Baby Health Care

Study: Preschoolers watching TV at home-based daycare may spend hours in front of TV screen

Posted by babyhealthcare on December 18th, 2009

SEATTLE – Parents who thought their preschoolers were spending time in home-based day cares, taking naps, eating healthy snacks and learning to play nicely with others may be surprised to discover they are sitting as many as two hours a day in front of a TV, according to a study published Monday.

When added to the two to three hours many parents already admit to allowing at home, preschoolers in child care may be spending more than a third of the about 12 hours they are awake each day in front of the electronic baby sitter, said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle and a researcher at the University of Washington.

That’s double the TV time he found in a previous study based on parental reports of home viewing, according to findings published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. The study is the first to look at TV watching in child care in more than 20 years.

The figures come from a telephone survey of licensed child care programs in Michigan, Washington, Florida and Massachusetts. Christakis said he thought television use was probably underreported.

Of the child care programs surveyed, 70 per cent of home-based child cares and 36 per cent of centres said children watch TV daily. The children were watching TV, DVDs and videos. The study did not track what kind of programs were shown.

“It’s not what parents have signed up for,” Christakis said. “I’m not sure how many parents are aware of this.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages any television viewing of any kind in the first 2 years of life and recommends a daily limit of 1 to 2 hours of quality programming for older children.

Children go to day care to develop social skills, build on cognitive abilities and enjoy imaginative play, as well as allowing their parents to work, Christakis said.

“We know what’s good for children and we know what’s not,” Christakis said. “High quality preschool can make a very, very positive difference. We’re so far from meeting that, that we really have a lot of work to do.”

His research found a difference between the amount of TV watching at home daycares and larger child care centres, although both reported some TV time.

The study found that among preschool-aged children, those in home-based day cares watched TV for 2.4 hours per day on average, compared to 24 minutes in centres. Toddlers watched an average of 1.6 hours in home care and about 6 minutes in centres. Only home-based day cares admitted putting infants in front of the TV, for an average of 12 minutes a day.

“It’s alarming to find that so many children in the United States are watching essentially twice as much television as we previously thought,” he said.

Other research has connected excessive TV watching during the preschool years with language delay, obesity, attention problems and aggression.

Dr. Michael Rich, director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston, wasn’t surprised by the findings in this study but he was forgiving of the parents and child care providers who put kids in front of the TV.

“In general, we still have a culture that sees television as benign,” said Rich, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard University. “This is an area where we’re learning more and more all the time.”

He compared society’s growing knowledge of the impact of TV on child development to the early days of seat belt use. Today’s parents and child care providers grew up on TV, Rich said, so it’s understandable that they do not recognize the problem.

“We can always do better,” he said.

Christakis said one of the main problems with TV for young children is that it takes away time that could otherwise be spent playing outside, being read to, playing with blocks and talking with adults and other children.

The study did not include passive TV time, when the TV is on in the background but no one is actively watching it. Christakis said any time a TV is on, children speak less and adults interact with them less frequently.

Instead of urging parents to turn off the TV, President Barack Obama might want to start sending the same message to child care providers, Christakis said.

“Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call,” he said.

Bangladeshi mother says formerlyconjoined twins should grow up in Australia

Posted by babyhealthcare on December 18th, 2009

DHAKA, Bangladesh – The mother who gave up conjoined Bangladeshi newborn twins for adoption said Saturday she is overjoyed the toddlers have been successfully separated and wants them to grow up in Australia.

“My babies are alive and doing well. It’s the best news I’ve ever got in my life,” a tearful Lovely Mollick told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her home in Khulna district, 85 miles (137 kilometres) southwest of Dhaka.

The twins, who turn 3 next month, had been joined at the top of their heads and shared brain tissue and blood vessels. They were separated Tuesday after 25 hours of delicate surgery in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, and then underwent an additional six hours of reconstructive work.

The charity that brought Trishna and Krishna to Australia two years ago for the surgery, Children First Foundation, has said it will support the twins as they undergo further medical treatment in Australia for at least the next two years.

Trishna awoke from a medically induced coma Thursday and Krishna regained consciousness late Friday.

Their 23-year-old mother said she made the heartbreaking decision to give up her daughters to a Dhaka orphanage after giving birth by cesarean section because she could not properly care for their special needs.

While she and her factory worker husband, Kartik Mollick, 35, wanted to maintain a relationship with their daughters, both parents hoped the twins would be raised in Australia.

“I am from a poor family and am not able to take care of them,” the mother said. “I want them to get a proper education and live a good life.”

“I want them to maintain a relationship with me, no matter where they live, when they are grown up,” she added. “They have come from my soul.”

The girls’ Australian legal guardian for the past two years, Moira Kelly, the charity’s founder, said Saturday she has not considered adoption. “I haven’t even thought about it,” Kelly told reporters.

Adoptions could be stymied since Australia restricts the adoption of foreign children with medical problems that could burden its health care system.

Kelly said the prognosis that both sisters were neurologically sound “gives me shivers down my spine.” The twins’ cots will be pushed together so they could again touch, she said.

Krishna is expected to have a longer period of adjustment as the separation brought more changes to her body and brain’s blood circulation. Both girls were in serious but stable condition.

Doctors had earlier said there was a 50-50 chance that one of the girls could suffer brain damage from the complicated separation.

Australian aid worker Danielle Noble first saw Trishna and Krishna in an orphanage when they were a month old, and contacted the Children First Foundation.

“I got to see the girls for the first time today since their separation and it’s the most incredible feeling to think that three years ago, this was just a dream,” the 27-year-old volunteer told reporters.

“Now they are going to have a fantastic life,” she added.

The foundation raised almost 250,000 Australian dollars ($229,000) for the cost of caring for the twins in between numerous earlier surgeries to separate blood vessels connecting their brains. A mystery benefactor funded all hospital costs, Smith said.

The jury is still out on one or two doses of H1N1 vaccine for small kids: PHAC

Posted by babyhealthcare on November 13th, 2009

TORONTO – The jury is still out on whether there will be a change in the recommendation on how many H1N1 shots children need, the head of the Public Health Agency of Canada suggested Tuesday.

But a vaccine expert said he would be uncomfortable with a decision to move to a single dose for toddlers, saying it would be unwise to assume all Canadian kids would respond to vaccine in the way a very small group of Spanish children did in a clinical trial.

“I think it takes almost magical thinking to imagine that we can generalize those limited data from Spain to a Canadian population,” said Dr. David Scheifele, director of the University of British Columbia’s Vaccine Evaluation Centre.

Scheifele, who is based at B.C. Children’s Hospital, said the only data currently available is a study of 51 young children in Spain who received GlaxoSmithKline’s adjuvanted H1N1 vaccine. Canada is also using GSK’s vaccine with an adjuvant, an additive that boosts one’s response to the serum.

The study showed that even at the youngest age group, kids six months to 35 months, one shot generated antibody levels that are predictive of protection.

Based on those promising results, Public Health Agency head Dr. David Butler-Jones said there might be a possibility kids could be immunized with a single shot, not the two currently recommended.

But he said Tuesday that the agency is not yet ready to make that call.

“(It’s a) very small sample,” said Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer.

“So we’re reviewing not only that data but expert opinion – pediatricians, others, experts in vaccine – and we hope to have a recommendation shortly, certainly in time before anybody needs to consider a second dose. Which will be coming in the next couple of weeks.”

In fact, children who were vaccinated in the first days of the vaccination program are closer to their second dose than that.

The recommendation is that the two shots be given 21 days apart. With this week marking the third week of the effort, parents and young kids could be lining up again next week for a second shot.

Scheifele believes at least the youngest children ought to get two shots. They are the ones whose immune systems have the least experience with flu viruses. They are also the ones being hit hardest by this particular virus, he said.

“Ideally it would be the under fives being offered a second dose, but I could live with the under threes.”

Scheifele noted the children in the clinical trial were healthy, and their response to vaccine doesn’t necessarily predict how First Nations children, children who were born prematurely, who have chronic illnesses or who are malnourished due to poverty or disease will respond to the vaccine.

“So I would guess at least 20 per cent of the Canadian population of young children may not behave the way those selected Spanish kids did,” he said.

Treating mild diabetes in pregnancy reduces weight gain, birth problems: study

Posted by babyhealthcare on November 1st, 2009

NEW YORK – Treating even mild diabetes that develops during pregnancy helps keep moms and babies from gaining too much weight and makes for easier deliveries, new research shows.

Pregnant women in the U.S. are routinely tested and treated for high blood sugar levels, although it hasn’t been clear whether treating the mildest cases really benefited them and their infants.

In a study of 950 women, those with mild gestational diabetes who were treated had fewer overly large babies, fewer cesarean sections and fewer pregnancy complications, compared to women who didn’t have their diabetes treated.

“There is every reason to fully treat women with even the mildest (gestational diabetes) based on our results,” said the study’s leader, Dr. Mark Landon of Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus.

Gestational diabetes begins during pregnancy and usually goes away after childbirth. It affects as many as one in seven pregnant women, depending on the population. The mother’s elevated blood sugar can cause the fetus to grow too large, sometimes requiring a C-section and can bring on other health problems for the mother and baby.

Risk factors include being over 25, being obese and a family history of diabetes.

Medical groups support testing pregnant women for the condition and treatment, although the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government health panel, said last year there wasn’t enough evidence to recommend screening.

Landon said he’d had doubts about treating mild cases, and was surprised by the study’s results.

“I did it, yet I wondered, ‘Was I overtreating?”‘ he said.

For the government-funded study, 958 women with mild gestational diabetes were recruited at 15 medical centres. They got either diabetes treatment or standard prenatal care. Treatment included diet counselling and insulin if needed to get their blood sugar under control.

In the treatment group, there were fewer babies of unusually large size (seven per cent versus 15 per cent in the untreated group) and fewer babies weighed more than about nine pounds (six per cent versus 14 per cent). On average, the treated women gained five fewer pounds after their diagnosis than the untreated ones.

There were also fewer C-sections and cases of preeclampsia, a serious pregnancy complication. There were no deaths in either group, and no difference in other birth-related complications.

Landon noted that a “remarkable” 93 per cent of the women in the treatment group kept their blood sugar under control with diet alone; only seven per cent needed insulin.

The findings are reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. David A. Sacks of Kaiser Foundation Hospital in Bellflower, Calif., said switching to a healthier diet could help other pregnant women limit weight gain, too. More large babies are born to overweight or obese women who don’t have diabetes, he said.

“This is a real easy therapy to apply to every single pregnant lady,” said Sacks, who wrote an editorial about the study in the journal.

Even before she got pregnant, Lorenda Donaugh knew all about gestational diabetes. She works with Landon at Ohio State, doing ultrasounds for his patients, and ended up becoming one after she was diagnosed at 28 weeks with a mild case.

“I knew it was going to be hard work. It takes a lot of time and planning,” said the 27-year-old, who lives in the Columbus suburb of Westerville.

Donaugh, who was not part of the study, monitored her blood sugar several times a day, modified her diet and took extra walks. She eventually took a diabetes medication.

Planning meals and cutting back on sugar was the hardest part, she said. Whenever she was tempted, she thought of her baby. “Being pregnant, you have all those cravings, but you still have to limit that food,” she said.

The work paid off. She delivered a healthy daughter on Sept. 14. Adelynn weighed six pounds, four ounces and her mom had only gained a modest 22 pounds.

Record-holding 19.2-pound baby boy draws crowds to Indonesian hospital

Posted by babyhealthcare on November 1st, 2009

KISARAN, Indonesia – Indonesia’s heaviest-ever newborn drew curious crowds Friday to a hospital where the boy named Akbar – or the Great in Arabic – came into the world at a record 19.2 pounds (8.7 kilograms).

Akbar Risuddin was born to a diabetic mother in a 40-minute cesarean delivery that was complicated because of his unusual weight and size, Dr. Binsar Sitanggang said.

“I’m very happy that my baby and his mother are in good health,” father Muhammad Hasanuddin said Friday. “I hope I can afford to feed the baby enough, because he needs more milk than other babies.”

Crowds pushed to get a peek of the extraordinary boy, who measured nearly 24 inches (62 centimetres) when he was born Monday, at the Abdul Manan hospital in the northern town of Kisaran on the island of Sumatra.

“This is fantastic,” Dewi Miranti, a mother from a nearby village, said as she peered through a window with about a hundred other people. “He looks very well and is cute.”

The baby’s extreme weight was the result of excessive glucose from his mother during pregnancy, Dr. Sitanggang said.

“He is greedy and has a strong appetite, nursing almost nonstop,” the doctor said.

The boy was the third child of Hasanuddin, 50, and mother Ani, 41, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name. His two “little” brothers weighed 11.6 pounds (5.3 kilograms) and 9.9 pounds (4.5 kilograms) at birth.

The former Indonesian record holder was a 14.7-pound (6.7-kilogram) baby boy born on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, in 2007.

Guinness World Records cites the heaviest baby as being born in the U.S. in 1879, weighing 23.75 pounds (10.4 kilograms). However, it died 11 hours after birth. The book also cites 22.5-pound (10.2-kilogram) babies born in Italy in 1955 and in South Africa in 1982.

Amid rising elective deliveries, hospitals curtail labour induced too soon

Posted by babyhealthcare on October 28th, 2009

WASHINGTON – Hoping to schedule your baby’s birth while your mother’s in town, or before the doctor goes on vacation? Labour is becoming less of a late-night surprise, but some U.S. hospitals are starting to tighten the rules for elective deliveries – because some babies are being delivered too early.

More hospitals are expected to crack down as regulators begin new quality measurements next spring that aim to reduce too-early elective inductions and first-time caesareans.

Induced labour is on the rise for lots of reasons, some medical and some not. But recent research shows a troubling link between elective inductions and these so-called “late preemies.” These aren’t the dire too-small babies that the word premature conjures, but near-term babies who nonetheless are at higher risk of breathing disorders and other problems than babies who finish their very last weeks in the womb.

“It was an ‘aha’ moment for me,” recalls Dr. Bryan Oshiro of his visit to a Utah intensive care nursery several years ago, where neonatologists pointed to babies there simply because they’d been induced too soon.

National guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have long discouraged elective deliveries before the 39th week of pregnancy. But some hospitals that took a close look were surprised. At Utah’s Intermountain Healthcare, for example, 28 per cent of elective deliveries were breaking ACOG’s rule in 2001, Oshiro told a March of Dimes meeting on preventable prematurity this month.

Most were being induced in week 37, such a small difference that local obstetricians argued it wasn’t a problem. So Oshiro pulled the medical charts and found those near-term babies had more than double the risk of ending up in neonatal ICU, suffering respiratory distress, even needing a ventilator.

It took several years of policing: Inductions now are allowed only after meeting a checklist of requirements. But today, only about three per cent of Intermountain’s elective deliveries occur before 39 weeks – and infant hospitalizations have dropped, saving money, too, says Oshiro, now a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Loma Linda University in California. He’s about to pilot a similar program at hospitals in that area.

“If there’s no need to intervene, please don’t intervene,” is Oshiro’s message.

Labour is induced in more than one in five births, double the rate in 1990, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many cases are for clear health reasons, such as a problem with the fetus or a sick mom or a pregnancy that has dragged well beyond the woman’s due date.

There’s little data on how many are elective. But a Hospital Corporation of America study of nearly 18,000 births at 27 of its hospitals around the country suggests 10 per cent of all births are performed electively before the 39-week mark. (That date is considered the point at which doctors can be sure a pregnancy has reached full-term, typically defined as 40 weeks give or take about a week.)

There are many reasons to perform an elective induction, such as if mom lives two hours from a hospital, notes Dr. John Fisch of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Magee-Women’s Hospital.

Patient and doctor preference helped drive the rise in inductions, such as women timing grandma’s arrival to take care of the siblings, or minimizing 3 a.m. deliveries. Then there’s defensive medicine, where doctors worried about litigation induce for minor reasons like a slight uptick of the mother’s blood pressure.

So Pittsburgh also had “a little bit of a hard sell” after discovering nearly 12 per cent of elective deliveries broke the 39-week rule in 2004, Fisch says. “It was perceived to be a safe and effective way in delivering a baby – and it is, as long as it meets certain criteria.”

After Magee began strict enforcement – requiring that a mother’s cervix be nearly ready for natural labour, and limiting the beds available for elective inductions – too-early inductions dropped to four per cent by 2007 and are “effectively zero” today, Fisch says. Overall, elective inductions dropped 30 per cent.

More hospitals are expected to start enforcing those criteria this spring, when the Joint Commission that regulates health quality will require hospitals to report all elective deliveries and the gestational age to its public database, providing peer pressure for improvement. Hospitals also will have to report cesareans for first-time mothers, too often a result of a failed induction.

“That’s not a good outcome for the baby or the mom,” says Joint Commission President Dr. Mark Chassin. “We believe this will be a very important driver of improvement in perinatal care.”

EDITOR’S NOTE – Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

Facts about vaccine for H1N1 flu

Posted by babyhealthcare on October 28th, 2009

Some facts about the vaccine for the H1N1 flu, approved Wednesday for national distribution.

What is it: A vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline in Ste-Foi, Que.

When available: Provinces may begin administering their stockpiles of vaccine as early as next week. About two million doses shipped to provinces and territories, with between two million and 3.5 million more doses to be shipped each week. GlaxoSmithKline has contracted to provide 50.4 million doses.

Additives: The current vaccine contains an adjuvant, a compound that boosts the immune response to the vaccine and stretches supplies by using smaller doses per person. There’s currently no licensed seasonal flu vaccine containing adjuvant in Canada, although adjuvants have been used for years in Europe in flu vaccines targeted at seniors.

Unadjuvanted vaccines No data on the use of adjuvanted flu vaccines in either pregnant women or young children. The government has ordered 1.8 million doses of unadjuvanted vaccines for their use. The unadjuvanted products will be shipped separately from the ordinary vaccines; no word yet on when they will be available.

Pandemic Vaccine and seasonal flu shot: An unpublished Canadian study suggests getting a seasonal flu shot may double a person’s risk of catching H1N1. Data from several other countries doesn’t show the same association, and the World Health Organization isn’t suggesting countries change their vaccination plans because of the study.

Who should get vaccinated: Everyone 10 years of age or older should receive one dose of adjuvanted vaccine. Children between six months and 10 years should received the adjuvanted vaccine in two half-doses, administered at least 21 days apart. Pregnant women are advised to get one dose of unadjuvanted vaccine, though if they are 20 weeks or more into their pregnancy and the unadjuvanted vaccine isn’t available, they are advised to get the adjuvanted shot. Infants less than six months old aren’t vaccinated for influenza.

One-on-One with Nanny Stella

Posted by babyhealthcare on October 21st, 2009

Alabama Baby magazine sat down to talk with Nanny Stella from the popular television series “Nanny 911″ during an appearance in Birmingham. AB: How long have you been a nanny? Nanny Stella: Off and on for 17 years. I say off and on because I have done other things. I have been what we call in Los Angeles a ‘baby…

Alabama Baby magazine sat down to talk with Nanny Stella from the popular television series “Nanny 911″ during an appearance in Birmingham.

AB: How long have you been a nanny?
Nanny Stella: Off and on for 17 years. I say off and on because I have done other things. I have been what we call in Los Angeles a ‘baby nurse’ where you go to someone’s home but you don’t stay. You get new babies on a schedule like a night nurse. I have also worked back in the UK for a grassroots, volunteer organization as a childcare consultant. Basically I have been involved with children professionally for 17 years.

AB: How did you get into the field?
Nanny Stella: Well I was always interested in it when I was younger. There is actually this magazine in the UK called the Lady Magazine. It was a magazine for women and in the back it had all these jobs listed for nannies and au pairs; I was interested in them but my career officer at school did not think that was the way to go. In London there are nannies, but in my town there was no such thing as a nanny–you did it as a prerequisite for nursing, but I didn’t want to be a nurse. So I put it on the back burner and went off into another career. Then I came to the States and a friend of mine was a nanny. She introduced me to a family and they hired me and it took off from there.

AB: Why did you come to the States?
Nanny Stella: I actually came with my fiance, who had a job offer. I’m not with him anymore; he is long gone. But it was like the lesser of two evils–I was either going to move with my job in the UK, which I didn’t want to do, or we go to America.

AB: Most of our readers are new to parenthood. What advice would you give parents about starting out on the right foot?
Nanny Stella: The first advice I would give anybody considering becoming a parent, whether young or old, is when you start off you have to define your role as a parent with your partner. If you are in a relationship you have to decide how you are going to parent your kids. What happens is we spend more time deciding what minivan we are going to buy or what vacation we are going to take than how we are going to parent our kids. So that would be the first one: define your role.

Secondly, it is not your job to be your child’s best friend. The requirement of being a parent is to discipline your children. I joke about this all the time–my best friend is 41 and she is not going to take too kindly to me disciplining her. And then you have situations where you are disciplining your child and you say ‘I am your mommy’ or ‘I’m your daddy’ and the child says ‘No, you’re my buddy, you’re my best friend.’ That has to be defined.

The other thing is consistency. Start a scheduling routine–it does not have to be set in stone, but your kids have to know what’s coming next. They thrive on that. I have worked with children that had no schedule, no routine, situations with co-sleeping, and it is not that I am against attachment parenting, but I have not seen it work, so I need education on that. But be consistent with what comes after that. You got to really say what you mean and be consistent. So if you were to say to your kid, ‘If you get good grades we are going to take you to Disneyland,’ then you better have your bags packed. In the same vein, if you say to your kid, ‘If your grades are not acceptable and you have not said to us that you are having a problem in school, then you are going to lose your PlayStation, your TV,’ or whatever, then you have to take it away.

AB: The International Nanny Association says your show has really helped to educate people in America about what they should or should not expect from a nanny. What do you have to say about that, and what should people expect from a nanny?
Nanny Stella: Whether they have the academic qualifications or not, a nanny is someone who has chosen to do this as a profession and is there to help you as a part of your team, help you raise your children. They are not there to raise your children without you. Really, it’s a working relationship.

The other thing, because I have lived in Los Angeles for many years, my
version of a nanny and someone else’s is very different. No disrespect, but the person picking up the dog poop in the garden and taking out the garbage and cleaning the stove and preparing the meals is not the nanny. That is the housekeeper. So defining the roles and expectations would be the fundamental thing.

AB: Yes, that’s what the INA says–that in the UK nanny’s are regarded more as childcare experts than as babysitters.
Nanny Stella: In the UK, someone who is a professional, qualified nanny has gone to school for it. You learn about food and nutrition, psychology, all the things that I believe you should have to pass before you have a child of your own.

AB: What do you wish parents understood about your job?
Nanny Stella: That’s a really good question, but it ties in with your
question about what they expect of a nanny. You have to treat your nanny like you would treat an employee. She is an employee with certain requirements that need to be pre-defined; does she get vacation pay, does she get time off, all the things employees get. What tends to happen is the relationship morphs because the nanny is in a home environment. And you cannot be a good nanny without being emotionally involved. You just can’t–you’ve got to love the kids, and love the family. But not to the point that you where you lose the boundaries. Nannies have to work to separate their professional and personal lives.

AB: What advice would you give nannies on how to maintain professional boundaries?
Nanny Stella: Check in. You should check in with parents often and work as a team. It should not be your job to call a team meeting, it should be the parents who say ‘Let’s check in once a week,’ like you would have an evaluation meeting if you were a secretary or personal assistant. Then you share feedback and have constant communication. On the show we are technically getting to tell the employer what they are doing wrong, which most nannies are nervous about doing because they don’t want to lose their jobs. But it keeps those lines of communication open, let’s them be clear.

AB: So a parent opening the door to feedback from the nanny makes it easier?
Nanny Stella: Absolutely. And to me it’s more effective, because now you’re not just the mom and dad, you are mom and dad and the nanny. I think one thing nannies probably would say they hope parents do is to sometimes check the situation when they come in, like at the end of the day check in on how the kids have done during the day. Not just walk in and say, ‘I have had a really had a hard day’ and project that attitude. Take a minute to observe the children in the present, see if they are winding down, if they had a rough day, just see what the situation is.

AB: What is the difference between American parents and European parents?
Nanny Stella: I never was a nanny in the UK, but my mom’s a UK mom. The biggest and most fundamental difference I see is the ‘best friend’ thing. In the UK, we, and I don’t want to say it’s OK for your kids to say I hate you, but when they say I hate you when you are disciplining them, you know you are doing your job. Don’t be brought to your knees by it, that’s just what happens.

AB: Anything else you want to say to our readers?
Nanny Stella: Just enjoy your kids. A lot of parents endure their children, I suggest to enjoy them where possible.

Eye Care for Infants

Posted by babyhealthcare on October 21st, 2009

The American Optometric Association (AOA) and The Vision Care Institute of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., have partnered to create InfantSEE™, a no-cost public health program developed to provide professional eye care for infants nationwide. Through InfantSEE™, optometrists will provide a one-time, comprehensive eye assessment to infants in their first year of life, offering early detection of potential eye…

Parents of babies ages 6 months to a year can schedule an appointment with an optometrist. (To find an InfantSEE optometrist in Alabama, visit the program’s web site at www.infantsee.org.) During the appointment, the eye doctor will use lights and other handheld objects to make sure the eyes are working together. The doctor also might use drops to dilate the baby’s pupil.

“InfantSEE Optometrists will check for the conditions that lead to amblyopia (or lazy eye) such as strabismus (or crossed eyes), high or unequal prescriptions of farsightedness, nearsightedness, or astigmatism, and will also check the health of the eye for any signs of glaucoma or retinoblastoma–a cancer that can lead to loss of an eye and can spread to the brain if not identified and treated early on,” said Dr. Jennifer Alverson, Alabama InfantSEE State Leader.

According to Dr. Jennifer Alverson, “Most adults today know of someone in their life that has either a crossed eye or a lazy eye (one eye that doesn’t see as well as the other). But what is not widely known is the fact that if the problem had been diagnosed and treated at an early age, while the visual system was still growing and developing, their friend or family member could have avoided a lifetime of poor vision. Also, many children today are diagnosed with reading or learning disabilities when the root of the problem may very well be a visual disorder.

For instance, even a moderate amount of uncorrected farsightedness may not allow a child’s eyes to focus together while reading. The child may become distracted and not complete their assignment. As an Optometrist, I know that these scenarios are all too common but I also know that they are preventable through early detection and treatment–and this is why I participate in InfantSEE.”

Pregnant women exposed to chemical more likely to have aggressive girls: study

Posted by babyhealthcare on October 20th, 2009

VANCOUVER, B.C. – Pregnant women exposed to a common chemical found in plastics are more likely to have daughters with aggressive and hyperactive behaviours, suggests a new study that tested two-year-olds.

The University of North Carolina study, which included a senior scientist from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, is the first to examine the link between exposure to bisphenol A during pregnancy and behaviour problems in kids.

The results are consistent with other studies showing the impact of the chemical on juvenile female animals.

Bisphenol A, also known as BPA, has also been linked to reproductive problems and diabetes.

It’s used to make hard, clear reusable water bottles, baby bottles and resins that line the inside of metal food and beverage cans.

Last October, Canada became the first country in the world to ban BPA-containing baby bottles. Some U.S. jurisdictions, including Cincinnati, have legislation that bans or limits the use of the chemical in consumer products.

Bruce Lanphear, a Simon Fraser University professor of children’s environmental health, said the study suggests pregnant women start thinking about the effects of bisphenol A long before they lug home baby bottles.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives,” measured the BPA levels in urine samples taken from 249 pregnant women in Cincinnati at 16 and 26 weeks pregnancy and again when they gave birth.

Lanphear said the women were followed from early pregnancy until their children were two years old.

He said the chemical concentrations between 13 and 16 weeks of pregnancy were most strongly associated with behaviour problems in girls, but the study found no significant effect on boys.

The girls will be tested again when they’re five, at an age children’s behaviours tend to be more stable, said Lanphear, who is also senior scientist at the Child and Family Research Institute at B.C. Children’s Hospital.

He noted that industry initially fought results of various studies that suggested there were only inconsequential links between lead-based paint and children’s behaviour and that pattern appears to be repeating itself for companies producing plastics using bisphenol A.

“What we found over the past 10 or more years is that the kinds of subtle shifts in behaviours or cognition in very young kids oftentimes become manifest as (psychological issues) in older kids and adolescents,” Lanphear said.

“At a minimum, we should ask industries to begin to label their products as to whether they contain bisphenol A so we give families a choice when they make purchases.”

“Environmental chemicals should be tested for their safety or their toxicity before they’re marketed.”

Rick Smith, executive director of Toronto-based Environmental Defence, called the study significant, saying the chemical industry can no longer point to animal studies as not being applicable to human health.

“Not only does this underline the importance of getting the chemical out of baby bottles but we now need to take the next step and get it out of other areas where kids are exposed, most notably infant formula containers,” Smith said.

However, the American Chemistry Council expressed its reservations about the research pointing out what it called “significant limitations” in the study design and its inability to establish cause-effect relationships.

“The results of this preliminary, and severely limited study cannot be considered meaningful for human health unless the findings are replicated in a more robust study,” the group representing the industry said in a statement Tuesday.

In February, researchers at the University of Guelph warned that parents should get rid of anything containing bisphenol A that will be used by babies or pregnant women.

A study by a toxicologist and a graduate of the southern Ontario university found that the chemical lingers in the bodies of newborns and infants.