Prenatal care has drastically changed in the last 100 years. Up until 75 years ago, nearly 66 percent of U.S. women had a home birth with no painkillers. The practice of modern obstetrics included a trend toward hospital births. Much of the first issues in obstetrics was the debate over analgesics used during childbirth and the effort to find something safe for both the mother and the child.

A study released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found young children are using too much toothpaste when brushing their teeth. Surveying parents and guardians of about 5,157 children, the CDC found that nearly 40% of children ages three to six years old used too much toothpaste.

Ms. Obama’s work — and the work of many other concerned parents, teachers and staff — sparked significant improvements in school menus, some of which are now being undone by the current administration (allowing children to eat food with more salt and less whole grain). Schools must once again take another step forward.

Christmas shoppers are being warned to avoid plastic toys after they appeared in more than half of EU intergovernmental alerts for products containing banned chemicals this year. In all, 290 of the 563 warnings sent out on the EU’s rapid alert system concerned toys with illegally high levels of toxins, most of which were plastic dolls, and all of which could be on sale on British high streets.