If you gave birth recently and you’re struggling to lose the weight you gained during pregnancy, you’re like most women, says a new study published online in December, 2014 in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology.
The study followed almost 800 women who had given birth, from five geographic locations in the United States, and measured the moms’ height and weight at 6 months and 12 months post-partum.
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New moms may have the best intentions in wanting to breastfeed their newborns; but sometimes, nursing the baby doesn’t happen so effortlessly. This can lead both mom and infant to feel discouraged and want to give up trying.
But don’t give up! Your breast milk carries in it a large assortment of vital, life-sustaining nutrients, germ-fighting immunity cells, hormones, and many strains of beneficial bacteria that will colonize your baby’s gastrointestinal tract and aid digestion, as well as prevent allergies later on.
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Back in 1995, a study by two child psychologists from the University of Kansas found that children whose parents were professionals were exposed to almost twice as many words as children in working class families; the latter in turn heard twice as many words as children in welfare families, the study noted.
In the ensuing years, much was made by governmental entities and developmental psychologists about exposing children, starting from birth, to a lot of words spoken by their parents and caregivers, which had been theorized by the study’s authors to be key to a child’s language acquisition and school success later on.
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Some parents may not think about it, but one of the things expecting parents ought to do before their little one is born, is to learn the proper techniques for placing the newborn in the car safety seat they’ll use, as well as installing the safety seat correctly.
According to a recent small study, the far majority of parents make one or more big mistakes when they place the infant in the seat or in installing the seat, as they drive home from the hospital with their newborns.
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For many years, scientists have been trying to answer the question, Is a child’s intelligence inherited from its parents, or can the environment in which the child grows up determine intelligence? The old “nature vs. nurture” debate. A new study has found that “nature” may play the bigger part, when it comes to IQ.
A small group of universities from several countries, including three from the United States (Florida State University, University of Nebraska and Western Illinois University), collaborated on a study that found that genetics, and not parenting style, are linked to a child’s verbal intelligence: Verbal IQ is not the result of parental socialization, the study found.
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More than a hundred studies in recent years have documented the apparent benefit of moderate alcohol consumption to the health of men and women. One to two daily drinks for men, and one for women, are associated with lower risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and the most common type of stroke. Studies have also found that this low alcohol intake may protect against gallstones and improve insulin sensitivity, thus decreasing the risk for type 2 diabetes.
But when it comes to women who are pregnant or trying to conceive, most health authorities agree that not drinking any alcohol is best, given the degree of harm that it can cause to a developing baby.
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As recently as the 1950’s, American moms were being told that formula was better for their babies than breast milk. A lot of moms bought into that fallacy, and more and more babies started being fed formula, instead of breast milk, even in the decades that followed. Food allergies subsequently exploded in numbers, and other potentially deadly newborn digestive diseases also saw a rise in incidences.
But in recent years, scientists have uncovered an increasing number of reasons why breast milk is in fact the perfect food for a baby — yet another case where Mother Nature knew best, after all.
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For years, doctors have been urging women who get pregnant to give up cigarettes due to the many serious dangers that they pose to unborn babies and pregnant women. In the age of nicotine patches and nicotine gum, some physicians have even advised expecting women to switch to these, as they are believed to be less harmful to the baby than cigarette smoke.
But that may not be the case when it comes to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children. Read More
A baby’s age influences risk factors for sudden infant death syndrome, according to new research.
Younger babies are more likely to succumb to SIDS when they’re sharing beds with others, while older babies face a greater risk when there are objects in their cribs, such as blankets or pillows.
The study is the first to show that risk of death from SIDS appears to change with the baby’s age, according to lead author Dr. Rachel Moon, associate chief of general pediatrics and community health at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Bed-sharing is a big risk factor for SIDS death in babies under 4 months of age, said Dr. Moon. And for young, as well as older babies, it is important to insure that there is nothing else in a baby’s crib, other than the baby. This includes blankets, pillows, stuffed toys and bumper pads.
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The placenta is the organ that a pregnant woman develops inside her uterus, to transfer oxygen and nutrients to her baby via the blood, while removing gasses and other waste from the infant. Researchers once thought that the placenta was a “sterile” environment, devoid of any bacteria that might find its way to the growing baby attached by the umbilical cord. But a new study has uncovered that the placenta actually harbors hundreds of bacteria species; most of them are harmless or beneficial.
Scientists found about 300 types of bacteria; they then compared the distribution of bacteria types with those that had been found previously in other parts of mothers’ bodies, including the mouth, skin, gut and vagina.
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