Mother’s heartbeat and voice ‘improves health outcomes in preterm infants’

Providing audio recordings of the mother’s heartbeat and voice promotes better outcomes among preterm infants in neonatal units, maternal and newborn health research has found.

Dr Amir Lahav, director of the Neonatal Research Lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the US, led a team of scientists who exposed 14 babies born between 26 and 32 weeks’ gestation to such noises four times per day.

The audio intervention, named maternal sound stimulation, was found to reduce the incidence of cardio-respiratory events such as apnoea and bradycardia in the infants and this effect was statistically significant once the patients reached 33 weeks’ gestation.

“Our findings show that there may be a window of opportunity to improve the physiological health of these babies born prematurely using non-pharmalogical treatments, such as auditory stimulation,” said Dr Lahav.

The study was published in The Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine and comes after an investigation was carried out by researchers at Wayne State University in the US to identify risks to very low birth-weight infants.

Their findings, which were revealed in The Journal of Pediatrics, showed staying in a neonatal intensive care unit for more than 120 days increases the chance of mortality by three-fold.

Posted by Martine Ward (http://www.figo.org/news/mothers-heartbeat-and-voice-improves-health-outcomes-preterm-infants-009885)

Walking is the one workout that suits pregnant women of all different fitness levels. It’s as gentle or as challenging as you need it to be. It requires no investment (all you really need is a good pair of shoes and a water bottle). Plus, you can do it nearly anywhere, anytime. Excuses like “I hate the gym” or “I’ve never exercised before” just won’t fly.

“I recommend walking to most of my patients who are pregnant,” says Tanya Ghatan, M.D., an OB-GYN at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “It’s easy entry for women who’ve never exercised and gives athletic women a way to stay active without the high impact of other activities they’ve participated in.” This program is designed to be started in the first trimester.  However, you can jump in at the appropriate level no matter how pregnant you are. (If you were inactive before your pregnancy,  however, start at the first trimester program for beginners.)

Regardless of your fitness level, keep in mind that it’s not only fine but smart to swap days, shorten your walks or even skip them occasionally according to how you feel. It’s also perfectly OK to break up a day’s total walking time into two or more shorter sessions.

Get your doctor’s approval before starting this (or any other) exercise program, and remember to warm up first by doing arm and ankle circles and leg swings for a couple of minutes (also take five minutes to stretch after each walk). Now, get out there and just start putting one foot in front of the other.

Keep it safe

Take the talk During the hardest part of your workout, you should be able to converse without gasping for breath, though not with complete ease, either.

Use the rate of perceived exertion (RPE) scale On a scale of 1-10, most of your walks should fall between a 3 (slow walk) and a 7 (fast enough that you couldn’t keep it up for more than 30-40 minutes).

Watch for danger signs Stop if you experience pain, bleeding, dizziness, faintness, sudden swelling, lack of normal fetal movement, an abnormally rapid heartbeat or extreme fatigue.

What’s your fitness level?

Beginner: You’ve never exercised or you do so only rarely.

Intermediate: You’re active, but exercise may be sporadic.

Advanced: You’re fit and exercise four or more times per week.

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Carter’s Recalls Infant Clothing with Zippers Due to Choking Hazard

Name of product:

One-piece footed infant clothing with a zipper

Hazard:

Consumer Contact:

Carter’s, Inc.; toll-free at (888) 282-4674 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. CT Monday through Friday, or online at www.Carters.com and click on Product Recalls.

Name of product:

Buckyballs and Buckycubes high-powered magnet sets

Hazard:

Consumer Contact:

Barnes & Noble, toll-free at (855) 592-2993 , www.barnesandnoble.com

Bed Bath & Beyond, toll-free at (800) 462-3966, www.bedbathandbeyond.com

Brookstone, toll-free at (866) 576-7337 or online at www.brookstone.com

Participating Hallmark retailers, toll-free at (800) 425-5627 or online at www.hallmark.com/recall-product/

Marbles the Brain Store, toll-free at (877) 527-2460  or online at www.marblesthebrainstore.com

ThinkGeek, toll-free at (888) 433-5788 or online at www.thinkgeek.com/buckyballs/index.shtml

Visit http://www.petrakingphotography.com/ for more details. 

- Erin, Andrew & Baby Brynn McEvoy

CLICK HERE to have a look at the full list.

I just read an article from Huffington Post about how a woman from Texas who was breastfeeding her baby outside a Hollister store and was asked to leave the stores property. Really! I thought we were way past all this. I mean it’s 2013 for crying out loud!!! When a baby is hungry they are hungry, plain and simple. It’s a mother’s job to fulfil that baby’s every need. Anyway I wanted to share and please tell me what you think on facebook (link below), I would love to get some feedback. http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=466640606731480&id=122941461101398&ref=notif&notif_t=like#!/pages/BabyView-3D-Prenatal-Imaging-Ultrasound/122941461101398

We hadn’t heard about a mom being shamed in public for breastfeeding all year. Granted, it has only been a week, but we were hopeful that 2013 might be a more tolerant time than 2012. Not so fast. A recent chain of events involving nursing moms and supporters proves that our country still needs to be educated that breastfeeding in public is normal, necessary and legal (in most places).

It started when Brittany Warfield, a mother of three from Texas, nursed her 7-month-old outside of a Hollister store in a Houston mall. Warfield told KHOU that a manager forced her to move. “He said, ‘You can’t do this here. This is not where you do that. You can’t do that on Hollister property. We don’t allow that.’ I said, ‘It’s Texas. I can breastfeed anywhere I like.’ He said, ‘Not at Hollister. Your stroller is blocking the way. You have to go,’” she recalls.

After hearing Warfield’s story, the “lactivists” took action. A group planned a nurse-in at Hollister locations nationwide and announced the event on Facebook with the update:  “Come on out, bring your baby and lets show our support for not only this mother but ALL mothers and their right to nurse their children when ever and where ever that may be.” It was to be an event like the protests held last year at Target stores, the Facebook headquarters, on the national mall, and more.

Three women, Diana Hitchens, Autumne Murray and Jessica Hitchens, participated at their local mall in Delaware, one of 45 states which allows mothers to nurse in any location. They entered the store nursing their babies and holding posters. One read, “Hey Hollister, my baby has a right to eat. It’s the law,” NBC 10 reports. The mothers claim they were reprimanded.

Murray told the news station that two security guards said they either “needed to leave or cover up.” After an argument, the guards involved the Delaware State Trooper in the matter. “He was asking if we were exposing ourselves saying that the security guards said we were exposing ourselves and that we could be kicked out of the mall if we didn’t cover up,” Murray told NBC 10. According to the news source, Delaware State Police are calling the incident a “civil matter.”

But the story doesn’t end there.

Following their experience at Concord Mall, the three women began to share their story within the online breastfeeding community. One mother, who was not involved in the incident, wrote on a Facebook page that she says belonged to the mall:  “Shame on your mall for calling the police on women for feeding their babies! Shame!” The response? “Hope you guys don’t mind if I suck my wife’s breast in public,” the mall allegedly wrote. That Facebook page has since been deleted, but Bethany Klebes who blogs at Jubilee Baby Co.  Representatives for the mall, however, deny that that Facebook page even belonged to them. In an email to the Huffington Post, mall management wrote (in part):

There were anonymous postings on a Facebook page shortly after this event occurred allegedly generated by the Concord Mall. These posts were crude and offensive and were not posted nor authorized by the Concord Mall. The Mall does not have an official Facebook page and communicates via its web-site [sic]. There is a Facebook icon on our homepage, however the account has never been officially in use by the Mall.We are in the process of contacting Facebook to report these violations and hope to find the person or persons responsible for these posts. Again, neither the Concord Mall nor anyone authorized to speak on behalf of the Concord Mall made these posts to this unofficial Facebook page.

The response also indicated that the two officers involved have been removed pending further investigation.

A similar statement was sent to Michelle DeanRuben who posted the original comment on Facebook. Dionna Ford, of Best for Babes posted a screenshot of the email to her site, a breastfeeding advocacy destination. Ford (who has blogged for HuffPost) doesn’t buy the mall’s response and thinks both emails were a “poorly executed effort to cover any evidence of wrongdoing.”

Despite the injustice that these three moms faced during the nurse-in, updates on the event’s Facebook page suggest that the demonstration was successful. Dozens of mothers posted photos from Hollister locations around the country and left hopeful messages. Brittany Warfield, the mother who was originally reprimanded in Houston expressed her gratitude to all who took part.

“This incident is so much bigger than myself or just getting an apology from Hollister! It opens the door for the great people of this world to show and express that there are alternative ways of life and parents breastfeeding be it private or public is an awesome act of nurture and love and down right good eating for the young,” she wrote.

Posted on http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/hollister-nurse-in_n_2425541.html?utm_hp_ref=parents&ir=Parents#slide=1953624: 01/07/2013  5:59 pm EST  |  Updated: 01/08/2013  7:46 am EST