Parents Better than TV at Teaching Babies to Speak
March 2, 2010
dailymail.co.uk
By Fiona Macrae
Parents who buy educational DVDs to give their toddlers a head start may be doing more harm than good.
A study of almost 100 boys and girls aged between one and two found that regularly watching a DVD from the Baby Einstein range did nothing to boost their vocabulary.
In fact, the younger the children were when they began to watch the programmes, the worse their word power.
Researchers tested the children over six weeks. Half were given a Baby Wordsworth DVD, which their parents were told to play 15 times over six weeks.
The 35-minute disc, costing around £18, is part of the Baby Einstein range – popular with parents keen to boost toddlers’ IQs before starting school.
It uses puppets and people to introduce 30 words for rooms and household appliances, including ‘fridge’ and ‘phone’.
The remaining children’s parents were told to ‘go about life as normal’.
Not surprisingly, older children picked up more new words than younger ones, the California University team found.
However, those who watched the DVD did no better than the others, and in fact appeared to learn little or nothing, their parents told Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, an American journal.
Researchers also asked parents if they had used the DVDs before and found the younger a child was on starting to watch Baby Einstein, the worse their word ability was.
This may be because parents are more likely to use them as aids if children are struggling to learn to speak, said researcher Rebekah Richert.
It is also possible that watching TV means youngsters miss out on playing with their parents, other children and toys. In addition, some experts say the flashing lights and quick scene changes in the Baby Einstein programmes over-simulate the developing brain.
Dr Richert said: ‘Given that infantdirected media are nearly ubiquitous aspects of many infants’ lives, research should continue to examine whether and how parents can use the DVDs effectively.’
Last night, no one at Disney was available for comment.
The Baby Einstein DVDs avoid any suggestion they will make children brainier, and merely claim the series is a must for parents who simply want the best for their children.
‘Our products provide fun and stimulating ways for parents and carers to interact with their children,’ the blurb on the DVD says.
A previous study found children between seven and 16 months who watched the DVDs knew fewer words than their peers. Each hour they watched per day equated to six fewer words in their vocabulary.
Following threatened legal action last year, Disney offered refunds to dissatisfied parents – but only in North America.
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Does the Government Have the DNA of Your Baby?
February 4th, 2010
CNN
By Elizabeth Cohen
When Annie Brown’s daughter, Isabel, was a month old, her pediatrician asked Brown and her husband to sit down because he had some bad news to tell them: Isabel carried a gene that put her at risk for cystic fibrosis.
While grateful to have the information — Isabel received further testing and she doesn’t have the disease — the Mankato, Minnesota, couple wondered how the doctor knew about Isabel’s genes in the first place. After all, they’d never consented to genetic testing.
It’s simple, the pediatrician answered: Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent, according to Brad Therrell, director of the National Newborn Screening & Genetics Resource Center.
In many states, such as Florida, where Isabel was born, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely, according to the resource center.
Many parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out, as the Browns did, they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.
“We were appalled when we found out,” says Brown, who’s a registered nurse. “Why do they need to store my baby’s DNA indefinitely? Something on there could affect her ability to get a job later on, or get health insurance.”
According to the state of Minnesota’s Web site, samples are kept so that tests can be repeated, if necessary, and in case the DNA is ever need to help parents identify a missing or deceased child. The samples are also used for medical research.
Art Caplan, a bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, says he understands why states don’t first ask permission to screen babies for genetic diseases. “It’s paternalistic, but the state has an overriding interest in protecting these babies,” he says.
However, he added that storage of DNA for long periods of time is a different matter.
“I don’t see any reason to do that kind of storage,” Caplan says. “If it’s anonymous, then I don’t care. I don’t have an issue with that. But if you keep names attached to those samples, that makes me nervous.”
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Docs Not Giving Clear Advice on Infant Sleep Positions
December 8, 2009
WebMD
By Kelli Miller Stacy
Despite warnings that it is safest to place a baby to sleep on his or her back, the number of caregivers doing so has not increased in recent years, according to a new report.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s “Back to Sleep” campaign began in 1994 after compelling evidence showed that babies who slept on their backs had a much lower risk for sudden infant death syndrome ( SIDS). In the U.S., SIDS is the No. 1 cause of death in children under age 1.
Since the campaign began, the number of babies being put to sleep on their backs jumped from 25% to 70%. But the number of caregivers heeding the advice has not changed since 2001, say Yale School of Medicine researchers.
The researchers looked at how 15,000 caregivers positioned their babies to sleep since the campaign launch, using information from the National Infant Sleep Position Study, an annual telephone survey of about 1,000 households with infants. The survey asks nighttime caregivers of babies 7 months old and younger: “Do you have a position you usually place your baby in?”
The study also revealed a racial disparity in sleeping positions. “We … found that African Americans still lag behind caregivers of other races by about 20 percent in following this practice,” Eve Colson, MD, associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, says in a news release.
Choosing Sleep Positions
Colson and her team recently identified three key factors associated with a caregiver’s choice of an infant’s sleeping position:
* Whether the caregiver was told by a doctor to place the baby to sleep on the back
* Concerns for the baby’s comfort
* Fear of the infant choking while sleeping
While a third of the caregivers surveyed said their doctor did recommend putting their babies to sleep on the back, others said they either were given other advice or did not receive a recommendation at all.
More than a third of those surveyed said they didn’t think the baby would be comfortable sleeping on his or her back. Those who did not bring up this concern were four times more likely to follow the Back to Sleep guidelines.
Ten percent of caregivers said they thought their infant might choke while sleeping on his or her back. However, those who did not report this concern were much more likely to put their babies in the back position.
“For the vast majority of infants, concerns about choking while back sleeping are unfounded,” Marian Willinger, PhD, special assistant for SIDS research at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), emphasizes in a news release. “Placing infants on their backs for sleep remains the single most effective means we know to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome.”
Willinger notes that in certain health conditions, a doctor may recommended against back sleeping, but only after carefully weighing the risks and benefits to the infant.
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Medications Causing Birth Defects by Blocking Folic Acid
November 19, 2009
Natural News
By Paul Louis
(Natural News) An epidemiological study in Israel that included 84,832 babies born at Soroka Medical Center, in Beer-Sheva concluded that medications taken during the first trimester that block folic acid more than double the risk of congenital malformations.
The study team involved Epidemiologists, Pediatricians, Clinical Pharmacologists, Obstetricians and Gynecologists who examined birth and abortion data collected in Israel between 1998 and 2007.
The medications that act as folic acid inhibitors are the antibiotics trimethoprim, sulfasalazine for treating ulcerative colitis, and the chemotherapy drug methotrexate. This group of drugs prevents folic acid from being converted to its active metabolites.
Anti-epileptic drugs and cholesterol lowering drugs are among the group of medications that lower serum and tissue concentrations of folic acid.
All about folic acid
Folic acid (B9) is also known as folate or folacin. It is essential for building new cells, and everyone needs it. But it is especially crucial for a woman’s physiological fetal function during pregnancy. Abundant folic acid during early pregnancy is important for preventing neurological and spinal birth defects.
Doctors are now recommending extra folic acid intake for women during the first trimester of pregnancy. Folic acid is abundant in leafy green vegetables, grains, dried beans, peas, nuts, and fruit. Adding daily supplements of folic acid is usually recommended.
The most common major birth defect from folic acid deficiency is spina bifida, or open spine. It is the result of the fetal spinal cord not closing completely during the first month of pregnancy. Nerve damage can result in the child’s paralysis of the legs, fluid in the brain, learning difficulties, and urinary or bowel problems. There is no cure for this birth defect.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 11-17-09
Today, the ‘Great Seer,’ Kevin Trudeau, explains why the economy is still in a downward spiral and why the drug companies are making you FAT!
Get the latest news you won’t hear from the mainstream media!
Lou Dobbs Conspiracy
Toxins Hurt Unborn Babies
Cell Phones Cause Brain Tumors
Weight Loss Secret
Phone Bill Scam
Plus, the Economic Hitman, John Perkins, stopped by to blow the whistle and explain why you shouldn’t allow yourself to get Hoodwinked by predatory Capitalism.
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Toxins Affect Baby Still in Womb
November 17, 2009
Sphere.com
By Andrew Schneider
It is one of the worst nightmares for a mother-to-be: She’s poisoning the baby in her belly, and there is little she can do about it.
Now new research out Tuesday has put hard numbers to those fears, showing that chemicals from everyday products contaminate women’s bodies, and that their children enter the world already exposed to known toxics.
Nine women from California, Oregon and Washington participated in the first-of-its-kind study and had blood and urine samples taken during their second trimester of pregnancy.
The results showed that even in the womb, children aren’t safe from known toxins. The researchers found 13 toxic chemicals in the bio-fluids of the pregnant women. Their report showed that:
• Bisphenol A, used to make polycarbonate plastic and the lining for food cans, was found in the urine of each woman. An artificial estrogen, it has been shown to be harmful to fetal development. In adults, low-level exposure to BPA can cause decreased sperm production, early onset of puberty, chromosome damage in female ovaries, and a variety of behavioral changes.
• Every test subject had at least two and as many as four perfluorinated compounds in her blood. These “Teflon chemicals” are used to create stain-protection products and non-stick cookware and are classified as a likely human carcinogen; in tests on laboratory animals, they have been shown to cause liver, thyroid, pancreatic, testicular and mammary glad tumors.
• Mercury, known to harm brain development, was in the blood of every woman in the study.
• Breakdown products – phthalate monoesters – of at least four phthalates were in the urine of all nine women. Used as plasticizers and fragrance carriers in numerous consumer products, phthalates are linked to reproductive problems and asthma.
The report further noted that research has proven that toxic chemical exposure has been linked to serious health problems like asthma, childhood cancers, diabetes, infertility and learning disabilities. “Yet the degree to which children are exposed to toxic chemicals before they enter the world is still being discovered.”
The Environmental Protection Agency and scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have repeatedly shown that exposure to toxic chemicals before birth and during infancy have the most serious and irreversible consequences.
However, the report does not offer a correlation between the levels of the chemicals found in the mothers and any health problems their newborns were expected to encounter.
“We cannot say with certainty whether these particular babies were harmed by the toxic exposures in the womb,” Schreder said in an interview late Monday. But “we do know that they were exposed during the very most vulnerable time in their lives to chemicals associated with cancer, learning disabilities and infertility.”
Most of the mothers were stunned by the results of the testing.
“I was surprised. The levels were much higher than I expected them to be,” said Alex Rosenstein, a Realtor from Issaquah, Wash. “And this is just from living what I consider to be a normal life.”
Amy Ellings, a public health nutritionist from Olympia, said: “The government’s role is to protect the public from hazards like these. The FDA should be much more active in keeping these persistent chemicals out of our food and packaging.”
To that end, the groups that produced the report, echoing calls from other public health and environmental activists across the country, say that immediate steps must be taken to eliminate the use of persistent toxic chemicals — those that build up in our bodies or are passed on to the next generation. They also want manufacturers to create consumer products using only chemicals fully tested for safety.
Congress has called for a full revamping of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the law that attempts to control the manufacturing of hazardous chemicals in this country. At recent House and Senate hearings on the EPA law, lawmakers heard testimony stating that out of 80,000 chemicals believed to be in use today, only 200 (including most of the compounds found in the pregnant women) had ever been comprehensively tested for health hazards.
For the West Coast researchers, their findings only underscore how little information the public has on toxic contamination before birth.
“Our study cannot answer these very important questions,” Schreder said. “But it opens a window to view the serious threats faced before entering the world — threats that could affect health and well-being for a lifetime.”
Toxic Warfare may be Causing Birth Defects and Deaths in Fallujah
November 16, 2009
The Independent
By David Randall
Evidence was growing this weekend that babies born in the Iraqi city of Fallujah – scene in 2004 of one of the few set-piece battles of the invasion – are exhibiting high rates of mortality and birth defects.
In September this year, say campaigners, 170 children were born at Fallujah General Hospital, 24 per cent of whom died within seven days. Three-quarters of these exhibited deformities, including “children born with two heads, no heads, a single eye in their foreheads, or missing limbs”. The comparable data for August 2002 – before the invasion – records 530 births, of whom six died and only one of whom was deformed.
The data – contained in a letter sent by a group of British and Iraqi doctors and campaigners to the United Nations last month – presaged claims made in a report in The Guardian yesterday that there has been a sharp rise in birth defects in the city. The paper quoted Fallujah General’s director and senior specialist, Dr Ayman Qais, as saying: “We are seeing a very significant increase in central nervous system anomalies… There is also a very marked increase in the number of cases of brain tumours.” Earlier this year Sky News reported a Fallujah grave-digger saying that, of the four or five new-born babies he buries every day, most have deformities.
The campaigners’ letter to the UN calls for an independent investigation to be set up, “the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces, including depleted uranium and white phosphorus”, and an inquiry launched to discover if any war crimes have been committed.
The campaigners believe that either white phosphorus or depleted uranium is a major, if not only, cause of the birth defects. White phosphorus, which US military has admitted firing on insurgents in heavily populated Fallujah, has a long history of military use, dating back to the First World War.
And although no scientific study has ever proved a causal link between depleted uranium and serious medical problems – and several studies seem to have proved the opposite – it is by no means in the clear. Ever since the first Gulf War, its use has been linked to cancers among returning troops.
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Paxil Causes Heart Defects in Babies
October 15, 2009
Telegraph UK
GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the British manufacturer of Seroxat, said it would appeal against the verdict in the case, which is the first of 600 such cases to come to trial.
Jurors in state court in Philadelphia deliberated about seven hours over two days before finding Glaxo failed to properly warn doctors and pregnant users of Paxil’ s risk. The panel awarded $2.5 million in compensatory damages to the family of Lyam Kilker. The 3-year-old was born with heart defects his mother blamed on the drug.
“The first win is always huge, especially when you get a jury saying the drug caused the injury,” Sean Tracey, the family’ s lawyer, said after the verdict.
The drug, approved for US use in 1992, generated about $942 million in sales last year, or 2.1 per cent of Glaxo’s total revenue.
The company said in a statement: “While we sympathise with Lyam Kilker and his family, the scientific evidence does not establish that exposure to Paxil during pregnancy caused his condition.”
Glaxo American depositary receipts, each representing two ordinary shares, fell 9 cents to $39.69 at 4:02 pm in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, after dropping as much as 1.4 per cent when the verdict was announced. Glaxo dropped 14 pence, or 1.1 per cent, to 1,246.5 pence in London.
In the Kilker case, jurors found 10-2 that Glaxo officials “negligently failed to warn” the doctor treating Lyam’s mother about Paxil’s risks and concluded the medicine was a “factual cause” of the child’ s heart defects.
Glaxo is also fighting suits in the US, Canada and Britain over claims that Paxil, whose generic name is paroxetine, causes homicidal and suicidal behaviour. The company settled some suicide claims, under undisclosed terms.
In 2004, the drugmaker agreed to pay the state of New York $2.5 million to resolve claims that officials suppressed research showing Paxil may increase suicide risk in young people. The settlement required Glaxo to publicly disclose the studies.
In 2001, a jury in Cheyenne, Wyoming, ordered Glaxo to pay $6.4 million to the relatives of a man who shot his family to death and then turned the gun on himself after taking Paxil. The case was settled while on appeal, according to Glaxo’s spokesman. \
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Recession Means Fewer Babies; US Births Fell 2 Pct
August 8, 2009
Associated Press
By Mike Stobbe
There aren’t just fewer jobs in a recession. There are fewer babies, too. U.S. births fell in 2008, the first full year of the recession, marking the first annual decline in births since the start of the decade and ending an American baby boomlet.
The downturn in the economy best explains the drop in maternity, some experts believe. The Great Depression and subsequent recessions all were accompanied by a decline in births, said Carol Hogue, an Emory University professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology.
And the numbers have never rebounded until the economy pulled out of it, she said, calling the 2008 recession the most likely culprit for fewer babies.
It’s not clear that it’s the only explanation, however. Another expert noted a recent decline in immigration to the U.S. may also be a factor.
The nation recorded about 4,247,000 births last year, down about 68,000 from 2007, according to a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics.
This recession began in December 2007, and since then the economy has lost almost 7 million jobs. Housing foreclosures worsened in 2007 too, and fell into a state of crisis in 2008.
The largest decline in births were in California and Florida, two states hit hardest by the housing crisis.
“I wasn’t surprised,” Hogue said, of the new numbers, which are not final and will be updated.
But the downturn’s effect on the public psychology — and families’ willingness to have babies — may not have really hit until the fall of 2008, said Stephanie Ventura of the health statistics center, the agency that put out the report.
Of course, 2007 was a year in which more babies were born in the United States than any other year in the nation’s history. In the past, a fluctuation of births by 1 or 2 percent would not be seen as very significant, especially from such an unusual year.
But the drop seems to break an unusual trend. Births had been rising since 2002, and birth rates had been increasing in women of different age groups, said Ventura, chief of the agency’s reproductive statistics branch.
The new report is an early count of births from each state, and does not contain demographic breakdowns that might more completely explain whether birth declines occurred in some groups, but not others.
Births were up in January, February and April of 2008 compared to 2007, but were down every month after that except September. The largest declines were in October and November.
Births were down in all but 10 states, primarily the northwest quadrant of the country, including North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Alaska.
In contrast, births in California were down by 15,000 and in Florida, by 8,000, compared to 2007.
While the recession probably played an important role in fewer babies, another factor may be the net decline in recent years in immigration to the United States, said Mark Mather, demographer with the Population Reference Bureau.
“If there are fewer immigrants coming to the U.S., there are fewer moms and dads,” said Mather, noting that California and Florida are states with large immigrant populations.
“I don’t think we have enough data to know for sure what’s going on,” he added.
About half of U.S. pregnancies are unplanned. But Hogue, the Emory professor, said the recession likely affected the other half.
The recession also may have cut into the number of unplanned pregnancies that progressed to live births, but it’s hard to say. Abortion statistics for 2008 are not yet available, Hogue said.
Click here for the full report from ABC News
