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Amber necklace for teething

Niel

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I mean, do they work....really?

Do they wear them sleeping?
 
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VRBeauty

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I've never heard of that - but then, I'm not in the mommy info loops. I think most amber necklaces are strung on some sort of cotton or silk cord, since anything stronger might cut into the amber. I'd be concerned about bacteria etc. collecting on the string.

Have you looked into chewbeads? They're highlighted in the current US magazine. (There are times when I'll read almost anything! :lol: :naughty: )
 

monarch64

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I'm all for parents doing whatever they feel is best for their baby, but this particular fad I can't get behind. I mean, cardinal rule #1 is to NOT put anything that could POSSIBLY cause strangulation around a child's neck, right? I can't get over that, mentally, for one thing. Can you imagine a mother whose baby was born with the cord wrapped around its neck purposely putting a necklace on their infant? I can't. I have seen a lot of instagrams of babies wearing these necklaces and I don't judge or comment, but it's not something I would do. When my baby was teething, we gave her flexible teething rings you could freeze or let her chew on that rubber giraffe Sophie toy, etc. Chewbeads necklaces for mom to wear were popular a couple years ago, but I never bothered with those either knowing they'd get caught in my hair, plus I was worried a bead would pop off and get lodged in my kid's throat.

As far as the healing properties of amber...it's not like you can ask the baby whether they feel like it's working. :confused:

http://www.whattoexpect.com/first-year/ask-heidi/amber-teething-necklaces.aspx
 

Niel

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Ok I feel the same way, I just feel like I've read a few people flipping swear by then, and it seems so strange to me.

I was just discussing at work how W is much worse than M when if comes to teething. He will cry all day and night. Won't sleep more then 20 minutes at a time and is clearly flopping about in pain even during that 20 min. It's so hard. That plus my inability to manage on 2 hours of sleep a screaming child
 

Dancing Fire

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Niel
I thought you were teething... :lol:
 

ForteKitty

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Niel|1450744157|3964518 said:
Ok I feel the same way, I just feel like I've read a few people flipping swear by then, and it seems so strange to me.

I was just discussing at work how W is much worse than M when if comes to teething. He will cry all day and night. Won't sleep more then 20 minutes at a time and is clearly flopping about in pain even during that 20 min. It's so hard. That plus my inability to manage on 2 hours of sleep a screaming child


I don't believe in amber necklaces, and I'd never put a necklace around my kid.

It's so sad to see them in pain. Mine is also horrible when he teeths, and he won't chew on any of his teethers. The kid simply doesn't like to put stuff in his mouth. We got him sophie the giraffe and he just chucks her around. He plays with all his teethers but won't use any of them.
 

Niel

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ForteKitty|1450747186|3964554 said:
Niel|1450744157|3964518 said:
Ok I feel the same way, I just feel like I've read a few people flipping swear by then, and it seems so strange to me.

I was just discussing at work how W is much worse than M when if comes to teething. He will cry all day and night. Won't sleep more then 20 minutes at a time and is clearly flopping about in pain even during that 20 min. It's so hard. That plus my inability to manage on 2 hours of sleep a screaming child


I don't believe in amber necklaces, and I'd never put a necklace around my kid.

It's so sad to see them in pain. Mine is also horrible when he teeths, and he won't chew on any of his teethers. The kid simply doesn't like to put stuff in his mouth. We got him sophie the giraffe and he just chucks her around. He plays with all his teethers but won't use any of them.

No I don't put things around my kids neck either. Seems very weird. I guess I'm not the only one skeptical lol.

Yes W will not chew on his teethers either. I've tried different types, putting them in the fridge, I dunno what to do exactly.
 

wetsawblade

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It used to be popular to freeze mini bagels as teethers, but not sure if this is still ok (my kids are grown). It takes a long time to soften so was easy w/ minimal mess.

Ofc, as with anything with babies, a watchful eye is nec to avoid any choking hazard.
 

ForteKitty

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I brew some chamomile tea and dip a washcloth in it, then throw it in a ziplock bag and put it in the fridge. When it bothers him I rub the washcloth on his gums. Sometimes it helps, sometimes he gets pissed and tries to bite me.
 

tuffyluvr

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I have friends and acquaintances that swear by them. I don't use gems or crystals for healing purposes, but I have a friend who is into healing with crystals, and she had me hold some crystals to demonstrate and they actually tingled in my hands--like really tingled like the pins and needles feeling when you sit on your foot for too long--so I believe that Amber could posses some healing properties. However, there clearly are safety concerns with putting jewelry on a baby...
 

Snowdrop13

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I've never heard of this, sounds a bit unlikely to work! Personally, I'd just give some painkiller if a baby was too distressed to sleep. In the UK we have Calpol which is a strawberry flavoured paracetamol (acetaminophen)- it always seems to work like magic! Maybe you have something similar?
 

Zlata

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Amber, real amber, is fossilized plant resin. I would be very concerned about the possibility of ingesting unknown plant material.

On a related topic, some people put gemstones in water and then drink the water "infused" with the healing energy of the gemstone. Depending on the stone used, naturally occurring toxins can leech into the water. :(
 

House Cat

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My friend had an amber anklet for her daughter. It is my understanding that the child wears the amber, they do not chew it.

I can't say whether it works or not but I would think that an anklet might be a safer location if you wanted to try it out.
 

Zlata

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Yes, an anklet sounds like a safer option. (I know they're not supposed to teeth directly on the beads, but try to tell that to a baby! :)) )
 

vintagelover229

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I've used them with both my boys, from 3 months and my 3 month old still wears his. The science behind it is yet to really be proven but it's supposed to do with the body heat and the succinic acid that Baltic Amber in particular possesses in greater amounts to help with the pain and even drooling associated with teething. Both my sons are early tethers and it's helped a lot with the loss of sleep and drooling. That are NOT supposed to chew on them-and they are tied in a way that if they do break only one bead comes off and not the whole string of them. At first I removed his necklace at night but stopped fairly quickly. Just bc we don't understand the properties fully yet doesn't make it snake oil in my opinion-essential oils (I realize they are not the same) have had a huge impact in many people's lives and many synthetic compounds have been based on plant and other naturally occurring substances. My son has not choked, or been strangled in any way in the 3 years he's worn his and neither has my 4 month old.

I find them cute as well as helpful as have many of my friends. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Either way I'm using them and based on reviews from many moms who started to use them later on in the teething process-it's helped many babies.

As Kenny says people vary. As far as crystals having healing properties I don't know, too new age for me but I will say that certain gems conduct electricity while others don't and many stones have been used in watches and other non-healing aspects for years so who's to say they don't have properties that our science has yet to understand? Science has a lot of catching up to do to explain a lot of naturally occurring things and has continually evolved as our understanding has evolved so I am not so quick to deem things I can't understand or explain as snake oil.


eTA: neither of their necklaces were long enough to get into their mouth, so perhaps parents are using too long of ones if they are eating them.
 

Niel

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Snowdrop13|1450766967|3964690 said:
I've never heard of this, sounds a bit unlikely to work! Personally, I'd just give some painkiller if a baby was too distressed to sleep. In the UK we have Calpol which is a strawberry flavoured paracetamol (acetaminophen)- it always seems to work like magic! Maybe you have something similar?

Ideally I'd rather not give him drugs if I didn't have to
 
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Niel

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Zlata|1450799266|3964785 said:
Amber, real amber, is fossilized plant resin. I would be very concerned about the possibility of ingesting unknown plant material.

On a related topic, some people put gemstones in water and then drink the water "infused" with the healing energy of the gemstone. Depending on the stone used, naturally occurring toxins can leech into the water. :(

To be fair I mean rocks like limestone in your water table is what makes your water taste the way it does vs filtered water so it makes sense to me. I guess lol.
 
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Zlata

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Niel|1450813891|3964961 said:
Zlata|1450799266|3964785 said:
Amber, real amber, is fossilized plant resin. I would be very concerned about the possibility of ingesting unknown plant material.

On a related topic, some people put gemstones in water and then drink the water "infused" with the healing energy of the gemstone. Depending on the stone used, naturally occurring toxins can leech into the water. :(

To be fair I mean rocks like limestone in your water table is what makes your water taste the way it does vs filtered water so it makes sense to me. I guess lol.

Mmmwellll, I think the logic is more that the healing energy (not physically measureable) of the gemstone somehow enters the molecular structure of the water. The water is then ingested to promote healing.

Full disclosure: I have no problem with gemstone healing, Reiki, homeopathy, etc., but am cautious with treatments that may cause harm.

Sorry to have taken this off topic, Niel!
 

Evgeniya

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no, such necklaces do not work and never worked. This is an advertising move.
Amber really has healing properties. BUT! They are too weak to instantly relieve pain or somehow quickly affect tooth growth. This is all self-hypnosis and advertising.
I’m telling you as a manufacturer (no, I don’t sell such necklaces and consider them dangerous).
 

Begonia

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I feel the pain in your household Neil, as I had 2 cranky teethers myself once upon a time (the oldest started teething at 3 months). Nothing solved the problem, but I did soak clean washcloths in water and then freeze them. Both would chew on that. I also massaged the gums if no teeth were thru, but not once they have teeth or you’ll get bit. Last resort thru the night was baby painkiller drops.

Ditto to everyone on staying away from a necklace.
My thoughts to you all thru this difficult time!
 

OdetteOdile

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I am a pretty new member and not sure exactly what we are allowed to post. NY Times had an article on these necklaces on July 23, 2019 that I found informative - try to google it. I never put the necklaces on my kids and am happy that I never did so.
 

Asscherhalo_lover

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I NEVER used these, the risks outweigh the possible benefits IMO. We went old school, baby oragel, ibuprofen as needed, and lots of frozen waffles.
 

missy

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I am a pretty new member and not sure exactly what we are allowed to post. NY Times had an article on these necklaces on July 23, 2019 that I found informative - try to google it. I never put the necklaces on my kids and am happy that I never did so.

Here you go. For those interested.


The first thing Danielle Morin saw when she arrived to pick up her 18-month-old son, Deacon, from his at-home day care were the fire trucks. “I sent him to day care just like any other day,” Morin said. “I did not know the nightmare that was ahead.”

When she approached the Fontana, Calif., nursery that day in 2016, the firefighters and day care workers informed her that her son had been found unconscious and was rushed to the hospital. As Morin made her way to the emergency room, she learned that while Deacon was napping, he’d been strangled by a string of smooth, golden-brown beads he’d been wearing around his neck to relieve teething pain.

“The day care proceeded to tell me it was because of his necklace that got wrapped around his neck during his nap and that it was my fault,” Morin said. Deacon was pronounced dead in the hospital five days later.

When amber teething necklaces first started popping up in parenting circles about a decade ago, they were most popular among homeopathic and New Age-leaning types. But now, thanks in part to their appeal among some celebrities and their widespread availability, this decidedly crunchy fad has seeped into the mainstream. Children’s stores, boutiques, big box stores like Walmart and online retailers like Etsy and Amazon sell various versions of the jewelry.

And for parents looking to assuage their children’s teething pain “naturally,” the beads’ promises make for an easy sell: String them around your baby’s neck, marketing materials say, and a purported pain-relieving substance called succinic acid will leach from the beads, seep through the skin and enter the bloodstream to ease pain.

But there’s no scientific data to show that wearing amber bead necklaces provides any kind of pain relief, said Dr. Howard Jeffries, M.D., a pediatrician and medical consultant for K Health, an app that offers medical care online. (In fact, experts have said it would be physically impossible.) And the Food and Drug Administration has not approved any teething jewelry products and has warned against using them.

“We have, however, received very serious reports of death and choking when using these products,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, M.D., who was F.D.A. commissioner when we spoke. (Dr. Gottlieb resigned from the agency in the spring of 2019.)

Children can stop breathing if the jewelry wraps too tightly around their throats, or if the necklaces get caught on objects such as a crib. Children can also put the beads in their mouths, presenting a choking hazard.

“It’s clear there is a very big risk,” Dr. Gottlieb said.

A burgeoning trend

Teresa Wilkes, owner of a company called The Amber Monkey in Blissfield, Mich., sells amber teething necklaces and bracelets to more than 400 stores worldwide. Like most amber teething jewelry, Wilkes’s products are made from fossilized tree resin mined from the Baltic region of Northern Europe. “As a retailer and now a manufacturer,” Wilkes said, “I would say that Baltic amber teething necklaces have increased in popularity over the last eight years.”

The rise of these choker-style necklaces, Dr. Jeffries said, can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that they don’t require much effort to use. They’re also widely available and relatively cheap, said Dr. Christina Lang, M.D., a pediatrician in Colorado; selling for around $10 to $20 online.

Behind it all, Dr. Lang said, are parents who don’t want to see their babies hurting. “People don’t want their kids to suffer or be uncomfortable,” she said. “They see a lot of other people doing it, so it’s kind of that mass effect where, ‘Well, if everybody’s doing it, it must be O.K.’”

How are they supposed to work?

When worn against the skin, such as around a neck or a wrist, amber beads are said to warm and then release a substance called succinic acid, which is then supposed to leach into the bloodstream and act as a “natural” pain reliever.

According to Aaron Celestian, Ph.D., an associate curator of mineral sciences at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, beads made from real Baltic amber do, indeed, contain succinic acid, but it cannot be absorbed into the skin from a necklace. “From a chemical point of view, you have to be able to release the succinic acid from the amber, and that only happens at very high temperatures,” Dr. Celestian said.

And by “very high temperatures,” he means around 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

“It’s absurd to think about it, but yes, a person’s skin would have to be at these deadly temperatures before any organics are released from the amber,” Dr. Celestian said, “and even then, only a small fraction would interact with the skin as succinic acid.”

So even if your baby’s temperature did somehow hit 400 degrees, the infinitesimal amount of succinic acid released would be too minuscule to provide an effect.

Some manufacturers and proponents also contend that the amber beads reduce gum inflammation and drooling, but there’s no evidence to back these claims either.

But are they safe?

In a nutshell, no.

In December 2018, the F.D.A. issued a warning to parents and caregivers, cautioning that “necklaces, bracelets or any other jewelry marketed for relieving teething pain” could pose a strangulation or choking risk.

In addition to Deacon’s death in 2016, the F.D.A. has reported that at least one other child in the United States has been hospitalized after choking on a teething bracelet made from wood. Yet according to a 2017 case report out of Canada, few — if any — of the products the report’s authors examined (at stores and a distributor) explicitly stated such a risk on their packaging.

In another study published in 2018, researchers from Nova Scotia tested the strangulation risk of 15 amber teething necklaces purchased from retailers in Canada. Their results, published in the journal Pediatrics and Child Health, revealed that nearly half failed to open after applying 15 pounds of force (an industry safety standard) for 10 seconds; and in a separate test, eight out of 10 failed to open with 1.6 pounds of force (or the mean force that is required to block a young child’s airway) for 10 seconds.

According to Morin, the product description for the necklace she placed around Deacon’s neck that day in 2016 had said that it had a safety clasp. But she later found that it actually had a screw clasp, which prevented it from coming unfastened immediately when pulled on.

“I assumed it was safe since it was a baby product,” Morin said of the necklace, which had been a gift purchased from the online marketplace Etsy. Etsy still sells both breakaway and nonbreakaway necklaces; and Morin is suing the e-commerce site for alleged wrongful death.

“Deacon’s death was a great tragedy and our hearts are with his mother and family,” a spokeswoman for Etsy said in a statement supplied to The New York Times. Because the platform did not manufacture “or directly sell” the necklace itself, Etsy believes it should not be held liable for Deacon’s death. In 2018, two workers from Deacon’s day care pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse each; and were each sentenced to three years of probation, in addition to some prior jail time, in connection with his death.

A surprising number of parents “are either not aware of the risk of strangulation or think it won’t happen to their child,” Dr. Jeffries said. In 2012, for instance, researchers from France published a small survey of 29 parents there to determine their attitudes about amber teething necklaces. They found that despite knowing the risks of strangulation and choking, parents’ fears of teething symptoms largely overpowered their concerns about potential harms.

Rachael Reiser, a mother in Los Angeles who purchased amber necklaces for her then-5-month-old twins, agreed that the necklaces can be dangerously difficult to open. “My twins wore them around their necks only once,” Reiser said. “They both grabbed each others’ and the choking hazard was real. It took a lot of tension for the quick release to actually snap. Fortunately, I caught them in the act before anyone was injured.”

According to Wilkes, owner of The Amber Monkey, the best way to use the necklaces safely is to ensure they’re the right fit: not too long, and with knots between each bead to prevent them from coming off.

But the American Academy of Pediatrics and other experts have advisedparents not to use them at all.

France and Switzerland have banned the sale of amber teething necklaces in pharmacies; and Ireland and Canada have issued consumer product safety warnings. In 2018, Health Canada — the department responsible for Canada’s national public health — released an industry letter outlining requirements for teething necklaces for children under 3 (they must have warning labels and functioning breakaway features).

But despite the F.D.A.’s warnings, Dr. Jeffries believes that the amber jewelry is as popular as ever in the United States. “And the use seems steady and frequent,” he said. In fact, Dr. Lang said that three amber-clad patients visited her office the week I spoke with her in February.

Since her son died, Morin said that when she’s out and sees a baby in an amber necklace, she approaches the parent or caretaker and explains what happened to her son. “Most of the time,” Morin said, “the parent will decide not to use the necklace at all.”

How to safely relieve teething pain

According to the A.A.P., there are better ways to relieve teething discomfort than to use amber teething jewelry.

  • Rub or massage swollen gums with a finger, or offer teething rings (made of firm rubber) or washcloths for a baby to chew on.
  • Give your baby pain relievers such as acetaminophen (Infants’ Tylenol) after 3 months of age or ibuprofen (Infants’ Advil) after 6 months. Both are effective and safe for young children.
  • Dr. Lang and the F.D.A. recommend avoiding topical gels and sprays containing benzocaine, since they are not effective and can cause serious side effects.
  • The F.D.A. also does not recommend using homeopathic teething tablets, which haven’t been evaluated for safety and efficacy. (The agency warned in 2017, for instance, that certain homeopathic teething products containing belladonna, a toxic substance, had inconsistent levels of the ingredient and urged consumers not to use them.)
  • The F.D.A. has said that children who experience seizures, trouble breathing, extreme sleepiness, muscle weakness or other adverse effects after using homeopathic teething products should get medical help immediately.
 

stracci2000

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I have a friend who put an amber necklace around her baby's neck.
Now I love gems more than most people, but I just couldn't see how amber beads were going to help with teething pain.
But I didn't want to dismiss her belief in the amber, so I didn't say much about it. Of course I did worry that the girl might choke on the beads one day!
 

OoohShiny

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I am open to the possibility of aspects of this world being unknown/misunderstood, but I cannot see how some fossilised plant resin on the outside of the body, several inches away from a source of pain within the body, could have any mechanism by which it would have an effect.
 

AV_

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I am an adult who might be seen biting her amber beads, they feel like rock candy not stone; silly fun.

Only fresh resin has any taste & a few are medicinal.
 

Daisys and Diamonds

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i know nothing abour babies but the danger of these necklases breaking and a kiddie chocking has been well publicize here - it should be illegal to import them or sell them
i cringe when i see a baby wearing them
and the scientific evidence is sketchy at best
not worth the risk

i have always been a very restless sleeper, i can remember being about 10 and waking up with the radio cord around my neck
it was not at all pleasent and i could untangle myself
but a helpless little baby .....
 
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