were forced to stand by while their infants and young children withered and died from such simple ailments as infected cuts, scarlet fever or ear infections gone awry. Today, antibiotics in a dizzying array of choices are commonly available to fight virtually any bacterial infection.

Vaccines against any number of formerly common childhood illnesses - with such arcane and evocative names as whooping cough and lockjaw - are readily, universally available. Smallpox, the great scourge of mankind, has effectively been wiped from the face of the earth in our lifetimes. Once dreaded as a vicious killer, the virus did far more to conquer North America's native inhabitants than any arms wielded by white men.

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