Babies who are breastfed gain less weight over their first year of life compared to babies fed either breast milk or formula from a bottle, according to a U.S. study.

The report, in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, is one piece of a growing body of evidence that breastfeeding appears to be the best choice for a newborn and protect against obesity later in life.

Lead author Ruowei Li of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the difference may come down to how much a role babies play in deciding when to stop feeding instead of mothers or fathers forcing them to finish a bottle.

“If the babies are fed by the breast, the baby plays a very active role, because they are the ones who decide when to suckle and when to stop,” she said.

Li and her fellow researchers followed about 1,900 babies from across the United States who were born in the mid-2000s.

Through a series of surveys sent to their mothers, the researchers asked for, among other things, babies’ weights at different ages and how often women breastfed, pumped their breast milk or used formula.

Babies who were fed from a bottle, either with only breast milk or only formula, gained about 85 grams (three ounces) more per month compared to those who were solely breastfed.

After that, the findings became a bit more complicated.

When mothers combined breastfeeding and bottle feeding with human milk only, babies didn’t gain any extra weight. But if the babies were fed both breast milk and formula, they grew similarly to babies who were solely breast-fed.

It’s not clear why those babies fed a combination of breast milk by bottle as well as formula may not have gained additional weight, the researchers said.

But “the key message out of this study is that breastfeeding really is the first feeding choice for the babies,” said Li, adding that supplementing breastfeeding with breast milk from a bottle is a good second option.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that mothers exclusively breastfeed for six months and continue breastfeeding as foods are introduced until at least 12 months.

But experts acknowledged that care needs to be taken not to put mothers under pressure about breastfeeding, acknowledging that it just may not be possible for a number of reasons.

“There were millions of babies raised on formula well before the obesity epidemic started,” said Jeffrey Wright, a pediatrician from the University of Washington School of Medicine, who wrote an editorial linked to the study

“Each family should weigh the benefits they see against the hassles they take to get there, and the father should be involved in that discussion.”

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have found a high fructose diet is not only bad for the body but also slows the brain and curbs memory and learning.

“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

He said eating a sugary diet over the long term alters the brain’s ability to learn and remember, but eating omega-3 fatty acids, such as flaxseed oil, can help counter that.

Researchers said this is the first study to reveal how fructose — specifically high-fructose corn syrup — influences the brain.

Scientists tested rats and fed them high-fructose corn syrup — commonly found in soft drinks, condiments, baby food and other processed fare — for six weeks in their drinking water. A second group drank the same solution but were also given flaxseed oil, rich in omega-3 fatty acids, and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which helps the body with memory and learning.

The rats were then tested in their ability to navigate a maze before and after they consumed their special diets.

They found the second group of rats navigated the maze much faster than the rats that didn’t receive omega-3 fatty acids.

Researchers believe a high-sugar diet is to blame and insulin — which controls the body’s blood sugar — may signal neurons to trigger reactions that disrupt learning and can cause memory loss, Gomez-Pinilla said.

He said the findings suggest consuming DHA regularly protects the brain against fructose’s harmful effects.

“It’s like saving money in the bank. You want to build a reserve for your brain to tap when it requires extra fuel to fight off future diseases.”

The average Canadian consumed about 26 teaspoons of sugar per day in 2004, according to Statistics Canada.

The study was published Tuesday in the the Journal of Physiology.

CHICAGO — Mothers of overweight toddlers often mistakenly think their children are normal weight, and mothers of underweight toddlers often wish they were plumper, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

The findings, based on a study of poor women in Baltimore, suggest that U.S. mothers often do not have a realistic idea of their offspring’s weight, and many still cling to the notion that a chubby child is healthy child.

“A long time ago, it was O.K. to value a chubby baby when kids were underweight and we had potato famines and what not. It was a sign you’re doing well for yourself,” said Erin Hager of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

“But that is not how it is today in the United States,” said Hager, whose study appears in the journal Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Hager works with low-income mothers in clinics in the Baltimore area to find ways to help prevent obesity, a condition that now affects about 17 percent, or 12.5 million, American children and adolescents ages 2 through 19.

Poor children are hit especially hard. As many as one in seven low income preschool-age children are considered obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.

The researchers wanted to get an idea of how moms see their children, and how that might affect the way they feed them. For the study, they used a cartoon drawing of seven diaper-clad toddlers arranged in a row from underweight to obese.

They enrolled some 280 women aged 18 to 46 in the study, 72 percent of whom were overweight or obese themselves. And they asked the moms to point to the picture that best resembled the height and weight of their own child.

The team already had information on the actual height and weight of the children, and they compared it to the drawing selections of the mothers.

Nearly 70 percent of mothers were wrong in assessing their toddler’s body size, and overweight mothers were the least likely to get it right.

“Specifically, mothers of overweight toddlers consistently tended to chose a silhouette that was smaller than their child’s true body size,” Hager said.

A TEMPTATION TO OVERFEED

The team also asked the mothers to choose a picture they would most like their children to look like.

Most of the mothers – 71.5 percent – were very satisfied with their toddlers’ body size, and mothers of overweight toddlers were the most satisfied, the researchers found.

Among the moms who were dissatisfied, the team found more than 20 percent of mothers of healthy weight toddlers and many of the mothers of the overweight toddlers wanted their kids to be bigger, Hager said.

“That suggests we may have a lot of parents who are trying to fatten up their babies,” said Dr. Eliana Perrin of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, who wrote a commentary on the research in the same journal.

Doctors say the obesity epidemic may be eroding a general impression among the public of what healthy looks like in a toddler, and that suggests pediatricians need to be much more candid with parents about their child’s weight.

The concern among scientists is that children’s eating habits are shaped when they are very young, said Dr. Stephen Cook, a member of the Executive Committee of the Section on Obesity for the American Academy of Pediatrics and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

“Kids who gain weight as toddlers tend to hold onto weight longer and tend to be overweight and obese in adolescence and adulthood,” said Cook, who conducted a similar study in older children.

The CDC estimates that nearly one quarter of the 4 million births each year in the United States involve obese women. Obesity raises the risk for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, osteoarthritis, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, respiratory problems and even some cancers.

All babies should be screened at birth for heart defects, a new study says.

Heart defects are the most common type of birth defects in the U.K., the study published Tuesday in the Lancet medical journal says.

Newborns often don’t show visible signs of the condition, and if heart defects aren’t treated right away, they can be fatal.

Researchers from the University of London and the University of Birmingham said a non-invasive test called a pulse oximetry is an accurate and cost-effective screening tool. The test measures the oxygen in the blood stream using a sensor on a thin part of the body, such as a fingertip or earlobe.

The new research, which brings together the results of 13 separate studies, is the largest of its kind and includes data on close to 230,000 babies.

“This study is really important because by including such large numbers of babies, we can show that pulse oximetry is effective at picking up defects, without misdiagnosing healthy babies. Previous research also indicates that it is cost-effective,” lead researcher Dr. Shakila Thangaratinam said in a release. “This study is the best evidence yet that using pulse oximetry to screen for heart defects should be included in the newborn health checks.”

Doctors need to weigh the risks of antidepressants against the “minimal” benefits, an Ontario researcher says.

In a new article, evolutionary biologist Paul Andrews says antidepressants affect the levels of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin regulates mood, but Andrews also notes it is used for other purposes, including digestion, forming blood clots at wound sites, reproduction and development.

“Serotonin is an ancient chemical. It’s intimately regulating many different processes, and when you interfere with these things you can expect, from an evolutionary perspective, that it’s going to cause some harm,” the McMaster University professor said in a release about his paper.

Andrews said antidepressants elevate risks of developmental issues in infants; problems with sexual stimulation and function and sperm development in adults; digestive problems such as diarrhea, constipation, indigestion and bloating; and abnormal bleeding and stroke in the elderly.

“The thing that’s been missing in the debates about antidepressants is an overall assessment of all these negative effects relative to their potential beneficial effects,” he said in the paper, which was published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

“Most of this evidence has been out there for years and nobody has been looking at this basic issue.”

He said it’s important to look critically at using antidepressants.

“You’ve got a minimal benefit, a laundry list of negative effects — some small, some rare and some not so rare. The issue is: Does the list of negative effects outweigh the minimal benefit?”

If anyone has an excuse not to exercise, it’s double-amputee Barbie Steinsholt-Thomas.

She lost both arms as a toddler, after a near-fatal electrical accident.

But the inspirational 35-year-old stay-at-home mom refuses to let that stop her from lifting weights and competing in fitness contests.

“I could sit around and pout about not having arms. I could have a bad attitude, but it doesn’t accomplish anything,” she tells Sun Media in a candid phone interview from her home in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler, Ariz. “I might as well be happy and make the best of what I’ve got.”

Steinsholt-Thomas hits her local gym, Fitness Works in Chandler, at least five days a week.

She drives there — steering with her right foot, while operating the gas and brake pedals with her left foot. (Her car has an automatic transmission.)

“My toes and feet are just like fingers and hands for me,” she explains.

Steinsholt-Thomas, about 115 pounds at 5-foot-8, trains her legs twice a week and works on her glutes or butt muscles — which she calls her “problem area” — five days a week.

During her leg workouts, she doesn’t shy away from squats. She uses a Smith machine for the exercise and enlists help from whoever is available in the gym.

“I need a spotter to hold the bar so it doesn’t turn and hook,” she says, noting she doesn’t usually require much help during her workouts. “Every once in a while I have a hard time adjusting something and I’ll just find whoever’s nearby to help me.”

Steinsholt-Thomas, whose website is called Fitness Unarmed, doesn’t shy away from heavy pounds, either.

“I used to squat about 235 (pounds). I don’t do that much anymore,” says the part-time motivational speaker. “And I used to do almost 1,200 pounds (on the leg press). Not anymore. I’ve cut way back. I want to make sure that my legs can serve me well for many years.”

While upper-body exercises are obviously out of the question, Steinsholt-Thomas does plenty of cardio, sweating it out on the treadmill, the elliptical machine and the dreaded StepMill.

And she doesn’t slack off.

In fact, she ramps up the intensity by doing intervals.

“I’m constantly changing the speed,” she explains. “I like to mix it up.”

Unlike her gluteus maximus, says Steinsholt-Thomas, her core doesn’t require any special attention.

“I use my core a lot — more than most people just because of the way I have to sit most times to use my feet,” she notes. “I never realized how much I use my abdominals and my core until I was pregnant and could really feel it.”

With her next contest looming on the horizon — the NPC (National Physique Committee) Junior USA bodybuilding championship slated for May 19 in Charleston, S.C. — Steinsholt-Thomas has been following a stringent diet and practising her fitness routine three times a week.

Although the word “can’t” isn’t in her vocabulary, she is unable to perform three of the mandatory moves.

“It affects my score, but there’s nothing I can do about that,” says the green-eyed New York native who has competed more than a dozen times since 2003. “I just do what I can and try to showcase things that I can do.”

The married mother of two boys — 15 and 11 — admits she wasn’t always so upbeat and her spirit wasn’t always so indomitable.

“The teenage years, they’re hard for anyone. Not having arms made it that much worse, especially being a girl and being emotional,” she recalls. “But I got through it.”

Over time, she realized that happiness — much like fitness — is a choice.

She chooses to be happy and fit.

How she lost her arms:

“When I was 2 1/2 years old, I lived in an apartment complex in Pasadena, Tex. I was outside playing with several other children, and being a typical 2-year-old, I was in and out of the apartment a thousand times. While I was outside, I did something that would change my life in an instant. I climbed upon a transformer. “¦ As I climbed up, I grabbed onto the wires.

“Electricity 101: When electricity enters a body, it has to have an entry point as well as an exit point. It entered through both of my hands, traveled through my little body, and exited through both of my legs. That is why there are burns/scars on both of my legs. My arms were burned all the way through to the bone. They were like charcoal. They were completely dead and had to be amputated at the shoulders. I now have a shoulder on my right side, which I use for many things, and not much on the left side. My kids call these my ‘nubs.’

“The doctors said that I probably would not live. They said if I did live I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life. My parents did not want that for me. My mom prayed that if I had to live as a vegetable, that God would just take me. She also made a promise to God that day — if he let me live, she would make sure that I became ’somebody.’ The doctors were boggled by my recovery. They decided I must have survived because of the rubber soles on my tennis shoes. True, they may have played their part, but I believe I survived because God saw the bigger picture and had plans for me!”

A baby’s sleep may not suffer just because its mother likes a daily cup or two of coffee, according to a Brazilian study based on nearly 900 new mothers.

Studies over the years have come to mixed conclusions on whether caffeine during pregnancy was linked to increased risk of miscarriage or premature birth, but more recent studies have failed to show any heightened risk.

Not much was known, however, about whether caffeine during pregnancy or breastfeeding might disturb new babies’ sleep – until the current study, published in Pediatrics.

The findings by Ina Santos and colleagues at Federal University of Pelotas, in Brazil, do not endorse heavy caffeine intake during pregnancy or breastfeeding, experts said, but are in line with research suggesting modest amounts may not pose a danger.

“Caffeine consumption during pregnancy and by nursing mothers seems not to have consequences on sleep of infants at the age of three months,” wrote Santos and her colleagues.

The team interviewed 885 new mothers about caffeine intake and infants’ sleep habits at the age of three months.

All but one said they drank caffeinated beverages during pregnancy. About 20 percent were considered heavy consumers of at least 300 milligrams a day. Just over 14 percent reported a heavy caffeine intake three months after giving birth.

Two hundred mg is about the amount in a 12-oz cup of coffee.

Overall, the researchers found no clear link between caffeine intake and the likelihood of reporting infant sleep problems.

Almost 15 percent of mothers said their three-month-old woke up more than three times each night, which was considered “frequent.” But the odds were not statistically greater for the mothers who were heavy caffeine consumers.

“I think this report adds to the growing body of literature suggesting that moderate caffeine consumption during pregnancy is generally safe,” said William Barth, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Barth, who was not involved in the study, chaired the committee at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) that in 2010 wrote a report saying that 200 mg of caffeine a day probably did not carry pregnancy risks.

He said the bottom line for women is that moderate caffeine intake, up to a cup or two of coffee per day, seems safe during pregnancy, but that it is currently not known if there are adverse effects of higher levels of caffeine consumption.

As for breastfeeding, it is generally thought that 300 mg of caffeine or less each day is okay, said Lauren Hanley, an obstetrician at Massachusetts General.

That is the case for healthy, full-term babies, at least.

But preterm infants and newborns metabolize caffeine more slowly and may be more sensitive to the small amount of caffeine that passes into breast milk.

And studies suggest that high amounts of caffeine during breastfeeding – “much higher” than 300 mg a day – are related to fussiness and poor sleep in babies.

Ontario doctors are issuing new warnings about the risks of prescribing codeine-laced painkillers to children who have their tonsils removed for a sleep disorder that affects breathing.

In a study published in the May issue of the journal, Pediatrics, researchers from the University of Western Ontario and the Hospital for Sick Children study two cases of children who died after taking codeine following a tonsillectomy for obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS).

Dr. Gideon Keon, the Ivey Chair in Molecular Toxicology at the university’s school of medicine, first reported a fatal case of a toddler who had taken codeine after having a tonsillectomy for OSAS in 2009.

In the first case covered in the most recent study, a 4-year-old First Nations boy in Northern Ontario died the day after he was released from hospital, where he’d received four age-appropriate doses of liquid codeine. With genotyping, researchers found the child had an ultra-rapid metabolism genotype that caused his body to metabolize the narcotic at a faster rate, producing greater amounts of morphine.

In the second case, a 5-year-old boy in Southern U.S. died 24 hours after surgery. He was prescribed acetaminophen and codeine every four hours.

The report also covers a third, non-fatal case. A 3-year-old Canadian girl was rushed to hospital after being found unresponsive. The girl was resuscitated.

She too had undergone a tonsillectomy for OSAS and given acetaminophen and codeine.

“These very troubling cases strongly suggest that many more are occurring and go undiagnosed,” said Dr. Gideon Koren, one of the study’s authors. “We cannot go on assuming that codeine is safe for all young children after tonsillectomy.

“We must also examine the practice of sending them home right after surgery while receiving codeine, which decreases their respiratory drive and increases the risk of respiratory arrest.”

The researchers found that a one-night followup in hospital might not be enough to effectively detect all the children who are at higher risk of severe breathing complications.

In North America, an estimated 600,000 to 1.8 million children under the age of 15 are affected by OSAS, the study says. The primary treatment of the sleep disorder, which disrupts ventilation and breathing patterns during sleep, is generally tonsillectomy.

Baby girls who are heavier at birth are more likely to develop diabetes and related metabolic risks when they grow up, a new study has found.

Australian researchers examined 1,053 17-year-olds from a birth cohort. Follow-up of study participants took place at eight intervals between the ages of one and 17.

In addition to birth weight and BMI, researchers took measurements of blood pressure and levels of insulin, blood glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol.

“What happens to a baby in the womb affects future heart disease and diabetes risk when the child grows up,” University of Western Australia in Perth researcher and lead author of the study, Dr. Rae-Chi Huang, said in a release.

“We found that female babies are particularly prone to this increased risk and females who are at high risk of obesity and diabetes-related conditions at age 17 are showing increased obesity as early as 12 months of age.”

In contrast, birth weight had no statistical impact on metabolic risk factors in males, they found.

“These findings are significant because in our modern western society, we are seeing increased maternal obesity and gestational diabetes, which means there will also be a rise in female newborns that are born large for their age,” Huang said.

The study appears in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Canada’s youngest citizens need to be more active, new physical activity guidelines suggest.

Health advocacy and research groups developed the guidelines, which say on average, children spend between 73-84% of their waking hours being sedentary.

“Regular physical activity is essential at a young age as it contributes to bone and skeletal health, motor skill development, psychosocial health, cognitive development and healthy body weights,” Dr. Mark Tremblay, a director with the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (CHEO-HALO), said in a release about the new guidelines.

The guidelines say children under the age of one should be physically active several times a day through interactive, floor-based play like tummy time, reaching and grasping, pushing and pulling, and crawling.

Children between one and four should spend 180 minutes each day being active. This can include climbing stairs, playing outside, walking, running or dancing.

By the age of five, children should have at least 60 minutes of energetic play, such as hopping, skipping and bike riding.

The guidelines also say children under the age of four shouldn’t sit for more than an hour at a time, such as in a stroller, car seat, watching television or playing with electronic devices, like computers and tablets.

“Screen time is not recommended for children under the age of two,” the guidelines state, adding for children between two and four, screen time should be limited to less than an hour each day.

In a release about the guidelines, Kelly Murumets, president and CEO of ParticipACTION, said children need to be taught early the importance of physical activity.

“It is crucial for parents and caregivers to give young children regular opportunities to move more, and it can be as simple as getting outdoors to explore the neighbourhood rather than sitting in front of the TV, or by playing on a mat reaching, pushing or crawling rather than keeping children idle in a high chair,” Murumets said.

The Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology (CSEP) and ParticipACTION produced the guidelines, with support from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group (CHEO-HALO).