State health officials preparing for mosquito season are gearing up for several potential hurdles ahead when it comes to funding efforts aimed at combatting Zika, a virus that can cause devastating birth defects in infants if a woman is infected during her pregnancy.
Read more at The Washington Examiner.
Breast-feeding has many known health benefits, but there's still debate about how it may influence kids' behavior and intelligence.
Now, a new study published in Pediatrics finds that children who are breast-fed for at least six months as babies have less hyperactive behavior by age 3 compared with kids who weren't breast-fed.
Read more at NPR.
WASHINGTON – Today the National Coalition for Infant Health released a new web video, “Why Preemies Need Access to an Exclusive Human Milk Diet.” The video explains how a diet of only human milk and human milk-derived products helps preemies by boosting their immune systems, reducing respiratory complications, and preventing GI infections. It also outlines the barriers that preemies and their mothers face in accessing an exclusive human milk diet.
An exclusive human milk diet may consist of:
An exclusive human milk diet can shield preemies from necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a life-threatening intestinal condition that causes a distended abdomen, respiratory failure and septic shock. It can also limit infants’ exposure to cows’ milk products, which can increase NEC risks.
However, some hospitals do not have donor milk or human milk-based fortifier. And health plans don’t necessarily provide hospital-grade breast pumps – or cover the cost of donor milk and fortifier.
As a result, frustrated parents may turn to unscreened sources of human milk through online sales points such as Craigslist, or simply forego the benefits of human milk for their newborn.
The video urges policymakers to work alongside parents and health care providers to provide the access and health plan coverage that premature infants need.
The National Coalition for Infant Health educates and advocates on behalf of premature infants from birth to age two. A collaborative of professional, clinical, community health and family support organizations, NCfIH envisions safe, healthy infants whose families can access the information, care and treatment their babies need.
Women who are considering trying to become pregnant with semen from sperm banks in the Miami-Dade County area of Florida should consider the possibility that sperm collected as far back as mid-June might be infected with the Zika virus, federal health officials said Monday.
The officials said the new warning was driven by caution, not by any evidence of infected semen from sperm banks or of babies with Zika-linked brain damage who were conceived with donated sperm.
Read more at The New York Times.
(Reuters Health) - Support programs for new mothers help them to breastfeed their babies for longer periods and to keep breast milk as the baby's only source of nutrition, according to a new review of existing evidence.
The researchers concluded that breastfeeding support - whether educational or just encouraging - by trained professionals or lay people generally benefited women and their babies.
Read more at Reuters Health.
Many expectant parents prepare for the arrival of a new baby by redecorating its intended bedroom in a soothing colour and buying lots of rattles and cuddly toys.But new research suggests that the best way of ensuring a happy and contented newborn is by singing to it while it is still in the womb.
Read More at The Telegraph.
TUESDAY, March 7, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- Exposure to secondhand smoke in the first few weeks of life could increase the risk that children will develop food allergies, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, held from March 3 to 6 in Atlanta.
Read More at Physician's Briefing.
ATLANTA -- Using mixed modes of feeding during an infant's first 6 months may pose a higher risk for food allergy in early childhood, researchers reported here.
Read More at MedPage Today.
American mothers infected with the Zika virus last year were 20 times as likely to give birth to babies with birth defects as mothers who gave birth two years before the epidemic, federal health officials said on Thursday.
Read More at The New York Times.
Clinicians should advise pregnant women to limit their exposure to atypically hot or cold weather to reduce the risk for giving birth to a low weight infant, according to a study by the NIH published in Environmental Research.
Read more at Healio.
There's stress and then there's toxic stress — that feeling of being chronically overwhelmed, anxious, or depressed. Catherine Monk, Ph.D. studies the effect this kind of stress has on babies before they're born. She sat down with KPCC's early childhood reporter Devin Browne to explain more.
Read more at 89.3 KPPC.
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – For depressed new moms of preemies, interventions delivered within the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) may have benefits, a review of published studies suggests.
Read more at MedScape.
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Curbing outdoor air pollution may help prevent 2.7 million premature births a year, a condition that threatens children's lives and increases their risk of long-term physical and neurological problems, scientists said on Thursday.
Read more at Reuters.
Overall prevalence of self-reported postpartum depression declined significantly from 2004 to 2012, data from the CDC's Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System showed.
Read more MedPage Today.
Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A study of more than 4,700 Korean women has found a link between longer duration of breastfeeding and a lower risk of metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome is a set of symptoms including elevated blood pressure, glucose and triglyceride levels that increase a person's risk of heart attack, diabetes or stroke.
Read more at UPI.
New dads are at risk of experiencing the same symptoms of postpartum depression as women who’ve just given birth — despite the fact that their bodies don’t go through the same sort of changes.
Read more at Stat News.
Survival rates for very early preterm infants have improved slightly, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday. Those who survive are also somewhat less likely to suffer from neurodevelopmental impairments, the study found.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Sick newborns at The Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida are housed about a dozen per room — an arrangement that allows doctors and nurses to communicate with each other and easily spot signs of medical trouble.
Read More at News-Press.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Nebraska senator is pushing for physicians to provide information about support and hospice care to parents who learn their unborn child has an abnormality and is likely to die within three months of birth, prompting emotional testimony from women on Friday to a legislative committee.
Read More at Hasting Tribune.
Women who have premature babies are more likely than other mothers to develop heart disease later in life, even if they didn’t have any risk factors for cardiovascular problems before pregnancy, a recent study suggests.
Read more at Reuters.