Prevent an attack from the Silent Killer - Carbon Monoxide

BELOW IS A FRIEND'S POST ABOUT HER CARBON MONOXIDE EXPERIENCE ON SATURDAY:
If you don't have one already PLEASE go out and get a carbon monoxide detector ASAP. I have a few in my house and one (only one) went off yesterday but not like a loud alarm, it sounded like the noise when you need to change the battery of your smoke detector. I could have ignored it (might have been a faulty alarm).. There was no smell ... No real symptoms except sleepy (understandable) and a faint dull headache (also explainable). I trusted my gut (and advice of good friends) - and went to the ER. My kids and I had positive carbon monoxide levels in our blood. We got treated at the ER and are all fine. 
Always trust your gut and get a Carbon Monoxide detector! Because of the detector, early warning, and trusting my instincts this story has a happy ending.

Check out this PDF for information on Carbon Monoxide provided by the CDC.

Giving back to get ahead.

I salute Brandi Chastain's unprecedented commitment to improving what we know about concussions and repetitive head injuries as she pledges to donate her brain to science when she dies. What an incredible way to give back! Participating in organized sports is a crucial component of many children's lives. As we continue to support our children in their endeavors, we also need to consider the best way to protect their young, developing brains. Thank you Brandi Chastain.

Soccer icon Brandi Chastain to donate brain for CTE research

By Nadia Kounang, CNN  |  Updated 7:23 AM ET, Tue March 8, 2016

Story highlights

• Brandi Chastain was part of two U.S. Women's World Cup championship teams
• Chastain donating her brain to Boston University brain bank for CTE research

(CNN)U.S. soccer icon Brandi Chastain has promised to donate her brain to Boston University for research into Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE.

The degenerative brain disease can result in Alzheimer's-like symptoms such as memory loss, rage and mood swings. Scientists believe CTE occurs when repeated hits to the head lead to a buildup of the abnormal protein called tau in the brain.

After scoring the winning shootout goal in the 1999 Women's World Cup finale against China, Chastain was immortalized in a photo as she fell to her knees, whipped off her shirt, and clenched her fists in excitement. The photo was voted Sports Illustrated's second most iconic cover of all time. Many consider it the greatest moment in U.S. women's sports.

Brandi Chastain reacts to her winning penalty kick that won the 1999 Women's World Cup for the U.S.

In a statement, the two-time Women's World Cup champion said she hoped her donation would change soccer for the better. "I hope my experience in soccer and what I am able to give back helps put soccer in a better place than it was when I started."

"Having played soccer since I was little, I can't even attempt a guess at how many times I've headed the ball. It's a significant number. It's scary to think about all the heading and potential concussions that were never diagnosed in my life, but it's better to know."

A 2013 study found that players who frequently headed the ball had brain abnormalities similar to people who suffered from concussions. The study found that soccer players headed the ball six to 12 times per game, while the ball was traveling 50 mph or faster. Players likely headed the ball 30 or more times during every practice.

Heading is responsible for nearly a third of all concussions reported in youth soccer, and female athletes may be more at risk. A 2015 analysis of 100 U.S. high schools found that girls were more than 1.5 times more likely than boys to experience a concussion.

Today, the 47-year-old mother continues to coach soccer at her alma mater, Santa Clara University.

In a 2012 interview with CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chastain said that she works hard to teach her players how to avoid concussions by being aware of where they are on the field. "Part of it for me is not so much about hitting the ball. It's more about how fast is an opponent coming, where is your body in space? How do you protect yourself?" said Chastain.

"How do you protect yourself in space so you might not have that headfirst collision?" she added. "We teach the players about their spatial awareness when other people are kind of trying to infiltrate their space."

Chastain has also been heavily involved in the Safer Soccer campaign, aimed at eliminating heading in soccer for kids under the age of 14. Last November, U.S. Soccer prohibited headers for children under 11, limiting the move to players between the ages of 11 and 13.

Ride Safely: Don't forget your helmet!

Many of your children of bike riding age have heard the following story at a Well Child Check up with me. While riding bikes with my daughter along Kelly Drive many years ago, her tire got caught in a crack and she fell over. I proceeded to fall on top of her, bike and all. This resulted in many scratches on her helmet and just a few on her elbow. When recounting this event to your child , I would have asked a question which I now pose to you - "Where would the scratches be that were on her helmet, if she wasn't wearing one?"
Read below about bicycle myths and facts and jump on your bicycle with your child. Don't forget your helmets!

Bicycle Safety: Myths and Facts

Learning to ride a bike is a developmental milestone in the life of a child. The bicycle, a child's first vehicle, is a source of pride and a symbol of independence and freedom. Yet all too often children are seriously injured, or even killed, when they fail to follow basic bicycle safety rules. The following is a list of common bicycle safety myths, coupled with the correct information you need to teach your children about safe bike riding. These facts will help you and your children make every bike ride safe.

Myth: My child doesn't need to wear a helmet on short rides around the neighborhood.

Fact: Your child needs to wear a helmet on every bike ride, no matter how short or how close to home. Many accidents happen in driveways, on sidewalks, and on bike paths, not just on streets. In fact, the majority of bike crashes happen near home. A helmet protects your child from serious injury, and should always be worn. And remember, wearing a helmet at all times helps children develop the helmet habit.

Myth: A football helmet will work just as well as a bicycle helmet.

Fact: Only a bicycle helmet is made specifically to protect the head from any fall that may occur while biking. Other helmets or hard hats are made to protect the head from other types of injury. Never allow your child to wear another type of helmet when riding a bike.

Myth: I need to buy a bicycle for my child to grow into.

Fact: Oversized bikes are especially dangerous. Your child does not have the skills and coordination needed to handle a bigger bike and may lose control. Your child should be able to sit on the seat, with hands on the handlebars, and place the balls of both feet on the ground. Your child's first bike should also be equipped with footbrakes, since your children's hand muscles and coordination are not mature enough to control hand brakes.

Myth: It's safer for my child to ride facing traffic.

Fact: Your child should always ride on the right, with traffic. Riding against traffic confuses or surprises drivers. Almost one fourth of bicycle-car collisions result from bicyclists riding against traffic.

Myth: Children shouldn't use hand signals, because signaling may cause them to lose control of their bikes.

Fact: Hand signals are an important part of the rules of the road and should be taught to all children before they begin to ride in the street. They are an important communication link between cyclists and motorists. Any child who does not have the skills necessary to use hand signals without falling or swerving shouldn't be riding in the street to begin with. Many accidents involving older children occur when they fail to signal motorists as to their intended actions.

Myth: Bike reflectors and a reflective vest will make it safe for my child to ride at night.

Fact: It's never safe for your child to ride a bike at night. Night riding requires special skills and special equipment. Few youngsters are equipped with either. Never allow your child to ride at dusk or after dark.

Myth: I don't need to teach my child all of this bicycle safety stuff. I was never injured as a child. Biking is just meant to be fun.

Fact: Riding a bike is fun – if it's done safely. Unfortunately, most people don't realize hundreds of thousands of children are seriously injured each year in bicycle falls. Worse still, more than 600 children die from them each year. While you may have been lucky enough to survive childhood without a serious bicycle-related injury, you shouldn't count on luck to protect your child.

Teach your child these basic safety rules:

1. Wear a helmet.
2. Ride on the right side, with traffic.
3. Use appropriate hand signals.
4. Respect traffic signals.

Basic safety measures like these can keep bicycle riding enjoyable and safe for your child. 

Last Updated
11/21/2015
Source - TIPP: The Injury Prevention Program (Copyright © 1994 American Academy of Pediatrics, Updated 9/2005)

Choose 3D "You & Me" over 2D TV

Your child's brain triples in mass in the first 12 months and continues to grow an incredible amount in the first three years. The stimuli children experience during this period profoundly influences brain development. Images on screens behave in ways that differ dramatically from those in the real world. You experienced the actions of a playground ball as a child. Is your child's ball two dimensional on a screen or three dimensional in two hands? Go out and bounce a ball to each other before it snows on Sunday and enjoy each other and some basic physics!

Why to Avoid TV Before Age 2

Parents are often shocked when I tell them that pediatricians think it’s a bad idea for children to watch TV before age 2. Surveys tell us about 40% of infants are watching some sort of video by age 5 months, and by age 2 the number rises to 90%. 

Early brain development

To answer these questions we have to return briefly to the child’s developing brain. Kids’ brains grow profoundly during the first 3 years of life, with the brain tripling in mass in just the first 12 months. The stimuli children experience during this period profoundly influence brain development. Images on screens behave in ways that differ dramatically from those in the real world. Because we’re all steeped in the visual language of screens, it’s easy to forget those differences until we think about them.

Imagine a ball in real life and a ball on TV. Infants are developing 3-dimensional vision. The world of the screen exists in 2 dimensions, so the ball is just a flat, shaded circle. If you roll a ball across the floor it proceeds in a single motion, slowing gradually until it stops. The same action on TV is broken up—you see the ball leave someone’s hand, then there’s a shot of it in motion, then a picture of the ball at rest. If your infant wants to grab a ball in real life he’ll lunge for it, grasp at it, or crawl after it. The stuff on the screen just disappears, to be replaced by other stuff; you can never get your hands (or mouth) on it. Infants may stare at the bright colors and motion on a screen, but their brains are incapable of making sense or meaning out of all those bizarre pictures. It takes 2 full years for a baby’s brain to develop to the point where the symbols on a screen come to represent their equivalents in the real world.

Because of this confusion, children up to age 3 learn better from the real world than they do from any screen, especially when it comes to language. They do seem to learn a little more if they’re watching in the company of a person who is talking to them about what they’re seeing, in the same way you would while looking at a picture book.

Where's the harm?

So sure, babies and toddlers don’t get anything out of watching TV, but if they seem to like it, where’s the harm? If a little TV is what it takes for you to get dinner on the table, isn’t it better for them than, say, starving? Yes, watching TV is better than starving, but it’s worse than not watching TV. Good evidence suggests that screen viewing before age 2 has lasting negative effects on children’s language development, reading skills, and shortterm memory. It also contributes to problems with sleep and attention. If “you are what you eat,” then the brain is what it experiences, and video entertainment is like mental junk food for babies and toddlers.

The problem lies not only with what toddlers are doing while they’re watching TV; it’s what they aren’t doing. Specifically, children are programmed to learn from interacting with other people. The dance of facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language between a toddler and parent is not only beautiful, it’s so complex that researchers have to record these interactions on video and slow them down just to see everything that’s going on. Whenever one party in this dance, child or parent, is watching TV, the exchange comes to a halt. A toddler learns a lot more from banging pans on the floor while you cook dinner than he does from watching a screen for the same amount of time, because every now and then the 2 of you look at each other.

Just having the TV on in the background, even if “no one is watching it,” is enough to delay language development. Normally a parent speaks about 940 words per hour when a toddler is around. With the television on, that number falls by 770! Fewer words means less learning. Toddlers are also learning to pay attention for prolonged periods.

Toddlers who watch more TV are more likely to have problems paying attention at age 7. Video programming is constantly changing, constantly interesting, and almost never forces a child to deal with anything more tedious than an infomercial.

After age 2 things change, at least somewhat. During the preschool years some children do learn some skills from educational TV. Well-designed shows can teach kids literacy, math, science, problem-solving, and prosocial behavior. Children get more out of interactive programs like Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street when they answer the characters’ questions. Educational TV makes the biggest difference for children whose homes are the least intellectually stimulating.

What you can do

Naturally, children learn more when they watch TV with a parent than if they watch alone. Content matters, a lot. All programs educate kids about something, but stick with ones that are designed to teach children stuff they should actually know.

Regardless of content, cap your child’s TV time at 2 hours a day. Remember, too, TV is still TV whether you actually watch it on a TV screen or on a mobile phone or computer.

Author
David L. Hill, MD, FAAP
Last Updated
11/21/2015

Source
Dad to Dad: Parenting Like a Pro (Copyright © American Academy of Pediatrics 2012)

Get outside and play!

Hooray! The days are longer and the weather sunnier. This is a great time to get outside and play with your kids! Check out this recent study that shows that playing with your kids with toys that don't involve batteries or a charger is so much better for language development AND your relationship with your kids.

Electronic Baby Toys Associated with Decrease in Quality and Quantity of Language in Infants

NEUROSCIENCE NEWS

Electronic toys for infants that produce lights, words and songs were associated with decreased quantity and quality of language compared to playing with books or traditional toys such as a wooden puzzle, a shape-sorter and a set of rubber blocks, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics.

The reality for many families of young children is that opportunities for direct parent-child play time is limited because of financial, work, and other familial factors. Optimizing the quality of limited parent-child play time is important.

Anna V. Sosa, Ph.D., of Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, and colleagues conducted a controlled experiment involving 26 parent-infant pairs with children who were 10 to 16 months old. Researchers did not directly observe parent-infant play time because it was conducted in participants’ homes. Audio recording equipment was used to pick up sound. Participants were given three sets of toys: electronic toys (a baby laptop, a talking farm and a baby cell phone); traditional toys (chunky wooden puzzle, shape-sorter and rubber blocks with pictures); and five board books with farm animal, shape or color themes.

While playing with electronic toys there were fewer adult words used, fewer conversational turns with verbal back-and-forth, fewer parental responses and less production of content-specific words than when playing with traditional toys or books. Children also vocalized less while playing with electronic toys than with books, according to the results.

Results also indicate that parents produced fewer words during play with traditional toys than while playing with books with infants. Parents also used less content-specific words when playing with traditional toys with their infants than when playing with books.

The authors note results showed the largest and most consistent differences between electronic toys and books, followed by electronic toys and traditional toys.

The authors note results showed the largest and most consistent differences between electronic toys and books, followed by electronic toys and traditional toys. Image is for illustrative purposes only.

The study has important limitations, including its small sample size and the similarity of the participants by race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

“These results provide a basis for discouraging the purchase of electronic toys that are promoted as educational and are often quite expensive. These results add to the large body of evidence supporting the potential benefits of book reading with very young children. They also expand on this by demonstrating that play with traditional toys may result in communicative interactions that are as rich as those that occur during book reading. … However, if the emphasis is on activities that promote a rich communicative interaction between parents and infants, both play with traditional toys and book reading can be promoted as language-facilitating activities while play with electronic toys should be discouraged,” the study concludes.

ABOUT THIS LANGUAGE AND NEURODEVELOPMENT RESEARCH

Editorial: Keeping Children’s Attention

“Electronic toys that make noises or light up are extremely effective at commanding children’s attention by activating their orienting reflex. This primitive reflex compels the mind to focus on novel visual or auditory stimuli. The study by Sosa in this issue of JAMA Pediatrics suggests that they may do more than just command children’s attention; they appear to reduce parent-child verbal interactions. Why does this matter? Conversational turns during play do more than teach children language. They lay the groundwork for literacy skills, teach role-playing, give parents a window into their child’s developmental stage and struggles, and teach social skills such as turn-taking and accepting others’ leads. Verbal interactions of course are only part of the story. What is missing from this study is a sense of how nonverbal interactions, which are also an important source of social and emotional skills, varied by toy type,” write Jenny S. Radesky, M.D., of the University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, and Dimitri A. Christakis, M.D., M.P.H., of Seattle Children’s Hospital and a JAMA Pediatrics associate editor, in a related editorial.

“Any digital enhancement should serve a clear purpose to engage the child not only with the toy/app, but also transfer that engagement to others and the world around them to make what they learned meaningful and generalizable. Digital features have enormous potential to engage children in play – particularly children with a higher sensory threshold – but it is important the child not get stuck in the toy/app’s closed loop to the exclusion of real-world engagement. Bells and whistles may sell toys, but they also can detract value,” they conclude.

Funding: This study was funded by a research grant from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation.

Source: JAMA Network
Image Source: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Abstract for “Association of the Type of Toy Used During Play With the Quantity and Quality of Parent-Infant Communication” by Anna V. Sosa, PhD in JAMA Pediatrics. Published online December 23 2015 doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.3753