Dear Parents,

In the following video, the Food and Drug Administration strongly encourages parents and all caregivers to lock up medications to keep young children as well as teens safe.

Please watch this video and, if you do not already keep your medications under lock and key, please…start today.

All the best,

Jean

We all know that staying alert is critical on long car trips but sometimes that’s easier said than done.

The driver needs to take breaks, walk around have a snack, if he or she is the only driver.  If there is a second driver, then they can switch on and off, giving each other a rest break.

Don’t start the car until everyone’s seat belt is fastened. Stop the car if a child undoes his seat belt or if children are distracting the driver by yelling or arguing.

Never leave children alone in a parked car, even one that is locked.

Keep a spare key in your purse or wallet – if your car doesn’t have remote locking, it can be easy to lock the keys in the car.

Remove everything from the dashboard and the back parcel ledge – even small things can fly off and injure your children if you have to stop suddenly.

Traveling at night so your children can sleep isn’t always a good idea, as it isn’t safe to let them lie down on the car seats without seat belts.

Make sure the sun doesn’t shine directly on babies or young children in the car. You can hang a piece of cloth from the closed window to provide shade, or buy sunshades to fit your car’s windows.

Try not to have too many things that children need to share. Sharing is hard at the best of times, and when children are tired it can be testing! Have a pillow and a blanket each, rather than one to share.

Sit in the back with your children for some of the time, if there’s room. This makes the trip much more enjoyable for them.

Be prepared for stops if a child feels sick or needs to go to the toilet. They usually can’t ‘hang on’ until the next town.

Source: Child and Youth Health

There is a movement in the U. S. for parents to opt out of having their young children vaccinated.

Twenty states currently allow “personal belief exemptions” when it comes to having a child vaccinated: Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

 U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently issued findings that with more kids not being vaccinated, the United States is now experiencing its largest measles outbreak in 15 years. Experts have also blamed a recent resurgence in cases of whooping cough (pertussis), especially in California, on fewer children being vaccinated.

A new study finds that at some schools in California, where parents can opt out of having their children vaccinated, one out of every five kindergarten students is not vaccinated.  This puts those not vaccinated at risk of preventable infectious diseases, as well as other children at the school.

These are schools “where we might be concerned that ‘herd immunity’ has been compromised,” warned lead study author Alison Buttenheim, an assistant professor in family and community health at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

“Herd immunity is the protection offered to unimmunized people when most people are immunized or otherwise unsusceptible,” she explained. “For example, our herd immunity against measles protects infants, up to age 1, who are too young to receive the MMR [measles, mumps, rubella] shot.”

Dr. Buttenheim added that “schools are an important site of exposure for children. All of our measures point to increasing exposure to intentionally  not vaccinated children among California kindergarteners, a worrisome trend.”

The researchers deemed as “hot spots” schools where more than 20 of 100 children claimed personal belief exemptions.

The researchers found that in 2010, for every 100 children in a California kindergarten, 2.3 had not been vaccinated due to one or more personal belief exemptions. These exempted children tended to cluster in certain schools, typically attending schools where an average of almost 16 of every 100 of their peers also claimed exemptions.

In some schools, more than one in five kindergartners had parental exemptions for not being vaccinated, the study found.

“This looks like an important study, one that’s consistent with what we’ve been learning about philosophical and personal exemptions,” said Dr. Lance Rodewald, director of the immunization services division at the CDC. “Studies done in the past show that the easier it is to get an exemption, the more likely a child will get one. Other studies show that the easier it is to get an exemption, the lower the coverage levels.”

Rodewald said climbing exemption rates can have far-reaching consequences — even for children who get vaccinated.”It does matter for non-exempted children. While with measles vaccination, one dose gives 95 percent protection, the pertussis [whooping cough] vaccine is very good but not perfect. Pertussis wears off over time. [So] even if a child was vaccinated, it’s still possible to get pertussis,” Rodewald explained. “With a lot of exempters, you can attract an outbreak. We’re seeing a lot of pertussis right now.”

Dr. Buttenheim agreed. “Making sure your children are up to date on the recommended immunization schedule is an easy, safe and effective way to protect your child’s health,” she said. “However, no vaccine is 100 percent effective. Your vaccinated child still has a very small — but not zero — probability of contracting a vaccine-preventable disease if exposed.”

Why are parents opting out of having their children vaccinated?

According to Dr. Buttenheim “Parents choose not to have their children vaccinated for many reasons. To generalize across this diverse group, they perceive the risks associated with vaccines to be greater than the risks associated with vaccine-preventable diseases. While there is a very strong scientific consensus that this calculation is not correct, we cannot simply ignore or dismiss parental vaccine hesitancy.

One big fear that many parents have but now has been proven false,  is the fear that having their child vaccinated for measles-mumps-rubella might raise the autism risk for their child. In 1998, a small but widely publicized study appeared to link childhood MMR vaccination to nine cases of autism. The study appeared in the medical journal The Lancet, which retracted the study in 2010. In January of this year, an investigation by another leading British journal, BMJ, denounced the findings as deliberately fraudulent. But the damage was done.”

“In general, parents do value vaccines but exemptions do happen,” said Dr. Rodewald, a pediatrician with the CDC and director of their immunization services division,  “Parents have a lot of questions and they want to make sure that vaccines are effective and safe. It’s important that health professionals like pediatricians, nurse practitioners and school nurses be able to answer questions for parents so they can make informed decisions; decisions of knowledge and strength.”

For a detailed illustration of  Herd Immunity, go to http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/pages/communityimmunity.aspx

SOURCES: Alison M. Buttenheim, Ph.D., assistant professor, nursing, department of family and community health, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia; Lance Rodewald, M.D., pediatrician and director, immunization services division, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

If you have Celiac disease you need to know if there is gluten in your facial products and body lotions. According to a recent study by George Washington University researchers those with Celiac disease may not be aware that they are being exposed to gluten in lip, face and body products.

The study was prompted in part by the case of a 28-year-old woman with Celiac disease who experienced a worsening of disease symptoms, including gastrointestinal complications and a skin rash, after using a body lotion marketed as “natural.”

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. For most of us, gluten isn’t a problem, but for those with Celiac disease, gluten damages their intestines.

Researchers examined products from 10 of the leading cosmetic companies in the U.S., only finding two of the 10 companies offering detailed ingredient information. None of the companies offered gluten-free products.

“The findings are alarming because gluten-containing cosmetics can be inadvertently obtained by the consumer and use of these products can result in an exacerbation of Celiac disease,” researcher Dr. Pia Prakash said in a college news release. “This study revealed that information about the ingredients, including the potential gluten content in cosmetics, is not readily available.

Some smaller cosmetic companies specifically advertise gluten-free alternatives. Larger companies should inform consumers as to whether or not their products can be safely used by individuals with gluten sensitivity,” Dr. Prakash concluded.

(SOURCE: American College of Gastroenterology news release, Oct. 28, 2011)

According to a recent report in CNN Health, 5,000+ kids are hurt each year in the U.S. from window falls.

The Journal of Pediatrics reports that the number of children treated in U.S. emergency departments for falls from windows approached 100,000 between 1990 and 2008. The research shows that the number of injuries declined during the first decade of the study period, but has since plateaued.

“We still are seeing over 5,000 children a year treated in hospital emergency departments across the country for injuries related to window falls, said Dr. Gary A. Smith, study author and director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “That’s 14 children a day. This continues to be a very common, important problem.”

Researchers studied data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System,which is maintained by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. The group monitors injuries involving consumer products treated in emergency departments nationwide. Researchers divided data from almost 4,000 patients into two groups: 0-4 years and 5-17 years.

Boys were involved in more falls from windows than girls were. In addition, the younger children made up two-thirds of the injuries. The injury rate was highest at age 2.

“These are kids who don’t recognize danger – they’re curious, they want to explore and when they see an open window, they are going to investigate,” Dr. Smith said. “Kids at that age tend to be top heavy. Their center of gravity is up near their chest and so as they lean out of the window to see what’s going on, they’ll topple.”

Many of the young children experienced injuries to their head or face, and, often times, these led to hospitalization or death. On the other hand, children in the older group were more likely to have fractures to their arms or legs.

While a few children did fall from a third story or higher, many more fell from a first or second-story window.

“What we’re finding is that most of these window falls aren’t in these really high-rise buildings,” Smith added. “These are just often homes or apartments that aren’t high-rise, where children live. This is a problem that extends to small towns and even rural areas across the country.”

He reinforces the message that a screen does not offer protection and should give parents no feeling of comfort.

Dr. Smith, who is a pediatric emergency medicine physician, suggests:

Parents of children younger than 5:
Use window guards or locks
Do not allow any window to be open more than four inches
Move furniture away from windows so children cannot climb on it

Parents of children older than 5:
Educate children and teens of the risk of climbing out of a window or jumping from it

The authors also note that the landing surface made a difference. The patients who ended up on a cushioned surface often fared better than those who ended up on a hard surface.

“Our focus should be on preventing the child from falling in the first place, but cushioning the fall can help,” Smith noted.

“If a child falls from a window and they land on bushes or a planted flower bed, that often is enough to cushion the fall so that they’ll end up with bruises or scrapes instead of a severe injury,” he said.

The study points out that great reductions were seen in New York and Boston after programs were implemented there to combat the problem. The programs involved education in the community and among parents. Window guards were also made available. In New York City, window guards became mandatory in apartments where young children lived.

“We know what works,” Smith said. “We need to now go out and implement that.”

Dr. Smith said there were limitations with the set of data, especially with fatality numbers, and therefore these numbers under represent the problem.