Does being overweight in infancy predicts being overweight in childhood and adolescence?
Overweight or obese infants and children of less than 5 years got to 40 million showing a significant rise from 32 million in 1990s. The number of overweight or obese kids in the World Health Organization African Region increased from 4-9 million in 16 years. A majority of overweight infants live in developing countries. The rate of increase is higher than the numbers in the first world countries by more than 30%.
Overweight infants and younger children are likely to continue staying obese during their late childhood, adolescence and even adulthood if there is no intervention. This information might shock parent to babies who are relatively small because of most deal with nagging relatives who keep advising them to find ways of increasing the weight of their baby.
Many assume that chubby babies are a sign of proper feeding, strength and health. Additionally, the conventional thinking is that baby fat melts away when a child grows up. More and more research findings show a different outlook. Fat babies are at more risk of becoming overweighed in childhood and adolescence.
Obesity in teen life means that someone who was overweight from infancy will be obese in adulthood which increases the danger to get serious health problems like heart disease, diabetes and even cancer. Children who are still overweight at around eight years will find it harder to reduce their weight than their thinner peers.
Researchers found out that those who got the excess weight at young children are more likely to be eaters of fewer calories during their adolescence than their slimmer peers.Despite eating fewer calories, they still could not cut down the weight they put on while young. It might seem like a suggestion that the fate of the obese at a young age is sealed and that prevention is the most efficient way of controlling this epidemic.
How to Determine If an Infant or Child Is Overweight or Obese
Body Mass Index (BMI) is a measurement that uses height and weight to estimate the body fat of a person. Using a BMI calculator is the simplest way to calculate the BMI because doing it on your own has complications. Kids of ages 2-19 fall into one of these categories in a standard BMI chart.
Underweight: BMI that does not reach the 5th percentile
Normal weight: BMI that reaches the 5th percentile but is less than the 85th.
Overweight: BMI at 85th but below the 95th percentile.
Obese: BMI at or above the 95th percentile
Nail clipping and hand washing in school going children does it reduce the risk of intestinal parasites?
The small intestine is prone to attack by bacteria that make it their home as intestinal parasites. It is even worse when the intestine suffers from food poisoning, nutritional neglect, and antibiotic use or self-sabotage. The over 30 feet small intestine should be almost sterile, unlike the shorter large intestine which holds most of the microbial biomass. An intestine parasite lives in the gut and often reproduces to cause much damage. It might also spread to other body parts. Drinking unsafe water and poor sanitation habits increase the risk of getting intestinal parasites. The best form of defense against these parasites is to maintain good hygiene.
Intestinal parasites prefer living in the guts (intestines) because they find it a comfortable shelter when they can reproduce. They are usually worms such as tape or pinworm or Protozoa like Giardia. The parasites can sometimes stay for long in the intestines without causing infection or showing any symptoms.
Worms are tiny thread-like organisms that find shelter in the rectum. At night they crawl out through the anus to lay eggs on the nearby skin which causes terrible itching. Worms are unpleasant, but they do not cause disease. Eggs from pinworm are very persistent living for up to 14 days outside the body on clothes, bedding or any other objects that come into contact. It is not always that the adult worm becomes visible. Other common types of intestinal parasites are:
- Amebiasis
- Dientamoeba
- Blastocystis hominis
- Ascariasis
Breastfeeding could reduce the risk of childhood Leukemia
Leukemia is a type of cancer that affects the blood or the bone marrow. Bone marrow has the role in producing blood cells. Leukemia can occur when the body has a problem in producing blood cells. It usually affects the white blood cells or leukocytes. Most likely it will attack the people who are over the age of 55, but it is becoming common among the young including the children.
Leukemia is rare, but it is the most common type of cancer to affect the children.
Types of Childhood Leukemia
Leukemia is chronic (slow-growing) or acute (fast-growing) and almost all the childhood leukemias are acute in these main types:
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) affects most children of ages 3-5. It starts with an early form of lymphocytes in bone marrow. Most of those who have ALL are children from Hispanic parents, followed by whites and Afro-Americans. More boys than girls contract the childhood cancer.
It occurs even in the first world countries such as the USA where doctors diagnose about 3,000 cases in people under 20 per year.
Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML)
AML also called as called acute myeloid leukemia or acute myelocytic leukemia accounts for most of the childhood leukemia cases after ALL. AML starts with myeloid cells forming white blood cells (except lymphocytes) platelets or red blood cells.
Mixed lineage or hybrid leukemia
Use of legitimate opioid in children may lead to opioid abuse in some adolescent
An opioid is a class of drugs that are found in opium poppy plant. Doctors often prescribe them to treat moderate to severe pain because they contain chemicals that relax the body and can relieve aches. Most prescriptions are for acute depression but there some physicians who use these drugs to treat diarrhea and coughing.
Most of the prescription opioid is a direct generation from the plant although some are a creation of the scientists from the labs while using similar chemical structure. An opioid can make people feel extreme relaxation and even achieve a "high." It is the reason why teenagers and adults use them for non-medical reasons.
Children are also in danger because those who use prescription opioid in plenty become dependent. Opiate is one of the most addictive drugs that even lead to overdoses and each. Heroine known for its addictive properties and use as a narcotic is an opioid. Many countries never license it as a drug because of its tendency to cause dependence among users.
There is much use abuse among adolescents who use slang term such as vikes, percs, or Oxy to refer to the drug.
Common opioid prescriptions
- Fentanyl
- Mmorphine (Kadian, Avinza)
- Codeine
- Oxymorphone (Opana)
- Hydrocodone (Vicodin) oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet)
The fear among many parents is that their children will be addicted to opioid upon prescription. An explanation by physicians is that kids and teens who take their medicine for a short time according to instructions will not become dependent. For instance, a child who receives an appropriate dose to relieve pain due to a broken bone or surgery is unlikely to suffer from addiction. Unfortunate there are many cases of children who visit the emergency department of hospitals in the USA and other countries with symptoms of opioid dependence and addiction.
Effects of music therapy in pain relief on children during phlebotomy.
Music therapy is a health profession that involves using music to relief physical, cognitive, emotional and social needs of a sick individual. It is s direction from pain hence the relationship it has with phlebotomy. Phlebotomy is the procedure of making a puncture or opening of a vein to withdraw blood, introduce fluid or let out blood from the body.
- A phlebotomist will puncture the vein with a needle to draw blood for one of these purposes
- Remove blood from the body for analysis of substances that it contains
- Donation
- Therapeutic purpose such as when treating polycythemia Vera that causes an elevation in the volume of red blood cells
- Fulfill a prescription procedure to treat patients with disorders that cause an increase in the amount of iron in the blood to dangerous levels. Hemochromatosis, hepatitis B, and C are some of the causes
- Decrease total blood volume for patients with pulmonary edema