Moms-to-be understand the importance of eating a healthy, balanced diet during pregnancy. But it is also important to insure that you’re getting appropriate levels of food and nutrients before your baby is even conceived.
Read MoreChoking Hazards for Infants and How to Prevent Infant Suffocation
Statistics from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that the leading cause of injury death for infants under 1 year old is suffocation, accounting for three-quarters of all infant injury deaths — thousands every year. Many of these senseless deaths could have been avoided by taking appropriate cautionary measures.
Below are objects in and outside the home, with which parents need to use precautions, to avoid choking hazards.
Read MoreCommunicating with Your Newborn
From the day that a baby is born, her cries are virtually the only way she has, to communicate her needs to you. Through cries, she lets you know whether she is hungry, she needs a new diaper, she is sleepy, she needs to be held … or she is overwhelmed by all the activity around her and needs some space and quiet!
After a little while, you’ll be able to distinguish her different cries and be able to respond to them accordingly.
Read MoreRecent Guidelines Discourage C-Sections Due to Risks for Mother and Baby
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists published new guidelines that strongly discourage cesarean sections unless they are medically indicated, on grounds that they can lead to complications for the mother as well as the newborn. The report was published in the organization’s March, 2013 edition of its journal, Obstetrics & Gynecology, and appears online on ACOG’s website.
The group states that vaginal deliveries should be the norm, and that every attempt should be made to avoid early cesarean deliveries. The recommendations are an attempt to reduce the skyrocketing rate of cesarean sections, by limiting “maternal-request” C-sections and early deliveries for presumed big babies.
Read MoreNewborns & Food Allergies – What Are They & How Do Babies Get Them?
As a new mother, you’ve probably heard that “breast is best” and when it comes to preventing food allergies in your new baby, this is especially so. Though allergies have been on the rise with children (1 out of 5 will usually develop an allergy by the age of 20), it has been shown that those children who were breastfed are less likely to develop allergies.
Babies tend to develop and allergy to those foods which they try first. Since a breastfeed infant is receiving trace amounts of what the mother eats, the likelihood of that baby developing an allergic reaction to solid foods diminishes. However, every baby is different–for example, if a mother eats peanuts and then nurses, the baby could, in extreme cases, go into anaphylactic shock.
It’s important to keep in mind that having an allergic reaction to food and having an irritant due to the food are two separate things. An irritant will cause a temporary reaction, while an allergen (a substance which causes an allergic reaction) will be more severe and longer lasting. For instance, a child may be fussy due to gas which was a result of the mother eating broccoli. This would be considered an irritant, not an allergen. The most common irritants are chocolate, cruciferous vegetables, onions and bell peppers. However, foods that babies can have an allergic reaction to are cow’s milk, soy, wheat, corn, shellfish, citrus fruits, eggs and peanuts. Also be wary in trying foods that other family members are allergic to, as the likelihood that the baby will be allergic to it as well is increased.
When trying to see if a baby is sensitive to a certain food, a mother must keep in mind that fussiness caused by food is different from normal baby fussiness. If it’s a reaction to food, then the baby will be irritable directly after feedings. They may cry non-stop for long periods of time, sleep very little, or, when they do go to sleep, wake and seem very uncomfortable. Other allergy signs are:
Read MoreMany Babies Are Fed Solid Foods Too Soon, CDC Study Finds
A study published in late March, 2013 in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics found that a majority of babies in the United States may be getting introduced to solid foods much too early, often leading to a variety of chronic illnesses.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed 1,334 new moms nationwide; they found that almost 93 percent had introduced solid foods to their infants before the babies were six months old, 40 percent had introduced solids before four months, and 9 percent had done so before four weeks of age.
Read MoreAt What Age Can Babies Understand What Others Are Thinking?
A new study shows that babies as young as 19 months can guess what other people are thinking! Scientists previously believed that the ability understand what others think developed at a later age.
Researchers from UCLA studied a group of around 90 children from three different communities, in rural China, the Fiji islands, and Ecuador. The youths ranged in age from 19 months to about 5 years.
Read MoreIt Takes Longer to Give Birth Nowadays than It Did 50 Years Ago!
Despite the startling technical advances that the field of medicine has made in the last few decades, women are taking longer to give birth now than they did 50 years ago.
Read MoreIs Your Child’s Backpack Too Heavy?
Lower back pain is the second most common reason why people visit doctors. In the United States, as many as 80 percent of adults will experience lower back pain at some point in their lives, with lower back pain being the leading cause of disability in Americans under 45 years old.
Read MoreEarly Signs of Autism Detected in Six-Month-Old Babies
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is the name for a range of developmental disturbances leading to difficulties with social interaction, communication, and repetitive, restricted patterns of behavior. In the United States, there are 10 times as many diagnoses of autism as there were 40 years ago, with one in 88 American children now being diagnosed with ASD.
ASD can typically be recognized before a child’s third birthday, and some signs can appear in the child’s first or second year of life. Presently, however, a reliable diagnosis can only be made when a child Read More