Baby Freebies

Jessica Alba has revealed how she shed the extra pounds after giving birth to her first baby Honor last June.

“I wore a girdle,” she tells the February issue of Elle magazine.

“Eight weeks after my girlfriend had her baby, you could see her six-pack.

“She told me to put an elastic band around my waist - any kind of band or girdle works.

“She was like, ‘I slept in it.’ I didn’t recover as fast as she did. I don’t have a six-pack - that’s just not my body at all.”

Elina Zhao yawns in the arms of mom Fang Zhao in spite of the excitement caused when she was born in the backseat of a cab.

New York’s Finest met its newest Tuesday, when a group of cops helped deliver a baby in the backseat of a cab in Brooklyn.

Elina Zhao came into the world in a car after her mom, Fang Zhao, 30, started screaming on her way to the hospital. The panicked taxi driver flagged down two cops while two more arrived to help.

“The cab driver almost ran into us to get our attention,” said Officer Kerryann Douglas.

The Stephenson family is attempting to pay forward all the kindness they received last Christmas when their 10-month-old daughter received a new heart.

Kaidence Stephenson, now 22 months old, was born healthy in February 2007, said her mother, Shauntelle Stephenson. But in August, the Bountiful family learned Kaidence had a serious heart problem. On Dec. 23, 2007, a heart from another child was placed inside Kaidence’s chest and began beating for her.

“Words can’t express your feelings,” said Mike Stephenson, her father. “Your child is going to get a chance at life, while at the same time grief washes over you, because a poor family had to lose a child so yours can live.”

U.S. regulators are planning more research into a controversial chemical found in many plastic products, including baby bottles, indicating they have no immediate plans to curb bisphenol A.

A letter signed by a Food and Drug Administration official, released on Monday, stated that the agency planned “a large research effort,” with studies lasting years that will assess the effects of the chemical, also called BPA, in laboratory animals including rodents and monkeys.

Consumer advocates condemned the regulatory agency’s refusal to take steps now to curb the use of bisphenol A, a chemical used for decades to harden plastic products.

Going against the Hollywood trend of ‘unique’ names, Naomi Watts and Liev Schreiber have come up with a very simple moniker for their new baby Samuel Kai Schreiber. The star and partner Schreiber welcomed their second child, a son, on Saturday just 16 months after the pair’s first son, Alexander ‘Sasha’ Pete.

Watts and Schreiber met on the set of the 2006 drama The Painted Veil and have been together ever since, reports Couriermail. Despite it being obvious that the star was pregnant, no confirmation was given until her fianc?, Liev Schreiber, spoke about it in an interview earlier this month.

It’s a little doll! But it’s causing a big controversy. Now the manufacturer is making some changes. The doll is supposed to just coo and say mommy, but some say when they got it home. It said a lot more!

A viewer e-mailed us saying that the talking doll says “Islam is the light.” So we took it to a mommy and her daughter to see if they heard the same thing. You’ll be surprised at what people hear when they’re not turned on to the phrase.

“This is an interesting baby doll,” said Andrea Griffin.

States Ask Companies to Stop Putting BPA in Baby Bottles.

There’s a bit more heat this week on bisphenol A, this time courtesy of attorneys general in Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware. The AGs sent letters to 11 companies asking them to voluntarily stop putting the chemical into baby bottles and formula.

“We call for the immediate elimination of this dangerous chemical from our children’s food,” the letter from the AGs said. “We urge you to take a leadership role in making safer children’s products by immediately discontinuing the use of BPA.”

Babies as young as four months are able to recognize emotions in people’s faces, according to a new study. Scientists found that even before they start talking babies are able to pick up on “non-verbal” signals we use to communicate, such as the eyebrows being raised by a smile to indicate friendship.

By using near infrared light to take an image of brains of infants, researchers in London found that they use the same brain regions that adults do when they look at the gaze of another, a foundation for social interactions that appears critical for social development and might go wrong in conditions such as autism.

Brangelina baby time: Just how smiley are Knox and Vivienne?

According to Parenting magazine, babies don’t smile socially (in response to something outside themselves) until they are 2-4 months old.

So why, asks New York Magazine, is Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s new baby Vivienne — photographed at 3 weeks old — smiling on the cover of People magazine, with her more somber brother, Knox?

NY Mag is calling “Photoshop” on the photos or wondering if maybe it’s true that those babies were born earlier and kept hidden from view?