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The Effects of Off Gassing on Our Children

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When Maggie was born, I knew little about off gassing. I knew it existed, I knew it caused problems, but I wasn’t overly concerned. Then she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and protecting her lungs became our number one priority. That is when my husband and I began to pay much closer attention to the products in our home. We rid our house of chemical cleaners and bleach and we keep the windows open as often as possible. We also used no VOC paints and run air purifiers throughout our home. Off gassing has become a serious threat to our … Continue reading →

Why Did My Baby Get Thrush?

No one knows. There, satisfied? I’m guessing not. Seriously, though, it can be difficult to pinpoint why babies come down with thrush. There are some things we know for sure concerning thrush. We know that thrush is an overgrowth of the yeast, called candida, found in every person’s body. We know that infants are more susceptible to thrush because their immune systems aren’t fully developed and they are in the process of developing a healthy balance of fungi and bacteria in their bodies. As far as why certain babies get thrush while others do not, there are a lot of … Continue reading →

Is It Okay To Email My Child’s Pediatrician?

Communicating with your child’s pediatrician just got easier. How? E-mail. According to an article in the September 2006 issue of American Baby it’s perfectly okay to send email to your child’s doctor as long as you keep a few things in mind. (1) Make sure you clearly identify your child by full name and date of birth. (2) Keep the email short and use one topic per message. If you have several different questions send a separate email so that the doctor can respond to each concern. (3) Don’t send urgent questions because the doctor may not respond for a … Continue reading →

Is My Baby Developing Properly?

If you are the parent of an infant, chances are asking the same question as every other parent out there: is my baby developing properly? The problem with this concern is that we all read the books and we all look at the growth charts and we will find that our children are a little above or a little below the bar in many areas. The thing about development is the fact that the numbers are based on an average which means you add them all together and divide by the number of sums you added – this gives you … Continue reading →

Protect Your Children & Yourself From Type II Diabetes

Did you know that November is American Diabetes Month? I didn’t, but it’s a good a time as any to talk about our kids and our own health. Diabetes refers to a condition where your blood sugar or glucose levels are too high. You get glucose from the foods we eat and our bodies use glucose for energy. If we have too much of it, however, it’s not good for us. When a person develops diabetes, it’s usually because their pancreas makes too little or no insulin. Since insulin is the body’s way of processing glucose and transporting it into … Continue reading →

Tips for Dealing with a Clingy Child

Just about every parent has a time when their child is clingy, some more than others are. I remember when my son started to go to daycare around age five months of age, he did not want to leave mom. At home, I constantly had to pick him up to keep him from crying. Unless he had someone giving him full attention, he wanted to be held. As you can imagine, this was exhausting yet, I did not want to be a bad mother. Remember that this type of behavior from a child is very common, even expected. In fact, … Continue reading →

How Common Are Attachment Disorders with Adopted Children?

There is no real statistical information about how common attachment disorders are in the general population. Research does indicate that attachment disorders do happen with biological children. In many cases, attachment disorders may happen as a result of prolonged hospital stays for the child, parent, or primary caregiver. There is also strong indication that children who grow up in neglectful or abusive homes fail to develop the needed skills to properly attach or relate to other people. Attachment disorders happen most frequently with adopted toddlers and children. Especially with children in foster care and state adoptions who have come from … Continue reading →

Beware of KIK Messenger

As the parent of three teens, I try to keep up with the latest trends. But they are developing at breakneck speeds that I sometimes miss out. Take the latest one, KIK messenger, a way to send text messages that a parent might not know about. In fact, it was only because a friend of mine discovered it on her teen’s electronic devices that I did some investigating and found my two youngest were using it. With their cell phones I can at least monitor the phone numbers through our cell phone provider’s account and ask questions. I can do … Continue reading →

New Test May Prevent Pregnancy Loss

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Prenatal care is full of tests. I felt as though I got poked and prodded more in the nine months of pregnancy than I had in my entire life. Mothers often get tested for a variety of complications and illnesses. Many problems can be fixed early on without further complications. That is why prenatal care is so important to the health of both the mother and the baby. Well, get ready to add the EPV to your list of routine pregnancy tests. The new test may help prevent pregnancy loss. EPV stands for Estimated Placenta Volume, and is a new … Continue reading →

Four Months without a Heart

A fourteen year old South Carolina girl survived for more than one hundred days without a heart in her chest. Since July 2008, D’Zhana Simmons had two heart transplants — and survived with artificial heart pumps instead of a heart between the two surgeries. That’s a total of one hundred and eighteen days without an actual heart in her chest. When the Simmons family found out that D’Zhana had an enlarged heart that was too weak to pump blood properly, they traveled to Holtz Children’s Hospital in Miami for a transplant. The heart she received in July 2008 didn’t work … Continue reading →