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Another Study Links This Popular Pain Medicine to ADHD in Children

Posted on November 4, 2017

A large study recently published in the journal Pediatrics finds further evidence of a link between prenatal acetaminophen usage and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

According to some studies, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is becoming increasingly common. Why this is the case is not known; the causes and risk factors beneath ADHD are only slowly being unraveled.

ome of the increase is due to improvements in diagnosis and changes in how the condition is assessed, but it seems that these factors alone cannot explain the size of the growth.

Recently, some scientists have focused on acetaminophen use during pregnancy as a potential factor. This over-the-counter medication is deemed relatively safe to use during pregnancy and is recommended to ease fever and pain.

Acetaminophen is used by up to 70 percent of women during pregnancy in the United States, and between 50 and 60 percent of pregnant women across Western and Northern Europe. Potential links between this common OTC drug and ADHD have faced increasing scrutiny in recent years.

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Nail-Biting and Thumb Sucking in Childhood May Be Good, Study Finds

Posted on July 17, 2016

Nail biting and thumb-sucking in childhool could be a good thing. As ABC News reports on research touting the benefits of habits thought to be bad ones:

A new study published in the journal Pediatrics shows children who bite their nails and suck their thumbs are about one-third less likely to develop certain allergies.

“Cat, grass, house dust mite, and dog. Those were all reduced, some of them significantly, some borderline,” Professor Malcolm Sears, McMaster University School of Medicine said.

Researchers said the findings are part of a growing body of evidence to support what’s called the hygiene hypothesis — the idea that being too clean may keep a child’s immune system from developing normally.

“The theory goes that in the early environment, if we’re not exposed to enough of these germs and other things that normally we consider bad things, then we won’t be ready when we’re challenged in the future. In this population that they’re studying, often allergic families, they may be more likely to develop those allergic diseases and autoimmune diseases as a result,” Dr. Clifford Basset, Asthma and Allergy Care of New York, said.

Thumb or finger sucking, as well as nail-biting exposes a child to germs and other antigens that might actually help the immune system mature appropriately.

It’s not a habit without downsides. Pediatric dentists caution that kids who continue to suck their fingers risk problems with proper alignment of teeth. The alignment often corrects itself if it hasn’t gone on beyond about age 4. It’s a problem that can also occur with pacifiers.

It concludes:

Parents shouldn’t agonize over it however, as it is often a habit that begins in the womb.

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BumpNews

Wow! So A New Study says Swaddling Increases SIDS risk now?

Posted on May 10, 2016

As you guys know, each week, practically, there is a new research study, report or survey that comes up with a health conclusion that most likely conflicts and contradicts a previous study.

Here we go again! A new study says that swaddling a baby may lead to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome).

For those who are unfamiliar, SIDS is an unexplained sudden death of an infant in its sleep before the age of one. The cause is really unknown, but recent conventional wisdom, based on researchers, is that being placed on the tummy combined with being overheated are causes. There is also a school of thought that pillows, crib bumpers and stuffed animals may lead to suffocation.

So in recent history, women have been told to rid their cribs of bumpers, blankets, stuffed animals and to instead swaddle their newborn babies and place them on their backs.

Why the swaddle? Babies have several reflexes including a startling reflex where they jerk their arms outward or above their heads when they feel they are not secure. Swaddling them in a blanket gives them a feeling of being snug and secure similar to the way they were in the womb prior to being born.

The study in the journal Pediatrics states that swaddling increases the risk for SIDS in about 1/3 of the cases of pooled data from four observational studies of SIDS and swaddling that included 760 SIDS cases and 1,759 controls.

However, the lead author of the report, University of Bristol in England research associate Anna S. Pease said that the results should be interpreted with caution given the fact there are so few studies in this area and there is limited evidence.

“We already know that side and prone sleeping are unsafe for young babies, so the advice to place children on their backs for sleep is even more important when parents choose to swaddle them,” she told the New York Times.

The risk also increased with the age of the infant, according to the study.

“We suggest that parents think about what age they should stop swaddling,” Dr. Pease said. “Babies start to roll over between four and six months, and that point may be the best time to stop.”

There you go new parents! New information to keep you worried. Good luck. I know so many women who do not sleep normally because they constantly wake themselves up to make sure their babies are still breathing.

The SIDS anxiety is real and with this news, we can assume it is going to get worse. le sigh.

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BumpNews

Study challenges the ‘baby fat’ myth: Overweight kids stay that way into teens

Posted on November 12, 2014

A new survey suggests that kids who are obese at 11-years old stay that way through age 16 and after.

Researchers tracked close to 4,000 children in three US metro areas for 5 years and discovered that 83% of obese 10th graders were also obese in the 5th grade. A mere 12% were able to “thin out” and “lose their baby weight” as the old wives tail goes, and transitioned to normal weight.

“Parents sometimes think that it’s just baby fat and their kids will outgrow it, but we found a lot more constancy [of extra weight over time] than we anticipated,” study author Dr. Mark Schuster, chief of general pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital said of the findings published in the November 10th edition of journal Pediatrics.

“Certainly, once you’ve gained weight and become obese or overweight, it’s harder to change the habits influencing that,” he added. “But just because kids are gaining weight as they get older doesn’t mean they can’t lose weight — they definitely can.”

The research also suggest that kids of parents who are also overweight or from families with less education are also less likely to lose weight and become normal weight over time.

It also implied that living around, going to school with and being in communities with a good number of substantially overweight people contributes to a social normalization of obesity.

Compared to kids from 40 years ago who didn’t see that many overweight peers and adults, today’s children do and are not so ostracized if they are packing a few extra pounds.

Also, a more sedentary and super-convenient society fed on a steady diet of high-fat, heavy carb processed foods contribute.

“People are less likely to walk places or go to a park,” Schuster said. “There’s also a lot of fast, convenient, high-processed food available that’s higher in calories and less nutritious. A lot of what we’re trying to encourage is to eat a healthier diet and engage in more physical activity — and that’s true whether a child is obese or not.”

Finally, the data also showed that children who were heavy in the 5th grade who spent more time with screens, TV and video games, were less likely to lose the weight than kids who had limited screen time.

The solution seems to be for parents to actively encourage their teens to get involved in organized sports, go out more and regularly and watch their diets so that they do not overindulge in bad foods.

h/t WebMD

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BumpNews

Study: Babies respond more to moms than dads, but you can fix that dads

Posted on November 3, 2014

New research indicates that babies learn language more from their moms than their dads, and that moms react and respond more to a baby’s cues than dads.

A report in the journal Pediatrics analyzed a group of 33 babies monitored with a small recording device called LENA attached to a vest researchers wore on them just after they were born, while in the hospital and again at 44 weeks and 7-months old. With over 3,000 hours of recordings, the researchers found that “when babies made sounds, moms were more likely to respond to them verbally than fathers were — “Oooo, sweetie pie, you’re talking this morning, ” Time summarized.

The report also discovered that mothers responded 88% to 94% of the time to the babies vocalizations, while dads responded only 27% to 33% of the time.

As a result, and perhaps because the babies were used to hearing their mom talk to them more, both boys and girls were also more likely to respond to their mothers’ or female voices than they were to male voices.

Dang dads, even strange random women beat your voice!

But you dads can change all that, the study suggest, by simply talking to your babies more and perhaps doing so in a higher pitched sing song-y way that moms do and pairing your talking with eye contacts as moms tend to do.

Give it a try and report back, kay?

Good luck!

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