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Parents tricked by Baby Einstein
August 8, 2007: A new study by the Journal of Pediatrics has
found baby development videos like Baby Einstein and Brainy
Baby can actually slow a
toddler's learning.
For every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants
aged eight to 16 months understood an average of six to eight less
words than those who did not watch them, the study, published in
The Journal of Pediatrics, found.
The lead author of the study, Frederick Zimmerman, an associate
professor of health services at the University of Washington, has
called on parents to limit their childrens' exposure to the material
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/08/08/1186530417099.html
Mother
charged with kidnapping son from hospital to use natural therapies
JUNE 29, 2006 SEATTLE: A seriously ill 9-month-old
boy taken from Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center was resting
comfortably at Children’s Hospital across town on Saturday,
authorities said. A statewide Amber Alert was canceled after
police recovered little Riley Rogers when they pulled over a
vehicle around 12:20 a.m. Saturday in Yelm, southeast of Olympia.
Police said his mother, Tina Carlsen, hid the boy in a diaper bag
and took him from Harborview on Thursday morning. She was ordered
held on $500,000 bail.
The boy had been scheduled for surgery at Harborview to treat what
relatives described as a kidney ailment.
The child became a ward of the state June 9, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
reported, after months of back-and-forth between medical professionals,
who had insisted that he get dialysis, and his parents, who favor
herbs, vitamins and other alternative treatments.
DSHS spokeswoman Kathy Spears confirmed Friday that the child was
in the agency’s protective custody.
Todd Rogers, the boy’s father, said that his wife believed
she was doing the right thing. “She honestly believes that
if Riley has that surgery, he’ll die. I don’t share
that belief — we’ve argued about it — but she
is his mother and that’s her gut instinct,” he
said.
Tina
Marie Carlsen, the mother of Riley was released from King County
Jail on Thursday morning after agreeing to conditions that limit
contact with her son.
After
her arrest, Carlsen, who breast-feeds, sought the support of women's
advocates and friends and family in order to continue providing
milk for Riley. Megan Tormey, a friend of Carlsen's, said Thursday
she was angry that it took four days to get a working breast pump
into the jail.
Source: NorthWest News Channel/SeattleTimes
http://www.kgw.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D8IEOS000.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003095331_carlsen30m.html
Study backs natural birth after C-section
JUNE 29, 2006: A study recently released could
lead to an increase in the number of pregnant women who try for
a vaginal birth after a cesarean section, a type of delivery called
a VBAC.
The study, published in Obstetrics & Gynecology, involved 17,890
women with a prior C-section who delivered at one of 19 academic
U.S. medical centers from 1999 through 2002.
It found that those who'd had multiple C-sections were no more likely
to have a uterine tear, or rupture, than those who'd had only one
C-section. Ruptures occurred in nine of 975 women with multiple
previous C-sections, or 0.9%, and 115 of 16,915 women with just
one prior C-section, or 0.7%. Women with multiple C-sections were
more likely to need a blood transfusion or a hysterectomy if they
tried for a VBAC, but their actual risk was just 3.2% and 0.6% respectively.
Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-06-29-vbac_x.htm
Head
lice shrug off shampoo
July 1 2006: SCIENTISTS have finally confirmed
what parents and teachers have long suspected. Head lice have become
impervious to the campaign to eradicate them.
After randomly sampling almost 3000 schoolchildren in Wales, British
scientists have concluded over-the-counter insecticidal shampoos
to clear lice do little more than make the critters cleaner.
Four out of five head lice collected during the research were found
to be resistant to malathion, permethrin and phenothrin, the pesticides
most commonly used in delousing treatments, according to a paper
published in the British Medical Association journal Archives of
Disease in Childhood.
T he only chemical alternative - a newly authorised silicone treatment
not available in Australia - was ineffective on about 30 per cent
of lice.
The findings did not surprise Australia's head lice expert, Richard
Speare, of James Cook University. The last hope is a cocktail of
herbal extracts and essential oils, with few clinical field trials
to measure their efficacy and resistance potential.
"A few herbal treatments such as Liceblaster, which rely on
a whole range of compounds with active components, do work,"
Professor Speare said. "Instead of relying on a single chemical,
the compounds work through a number of different pathways, so it
is more difficult for the lice to become resistant."
The alternative is the weekly white conditioner, he said, which
thoroughly applied stun lice for 20 minutes, allowing easier removal
with a nit comb. But washing bedding, carpets and clothes is no
use, because once removed from the human head, a louse's life span
is no more than a few hours.
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/head-lice-shrug-off-shampoo/2006/06/30/1151174393365.html
Pesticides
Raise Child Risk of Leukaemia - Study
January 17, 2006 LONDON: Exposure to pesticides
in the womb or as a child can double the risk of developing acute
leukaemia, according to French scientists. They discovered that
children born to women who used insecticides in the home while pregnant
and after the birth were nearly twice as likely as other youngsters
to develop leukaemia.
Even insecticidal shampoos to kill head lice raised the odds of
the disease.
The researchers discovered the link after interviewing the mothers
of 280 children who had been diagnosed with leukaemia and of 288
healthy children.
They found that youngsters exposed to fungicides and garden insecticides
had more than double the risk of the illness than other children.
Source: PlanetArk
http://planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/34510/story.htm
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