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McDonald’s introduces “healthy” fruit drink for kids – but experts say it contains too much sugar

McDonald’s is all set to introduce a ‘healthy’ fizzy drink for children that promises one of their five-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables. However the drink is packed with sugar and calories.

10 May 2012

Best and worst mothers worldwide

Right in time for Mother’s day comes a report on the best and worst mothers worldwide. U.S. moms have moved up six places - from 31st to 25th - in the 13th annual Save The Children State of the World's Mothers report. That puts the U.S. right between Belarus and the Czech Republic. Norway is No. 1, just ahead of Iceland and Sweden.

10 May 2012

Free whooping cough vaccine cut concerns experts

Heath experts are concerned that parents and carers of newborn babies will stop getting the whooping cough vaccine after the state government cut its free immunisation program in the midst of a fatal epidemic.

9 May 2012

PAR releases latest edition of Parenting Stress Index

PAR, Inc. has released the latest edition of its popular Parenting Stress Index.

8 May 2012

Mothers of overweight toddlers less likely to accurately perceive their child's body size

A study of mothers and their toddlers suggests that mothers of overweight toddlers often had inaccurate perceptions of their child's body size, according to a report published in the May issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. The study is part of the Nutrition and the Health of Children and Adolescents theme issue.

8 May 2012

Sleep adequately to maintain healthy weight

The genes behind weight gain may work overtime with lack of sleep says the study in this week's issue of the journal Sleep. In the study, neurologist Dr. Nathaniel Watson of the University of Washington Medicine Sleep Center in Seattle looked at the height, weight and sleep habits of 604 pairs of identical twins and 484 fraternal twins with an average age of 37.

3 May 2012

Single mothers with depression more likely to add cereal to bottles

Efforts to prevent obesity among low-income infants should focus not only on what babies are being fed but also the reasons behind unhealthy feeding practices, according to a study to be presented Saturday, April 28, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Boston.

30 Apr 2012

Parents underestimate their daughters' reproductive concerns

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have found that adolescents newly diagnosed with cancer have strong concerns about their ability to have children as cancer survivors. They also found that standard health-related quality-of-life survey tools used to elicit answers from teens with cancer did not accurately reflect these concerns. Parents, who often answer survey questions as proxies, often inaccurately relayed their child's reproductive concerns.

30 Apr 2012

Long-duration breastfeeders sacrifice considerable income

Pediatricians and other breastfeeding advocates often encourage new mothers to breastfeed their babies for at least the first six months of their infants' lives based on the purported health benefits to both mothers and children. Many breastfeeding proponents also argue that breastfeeding has financial advantages over formula-feeding-breastfeeding is free, they say.

27 Apr 2012

Alcohol use in Bollywood films directly influences drinking habits of India's adolescents

Alcohol use in Bollywood movies is directly influencing the drinking habits of India's adolescents, according to a new study presented today at the World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai.

21 Apr 2012

Sports physicals don't dive deep enough into real issues that impact teen's health

Parenting a teenage athlete is a juggling act—monitoring homework, keeping up with practice and training schedules, weeks packed with competitions or games. It may seem like a never-ending "to do" list and that yearly sports physical can seems like just one more thing in a busy parent's life. But the quickest way of checking if off the list could be detrimental to a teen's health.

20 Apr 2012

Connection between eating meat and faster weaning process

Carnivory is behind the evolutionary success of humankind. When early humans started to eat meat and eventually hunt, their new, higher-quality diet meant that women could wean their children earlier. Women could then give birth to more children during their reproductive life, which is a possible contribution to the population gradually spreading over the world.

20 Apr 2012

Maternal depression may affect infants’ sleep

Sleep problems are common in young children and can lead to difficulties in families. Several factors likely contribute to these problems, and mothers' depression has consistently been identified as one. Now a new study has found that moms with higher levels of symptoms of depression might act in ways that disturb their infants' sleep.

17 Apr 2012

Depressed mothers more likely to wake up their infants at night

Depressed mothers are more likely to needlessly wake up their infants at night than mothers who are not depressed, according to Penn State researchers.

17 Apr 2012

Anti-gay bias linked to lack of awareness of one's sexual orientation and authoritarian parenting

Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates.

7 Apr 2012

Genetic counseling does not help parents in disclosing their breast cancer information to children

When a mother undergoes genetic testing to determine whether she carries a gene for hereditary breast cancer, the parents must then decide whether and how to share this risk information with their children.

3 Apr 2012

Fatigue, unrealistic expectations of parenthood may contribute to post-adoption depression in women

Fatigue and unrealistic expectations of parenthood may help contribute to post-adoption depression in women, according to a Purdue University study.

23 Mar 2012

CBT, PE can ameliorate treatment-induced menopausal symptoms in breast cancer patients

Researchers from The Netherlands have found that the menopausal symptoms caused by giving chemotherapy or hormonal therapy to younger women with breast cancer can be ameliorated considerably through the use of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and physical exercise.

23 Mar 2012

Urban children more likely to be smokers

More than 75 percent of fourth-graders in urban and rural settings have measurable levels of a nicotine breakdown product in their saliva that documents their second-hand smoke exposure, researchers report.

22 Mar 2012

Babies fed on demand associated with higher IQ scores

A new study suggests that babies who are breast-fed or bottle-fed to a schedule do not perform academically as well at school as their demand-fed peers. The finding is based on the results of IQ tests and school-based SATs tests carried out between the ages of five and 14, which show that demand-feeding was associated with higher IQ scores.

21 Mar 2012