Anna Nguyen, Healthy Kids blog Editor
We often think about talking to teens about underage drinking, but a newly launched public service announcement campaign tells parents that it's best to tell their kids about the dangers of underage drinking as early as age 9.
The “Talk. They Hear You” campaign from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration offers parents advice on how to talk to their kids about underage drinking and prepare for tough questions like “Did you drink as a kid?”
Why talk to your kids about underage drinking? The health and safety risks include injury or death from accidents; unintended, unwanted, or unprotected sexual activity; mental health problems such as depression; and it could lead to drug use. More than a quarter of American youth drink alcohol, found the latest SAMHSA report.
Anita Kulick
Today's guest blogger is Anita Kulick, President & CEO of Educating Communities for Parenting in Philadelphia. ECP offers a variety of programs and services for teen and adult parents, adjudicated delinquent youth, young adults aging out of the foster care system, preschoolers, and children at grave risk of becoming victims or perpetrators of violence.
One of the toughest decisions parents have to make is choosing a child care provider. After all, you’re trusting your child’s wellbeing to someone else. Of course it’s overwhelming, and you’re certainly not alone. In America, nearly 11 million children under the age of five spend 35 or more hours each week in child care, according to a 2012 report from Child Care Aware of America.
Your mind is flooded with questions and concerns: What type is best? Can I afford quality care? Most importantly, will my child be nurtured safe, and happy? The good news is that there’s lot of help. So don’t panic. Take a deep breath (or ten), get organized, and move into action.
Frances Zappalla, DO
Today's guest blogger is Frances Zappalla, DO, a pediatric cardiologist at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.
Stress is common in our daily life. We now know about the link between stress and disease because of the mind-body connection. This time of year may be particularly stressful for students with finals just around the corner. There are many ways to help ease day-to-day stress.
One way is simply to breathe. Breathing is the part of our autonomic (or automatic) nervous system that we have control over. When we make ourselves breathe slower, deeper, and more regularly, we stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms our bodies and minds. The more you practice your breathing, the stronger that part of your nervous system gets - so when you’re in a stressful situation you can use slow, deep breathing to calm yourself down.
Stephen Aronoff, M.D., M.B.A., Temple University Hospital
Last month, we talked about how to properly remove ticks and when to seek medical attention. Here's a more indepth look at tick borne dieases specific to our area.
As warmer weather approaches, ticks begin to appear in wooded areas. These insects adhere to both people and pets. A small percentage of ticks carry bacteria, viruses and protozoa that produce disease in humans. There are a myriad of diseases, but they are typically limited geographically based on the ticks endemic to any given region. Several tick borne diseases occur in the greater Philadelphia area.
Lyme Disease
Trude Haecker, MD
Today's guest blogger is Trude Haecker, MD, a pediatrician and the medical director of the Reach Out and Read program at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is also the medical director of Quality Improvement and Departmental Patient Safety Officer at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Care Network.
Jennifer was sitting on her young mother’s lap as I entered the exam room with a new infant board book in my hand. She was here for her 9-month check-up. She was not particularly interested in me, but as I opened the book with its bright pictures of animals and began reading a page or two, her eyes lit up and she began patting the book. A gentle smile appeared on her face as she babbled a bit as we interacted around this very simple book. I shared with her mom how smart her baby was and the excitement that I saw in her face . “She can see the pictures and understand my words,” I told her. It was a brief bonding moment for the three of us—sharing the experience of watching her amazing infant brain at work.
The human brain is a remarkable organ. Research on early brain development is changing our perspective of infants’ capabilities and the rapid progression of development, particularly in the area of speech and language acquisition both receptively (understanding) and expressively (speaking).
Christopher C. Chang, M.D., Ph.D, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, Jefferson Medical Colg
Children born outside the United States have significantly lower odds of developing allergic disorders, including asthma, eczema, hay fever, and food allergies, according to a recent study in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study also found kids born outside the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for longer than 10 years when compared with those who resided for only 0 to 2 years had significantly higher odds of developing any allergic disorders, including eczema and hay fever, but not asthma or food allergies.
For the study, researchers at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City examined data from the National Survey of Children's Health, a group of more than 91,600 children between the ages of 0 and 16 who have been tracked since 2007-2008.
Anna Nguyen, Healthy Kids blog Editor
It’s hard for me to imagine that milk sales are on the decline with how my 1 and 3-year-old drink milk – they go through it quickly and usually ask for more. But I can see how plain white milk might eventually be a tough sell.
The highly nutritious drink has a lot of competition from alternatives such as soy, almond, and rice milks, and other beverages in general – juice, soda, and water.
So now, the dairy industry has petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to drop special labeling requirements for chocolate and other flavored milks that contain artificial sweeteners such as aspartame. Currently, those products must say "reduced calorie" or "less sugar" on the front of the packaging. Otherwise, they can't be called milk.
Frances Zappalla, DO
Today's guest blogger is Frances Zappalla, DO, a pediatric cardiologist at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.
Spring is the perfect time to consider planting a garden. Supermarkets and nurseries are stocked with small plants and seeds. Planting a garden is a great summer project for kids and teaches them where their food comes from. You may even get your picky eaters to try some new foods if they were responsible for growing them. It’s also a great way to have organic fruits and vegetables on hand.
Let kids pick their plants and then help with the planting and labeling. You can do a fun craft project decorating the wooden stakes with kids’ drawings of the fruit or vegetable as identifiers. Have the kids water the plants and watch them grow, even chart their growth for a little summer math.
Lauren Falini, Bariatric exercise physiologist, Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children
Is your child watching TV, playing video games, on their cell phone, or on the internet after school? Do you remember running outside, playing sports, tag, building forts, and jumping over creeks? Is this a memory of your childhood and not your child’s? The weather is getting nice! Now is a great time for your kids to start playing outside and continue through the summer and fall.
Make it routine!
Schedule outside time the same time everyday for your child so it can become a routine. Be firm! It is not your child’s choice, but your choice as a parent. It can be first thing after school, after homework, or after dinner. Connecting outside time to before or after something else done regularly helps reinforce the routine. Studies have shown that kids are most likely to be active right after school. That’s when there is light and school sports are right after school. Once they are settled inside, it becomes downtime and it is more natural to relax. This can be a good thing – it’s easier to set a mindset for homework later on as tensions dissipate.
Rima Himelstein, M.D., Crozer-Keystone Health System
It’s difficult to hide: multiple slash marks on the forearm. Many try to cover-up the painful reminders of a very bad day while some tell me openly all of the details. Either way these are the patients that are amongst the most distressing to me as a doctor and as a mother. And at the same time they are the most intriguing. They almost all say the same thing: they were not trying to kill themselves…but they cut themselves for other reasons.
Cutting is one type of “non-suicidal self-injury” (NSSI). In teens, NSSI most often involves cutting, but also can be burning themselves or banging their heads. Cutting is usually done on the arms, stomach, or thighs with a sharp object like a razor blade, knife, or scissors. To parents it may be out of the expected, but it’s usually not out of the blue.
NSSI is an outward sign of an inward pain. Teens often cut themselves in response to emotional pain or distress. When they cut, they feel a rapid physical release of emotional pain that is otherwise too difficult to tolerate. Surprisingly, studies have shown that people who self-injure have little or no physical pain even when tissue damage is severe. After cutting, they still feel badly, but they feel calmer and better able to manage their feelings. It often begins as an impulse, but cutting can quickly become a habit that is difficult to stop.
