Parent Portal is a site created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide information on keeping children healthy and safe. If your kid has the sniffles and you are wondering if it's swine flu or a just a common cold, the Parent Portal is a good place to find reliable information from a credible source.

Additionally, there is health and safety information for pregnant women and children from infancy to the teen years. A "Quick Links" section includes information on H1N1 (swine flu), vaccines, growth charts, home safety, violence prevention and more. An easy-to-use "A to Z" index lets users quickly find information on thousands of health and safety topics.

Parent Portal also includes informative videos on a wide range of topics and links to other resources provided by government agencies. Additionally, users can sign up to receive automatic email updates on subjects of interest to them.

Read more about Health and Safety on ParentDish.

In a heart-stopping split second, an Australian mother watches as her 6-month-old son rolls onto a train track and under an oncoming train -- and escapes with just a scratch.

It could happen to any parent -- you release the brake on the stroller to prepare to board the train, and it rolls away from you. For Shweta Verma, a 29-year-old mother and dentist who lives in Melbourne, it is a nightmare that keeps replaying in her head and on TV, thanks to a surveillance camera that captured the entire terrifying episode on film.

Verma told Today's Matt Lauer about the terrifying moment when her son, Saurish, rolled onto the tracks as a train sped through the station. The video shows her horror as she helplessly watches her baby disappears under it.

A study presented last week at the American College of Rheumatology's annual meeting showed kids who play video games for more than an hour a day increase their chances of having wrist and finger pain. Among kids ages 7-12 who play up to three hours per day, each hour of play time increased pain by 50 percent.

If a pregnant woman drinks during her pregnancy, she runs the risk of giving her unborn child fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Consumption of alcohol during pregnancy does not always lead to FAS. Doctors are unsure exactly how much alcohol can cause problems, but they agree that consuming any alcohol is unsafe. They advise pregnant women and those attempting to become pregnant to avoid alcohol.

When alcohol is consumed, it crosses the placental barrier and can stunt the growth of the fetus. It can also cause atypical facial features (a flat face with narrow eye openings) and damage brain structures and neurons. Permanent brain damage is often common because developing brain cells and neurons become malformed from the alcohol exposure.

As the child ages, he or she can show other emotional, physical, mental and/or behavioral problems. This can cause attention-deficit disorder, poor memory, poor cause-effect reasoning and impulsive behavior.

Unlike at other times in life, the fetal brain is constantly developing, meaning there is no "safe" time to drink alcohol while pregnant.

Head to AOL Health to learn more about fetal alcohol syndrome.

Elimination communication (EC) is a type of potty training that goes back to time immemorial because one of its goals is to forgo diapers altogether. Here's how it works: When a parent or caregiver knows or feels that the baby needs to go, he or she removes the diaper or clothing and holds the infant over a toilet or other appropriate receptacle. Because the baby is pre-verbal --i.e., parents are starting this early after their child's birth -- way before most parents think about potty training -- caregivers need to be on the alert for body language cues, patterns (e.g., after a feeding or a waking), intuition or simply by the clock.

EC training can begin as early as birth but can also start in later infancy or during the toddler years. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics believes there is no set age at which toilet training should begin, they do say that children younger than 12 months have no control over bladder or bowel movements.

EC's rising popularity is certainly influences by the economy (diapers are expensive) and environmental concerns (diapers are not biodegradable), but it's also a natural extension of a common practice called attachment parenting.

ParentDish answers all of your potty training and diaper questions.

At 22 weeks pregnant, an expectant mother is in the middle of her second trimester and may start to feel some movement in the womb. The baby is approximately 10 inches and nearly a pound. Her organs are developing at a rapid rate and she may now be moving her limbs and exploring her face. Lips, eyelids and eyebrows are more defined and although her eyes have formed, the iris lacks pigment.

Thanks to a surge of hormones, there are lots of changes for mom too. Her hair is more lustrous and her nails are growing at a more rapid rate. Stretch marks usually appear around this time and skin may take on different textures or shades due to increased melanin. Nipples and areolas often get darker and larger. Some women's feet begin to swell at this point, often going up a half or whole shoe size.

Expectant moms should have had a triple screen test by now, which is a blood test that may detect possible fetal abnormalities like spina bifida and Down syndrome. Next up? The glucose test at 24 to 28 weeks, which checks for gestational diabetes.

Learn more about prenatal care and the second trimester at AOL Health.

Related: Second Trimester Exams and Tests

More pregnancy questions answered:
Doula: What Is It?
VBAC: What Is It?
What Happens When You're 12 Weeks Pregnant?
What Happens When You're 26 Weeks Pregnant?
What Happens When You're 27 Weeks Pregnant?
What Happens When You're 30 Weeks Pregnant?
What Happens When You're 38 Weeks Pregnant?

At age 5, most kids are reading Dr. Seuss, if they can read at all. The next book Giuliano Stroe cracks open might be the Guinness Book of World Records.

As your near the end of the first trimester of your pregnancy, your baby is changing rapidly and you may begin to notice differences in your own body. By the end of the 12th week, your baby is about is about 3.15 inches long and weighs about one ounce.

What's happening to your baby? This week, your baby's facial features take on a more normal appearance as the eyes and ears move closer to their final positions. Your baby's kidneys may have begun to secrete urine and nerve cells are multiplying at a rapid rate. Your baby is developing more complex reflexes and may begin sucking. Stimulating certain points of your uterus may cause your baby to move, but you won't feel the movement for several more weeks.

What's happening to mom? You probably don't need maternity clothes at this point, but your uterus has expanded to the point where your doctor can feel it in your lower abdomen. You may begin to notice changes in your skin including a darkening of the areola and the appearance of dark patches on your face and neck.

More Pregnancy Questions Answered:
What Is a Doula?
How Is a Double Pregnancy Possible?
Ask the Name Lady: All Your Baby Name Questions Resolved?
What Happens When You're 26 Weeks Pregnant?
What Happens When You're 27 Weeks Pregnant?
What Happens When You're 30 Weeks Pregnant?

A good friend told me the best parenting advice she ever got: Your child will let you know what she is ready for. So, don't buy her a bike for her birthday if she hasn't asked for one; wait until she expresses a desire for a bike, then buy the bike.

When Keith and Brooke Desserich learned their daughter Elena had pediatric brain cancer, they were also told she had only 135 days to live. She made it to 256.

Nearly every day has been recorded by the Desserichs in "Notes Left Behind," a book first published by the family at a small press and sold as a fund-raiser.

Now the book has been republished, this time by publishing giant Harper Collins, and is filled with greater detail. A journal of Elena's last days -- written for her younger sister, Gracie -- the book brings two parents' love for their child from the abstract, unconditional love we all feel, to the simple joy of reading bedtime stories and singing lullabies.

Gene therapy helped a 9-year-old boy recover from a disease that stole his sight away, and doctors are calling the results of his treatment "near biblical." Credit: NBC Philadelphia.

Corey Hass was born with Leber's Congenital Amaurosis and the disease ravaged the 4th-grader's sight to the point that he was left completely blind a little more than a year ago, according to NBC Philadelphia.

All new moms are warned about the dangers of germs when it comes to their newborn babies.

We're told to get flu shots; make sure everyone who touches baby washes his or her hands first; and to avoid taking newborns to church, restaurants, the mall or anywhere he's in danger of catching a cold,flu or worse.

But this year, the threat of swine flu has everyone on infection-control overdrive, and, as a Utah ABC news station reports, some moms are taking germ control to the max.

One Utah mom keeps people from touching her newborn triplets with Hands off Baby stop signs that can be hung from infant carriers warning, "Wash hands before touching baby."

Germ-phobes can also buy don't-touch-me bibs, onesies, T-shirts and more, in hopes of keeping baby-loving strangers from getting too close.

Would you buy any of these stop signs?

Related: Links We Love, and One We Don't

There's no company recall, but the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has put out a warning to parents to stop using the "My Baby Soother" pacifier.

The pacifiers were distributed by T & L Trading Corp., of Brooklyn, N.Y., but in a press release, the CPSC says the company has "refused to recall the pacifiers," prompting the government warning instead.

The pacifiers pose a choking hazard to kids who use them because the nipples can easily separate from the base. That means they don't meet federal standards, according to the CPSC. Sold for about $1, mostly around the New York metropolitan area from 2007 through 2009, the pacifiers have a ring-shaped handle and a blue, pink, red, white or yellow heart-shaped mouth guard with two ventilation holes.

Consumer Reports warns parents to check pacifiers on a regular basis anyway to ensure the nipple is still firmly attached to the base and the nipple has not cracked. Says Consumer Reports, "Check them carefully and often, and if you discover these problems, throw them away. Some manufacturers recommend replacing them every four weeks."

Because this is a government warning rather than a company recall, the CPSC has no information on a refund for the "My Baby Soother. However, parents are being urged to immediately discard the pacifiers, while retailers are being told to remove them from store shelves.

Related: More on Alerts & Recalls

The Walt Disney Company is offering up refunds to parents who bought the popular Baby Einstein videos and the move may be an admission that the products did not help boost babies' intelligence, as the company once claimed.

Disney is offering a refund of up to $15.99 for four "Baby Einstein" DVDs per household if the items were purchased between June 5, 2004 and Sept. 5, 2009, The New York Times reported. The move may be a response to the threat of a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive marketing practices.

According to the Times, a letter from the lawyers threatening the suit states that: "The Walt Disney Company's entire Baby Einstein marketing regime is based on express and implied claims that their videos are educational and beneficial for early childhood development." The letter also states that the claims are "false because research shows that television viewing is potentially harmful for very young children."