NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One in five teens who lost one of their parents to cancer cut or burn themselves, compared to one in ten teens with two living parents, according to a new Swedish study.
'We were very surprised to find that so many did it,' said lead researcher Tove Grenklo, a behavioral scientist at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm.
Cutting and burning is thought to be how some troubled teens express their emotions, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Those teens may hurt themselves if they can't talk about their feelings, are upset or have low self esteem.
Earlier this year, a study found that children start harming themselves as early as third grade. (see Reuters Health article of June 11, 2012. http://reut.rs/Kveo8v)
The study's researchers write in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine that past research showed children with one dead parent are already more likely to have - among other things - psychiatric problems, depression, drug and alcohol abuse and anxiety.
Grenklo and her colleagues wanted to see if they were also more likely to hurt themselves.
For the study, they used Sweden's national death databases to find and survey teens who lost one of their parents to cancer between 2000 and 2003, when they were between 13 and 16.
They then found teens who still had two living parents for a comparison group.
Of the 851 teens who lost a parent, 622 returned their survey, as did 330 of the 451 teens in the comparison group.
Overall, about 20 percent of the teens with only one surviving parent said they hurt themselves, compared to about 10 percent of teens with both parents living.
'WE SHOULD TALK WITH EACH OTHER'
'This study is one of the first to establish that (losing a parent to cancer) might be a unique risk factor for this behavior,' said Stephen Lewis, who was not involved with the new study but has studied self-injury at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
Lewis added that the study's findings seem to be in line with other estimates of how many teens injure themselves.
The researchers say teens may be driven to self-injure after their parents' deaths by an increased sense of emotional distress and numbness.
Another possible explanation for the increase is that the teens lost a caretaker who would notice their emotional suffering and prevent self-injury, they add.
As for prevention, both Grenklo and Lewis emphasized communication.
'I'm a strong believer that we should talk with each other,' said Grenklo. 'Children need to know the facts of what happened and why. And that it's OK to be sad and talk about the diseased parent.'
'We know one of the reasons people self injure is that they use injuring as a way to release their emotions,' said Lewis, who added that it's important for parents, family members and teachers to know how to talk about self-injury and how to prevent it.
Lewis said information on preventing and handling self injury can be found at SIOutreach.org - a Web site where he is co-director.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TLILN8 Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, online December 3, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by TECHNOLOGY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
How Aggressive Hyena Moms Give Their Kids a Boost
Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
© 2012 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.
This news article is brought to you by INTERNET NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Gay Men, Moms Sue NJ Conversion Therapists for Fraud
Four gay men and two of their mothers filed a lawsuit today against a New Jersey conversion therapy group that claims to rid men of same-sex attractions and turn them straight.
The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court of New Jersey Hudson County, alleges that methods used by the Jersey City-based Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) do not work and constitute fraud under the state's consumer protection laws.
Arthur Goldberg, JONAH's co-director, and Alan Downing, a 'life coach' who provides therapy sessions, were also named in the suit.
The plaintiffs include Michael Ferguson, Benjamin Unger, Sheldon Bruck and Chaim Levin, all of whom used the services of JONAH when they were in their teens or young 20s.
Two of the men's mothers, Jo Bruck and Bella Levin, who paid for therapy sessions that could cost up to $10,000 a year, were also plaintiffs.
One of the plaintiffs alleges that therapy sessions that involved a virtual 'strip tease' in front of an older male counselor, as well as reliving abuse and homophobia were 'humiliating.'
They are seeking declaratory, injunctive and an undisclosed amount of monetary relief, as well as court costs, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs have received legal help from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which claims in the lawsuit that conversion therapy is a dangerous practice that has been 'discredited or highly criticized' by every major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional organization.
Three of the young plaintiffs are from an ultra orthodox Jewish background; Ferguson came from a Mormon background and met Downing at a 'Journey Into Manhood' retreat, according to the lawsuit.
JONAH appears to cater to orthodox Jews, but its methods 'do not have a strong religious aspect,' according to SPLC lawyer Sam Wolfe.
The lawsuit alleges that some of the methods used included: telling boys to beat a pillow, the 'effigy of the client's mother,' with a tennis racket; encouraging 'cuddling' between younger clients and older male counselors; and even instructing attendees to remove their clothing and hold their penis in front of Downing.
Attendees were also subjected to ridicule as 'faggots' and 'homos' in mock locker room and gym class role playing, according to the lawsuit.
'It's definitely cruel and unusual and doesn't work,' said Wolfe. 'They are peddling bogus techniques that have no foundation in science and are basically ridiculous and even harmful.'
Wolfe paraphrased JONAH's message as: 'All you have to do is put in the work to overcome your sexual attractions. If you follow our program your true orientation emerges and will turn you into a straight person.'
'Often if what the conversion therapist tells them doesn't work, it's their fault,' Wolfe added.
In 2008, when the plaintiffs were seeking help from JONAH, the cost of an individual therapy session was $100 and for a group session, $60. JONAH also 'strongly pushed' attending weekend retreats that could cost as much as $700, said Wolfe.
Arthur Goldberg said he 'knows nothing about the lawsuit,' which was filed this morning, and referred ABCNews.com to JONAH's website.
'We have a lot of people who were a success and were healed,' he said of JONAH's 14 years in service. 'Hundreds of the clients we serve are satisfied ... Our therapy is very conventional.'
When asked about the group's practices, he said, 'I can't tell you about the methodology.' Goldberg admitted he had 'no background specifically in counseling.'
'I am the administrator,' he said. 'I used to teach family law.'
When asked about instructing boys to take off their clothes, he said, 'I know nothing about that.'
Goldberg also said he had 'no idea' how to reach Downing because he was an 'independent contractor.'
According to JONAH's mission statement on its website, the nonprofit group is 'dedicated to educating the world-wide Jewish community about the social, cultural and emotional factors which lead to same-sex attractions.'
'Through psychological and spiritual counseling, peer support, and self-empowerment, JONAH seeks to reunify families, to heal the wounds surrounding homosexuality, and to provide hope,' the statement reads.
JONAH's Goldberg, who runs the business side of the nonprofit, says on the website that 'change from homosexual to heterosexual is possible . homosexuality is a learned behavior which can be unlearned, and that healing is a lifelong process.'
According to the lawsuit, JONAH cites the 'scientific' work of Joseph Nicolosi, one of the primary proponents of conversion therapy and Richard A. Cohen, who was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2002 for 'multiple ethical violations.'
Nicolosi's methodology is based on the belief that a weak father-son relationship and a dominating mother contribute to homosexuality. He advocates 'rough and tumble games,' as well as father-son showers, according to the lawsuit.
Cohen uses a technique called 'bioenergetics' that include having male patients beat a pillow, which represents their mother, as a way of stopping same-sex attraction, according to the lawsuit. Conversion therapists also cite child abuse and bullying as a 'primary cause' of homosexuality, according to the lawsuit.
Chaim Levin, the most vocal of the plaintiffs, is now 23 and a gay rights advocate who writes a blog, Gotta Give 'Em Hope.
He grew up in a Jewish an ultra orthodox community in Brooklyn where religious leaders threw him out of the Hebrew-speaking yeshiva at the age of 17, when they learned he was gay.
Levin told ABCNews.com that he had been abused as a boy and that he was 'confused' by his sexuality and took a rabbi's advice and began 18 months of gay conversion therapy at JONAH.
[Levin filed a civil lawsuit against his cousin in July, alleging he was abused for three years from the time he was 6.]
When Levin met co-director Goldberg, he said the defendant told him JONAH could change his sexual orientation, 'as long as I tried hard enough and put enough effort into it.'
'He told me, 'You will marry a woman and have a straight life,'' said Levin.
'Given where I came from, with three older siblings who were married with kids and not knowing any gay people or English, I was sure I could change,' he said. 'That was the theology.'
Levin first did a retreat with Downing, then saw him weekly at therapy sessions in Jersey City.
'A lot of the therapy involves reliving the experience,' he said. Levin alleges he was forced to relive the sexual abuse by his cousin, 'with no counseling afterwards.'
But the most 'humiliating' experience, the one that Levin alleges made him quit therapy, was being asked by Downing to take off his clothes, article by article and told to touch his 'private parts' -- to hold his penis in front of a mirror to 'be in touch with my masculinity.'
'I told him I wasn't comfortable, but I desperately wanted to change and was ready to do anything,' said Levin. Afterward, he said he felt 'degraded and violated.'
Today, Levin no longer identifies as orthodox, but said his parents have been 'supportive' of the lawsuit.
Some Jewish denominations and many congregations are inclusive of homosexual congregants, and even New York's orthodox communiities are more open-minded now, according to Levin.
'I had gone for help and they had misrepresented themselves,' he said.
Also Read
This news article is brought to you by GLAMOROUS FASHION NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court of New Jersey Hudson County, alleges that methods used by the Jersey City-based Jews Offering New Alternatives to Healing (JONAH) do not work and constitute fraud under the state's consumer protection laws.
Arthur Goldberg, JONAH's co-director, and Alan Downing, a 'life coach' who provides therapy sessions, were also named in the suit.
The plaintiffs include Michael Ferguson, Benjamin Unger, Sheldon Bruck and Chaim Levin, all of whom used the services of JONAH when they were in their teens or young 20s.
Two of the men's mothers, Jo Bruck and Bella Levin, who paid for therapy sessions that could cost up to $10,000 a year, were also plaintiffs.
One of the plaintiffs alleges that therapy sessions that involved a virtual 'strip tease' in front of an older male counselor, as well as reliving abuse and homophobia were 'humiliating.'
They are seeking declaratory, injunctive and an undisclosed amount of monetary relief, as well as court costs, according to the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs have received legal help from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which claims in the lawsuit that conversion therapy is a dangerous practice that has been 'discredited or highly criticized' by every major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional organization.
Three of the young plaintiffs are from an ultra orthodox Jewish background; Ferguson came from a Mormon background and met Downing at a 'Journey Into Manhood' retreat, according to the lawsuit.
JONAH appears to cater to orthodox Jews, but its methods 'do not have a strong religious aspect,' according to SPLC lawyer Sam Wolfe.
The lawsuit alleges that some of the methods used included: telling boys to beat a pillow, the 'effigy of the client's mother,' with a tennis racket; encouraging 'cuddling' between younger clients and older male counselors; and even instructing attendees to remove their clothing and hold their penis in front of Downing.
Attendees were also subjected to ridicule as 'faggots' and 'homos' in mock locker room and gym class role playing, according to the lawsuit.
'It's definitely cruel and unusual and doesn't work,' said Wolfe. 'They are peddling bogus techniques that have no foundation in science and are basically ridiculous and even harmful.'
Wolfe paraphrased JONAH's message as: 'All you have to do is put in the work to overcome your sexual attractions. If you follow our program your true orientation emerges and will turn you into a straight person.'
'Often if what the conversion therapist tells them doesn't work, it's their fault,' Wolfe added.
In 2008, when the plaintiffs were seeking help from JONAH, the cost of an individual therapy session was $100 and for a group session, $60. JONAH also 'strongly pushed' attending weekend retreats that could cost as much as $700, said Wolfe.
Arthur Goldberg said he 'knows nothing about the lawsuit,' which was filed this morning, and referred ABCNews.com to JONAH's website.
'We have a lot of people who were a success and were healed,' he said of JONAH's 14 years in service. 'Hundreds of the clients we serve are satisfied ... Our therapy is very conventional.'
When asked about the group's practices, he said, 'I can't tell you about the methodology.' Goldberg admitted he had 'no background specifically in counseling.'
'I am the administrator,' he said. 'I used to teach family law.'
When asked about instructing boys to take off their clothes, he said, 'I know nothing about that.'
Goldberg also said he had 'no idea' how to reach Downing because he was an 'independent contractor.'
According to JONAH's mission statement on its website, the nonprofit group is 'dedicated to educating the world-wide Jewish community about the social, cultural and emotional factors which lead to same-sex attractions.'
'Through psychological and spiritual counseling, peer support, and self-empowerment, JONAH seeks to reunify families, to heal the wounds surrounding homosexuality, and to provide hope,' the statement reads.
JONAH's Goldberg, who runs the business side of the nonprofit, says on the website that 'change from homosexual to heterosexual is possible . homosexuality is a learned behavior which can be unlearned, and that healing is a lifelong process.'
According to the lawsuit, JONAH cites the 'scientific' work of Joseph Nicolosi, one of the primary proponents of conversion therapy and Richard A. Cohen, who was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2002 for 'multiple ethical violations.'
Nicolosi's methodology is based on the belief that a weak father-son relationship and a dominating mother contribute to homosexuality. He advocates 'rough and tumble games,' as well as father-son showers, according to the lawsuit.
Cohen uses a technique called 'bioenergetics' that include having male patients beat a pillow, which represents their mother, as a way of stopping same-sex attraction, according to the lawsuit. Conversion therapists also cite child abuse and bullying as a 'primary cause' of homosexuality, according to the lawsuit.
APA Calls Gay Conversion Therapy Risky
The American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization, among other mental health groups, have cited the potential risks of reparation therapy, including 'depression, anxiety [and] self-destructive behavior,' according to the lawsuit.Chaim Levin, the most vocal of the plaintiffs, is now 23 and a gay rights advocate who writes a blog, Gotta Give 'Em Hope.
He grew up in a Jewish an ultra orthodox community in Brooklyn where religious leaders threw him out of the Hebrew-speaking yeshiva at the age of 17, when they learned he was gay.
Levin told ABCNews.com that he had been abused as a boy and that he was 'confused' by his sexuality and took a rabbi's advice and began 18 months of gay conversion therapy at JONAH.
[Levin filed a civil lawsuit against his cousin in July, alleging he was abused for three years from the time he was 6.]
When Levin met co-director Goldberg, he said the defendant told him JONAH could change his sexual orientation, 'as long as I tried hard enough and put enough effort into it.'
'He told me, 'You will marry a woman and have a straight life,'' said Levin.
'Given where I came from, with three older siblings who were married with kids and not knowing any gay people or English, I was sure I could change,' he said. 'That was the theology.'
Levin first did a retreat with Downing, then saw him weekly at therapy sessions in Jersey City.
'A lot of the therapy involves reliving the experience,' he said. Levin alleges he was forced to relive the sexual abuse by his cousin, 'with no counseling afterwards.'
But the most 'humiliating' experience, the one that Levin alleges made him quit therapy, was being asked by Downing to take off his clothes, article by article and told to touch his 'private parts' -- to hold his penis in front of a mirror to 'be in touch with my masculinity.'
'I told him I wasn't comfortable, but I desperately wanted to change and was ready to do anything,' said Levin. Afterward, he said he felt 'degraded and violated.'
Today, Levin no longer identifies as orthodox, but said his parents have been 'supportive' of the lawsuit.
Some Jewish denominations and many congregations are inclusive of homosexual congregants, and even New York's orthodox communiities are more open-minded now, according to Levin.
'I had gone for help and they had misrepresented themselves,' he said.
Also Read
This news article is brought to you by GLAMOROUS FASHION NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Monday, November 26, 2012
U.S. kids getting recommended amount of sleep: study
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children in the U.S. appear to be getting as much shut-eye as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends, according to a new study.
'We can't say this is the amount that they should be sleeping,' said Jessica Williams, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles.
'All we could really do is compare our estimated norms with what is recommended, and it seems like it falls pretty well in line with the recommendations,' she told Reuters Health.
Williams and her colleagues point out in their study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, that there has been concern that U.S. kids are getting too little sleep.
Insufficient sleep has been tied to all sorts of issues in kids and teens, from behavior problems to heart health risks (see Reuters Health reports of October 2, 2012 and October 16, 2012).
But there isn't a lot of hard evidence on how much shut-eye children typically get, Williams said, so the group set out to get an estimate of average sleep duration from birth to age 18.
The researchers gathered data from a nationwide survey that has tracked families for decades.
For this study, they focused on parents' reports of their children's sleep, beginning in 1997.
At the time, 2,832 children were included. In 2002 and 2007 the families were surveyed again and there were 2,520 and 1,424 children included, respectively.
Dr. Maurice Ohayon, director of the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center in Palo Alto, California, said one of the big strengths of the study is that it tracked changes in sleep among the same children as they aged.
'We have an evolution of the sleep during the childhood,' said Ohayon, who was not involved in the study. 'That is the unique thing.'
Williams's team found that until their second birthday, babies in the study slept an average of 12 to 14 hours during each 24-hour period.
By age four that had dropped to about 11 hours of sleep and by age 10, to 10 hours. By age 16, kids were getting an average of about nine hours of sleep per night.
The findings suggest most kids' sleep habits are in step with government guidelines.
According to the CDC, toddlers should be getting 12 to 14 hours of sleep. Preschoolers should get 11 to 13 hours of sleep, and adolescents age 10 to 17 should get 8.5 to 9.5 hours.
The researchers didn't find any differences in the amount of sleep between boys and girls, and only a slight gap between white and Hispanic kids.
Hispanic children tended to sleep 19 minutes longer than white children after age nine, but Williams said that difference is too small to matter for individual kids.
Parent reports of how much sleep their kids get are not perfectly accurate, and they often can't describe the quality of sleep, such as whether kids wake up in the night. Williams said it's still possible individual children aren't sleeping enough, because the study could only measure reports of sleep duration, and not sleep quality.
Tracking sleep in a laboratory is more precise, but would cost too much for a study this size, said Ohayon.
He told Reuters Health the study still offers a good sense of how much sleep children typically get, which is valuable in helping to gauge whether a child has a sleep disorder.
'What we are hoping to do with these norms is give some sort of reference to be used by clinicians and parents to see if children fall far from average,' said Williams.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/KEGTVv Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, online November 26, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
'We can't say this is the amount that they should be sleeping,' said Jessica Williams, the lead author of the study and a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles.
'All we could really do is compare our estimated norms with what is recommended, and it seems like it falls pretty well in line with the recommendations,' she told Reuters Health.
Williams and her colleagues point out in their study, published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, that there has been concern that U.S. kids are getting too little sleep.
Insufficient sleep has been tied to all sorts of issues in kids and teens, from behavior problems to heart health risks (see Reuters Health reports of October 2, 2012 and October 16, 2012).
But there isn't a lot of hard evidence on how much shut-eye children typically get, Williams said, so the group set out to get an estimate of average sleep duration from birth to age 18.
The researchers gathered data from a nationwide survey that has tracked families for decades.
For this study, they focused on parents' reports of their children's sleep, beginning in 1997.
At the time, 2,832 children were included. In 2002 and 2007 the families were surveyed again and there were 2,520 and 1,424 children included, respectively.
Dr. Maurice Ohayon, director of the Stanford Sleep Epidemiology Research Center in Palo Alto, California, said one of the big strengths of the study is that it tracked changes in sleep among the same children as they aged.
'We have an evolution of the sleep during the childhood,' said Ohayon, who was not involved in the study. 'That is the unique thing.'
Williams's team found that until their second birthday, babies in the study slept an average of 12 to 14 hours during each 24-hour period.
By age four that had dropped to about 11 hours of sleep and by age 10, to 10 hours. By age 16, kids were getting an average of about nine hours of sleep per night.
The findings suggest most kids' sleep habits are in step with government guidelines.
According to the CDC, toddlers should be getting 12 to 14 hours of sleep. Preschoolers should get 11 to 13 hours of sleep, and adolescents age 10 to 17 should get 8.5 to 9.5 hours.
The researchers didn't find any differences in the amount of sleep between boys and girls, and only a slight gap between white and Hispanic kids.
Hispanic children tended to sleep 19 minutes longer than white children after age nine, but Williams said that difference is too small to matter for individual kids.
Parent reports of how much sleep their kids get are not perfectly accurate, and they often can't describe the quality of sleep, such as whether kids wake up in the night. Williams said it's still possible individual children aren't sleeping enough, because the study could only measure reports of sleep duration, and not sleep quality.
Tracking sleep in a laboratory is more precise, but would cost too much for a study this size, said Ohayon.
He told Reuters Health the study still offers a good sense of how much sleep children typically get, which is valuable in helping to gauge whether a child has a sleep disorder.
'What we are hoping to do with these norms is give some sort of reference to be used by clinicians and parents to see if children fall far from average,' said Williams.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/KEGTVv Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, online November 26, 2012.
This news article is brought to you by SEXUAL HEALTH NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Bounce houses a party hit but kids' injuries soar
CHICAGO (AP) - They may be a big hit at kids' birthday parties, but inflatable bounce houses can be dangerous, with the number of injuries soaring in recent years, a nationwide study found.
Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.
The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.
The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses - from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.
'I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries,' said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.
Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.
More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.
'There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk,' he said.
Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.
The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.
Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.
A group that issues voluntary industry standards says bounce houses should be supervised by trained operators and recommends that bouncers be prohibited from doing flips and purposefully colliding with others, the study authors noted.
Bounce house injuries are similar to those linked with trampolines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against using trampolines at home. Policymakers should consider whether bounce houses warrant similar precautions, the authors said.
___
Online:
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
Trade group: http://www.naarso.com
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
This news article is brought to you by GADGETS NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Kids often crowd into bounce houses, and jumping up and down can send other children flying into the air, too.
The numbers suggest 30 U.S. children a day are treated in emergency rooms for broken bones, sprains, cuts and concussions from bounce house accidents. Most involve children falling inside or out of the inflated playthings, and many children get hurt when they collide with other bouncing kids.
The number of children aged 17 and younger who got emergency-room treatment for bounce house injuries has climbed along with the popularity of bounce houses - from fewer than 1,000 in 1995 to nearly 11,000 in 2010. That's a 15-fold increase, and a doubling just since 2008.
'I was surprised by the number, especially by the rapid increase in the number of injuries,' said lead author Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Amusement parks and fairs have bounce houses, and the playthings can also be rented or purchased for home use.
Smith and colleagues analyzed national surveillance data on ER treatment for nonfatal injuries linked with bounce houses, maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Their study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Only about 3 percent of children were hospitalized, mostly for broken bones.
More than one-third of the injuries were in children aged 5 and younger. The safety commission recommends against letting children younger than 6 use full-size trampolines, and Smith said barring kids that young from even smaller, home-use bounce houses would make sense.
'There is no evidence that the size or location of an inflatable bouncer affects the injury risk,' he said.
Other recommendations, often listed in manufacturers' instruction pamphlets, include not overloading bounce houses with too many kids and not allowing young children to bounce with much older, heavier kids or adults, said Laura Woodburn, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials.
The study didn't include deaths, but some accidents are fatal. Separate data from the product safety commission show four bounce house deaths from 2003 to 2007, all involving children striking their heads on a hard surface.
Several nonfatal accidents occurred last year when bounce houses collapsed or were lifted by high winds.
A group that issues voluntary industry standards says bounce houses should be supervised by trained operators and recommends that bouncers be prohibited from doing flips and purposefully colliding with others, the study authors noted.
Bounce house injuries are similar to those linked with trampolines, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended against using trampolines at home. Policymakers should consider whether bounce houses warrant similar precautions, the authors said.
___
Online:
Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org
Trade group: http://www.naarso.com
___
AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner
This news article is brought to you by GADGETS NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Europe mulls banning 'boxes' for abandoned babies
BERLIN (AP) - German pastor Gabriele Stangl says she will never forget the harrowing confession she heard in 1999. A woman said she had been brutally raped, got pregnant and had a baby. Then she killed it and buried it in the woods near Berlin.
Stangl wanted to do something to help women in such desperate situations. So the following year, she convinced Berlin's Waldfriede Hospital to create the city's first so-called 'baby box.' The box is actually a warm incubator that can be opened from an outside wall of a hospital where a desperate parent can anonymously leave an unwanted infant.
A small flap opens into the box, equipped with a motion detector. An alarm goes off in the hospital to alert staff two minutes after a baby is left.
'The mother has enough time to leave without anyone seeing her,' Stangl said. 'The important thing is that her baby is now in a safe place.'
Baby boxes are a revival of the medieval 'foundling wheels,' where unwanted infants were left in revolving church doors. In recent years, there has been an increase in these contraptions - also called hatches, windows or slots in some countries - and at least 11 European nations now have them, according to United Nations figures. They are technically illegal, but mostly operate in a gray zone as authorities turn a blind eye.
But they have drawn the attention of human rights advocates who think they are bad for the children and merely avoid dealing with the problems that lead to child abandonment. At a meeting last month, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child said baby boxes should be banned and is pushing that agenda to the European Parliament.
There are nearly 100 baby boxes in Germany. Poland and the Czech Republic each have more than 40 while Italy, Lithuania, Russia and Slovakia have about 10 each. There are two in Switzerland, one in Belgium and one being planned in the Netherlands.
In the last decade, hundreds of babies have been abandoned this way; it's estimated one or two infants are typically left at each location every year, though exact figures aren't available.
'They are a bad message for society,' said Maria Herczog, a Hungarian child psychologist on the U.N. committee. 'These boxes violate children's rights and also the rights of parents to get help from the state to raise their families,' she said.
'Instead of providing help and addressing some of the social problems and poverty behind these situations, we're telling people they can just leave their baby and run away.'
She said the practice encourages women to have children without getting medical care. 'It's paradoxical that it's OK for women to give up their babies by putting them in a box, but if they were to have them in a hospital and walk away, that's a crime,' Herczog said. She said the committee is now discussing the issue with the European Parliament and is also asking countries which allow the practice to shut them down.
Herczog also said it's wrong to assume only mothers are abandoning these children and that sometimes they may be forced into giving up children they might otherwise have kept. 'We have data to show that in some cases it's pimps, a male relative or someone who's exploiting the woman,' she said.
In some countries - Australia, Canada and Britain - it is illegal to abandon an infant anywhere. Yet, in the U.S. there are 'safe haven' laws that allow parents to anonymously give up an infant in a secure place like a hospital or police department. A handful of other countries including Japan and Slovakia have similar provisions.
Countries that support this anonymous abandonment method contend they save lives. In a letter responding to U.N. concerns, more than two dozen Czech politicians said they 'strongly disagreed' with the proposed ban. 'The primary aim of baby hatches, which (have) already saved hundreds of newborns, is to protect their right to life and protect their human rights,' the letter said.
However, limited academic surveys suggest this hasn't reduced the murder of infants. There are about 30 to 60 infanticides in Germany every year, a number that has been relatively unchanged for years, even after the arrival of baby boxes. That's similar to the per capita rate in Britain where there is no such option.
Across Germany, there is considerable public support for the boxes, particularly after several high-profile cases of infanticide, including the grisly discovery several years ago of the decomposed remains of nine infants stuffed into flower pots in Brandenburg.
Officials at several facilities with baby boxes say biological parents sometimes name the infant being abandoned. 'The girl is called Sarah,' read one note left with a baby in Lubeck, Germany in 2003. 'I have many problems and a life with Sarah is just not possible,' the letter said.
The secretive nature also means few restrictions on who gets dropped off, even though the boxes are intended for newborns. Friederike Garbe, who oversees a baby box in Lubeck, found two young boys crying there last November. 'One was about four months old and his brother was already sitting up,' she said. The older boy was about 15 months old and could say 'Mama.'
Still, Germany's health ministry is considering other options. 'We want to replace the necessity for the baby boxes by implementing a rule to allow women to give birth anonymously that will allow them to give up the child for adoption,' said Christopher Steegmans, a ministry spokesman.
Austria, France, and Italy allow women to give birth anonymously and leave the baby in the hospital to be adopted. Germany and Britain sometimes allow this under certain circumstances even though it is technically illegal. Eleven other nations grant women a 'concealed delivery' that hides their identities when they give birth to their babies, who are then given up for adoption. But the women are supposed to leave their name and contact information for official records that may be given one day to the children if they request it after age 18.
For German couple Andy and Astrid, an abandoned infant in a baby box near the city of Fulda ended their two-year wait to adopt a child nearly a decade ago.
'We were told about him on a Sunday and then visited him the next day in the hospital,' said Astrid, a 37-year-old teacher, who along with her husband, agreed to talk with The Associated Press if their last names were not used to protect the identity of their child. The couple quietly snapped a few photos of the baby boy they later named Jan. He weighed just over 7 pounds when he was placed in the baby box, wrapped in two small towels.
When Jan started asking questions about where he came from around age 2, his parents explained another woman had given birth to him. They showed him the photos taken at the hospital, introduced him to the nurses there and showed him the baby box where he had been left.
Earlier this year, the couple began the procedure to adopt a second child, a boy whose mother gave birth anonymously so she could give him up for adoption.
Astrid said Jan, now 8, loves football, tractors and anything to do with the farming that he sees daily in their rural community. She said it's not so important for her and her husband to know who his biological parents are.
But for Jan, 'it would be nice to know that he could meet them if he wanted to,' she said. 'I want that for him, but there is no possibility to find out who they were.'
____
Medical writer Maria Cheng reported from London.
This news article is brought to you by SPACE AND ASTRONOMY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Stangl wanted to do something to help women in such desperate situations. So the following year, she convinced Berlin's Waldfriede Hospital to create the city's first so-called 'baby box.' The box is actually a warm incubator that can be opened from an outside wall of a hospital where a desperate parent can anonymously leave an unwanted infant.
A small flap opens into the box, equipped with a motion detector. An alarm goes off in the hospital to alert staff two minutes after a baby is left.
'The mother has enough time to leave without anyone seeing her,' Stangl said. 'The important thing is that her baby is now in a safe place.'
Baby boxes are a revival of the medieval 'foundling wheels,' where unwanted infants were left in revolving church doors. In recent years, there has been an increase in these contraptions - also called hatches, windows or slots in some countries - and at least 11 European nations now have them, according to United Nations figures. They are technically illegal, but mostly operate in a gray zone as authorities turn a blind eye.
But they have drawn the attention of human rights advocates who think they are bad for the children and merely avoid dealing with the problems that lead to child abandonment. At a meeting last month, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child said baby boxes should be banned and is pushing that agenda to the European Parliament.
There are nearly 100 baby boxes in Germany. Poland and the Czech Republic each have more than 40 while Italy, Lithuania, Russia and Slovakia have about 10 each. There are two in Switzerland, one in Belgium and one being planned in the Netherlands.
In the last decade, hundreds of babies have been abandoned this way; it's estimated one or two infants are typically left at each location every year, though exact figures aren't available.
'They are a bad message for society,' said Maria Herczog, a Hungarian child psychologist on the U.N. committee. 'These boxes violate children's rights and also the rights of parents to get help from the state to raise their families,' she said.
'Instead of providing help and addressing some of the social problems and poverty behind these situations, we're telling people they can just leave their baby and run away.'
She said the practice encourages women to have children without getting medical care. 'It's paradoxical that it's OK for women to give up their babies by putting them in a box, but if they were to have them in a hospital and walk away, that's a crime,' Herczog said. She said the committee is now discussing the issue with the European Parliament and is also asking countries which allow the practice to shut them down.
Herczog also said it's wrong to assume only mothers are abandoning these children and that sometimes they may be forced into giving up children they might otherwise have kept. 'We have data to show that in some cases it's pimps, a male relative or someone who's exploiting the woman,' she said.
In some countries - Australia, Canada and Britain - it is illegal to abandon an infant anywhere. Yet, in the U.S. there are 'safe haven' laws that allow parents to anonymously give up an infant in a secure place like a hospital or police department. A handful of other countries including Japan and Slovakia have similar provisions.
Countries that support this anonymous abandonment method contend they save lives. In a letter responding to U.N. concerns, more than two dozen Czech politicians said they 'strongly disagreed' with the proposed ban. 'The primary aim of baby hatches, which (have) already saved hundreds of newborns, is to protect their right to life and protect their human rights,' the letter said.
However, limited academic surveys suggest this hasn't reduced the murder of infants. There are about 30 to 60 infanticides in Germany every year, a number that has been relatively unchanged for years, even after the arrival of baby boxes. That's similar to the per capita rate in Britain where there is no such option.
Across Germany, there is considerable public support for the boxes, particularly after several high-profile cases of infanticide, including the grisly discovery several years ago of the decomposed remains of nine infants stuffed into flower pots in Brandenburg.
Officials at several facilities with baby boxes say biological parents sometimes name the infant being abandoned. 'The girl is called Sarah,' read one note left with a baby in Lubeck, Germany in 2003. 'I have many problems and a life with Sarah is just not possible,' the letter said.
The secretive nature also means few restrictions on who gets dropped off, even though the boxes are intended for newborns. Friederike Garbe, who oversees a baby box in Lubeck, found two young boys crying there last November. 'One was about four months old and his brother was already sitting up,' she said. The older boy was about 15 months old and could say 'Mama.'
Still, Germany's health ministry is considering other options. 'We want to replace the necessity for the baby boxes by implementing a rule to allow women to give birth anonymously that will allow them to give up the child for adoption,' said Christopher Steegmans, a ministry spokesman.
Austria, France, and Italy allow women to give birth anonymously and leave the baby in the hospital to be adopted. Germany and Britain sometimes allow this under certain circumstances even though it is technically illegal. Eleven other nations grant women a 'concealed delivery' that hides their identities when they give birth to their babies, who are then given up for adoption. But the women are supposed to leave their name and contact information for official records that may be given one day to the children if they request it after age 18.
For German couple Andy and Astrid, an abandoned infant in a baby box near the city of Fulda ended their two-year wait to adopt a child nearly a decade ago.
'We were told about him on a Sunday and then visited him the next day in the hospital,' said Astrid, a 37-year-old teacher, who along with her husband, agreed to talk with The Associated Press if their last names were not used to protect the identity of their child. The couple quietly snapped a few photos of the baby boy they later named Jan. He weighed just over 7 pounds when he was placed in the baby box, wrapped in two small towels.
When Jan started asking questions about where he came from around age 2, his parents explained another woman had given birth to him. They showed him the photos taken at the hospital, introduced him to the nurses there and showed him the baby box where he had been left.
Earlier this year, the couple began the procedure to adopt a second child, a boy whose mother gave birth anonymously so she could give him up for adoption.
Astrid said Jan, now 8, loves football, tractors and anything to do with the farming that he sees daily in their rural community. She said it's not so important for her and her husband to know who his biological parents are.
But for Jan, 'it would be nice to know that he could meet them if he wanted to,' she said. 'I want that for him, but there is no possibility to find out who they were.'
____
Medical writer Maria Cheng reported from London.
This news article is brought to you by SPACE AND ASTRONOMY NEWS - where latest news are our top priority.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Extra prenatal choline doesn't help kids' brains
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Taking extra choline during pregnancy does not improve babies' language and memory skills, according to a new study.
'I think eating the recommended amount of choline, which is just about a half of a gram a day for pregnant women, would probably do you well,' Dr. Steven Zeisel, the senior author of the study and a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told Reuters Health. 'Going to high levels doesn't always give you improvement.'
The results contrast with earlier studies in animals showing that a choline boost in utero improves rodents' performance on memory tasks. Companies claim that choline pills support 'brain health,' along with the health of other organs, and sell choline supplements over the counter for about $9 for 100 250-milligram capsules.
Choline is an essential nutrient found in meat, eggs and milk, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding, large amounts of choline are delivered to the baby through the mother. Zeisel said it's possible that the women in the study who didn't take a choline pill were getting enough from their diet.
Earlier studies have found that pregnant women with very low levels of choline in their diet have a higher chance of delivering a baby with a birth defect (see Reuters Health report of September 25, 2009). And adults who eat a choline-rich diet perform better on memory tests (see Reuters Health report of November 23, 2011: http://reut.rs/swPWp3).
To see if adding extra choline during pregnancy can offer any benefits to babies, Zeisel and his colleagues asked 99 pregnant women to take six pills every day, beginning when they were 18 weeks pregnant and continuing until three months after the baby was born.
Fifty of the moms received fake pills containing corn oil, while 49 received pills with 833 milligrams (mg) of phosphatidylcholine, a form of choline.
The phosphatidylcholine pills added up to 750 mg of choline each day, the equivalent of 170 percent of the recommended level for pregnant women and 140 percent of the recommended daily amount for breastfeeding moms.
When the children were 10 and 12 months old, Zeisel's team gave them a battery of tests to measure short and long term memory, language skills and general development.
There were no differences between the two groups on any of the tests, the team reports in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
TRACKED LONG ENOUGH?
Marie Caudill, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the current research, said the study was well conducted, but she offered a number of reasons that might explain the discrepancy between the animal studies and the current findings.
One possibility is that the babies were not tracked long enough to see any differences in their abilities.
'The animal studies demonstrated (that) supplementing the maternal diet with extra choline during pregnancy resulted in lasting beneficial effects on cognitive functioning in the adult offspring and prevented age-related cognitive decline,' Caudill told Reuters Health by email.
Additionally, the type of choline used - phosphatidylcholine - might be less effective than choline itself. (Zeisel's group chose not to use choline because it can result in a fishy body odor.)
In addition, the tests may not be 'sufficiently challenging,' Caudill added.
Zeisel agreed that perhaps as children age and start to perform more complex mental processing, it might be easier to measure if a child has a deficit or a strength.
For now, he said, there's no reason to use supplements during pregnancy to get extra choline, and women should refer to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommendations for how much choline they should get from their diet.
Zeisel and his colleagues are developing studies in Gambia, where dietary choline levels are known to be low, to see if supplementation there might make a bigger difference than in a region where choline intake appears to be sufficient.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SWJifr The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 7, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
'I think eating the recommended amount of choline, which is just about a half of a gram a day for pregnant women, would probably do you well,' Dr. Steven Zeisel, the senior author of the study and a professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, told Reuters Health. 'Going to high levels doesn't always give you improvement.'
The results contrast with earlier studies in animals showing that a choline boost in utero improves rodents' performance on memory tasks. Companies claim that choline pills support 'brain health,' along with the health of other organs, and sell choline supplements over the counter for about $9 for 100 250-milligram capsules.
Choline is an essential nutrient found in meat, eggs and milk, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding, large amounts of choline are delivered to the baby through the mother. Zeisel said it's possible that the women in the study who didn't take a choline pill were getting enough from their diet.
Earlier studies have found that pregnant women with very low levels of choline in their diet have a higher chance of delivering a baby with a birth defect (see Reuters Health report of September 25, 2009). And adults who eat a choline-rich diet perform better on memory tests (see Reuters Health report of November 23, 2011: http://reut.rs/swPWp3).
To see if adding extra choline during pregnancy can offer any benefits to babies, Zeisel and his colleagues asked 99 pregnant women to take six pills every day, beginning when they were 18 weeks pregnant and continuing until three months after the baby was born.
Fifty of the moms received fake pills containing corn oil, while 49 received pills with 833 milligrams (mg) of phosphatidylcholine, a form of choline.
The phosphatidylcholine pills added up to 750 mg of choline each day, the equivalent of 170 percent of the recommended level for pregnant women and 140 percent of the recommended daily amount for breastfeeding moms.
When the children were 10 and 12 months old, Zeisel's team gave them a battery of tests to measure short and long term memory, language skills and general development.
There were no differences between the two groups on any of the tests, the team reports in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
TRACKED LONG ENOUGH?
Marie Caudill, a professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the current research, said the study was well conducted, but she offered a number of reasons that might explain the discrepancy between the animal studies and the current findings.
One possibility is that the babies were not tracked long enough to see any differences in their abilities.
'The animal studies demonstrated (that) supplementing the maternal diet with extra choline during pregnancy resulted in lasting beneficial effects on cognitive functioning in the adult offspring and prevented age-related cognitive decline,' Caudill told Reuters Health by email.
Additionally, the type of choline used - phosphatidylcholine - might be less effective than choline itself. (Zeisel's group chose not to use choline because it can result in a fishy body odor.)
In addition, the tests may not be 'sufficiently challenging,' Caudill added.
Zeisel agreed that perhaps as children age and start to perform more complex mental processing, it might be easier to measure if a child has a deficit or a strength.
For now, he said, there's no reason to use supplements during pregnancy to get extra choline, and women should refer to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's recommendations for how much choline they should get from their diet.
Zeisel and his colleagues are developing studies in Gambia, where dietary choline levels are known to be low, to see if supplementation there might make a bigger difference than in a region where choline intake appears to be sufficient.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/SWJifr The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, November 7, 2012.
This article is brought to you by RELATIONSHIPS ADVICE.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)