Those ridiculous amber necklaces...

[moxon]

...that all babies seem to be wearing these days. No, people, it does not help with teething pain/inflammation/positioning. It's just pieces of amber. You would need to heat it to extract the oil which you can use to make your baby smell like the inside of a potpourri bowl after using as a massage liquid base if you want, but it still won't do jack to give your baby a carefree pearly whites experience. I am getting so tired of everyone buying into this new-age old-age rubbish, and seeing otherwise perfectly reasonable parents stringing up their babies necks in gimicky stuff.

Since when do babies need a tacky necklace to look cute

That's a matter of personal taste, though bruffin.

The ones you buy have safety catches so any pressure and the necklace breaks.

DS1 was bought a little hazel wood one as a gift,which he wore for a few months.

Why would anyone else give a shit, honestly.

"Why would anyone else give a shit, honestly."

Because where would the patriarchy be, if women weren't all judging each other for their personal choices?

Well what's more is it did look hellish cute.

Really doesn't sit right with me putting a baby in a necklace when I spend my days trying to retrieve small pieces of Lego etc from her mitts.

Nurofen and Calpol here.

Is it worth getting your knickers in such a twist OP? People like them and they look cute, that is all.

Ok, so the necklace snaps under pressure, but you still have a string of beads posing a choking risk.

They don't need to detach from the string, in fact I can't help but think they'd be safer if they did (other than the magnetic clasps possibly, which would pose more of a risk of course than the beads...).

Usually I'm live and let live about all the ridiculous tat that parents convince themselves they need to waste their money on, but this looks stupid, sounds stupid and is potentially harmful. Engage brain!

I have never heard of these, I don't think they existed when mine were small, but I don't see how it's any different from trying lavender or camomile or any of the other natural things we try in a bid to sooth/calm babies. In the end we can never be sure whether they make any difference or not, but it doesn't hurt to try.

The idea is that the beads of resin rub against the tot's warm skin, and create tiny amounts of oil, believed to have pain kiling properties, which are then absorbed through the skin.

I think it's probably hokum, and I certainly never bought into it...my kids didn't suffer from teething anyway.
But yeah...I have a couple of friends who bought them for their kids and that's what they say.

It's harmless I suppose.

The beads are knotted in a way that they don't all come crashing off if the necklace breaks.

They are not harmful, what nonsense.

Engage brain indeed.

no-one is basking in superiority. It just saddens me that people who went through years of education paid so little attention. Otherwise they'd have the basic knowledge to know that this kind of thing is nonsense.

In what way is a string of beads safer than an unstrung bead?

I never staged any teething "intervention" apart from Ibuprofen when they were actually cutting a tooth - I think the anti-inflammatory pain relief is more effective than regular pain relief for something that involves inflammation (not rocket science really) and I never gave them anything to chew on, cold teethers, giraffes or anything else - if they wanted to chew on something they would find something of course, but I found if you encouraged it and they were continually munching then it sort of made it worse particularly at night, like you'd stirred all the inflammation up. So they might have a desire to chew (just like when you have an ulcer or something on the inside of your cheek and you can't stop fiddling with it with your tounge) but I don't think it actually helps if that makes sense? I may of course be WRONG!

A placebo can work, even if you know its a placebo. But only on adults who know that they are taking a medcine or getting specal treatment that could make them feel better. Babies are not aware they are receiving any treatment through wearing necklaces, so how could they be subject to the placebo effect?

I don't think they existed when mine were small
I have a copy of an 1897 Sears catalog, and it has amber necklaces for babies for sale. So they existed, even if they weren't being used.
I'm in the 'I think they're cute' camp.

As for homeopathy, I don't believe in it but I have seen it work. Make of that whatever you wish.

DD had an anklet and Sophie, but I was in the midst of PND and PTSD so I did what I could to stop myself feeling a totally shit parent and buying into all that crap.
I know it's a load of crap but it made me feel better at the time and there was no harm to her.
Don't understand all the vitriol to be honest but hey some people like to judge and moan for the sake of it [smile

I love amber and wear beads myself! A small child at work toddled to my desk and started pointing at my beads and showing me her set. Very cute. I don't think they are long enough to chew. Babies always go for my jade bangles to suck. I suppose the stone is nice a cold.

I've asked a couple of parents if they thing they actually help and they have said 'yes'. Who am I to argue with them!

We used homeopathic gritty camomile powder that was rubbed onto DSs gums and he loved it - along with a freebie chomp toy that we got from Boots.

Whatever works, eh?

What specialsubject said. Also, whilst I don't really fancy jewellery on babies, I honestly don't begrudge anyone their dc's earrings or nose piercings; ditto if you're happy to take the choking risk. It is the sheer bandwagoning of otherwise perfectly intelligent parents that irks me. Since succinic acid and amber's melting points are in the region of 180 and 300 degrees, so even if you did believe that its properties will align their toothing chakras to make the whole teething thing a painfree doddle, you'd have to heat your DC to what I'm reasonably sure is crisping temperature before anything will ooze into their skin. And I don't think SS will look kindly on that. 'Who knows, maybe it'll work - it's worth a shot!' Um... No. No, it isn't. Otherwise you'd be able to get amber OTC at boots to help with your cancer or slipped disk or irregular heartbeat. Amber is not a last resort (unless you're visiting the Baltic for a holiday, in which your hotel might be called that...)

trading standards
rospa advice

Hollie- I genuinely used it for her pain, not so she looked like a hippy! Maybe I am naïve, but I assumed others did too.

Moxon will do some calculations and come back to you with a quote,the necklaces on amazon are about £10 so I'll just have to work out how many necklaces I need to string together and we'll be flying!

But, they're not really magic Keeping.