You can't make this stuff up

Headline in my February issue of Parenting magazine in the "your health" section.

Preventing "Mommy thumb"

I'm not making that up. It is a serious headline. Here is the text that accompanied it:

It's a rare-sounding ailment, but as many as 50 percent of new moms develop it: deQuervain's tendinitis, an irritation of the thumb tendons that causes anything from mild soreness to an intense pain that radiates up to the wrists.
Oh, THAT is what causes that. I thought it was arthritis, carpal tunnel, ganglion cysts ...
The trigger: habitually picking up your baby by hooking your hands under her arms, especially if your hands are also angled downward. (Even worse: using just your thumb and forefingers.) That puts a lot of pressure on the tendon. To try to prevent "Mommy thumb," change the way you lift your baby. For example, when she's on her back, slide one hand under her to get her head in the crook of your arm, and then put you other hand under her bottom.
Uh, yeah. That works when you're trying to answer the phone, lock the door, pick up the baby, turn off the TV, etc.
If you already have pain, modifying your baby-lifting technique and taking over-the-counter painkillers such as ibuprofen will usually take care of it, said Charles Day, MD, a hand surgeon at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. But if it bothers you for more than a month, your doctor can prescribe stronger analgesics, splinting, occupational therapy, a steroid injection or in rare cases, minor surgery.
Or time will take care of it. At some point the baby will be too big to pick up any more or your pain just transfers to your back. I'm at this stage now. And, my Little Bit only weighs 24 pounds.