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Maternity wards use cloth nappies - Published @ 05/15/07 05.26.39.p.m.
New mothers in Tayside are being offered the opportunity to "go green" with the introduction of cloth nappies in maternity wards.

Mothers who give birth at units in Angus, Perth and Dundee will be able to try the reusable nappies instead of disposables during their hospital stay.

Audrey McIntyre-Miller, antenatal health coordinator in Perth, said the nappies were modern and easy to use.

The move has been welcomed by a number of organisations.

Kay Forsyth, acting head of midwifery for Tayside, said: "We are providing women with a choice by having real nappies available for use in the maternity wards and letting mums try them before they take their babies home.


Using real nappies instead of disposables dramatically reduces the amount of waste produced by a household
Melanie Nicoll, Perth and Kinross Real Nappy Network

"We advise women to bring nappies into the maternity unit for their baby and, of course, if they want to use disposables they can but this change will allow them to try an alternative."

Phyllis Winter, team leader at Montrose community midwives unit, said that a number of women had already expressed an interest in the nappies.

She added: "I think women are surprised at how different real nappies are from the old terry squares and how easy they are to use.

"They are a much better fit and they look lovely. I think they'll be quite popular here."

Perth and Kinross Real Nappy Network said the introduction of the scheme would send a positive message to parents.

"Using real nappies instead of disposables dramatically reduces the amount of waste produced by a household as well as offering parents the potential to save hundreds of pounds," said Melanie Nicoll, the organisation's project officer.

Mothers who want to continue using the nappies afer leaving hospital will be provided with ongoing support and advice through the Dundee Real Nappy Project and Perth and Kinross Real Nappy Nework.

Pa. moms push to make breastfeeding in public a protected ac - Published @ 05/15/07 05.25.38.p.m.
By Kim Lyons
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

Cheryl Bradshaw is ready -- for the snide comments, the disapproving looks, the general sense of discomfort. Even though Bradshaw, mother of three, hasn't had to defend her decision to breastfeed her kids in public, there's no law in Allegheny County that protects her and other breastfeeding moms.

"I think we have some great lactation consultants and a really active La Leche League, but Pittsburgh has a lot of old-school thinking when it comes to breastfeeding," said Bradshaw, 38.

At a rally in Harrisburg yesterday, breastfeeding mothers said Pennsylvania's unsupportive atmosphere limits their nursing. A bill sponsored by Sen. Connie Williams, a Montgomery County Democrat, would protect breastfeeding in public and ban companies from firing women who breastfeed or use a breast pump at work. It also would extend tax credits to companies with policies encouraging breastfeeding.

"I have been fortunate to have young working mothers working for me. They're terrific," Williams said. "They come back to work while they're still nursing their babies."

In the meantime, the Allegheny County Health Department is looking for this year's most breastfeeding-friendly places in Allegheny county for its 12th annual Breastfeeding Friendly Place Awards.

"The place where I'm most self-conscious, and people seem to have the biggest hangup is in restaurants," said Charissa Howe, 28, of Observatory Hill, who's nursing her 11-month-old daughter. "People seem to think it's unsanitary or something, and they'll whisper or stare at you."

Howe said breastfeeding in places like museums and parks posed the least problems.

Stephanie Strazisar works at Bayer, last year's workplace winner. She said she knew returning to work after the birth of her daughter wouldn't mean she'd have to stop nursing, since Bayer has six lactation rooms at its Robinson campus. The lactation rooms are quiet, private rooms with comfortable seating outlets for breast pumps.

Diana Kamyk, Bayer's manager of work life diversity, said part of the reason a lactation room was such a natural fit for Bayer is the similarity of its corporate culture to the progressive social practices of its home country of Germany.

"There have been times where it's been a little awkward, having to excuse myself from meetings," said Strazisar, 33, of Venetia. "But everyone is really supportive. It's been a win-win; I'm happy at work, and I'm just as productive a worker."

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies be breastfed for at least the first year, but the early return to work presents problems -- mothers can't bring their babies to work for eight-plus hours.

Simply getting mothers to ask for a place at work to pump breast milk is a major accomplishment, said Dr. Brian Donnelly of Pediatric Alliance in McCandless.

"They need to ask for support and time and a clean, safe place to express milk," said Donnelly, who is on the Allegheny County Health Department's Breastfeeding Promotion Steering Committee. The milk can be refrigerated or frozen to feed the baby later.

The numbers show that most mothers give breastfeeding a try. According to a 2005 Centers for Disease Control survey, more than 70 percent of new moms breastfed at birth, and 39 percent still were nursing six months later. By 12 months, that number was down to 20 percent.

The survey found Pennsylvania's numbers were pretty close to the rest of the country: about 69 percent of new moms breastfed at birth. After six months, only 37.5 percent of Pennsylvania mothers still were nursing; and only 20 percent were nursing 12 months later.

At first, Shayne Blacksburg, 33, mother of 11-month-old Ari, said she felt self-conscious about nursing in public. But she's moved past that.

"I'm at the point now where I think, 'If you need to look, go ahead. You're not going to see much,'" Blacksburg said.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Kim Lyons can be reached at klyons@tribweb.com or (412) 320-7922.

Spit test spots deadly pre-eclampsia - Published @ 05/15/07 05.24.48.p.m.
LONDON, May 8 A home test which uses spit allows mothers-to-be to check for themselves whether they are at risk for pre-eclampsia, says a British study.

The test is expected to be more reliable than the traditional blood pressure and urine tests conducted in doctors' offices and hospitals, according to the study published in Chemistry & Industry.

Pre-eclampsia, which can cause infant mortality, also causes maternal mortality, killing one woman globally every six seconds, according to the United Kingdom's Action on Pre-Eclampsia. Earlier detection and intervention could save lives, but standard blood pressure and urine tests are unreliable, and there is a lot of room for "user error" , according to Michael Rich, head of Action on Pre-eclampsia. The test works by monitoring levels of urate, a salt of uric acid, increased levels of which are thought to be due to impaired kidney excretion in pre-eclampsia.

Copyright 2007 by UPI

The Home School option - Published @ 05/15/07 05.23.47.p.m.
Why a growing number of parents are educating their children at home
By Kamala Nair

NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Deanna Busch runs a tight ship. Classes start at 6:30 a.m. – those who are not in their seat by then receive detention. Like other teachers, Busch does not allow gum chewing. She requires homework to be finished on time and tests to be taken in silence. The only difference is: Her students call her "mom."

Like most military families, the Busch's lifestyle takes them all over the world. When her husband was posted in Korea, Deanna Bush had a chance to preview schools for her six young children. Unsatisfied with the quality of education offered by the Department of Defense, she decided to take her children's education into her own hands.

She began researching the home schooling concept, reading books such as "The Big Book of Home Learning," by Mary Pride, which recommends curriculum and lesson manuals. She attended home school conventions, which are held annually in every state, where she visited exhibits displaying a variety of useful books and curriculum. Within a year, she added "teacher" to her list of qualifications, and turned their home into a classroom.

A growing contingent

According to the ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management, the Busch family is not alone. The home schooling population has grown from 10,000-to-15,000 children in the late 1960s to well over 1 million today.

The most common tools parents use when beginning to home educate their children are annual conventions, the Web, and correspondence programs, which test children and design curriculum for their specific needs. About 20 percent of home schoolers belong to these programs, which also keep records of academic history and issue diplomas upon graduation.

While currently only about one-third of parents educate their children at home beyond the elementary level, Chris Klicka, senior council at the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), estimated that roughly 80 percent of new home schooling parents plan to educate their children through high school. In such cases, parents themselves issue their children transcripts and diplomas.

Research conducted by the HSLDA indicates that since home education families are not dependent on public, tax-funded resources, they save United States taxpayers more than $7.5 million a year. However, parents who school children at home pay the same amount in property taxes as everyone else. Parents pay about $450 annually to teach one child at home, about $6,000 to send a child to public school, and anywhere from $1,000 to more than $6,000 to send a child to private school.

Busch said her costs have increased as her children grow older, reaching around $800 per year for her 7th and 8th graders, because she sends their assignments to certified teachers through a correspondence course, who provide grades and transcripts.

Busch emphasized that fusing the roles of parent and teacher can be a big sacrifice for parents. Because they are generally one-income households, money is often an important factor, especially for military families who don't earn a large income.

"But the sacrifice and hard work pay off," asserted Busch, who will be sending her oldest son on a $1,000 scholarship to begin high school at a prestigious parochial school in Washington, D.C.

Home schooling, which once was outlawed in most states, is now legal throughout the United States, and its popularity has grown steadily over the past several decades.

While the Department of Education does not impose any federal restrictions on home education, each state has its own policies regarding the issue. South Carolina, for example, requires a parent to enroll with the local school district or with an accountability association. The parent must have at least a GED or a high school diploma, must teach for 180 days out of the year, and keep records and samples of their children's work.

Other states, such as Arizona or Kansas, simply require parents who home educate to register with the state, but do not monitor the children's progress as closely.

According to ERIC, while home schooling families come from all major ethnic and income groups, the typical family tends to be large, religious (Christian), conservative, and white. They are also generally middle-class, better educated, and more likely to be part of a two-parent family.

About 10 percent of these families belong to the military as well, since many parents feel that forcing their children to migrate from one school to the next is harmful to their development.

"My oldest son has been to the same grade school even though we have moved so often. Our house and our friends change continuously, but his education has stayed constant," said Busch.

Brian Ray, president of the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI), said the most commonly stated reasons that parents give for home schooling their kids include: teaching them specific philosophical and religious values; controlling their social interactions; developing close family bonds; and promoting high-level academics.

At the same time, he said, many parents feel that schools today are breeding grounds for morally corrupt behavior and attitudes. "Parents do not want their kids to be exposed to all the violence in schools these days," said Gloria Ferber, of the Grace Home School Association, based in South Carolina.

Academic and social implications

In fact, advocates argue that educating children at home not only protects them from moral corruption, but that it also leads to increased maturity and a higher level of academic achievement. Through a nationwide study conducted by NHERI, Ray discovered home educated students to be scoring, on average, at or above the 80th percentile in all areas on standardized achievement tests. That is well above the national average, which is in the 50th percentile. According to ERIC, college admission statistics are also a measure of success. Home school graduates have reported admission to more than 1,000 different colleges and universities, at last check.

While there is no conclusive research suggesting that additional time with peers is preferable to more time with individuals of varying ages, parents who choose to educate their children at home say that the increased exposure to people of all ages they receive through community activities and involvement with support groups, increases their self-confidence and maturity.

"Kids should not be learning what's right and wrong from other kids – they should be learning from adults," said Busch.

Although home schoolers are an ever-growing contingent, the practice still remains controversial. Organizations such as the national Parent-Teacher Association and the National Association of Elementary School Principals oppose this mode of education, and the National Education Association has called for more rigorous regulation of home schooling.

Conversely, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union believe that parents have a constitutional right to teach their own children. The majority of Americans, while they don't necessarily promote the institution, believe in a parent's right to take charge of their children's education, and many state legislatures have amended their laws to provide greater flexibility for home schooling.

Klicka, of the HSLDA, acknowledged the limitations that home education poses to children, in terms of access to labs and athletics. However, he firmly believes the individual attention and disciplined learning environment it provides outweighs the cons.

"Home schooling parents feel their children need to be educated based on the values this country was founded upon," he explained. "A lot of people are concerned that their kids will become an academic or social statistic. They want their kids to be literate and to be able to have the necessary skills to succeed."

A few more minutes of maternal attachment may reduce anemia - Published @ 05/15/07 05.22.52.p.m.
In the past, the newborns' umbilical cord was not clamped right after birth, thus allowing the blood flow to stop naturally. This practice, known as "late clamping", was replaced by "early clamping", that is, cutting the cord immediately after the infant is expelled. However, this new practice lacks studies corroborating its benefits. In fact, recent studies on the importance of when clamping should be done have shown contradictory results.

A doctoral thesis carried out at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Granada (Universidad de Granada [http://www.ugr.es]) by Catalina de Paco Matallana shows that the clamping of the umbilical cord of newborns from full-term pregnancies (that is, infants born after a nine-month pregnancy) two minutes after the infant is expelled from the womb makes no difference to hematocrit or hemoglobin levels of the umbilical cord vein compared to clamping the cord within 20 seconds. Thus, the study shows that early clamping (which is widely performed) is not justified.

Analysis of 151 umbilical cords

The doctoral thesis Repercusiones clínicas y fisicoquímicas del tiempo de ligadura del cordón umbilical en recién nacidos a término (Clinical and Physiochemical Repercussions of Clamping Time of the Umbilical Cord of Newborns from Full-Term Pregnancies) analyzed a total of 151 umbilical cords of newborns from full-term pregnancies. In 79 cases, the umbilical cord was cut within 20 seconds, and in 72 cases it was clamped two minutes after the infant was expelled.

The study found that the partial pressure of oxygen in the umbilical artery of the newborn babies who had late clamping had risen, while there was a lesser need of oxygenotherapy after birth. There were no differences in the removal time of the placenta and the mother's bleeding after birth - one of the reasons why early clamping of the umbilical cord started to be practiced.

De Paco Matallana also analyzed the melatonin concentration (one of the strongest and most currently studied antioxidants), finding differences between the melatonin concentration (aMT) in the umbilical vein and the umbilical artery, the latter being where the concentration is significantly higher. "This suggests that the fetus not only receives melatonin from the mother via the umbilical vein because it crosses the placental barrier, but also that it is produced in stressful situations such as during labor," says de Paco Matallana. Thus, high melatonin concentrations in the umbilical cord, together with the arterial and vein differences according to type of birth, suggest that the pineal gland is used by the fetus and that it can respond during birth.

Preventing anemia in children

As for the concentration of the triacylglycerols (TAG) analyzed in the umbilical vein of both groups, this study found statistically significant differences, as there is a higher concentration of TAG in the group of early clamping. The same is applied to the umbilical artery, where there are also statistically significant differences, with higher a concentration of TAG in the group of early clamping. However, there are no studies corroborating these findings, so more research is needed, although many other studies recommend late clamping "especially because of the beneficial effect on the prevention of anemia in children," says de Paco Matallana.

The author points out that the results of her thesis "show that there are no differences in the hemogram or the general biochemical profile in the umbilical vein in the cases of early and late clamping". Moreover, there were no differences in the viscosity or the melatonin in the umbilical artery and vein, which have traditionally been variables related to early clamping. From a clinical point of view, there were no differences in either group with umbilical clamping at birth.

"This study has not found any scientific evidence to suggest that the practice of early clamping is advisable or to justify the abandonment of late clamping in newborns from full-term pregnancies," says de Paco Matallana. "There are convincing findings for and against the two different types of clamping analyzed in this study, which shows not only the complexity of the problem, but also that research in this field may not be controlled enough or designed correctly."
(Last updated on Wednesday, May 9, 2007, and first posted on Wednesday, May 9, 2007)


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