More news on the Children’s Health bill. Last week there was another vote to try to overrule George Bush’s veto of the proposed Children’s Health bill. The 260 to 152 result was not quite enough for it to pass.

At the moment in the USA there is a kind of no-man’s-land. There are families who cannot afford private health insurance, but do not qualify for Medicaid because they are not poor enough. The program is aimed at these very people.

Bush is vetoing the bill because he believes that it is too close to a “state-run” system similar to Canada and Western Europe. Currently in the US, our government spends 16% of our economy on healthcare, compared to Western Europe who spends about 8%. There are currently 50 million Americans without health insurance, comparatively all persons in Western Europe are covered.

As an American living in Europe, I have a view to both systems and there are pros and cons to each. I can see why the “European” system as it is probably would not work in America. I think what is bugging me here is that if this bill helps improve things in America, so what if it bears a similarity to the European system? It’s not the European system - so what is there to be afraid of if in the end this piece will work for America and it will help millions of children? I would be interested in understanding in a bit more detail why Bush decided to veto it, there surely is a better reason than that. And I am even more interested in hearing what the presidential candidates have to say on the issue.

What would you do? In a sad story (a warning to any weepy preggos out there) at four months pregnant, a woman in the UK found out that she had bowel cancer and she made the difficult decision to delay her cancer treatment until after her child was born. The baby was born at 25 weeks, and she began treatment immediately after the birth yet died two months later.

I would like to say that I would make the same decision, but to be honest I don’t know if I would be strong enough of a person. Her cancer was at an advanced stage, it would have been a difficult battle in any case. A tragic story all around. My condolences go out to her family. (And little baby Liam does look adorable in the last picture at the bottom of the article.)

Is she or isn’t she? After wearing a very flowy gown to yesterday’s SAG awards, the tabloids are yet again abuzz with rumors that Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are expecting their second biological child. Some are even saying that she is pregnant with twins! Keep in mind, it was only a few short months ago that the same rumor was going around about Jennifer Lopez…

(Yes, I hear you laughing.)

A new study found that moms who regularly slept for five hours or less when their babies were six months old were much more likely to still be packing the baby pounds when the babies turned a year old. Three times more likely, in fact.

“We’ve known for some time that sleep deprivation is associated with weight gain and obesity in the general population, but this study shows that getting enough sleep — even just two hours more — may be as important as a healthy diet and exercise for new mothers to return to their pre-pregnancy weight,” said Erica Gunderson of Kaiser Permanente, which runs hospitals and clinics in California.

Wouldn’t we all sleep more (and better) if we had the opportunity to do so? With a new baby, that’s just not always possible - particularly if there are other children in the household.

At least they thought of that:

“With the results of this study, new mothers must be wondering, ‘How can I get more sleep for both me and my baby?’ Our team is working on new studies to answer this important question,” said Dr. Matthew Gillman of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.

I’m not going to hold my breath on that one, gentlemen.

Posted by Sunshine.

New research suggests that babies who are breastfed for the first three months of life are less likely to develop food allergies.

“A review of 18 studies demonstrates a significant protective effect of exclusive breast-feeding for at least three months for children with high risk for atopy (genetic tendency to develop allergic diseases) against the development of atopic dermatitis and early childhood asthma-like symptoms,” Dr. Robert Wood, international health director for pediatric allergy and immunology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said in a prepared statement.

In fact, the research suggests several of allergy prevention strategies, including these:

* Women should avoid peanuts and tree nuts during pregnancy and while breast-feeding.
* Mothers should supplement breast-feeding with a hypoallergenic formula (extensively or partially hydrolyzed).
* Delay feeding these children solid foods until they’re six months old.
* Delay introduction of milk and egg until age 1 and peanut and tree nuts until age 3.
* Start early intervention when signs of food allergy appear (secondary prevention).

(I’m a little unclear as to whether the supplementing advice is for those who are already supplementing or is intended for all BFing moms.)

This article also notes that a child (anyone, really) may be allergic to one part of a food family, but not to the entire category (nuts, for example), and that physicians should look to food allergies as possible causes of skin and gastrointestinal issues in patients of all ages.

As if you needed another reason to breastfeed - but now you know!

Posted by Sunshining.

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.

I’m not one of those women who feels cheated by their delivery experience(s). I’m also not an advocate for natural, unmedicated childbirth (though there’s nothing wrong with that route). Both of my deliveries resulted in healthy children…but after reading this article, I realized there are still things I didn’t know that might have affected my decisions and experiences.

A new survey of mothers reveals some disturbing things about hospital maternity care that may make pregnant women want to take a closer look at their options.

What choices do we really have, and what choices are being made without our involvement?

The article explaining the survey results is not easily summarized, so I’ll just highlight five facts that surprised me (please take a few moments to read it for yourself - you may be startled by what you learn!). Did you know these things?

1. Maternal mortality is on the rise in this country - it was up to 13 deaths per 100,000 in the United States in 2004, up from 11 in 2000. Forty-one (that’s 41!) other developed nations have lower maternal death rates.

2. 73% of the women interviewed who had an episiotomy were not asked for their consent. (This was true of my first delivery as well.)

3. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never approved Pitocin for the use of augmenting labor and it has been suggested now that mismanagement of Pitocin is the leading cause of liability suits and damage awards. Say what??

4. A woman with private insurance is more likely to end up with a Cesarean section than an uninsured woman or one on Medicaid.

5. Eleven states prohibit births with homebirth-trained attendants, such as certified professional midwives (CPMs), or ban homebirths outright. My state is one of them. Seventeen states have no birthing centers.

Well…good thing I was OK with my children being delivered at the local hospital, I guess! It’s appalling to me that so many of our options are dependent on where we live, and that our experiences differ based on what sort of insurance we carry (or don’t have) - and on how forthright our doctors are with us regarding decisions about the birth itself and care afterward.

Keep your eyes and ears open, moms! Every woman has the right to be involved in the decision-making process when it comes to her health and that of her child.

(Via Radical Catholic Mom.)

Posted by Sunshine.

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.

Motherhood and Bonding: A psychology professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel recorded the levels of the hormone oxytocin in 62 pregnant women in their first and third trimesters and one month postpartum. Dr. Ruth Feldman and her colleagues then observed the new mothers and recorded behaviors that indicated their level of “bondedness” with their new babies, such as gazing at their newborns, using “motherese”, and using affectionate and stimulating touch. The mothers also answered questions about their own feelings of being bonded with their babies. Dr. Feldman found a correlation between the level of oxytocin in a pregnant woman during her first trimester and how strongly she was bonded with her one month old. The study appears in the current issue of Psychological Science.

SIDS and Smoking: Researchers out of the Institute of Child Life and Health at Bristol University report that in looking at 21 studies on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and smoking, they find that 86% of mothers who lose their children to SIDS smoked during pregnancy. The rise in the proportion of smoking mothers in SIDS cases is, they believe, in part a result of safe sleeping campaigns.  Fewer babies are succumbing to SIDS due to being placed on their stomachs for sleep (SIDS experts recommend always placing a baby on her back for sleeping).  As one risk factor is eliminated, others come into sharper relief. “If smoking is a cause of SIDS, as the evidence suggests it is, we think that if all parents stopped smoking tomorrow more than 60 per cent of SIDS deaths would be prevented,” Dr. [Peter] Blair said.

Before I had kids, I had a decent figure - not model-esque by any stretch of the imagination, but I looked OK. Now the mirror tells more of a comedy/horror story than a romantic tale, and I’ll admit that I’ve toyed with the notion of plastic surgery (after we win the lottery) to get my old body back.

I know I’m not alone, because there’s a plastic surgery package (typically called the “mommy makeover”) just for women like me.

Aimed at mothers, it usually involves a trifecta: a breast lift with or without breast implants, a tummy tuck and some liposuction. The procedures are intended to hoist slackened skin as well as reduce stretch marks and pregnancy fat.

You mean my boobs will go back to where they should be and gain perkiness, my tummy sag will tighten, and this spare tire will shrink? Sounds like a deal! Last year, over 325,000 of these surgeries were performed on mothers across the nation - and not just on mothers of young children. Empty nesters are reclaiming their pre-pregnancy bodies, too.

Critics of the triple procedure point fingers at the cosmetic surgery industry as trying to ostracize the mother’s figure.

Many women struggle with the impact of aging and pregnancy on their bodies. But the marketing of the “mommy makeover” seeks to pathologize the postpartum body, characterizing pregnancy and childbirth as maladies with disfiguring aftereffects that can be repaired with the help of scalpels and cannulae.

“The message is that, after having children, women’s bodies change for the worse,” said Diana Zuckerman, the president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, a nonprofit group in Washington. If marketing could turn the postpregnancy body “into a socially unacceptable thing, think of how big your audience would be and how many surgeries you could sell them,” she said.

So…is the post-partum body something to be “fixed,” or should mothers be offended by the notion that they might consider changing their figures in order to feel more beautiful?

I say that if you are satisfied with your body, more power to you. If not, and you have the wherewithal to change that, go for it. Me, I’m going to wear my stretch marks with pride…and buy a lottery ticket now and then.

Posted by Sunshine.

Good news, New Yorkers - the infant mortality rate in NY dropped in 2006, from 6.0 to 5.9 per 1,000 births. In the 1990s, New York’s infant mortality rate was twice what it is today. That state’s rate remains below the national average.

What are NY citizens doing right? What can you do to help prevent infant death in your own family?

While not all causes are known and not all deaths can be prevented, here are some tips to lower the risk of experiencing such a loss:

* Plan your pregnancy. Unplanned pregnancies are more likely to result low birth weight, infant death, and poor development.

* Have a regular doctor or health care provider to help you stay healthy.

* If you smoke or use alcohol or drugs, get help to stop.

* Maintain a healthy weight and eat a healthy diet.

* Keep chronic illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure under control.

* Get help if you are depressed, overly stressed, or abused.

* Take folic acid, which helps prevent serious birth defects.

* Breastfeed your baby. Breastfeeding lowers the risk of acquiring infectious diseases that put a new baby at risk of death. Breastfeeding also lowers the risk of SIDS.

Posted by Sunshine.