Do the brains of kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) mature more slowly than those of their non-ADHD counterparts?

New research suggests this is true.

Developing more slowly in ADHD youngsters — the lag can be as much as three years — are brain regions that suppress inappropriate actions and thoughts, focus attention, remember things from moment to moment, work for reward and control movement.

The sharp differences were discovered only after a new image analysis technique allowed the researchers to pinpoint the thickening and thinning of thousands of cortex sites in hundreds of children and teens, with and without the disorder.

Brain imaging is not advanced enough, however, to detect the delays characteristic of ADHD on a case-by-case basis, so it is not yet possible to use imaging to make a diagnosis.

Kids with ADHD have normal brain function; it’s just on a delayed timeframe, says Dr. Philip Shaw of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

That’s good news - and it is also perhaps reassuring that ADHD does seem to be a biological phenomenon, rather than an environmentally-created one. Although up to five percent of schoolchildren may have ADHD, most kids diagnosed with it eventually outgrow the disorder.

Posted by Sunshining.

Early Predictors of School Success: A study published in the current issue of Developmental Psychology finds that early math and reading skills, as well as attention-related skills, seem to predict later academic success, while behavior issues and social skills do not. The study is a meta-analysis of six other studies involving nearly 36,000 preschoolers. Knowledge of early math concepts, such as grasp of numbers and numbering, was the best predictor of success. One of the researchers notes, “Our results did not address what types of preschool curricula are most effective in promoting these school readiness skills…But we do know that play-based, as opposed to ‘drill-and-practice,’ curricula designed with children’s developmental needs in mind can foster academic and attention skills in ways that are engaging and fun.”

Drugs Not Beneficial for ADHD? One of the authors of a 1999 study that concluded that medication is more effective than behavior therapy in treating ADHD now states:

“I think that we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication in the first study. We had thought that children medicated longer would have better outcomes. That didn’t happen to be the case. There’s no indication that medication’s better than nothing in the long run.”

Moreover, drugs such as Ritalin and Concerta, he notes, tend to stunt a child’s physical growth.

“The children had a substantial decrease in their rate of growth so they weren’t growing as much as other kids both in terms of their height and in terms of their weight.”

My daughter was an easy baby, so when my son came along earlier this year, I was completely unprepared for the endless hours of screaming and crying that made up the majority of his waking hours those first few months. I thought something was horribly wrong with him - or me.

I mentioned his extreme fussiness to my pediatrician at his one-month and two-month appointments. I even told her that I wondered if it could be some form of reflux, since other moms on the board have dealt with that (and their babies had had similar symptoms). The pediatrician’s reply? “He’s just a colicky baby. There’s nothing we can do for him, so just learn to live with it.” Thanks for nothing!

At five months, I’m happy to report that he spends much, much less time screaming his head off. He’s actually a fun little guy to be around most of the time. Was it just colic, or should I have looked elsewhere when my pediatrician repeatedly gave me the brush-off about it?

Drs. Bryan Vartabedian and Barry Lester say that colic is often actually something else. Up to 20% of all babies are defined as colicky infants. Vartabedian thinks that up to sixty percent of those kids are dealing with reflux or a milk protein allergy.

Vartabedian, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Texas Children’s Hospital and author of the book Colic Solved: The Essential Guide to Infant Reflux and the Care of Your Crying, Difficult-to-Soothe Baby, believes that “colic is really a wastebasket term. Pediatricians use it when they have no idea what the heck is going on.”

He would like to see more parents push for a solution when the answer they’re being handed doesn’t seem right. A second opinion is never a bad idea, and I probably should have gotten one a few months ago in the midst of all the screaming. At least then, if “colic” is all they could tell me, I would know that it had been independently verified by another pediatrician.

A bigger problem is that entire families go untreated, said Lester, a professor of psychiatry at Brown Medical School and director of the nation’s only clinic designated for treating colicky babies and their families.

Two babies who cry for hours on end in two different homes may spur completely different reactions in their families. For one, the crying may be annoying but survivable. For another, it may send a couple to the brink of divorce, drive a wedge between mother and child and cause older siblings to act out.

It’s those cases that need the most medical intervention, he said, and not just from a physician.

At his clinic, every family has access to mental health specialists and treatment plans designed to help every family member cope better with the stress and strain that an infant’s colic puts on the whole family. I think that’s just about the most brilliant idea I’ve ever heard. My husband and I are just starting to rebuild our shredded relationship from the past few months. It is amazing what nonstop screaming can do to your mental status as well as to the way you treat even the people you love!

The good news is that even if it is “just” colic, it doesn’t last forever. There are colic remedies out there (several of which are mentioned in the article), so you don’t have to just accept that this is as good as it gets. Hang in there - it will pass!

(With thanks to Postpartum Progress.)

Posted by Sunshining.

CPSC and Congress at Odds: Nancy A. Nord, the acting chairwoman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, has asked Congress to reject legislation that aims to increase funding and personnel at the CPSC, among other goals. Ms. Nord’s specific complaints include an objection to the proposed raise on the cap for penalties from $1.8 million to $100 million, which she feels would cause companies to flood the agency with every consumer complaint and incident. Ms. Nord also feels that a complete ban of lead in toys would be impractical.

PPD and Talk: Via Postpartum Progress, Dr. Leigh Ann Simmons highlights a study that finds that talk therapy and support groups can be effective at helping women through postpartum depression. In this study, the investigators reviewed 10 clinical trials that included nearly 1,000 women. The trials tested psychological and social interventions that included cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), counseling, and peer support groups facilitated by a health care professional. They found that women who received any of the psychological or social therapies were 30% less likely to have depressive symptoms within one year after giving birth compared to women who received postpartum care as usual. Additionally, peer support groups appeared to be just as effective as formal psychological care, such as CBT, which is great news for moms who can’t afford a weekly trip to a therapist.

Got a phone? Get involved!

BlogHer, Postpartum Support International (PSI), and Postpartum Progress are joining forces and asking that you and I take action to help the MOTHERS Act advance to the Senate floor with the support of as many Senators as possible.

The MOTHERS [Mom’s Opportunity to Access Health, Education, Research, and Support for Postpartum Depression] Act aims to ensure that new mothers and family members (as appropriate) are offered screening and treatment for postpartum mood disorders, and to expand and focus research at the National Institutes of Health on postpartum mental health issues.

I am pleased that the text of the legislation includes the following, which might offer someone unfamiliar with the subject matter some perspective on how postpartum mood disorders are still taboo topics for so many new parents, and how very destructive they can be, and not just for Mom:

All too often postpartum depression goes undiagnosed or untreated due to the social stigma surrounding depression and mental illness, the romanticization of motherhood, the new mother’s inability to self-diagnose her condition, the new mother’s shame or embarrassment over discussing her depression so near to the birth of her child, the lack of understanding in society and the medical community of the complexity of postpartum depression, and economic pressures placed on hospitals and providers…

Untreated, postpartum depression can lead to further depression, substance abuse, loss of employment, divorce and further social alienation, self-destructive behavior, or even suicide…

Untreated, postpartum depression impacts society through its effect on the infant’s physical and psychological and cognitive development, child abuse, neglect or death of the infant or other siblings, and the disruption of the family…

The MOTHERS Act is currently in the Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) Committee of the Senate. If a majority of those committee members support the proposed legislation, it will move into the Senate proper. If enough Senators know that this legislation is important to their constituents, it should progress relatively smoothly from there.

If you would like to see this legislation passed, call your Senators today to voice your support for the MOTHERS Act. Postpartum Support International has a list of Senators’ phone numbers and a handy script for those of us who get a little tongue-tied on the phone. If your Senator is already a co-sponsor of the bill, PSI recommends that you call anyway to express your thanks.

I’m a fairly well-educated woman, fairly self-aware, and I had a nice support system in place when I became a mom, but still I was completely blindsided by postpartum OCD. According to the American Psychiatric Association, postpartum depression affects around one in ten new mothers. Postpartum mood disorders with psychotic features affect between one in 500 to 1000 new moms. This is not a small problem. It’s time for us to get postpartum mental health disorders out of the closet and give those affected some solid treatment options.

Please, if you support the MOTHERS Act, pick up the phone now.

Posted by MommaSteph.

Moms, I don’t have to tell you how exhausting parenting can be! There are theories and tips and recommendations for how to get your child to sleep, what activities she should attend at each age, and what his formerly unstructured free time should really look like. After all, nobody wants their kid to fall behind the norm, right? So we push and chauffeur and sign up and…drive ourselves (and probably the kids!) crazy.

I don’t know many moms these days with kids over the age of two or three who aren’t some form of overscheduled. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get all of this stuff done - but how much of it is really necessary?

Rosa Brooks reminds us:

That mad swirl of activities? You get burned-out kids incapable of entertaining themselves. That homework you and your first-grader struggle through? It has zero educational benefit. That superhuman effort you make to protect your kids from every conceivable danger? It’s not necessarily helpful if it means they never learn how to evaluate dangers for themselves. Someday, our kids will have to function without us.

She blames the large-scale upswing of working moms for the increase in anxious, activity-filled parenting.

Only when large numbers of mothers did the unthinkable - found paid work - did Americans suddenly “discover” that truly effective “parenting” requires at least one adult to be focused 24/7 on the children and their “needs.” Surprise.

Brooks says that the recent downward trend in moms of kids under the age of six who work is because companies are not as family-friendly as they are profit-driven. How are moms supposed to cope with careers and kids when there’s that corporate/social demand to always give 110% to both?

I do think there is tremendous pressure on parents to do the popular culture-condoned right thing for their kids, but at the same time, surely we can learn from the parenting theories that exist without sacrificing our kids’ free time or our sanity. After all, they learn things from whatever they’re doing - even if that something is finger painting alone or chasing after older siblings playing soccer in the back yard.

Posted by Sunshine.

Breastfeeding Law: MPs in Australia who also happen to be new moms will now be allowed to nurse their babies in the New South Wales’ Parliament. Speaker Richard Torbay announced that he is permanently changing the rules to allow women to breastfeed in the chamber. This is a first for Austrialia’s legislative chambers. In 2003, MP Zali Steggall was kicked out of the Victoria Parliament for attempting to nurse her 11-day-old baby.

PPD Legislation Update: Last week, the Melanie Blocker-Stokes Postpartum Depression Research and Care Act, aimed at providing more funding for the study of postpartum mood disorders, passed in the House of Representatives, 382-3. The bill now moves to the Senate. According to the American Psychiatric Association, postpartum depression affects around one in ten new mothers; postpartum mood disorders with psychotic features affect between one in 500 to 1000 new moms. You can read more about Ms. Blocker-Stokes here.

Children’s cold medication update: A Food and Drug Administration panel voted 21 to 1 that over-the-counter baby and toddler cold medications be banned, and 13 to 9 that formulations for children under 6 be similarly banned from the market. Because the latter vote was relatively close, it is unclear what position the FDA will eventually take. The American Academy of Pediatrics representative told the panel that labels should at least warn parents that children’s cold medications are ineffective and, in rare instances, dangerous. Oddly, while the panel agreed that there is no evidence that over-the -counter cold medications have any positive effect on children’s cold symptoms, nine of the panel members apparently voted against a ban because parents need to give something to sick children. “Parents are using these medications to relieve what they consider symptoms, which in reality means their child is sedated and they are able to sleep,” said committee member Amy J. Celento-Stamateris, who represented parents. “My concern is that by taking these products off the market parents would have limited alternatives.” A representative from a pharmaceutical trade group stated that she believes the products will remain on the market.

Baby lung health: Researchers have found that a large percentage of babies who suffer from bronchiolitis have an inherent predisposition to the disease. Bronchiolitis is the leading cause for hospital admission of babies in the first year of life in the developed world and frequently develops out of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. Researchers found that babies with severe bronchiolitis lacked two particular substances in their airway secretions.

Children, sports, and popularity: A new study published in The Journal of Sport Behavior finds that elementary school children who are not perceived by their peers as athletic are more likely to report feeling unpopular and lonely. “Given the proven negative impact of loneliness on a child’s well being, this kind of research is an important endeavor,” says Causgrove Dunn. “It’s important to identify and understand the factors that might increase a child’s likelihood of being accepted by the peer group, because this, in turn, decreases the likelihood of that child experiencing the destructive psychosocial and emotional problems that often come with rejection.”

Antidepressants and Pregnancy: A study out of Canada finds women are increasingly likely to drop their antidepressants or decrease their dosages when they first learn they are pregnant. “The risks of untreated depression during pregnancy are significant,” [Dr. Anick] Berard, from the CHU Sainte-Justine Hospital in Montreal, said. “Given the safety of most antidepressants during pregnancy, a careful evaluation of the risk/benefit ratio should be done before deciding to discontinue their use. Although physicians and women think they are protecting their unborn child, they might be doing just the contrary.”

Child Actors in Danger? Paramount, which produced the film version of Khaled Hosseini’s bestselling book The Kite Runner, has stalled the movie’s release because of fears that the inclusion of a rape scene could endanger the movie’s young stars and their families. Ishaq Shahryar, who served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to the US after the fall of the Taliban, explains, “To be raped or to be gay over there—it’s unfortunately absolutely unacceptable.” Even fictional portrayals could have deadly consequences. Paramount admits that when their then 12-year-old star balked at removing his pants for the scene, the director filled the details in later with a body double.

In case you missed it: A wardrobe malfunction during an on-stage dance revealed that Jennifer Lopez is, indeed, pregnant. Furthermore, OK magazine is reporting that Ms. Lopez and husband Marc Anthony are expecting twins.

Some of the images are disturbing, which is the point, of course.

What’s your take on Dove’s “Real Beauty” and “Self-Esteem” campaigns? Sincere? Clever marketing by Unilever? Both?

Posted by MommaSteph.