Category — Health

I want to take this opportunity to wish each of you a Happy New Year!  2009 has been a great year for Small Blessing.  I have enjoyed working with each family.

2010 promises to be a great year with lots of opportunities for learning and growing.  Please mark your  calendar now for our Annual Child Health and Safety Fair Saturday, March 6, 2010 10:00 – 1:00.  We are in the process of contacting vendors.  If you know of a health and safety vendor, that would be a great addition to our fair, please let me know.  I would love to hear!

December is always a busy time of the year with lots of hustle and bustle, Christmas shopping and Christmas parties.  Many times we move right from the business of the holidays right into the New Year.  Please take time for yourself.  Resting, relaxing and playing are great ways to stay healthy and reduce stress.  Make a New Year’s resolution that you will take time to care for yourself so you can care for your children.

Please remember that I am here to serve you and your family. If you ever have a Health and Safety concern or question, I would like to hear.

Ms. LeDena
Health Specialist

In this month of Thanksgiving, it seems only fitting that we remind ourselves of the power of gratitude. If you haven’t been in the habit of mentally and verbally giving thanks for the wonderful things you already have, now’s a good time to begin.

Why would anyone want to spend time thanking the universe for what he or she has? First, the act of being grateful brings more good things your way, in a very practical sense. Giving thanks for what you already have (even though you may not have everything you want) will put in motion additional energy to attract more positive things and events to you.

When you are thankful for the people and abundance in your life, it adds to your feelings of optimism and joy. When you are at peace with your life, events tend to flow more easily and you draw beneficial circumstances to you because of your good cheer.

Imagine a person who goes through his day grumbling and criticizing everything he sees (I think we all know at least one person like that!) He’s oblivious to the great things he already has, and sees no real reason to give thanks for anything at all. With his attitude, do you think he would be a person who would attract wonderful new opportunities or special gifts from the universe? Probably not - because he has neglected to open his heart and let gratitude in.

We tend to see exactly what we believe, for better or worse. If you can give thanks for your bowl of soup and crust of bread while others are dining on a meal of turkey with all the trimmings, you have the right idea about gratitude.

Circumstances can change overnight for the better. The practice of being grateful actually can help you to improve your situation in a dramatic fashion. The key is to be grateful for the small things, and to believe in your own abundant destiny.

Recent research is confirming the fact that we can live longer, and be sharper, if we keep our brain stimulated with enjoyable mental, physical, and social activities.  Work & Family Life (February 2009) shared these research-based brain-boosting tips:

Breathe deeply. Before you tackle any mental chore, take a few deep breaths.  This will send oxygen to your brain and will also have a valuable calming effect.

Try new things. Do something different every day.  Introduce yourself to someone and start a conversation.  Make a mundane change in your routine such as taking a different route to work.  Or even do something silly like eating di nner with your non-dominant hand.

Eat fish rich in omega-3. A diet that includes regular servings of baked or broiled fish is great for the brain.  Many studies have identified the omega-3 fatty acid in fish as uniquely helpful in slowing age-related mental decline.

• Hold hands during mealtime prayers.
• Walk one-on-one with each child.  Swing hands and talk.  Tell jokes.  Sing.
• Bad day?  Sigh dramatically and say, “I sure could use a great big hug from someone special.”
• Wonderful day?  Shout, “Hey, everybody!  Come hug me!  I had the best day!”
• Make Hug Sandwiches.  With your spouse, gently surprise unsuspecting children–no matter what age!
• Declare a 100 Hugs Day among your family.  Count them as you go.
• Do four-direction kisses: north (foreheads), south (chins), east/west (cheeks).
• Wrap your arms around your children during church and while waiting together or watching TV.
• APply the Pat Principle: “When in doubt, pat.” God made lots of patting places–heads, cheeks, knees, hands, shoulders, backs.

–By Lorri Cardwell-Casey, From HomeLife Magazine

A new report makes a case for paying more attention to the critical role that out-of-school factors have on children’s school success.  Commenting on his report, “Poverty and Potential Out-of-School Factors and School Success“, author Henry C. Berliner, a professor of educational leadership at Arizona State University, observed, “As wonderful as some teachers and schools are, most cannot eliminate inequalities that have their roots outside their doors.”

Berliner’s research focuses on 7 out-of-school factors that influence student’s academic success and lead to inequalities among children:
•    prenatal care
•    health care
•    food insecurity
•    environmental pollutants
•    family stress
•    neighborhood characteristics
•    extended learning opportunities

The report calls for, among other things, the nation to provide high-quality preschools for all children and universal free medical care.

From Childcare Exchange - www.childcareexchange.com

Though typically born into smaller families, the social world of today’s children expands quickly. As early as six weeks of age, many children are part of child care centers or family child care homes. Our young also attend group programs sponsored by children’s discovery museums and the like. Add in trips to the mall, fast food restaurants, or other people-intensive environments, and it means kids are exposed to a wide variety of germs. You know, those nasty little things that can raise havoc with children’s health, parent’s work attendance, and family life in general.

In the home and beyond, there’s a plethora of wiggly-jiggley organisms doing their best to thrive and survive among us — bacteria, virus, parasite, flu bug, or a plain old cold germ. Some are helpful; some are not. Children’s bodies are in the earliest phases of building up natural immunities, so they’re especially vulnerable to illness causing germs.

Children’s typical behavior gives germs more than a helping hand, too. Little ones are forever touching everything, germ-laden or not, and then putting their hands into their mouths or noses. The result is that children end up having, on average, up to 12 colds or flu episodes a year. That’s a lot more than the average of two cases per year for adults.

An obvious goal of every home, child care center, and school is to keep kids healthy. To do that, all of us must become partners in preventing kids’ exposure and susceptibility to illness. With a team approach,we can help limit the spread of contagious illness among children as well as adults. That spells good news for everyone. Prevention is fundamental to managing children’s illness. Controlling kids’ exposure to germs is the first fundamental step. Follow these tips conscientiously and your kids will be healthier now and in the future.

Build resistance to illness.
Regular and adequate sleep helps the body maintain energy to fend off germs. Rest also helps the body repair itself after germ attack; that helps prevent illness from becoming severe or chronic.

Routine exercise, indoors and out, keeps the body’s system in good working order. Moist breathing passages help repel germs, but dry indoor furnace air dries out breathing passages. That’s why, when properly dressed for the weather, outdoor winter air is especially good for kids. Outdoors there’s also less concentration of germs than inside.

Good nutrition gives the body’s cells the building blocks for ongoing health. Healthy cells fend off germs; poorly nourished cells are at greater risk of invasion.When poorly nourished, children’s damaged tissues take longer to repair to restore health.

Every body needs plenty of fluids throughout the day. When well hydrated, blood carries germ-fighting cells more efficiently and effectively, and breathing passages are protected with a layer of moisture. Serve kids plenty of water and 100% juices.

Teach effective hand washing.
Help children become responsible partners in maintaining their own health. They contribute to everyone’s wellness by preventing the spread of illness. A good way to start is to read them the entertaining book, Those Mean Nasty Dirty Downright Disgusting but . . . Invisible Germs by Judith Rice. After reading the book kids will be motivated to learn the best health prevention procedure around — diligent hand washing. No kidding, it’s the easiest, most effective, and even the cheapest way to get rid of germs that cause illness. (For children kindergarten to grade 3, the book Germs Make Me Sick! is also a good introduction to fending off germs.)

Kids (and you) should wash hands before and after eating, before and after diapering, after toileting, coughing or sneezing and using a tissue, before and after cooking with an adult, after playing outside, and any other time hands are heavily exposed to dirt or germs.

Just dipping hands in water doesn’t do the health prevention trick! Here’s how kids must learn to wash hands: Wet hands under running water, lather with mild

liquid soap (cakes of soap harbor germs), thoroughly rub soapy fingers and hands for about 20 seconds, rinse germs and soapy water down the drain, dry hands, and use a paper towel to turn off water because faucets harbor germs. (Hint, to help kids wash long enough, sing a song like the “ABC” song or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while washing.)

Frequent hand washing can cause skin to chap more easily. Those small breaks in the skin pave another way for germs to invade. After hand washing, teach children to use a bit of hand lotion as a moisturizing barrier.

Reduce exposure to germs at home and child care.
When entering a group, ensure your child arrives with clean hands, nose, face and, if applicable, diaper. Your child’s setting should follow stringent and

consistent cleaning and sanitation practices. Look at the environment from your child’s point of view. Is a tissue easy to find and reach? Are sinks convenient for children? Are liquid soap and paper towels right nearby? Does an adult remind children to wash hands after sneezing, blowing their noses, toileting, soiling hands, and before eating? Are food preparation areas and eating surfaces cleaned and sanitized to ensure healthy meal service? Does the environment have a genuine fresh smell and clean appearance, rather than an overwhelming covered up smell that occurs when pine-scented sanitizer is merely poured or mopped over a dirty surface?

Don’t send ill children to a group setting.
Become familiar with contagious illness that prevents a child’s attendance at child care or school. Programs have a list of such illnesses in their parent

handbook. When children become ill, provide adequate time for their full recovery, otherwise illness returns and spreads more easily. Ill children feel safest and most comforted when at home with a parent, so utilize your company’s sick leave and family leave policies. If you face times when staying at home with your child isn’t an option, here are ideas to pursue.

• Plan ahead. Seek out a trusted relative, neighbor, or friend to be on call to care for your child when you can’t.
• Network with other child care or school parents so you can barter sick day child care services.
• Inquire about back up or ill child child care programs in your area. Such programs might be operated by a social service agency or even a nanny agency.  A child care resource and referral program can help you locate one in your area.

Children’s Books

• Those Mean Nasty Dirty Downright Disgusting but….Invisible Germs by Judith Rice (St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press, 1997).
• Germs Make Me Sick! by Melvin Berger (New York: HarperCollins, 1999).
• Germs On Their Fingers! by Wendy Wakefield Ferrin (Knoxville,TN: The Wakefield Connection, 2002).
• Wash Your Hands! by Tony Ross (La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller Book Publishers, 2000).
• Germs! Germs! Germs! by Bobbi Katz (Minneapolis, MN: Econo-Clad Books, 1996).
• Healthy Me: Fun ways to develop good health & safety habits. Activities for kids 5-8 by Michelle O’Brien-Palmer (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1999).

from Exchange Magazine

How often do you hug?  Do you like to sit close and hold each other’s hands?  Recent research shows it’s good for your health.  Between loving partners, between parents and children, or even between close friends, physical affection can help the brain, the heart and other body systems you might never have imagined.

For centuries, artists have examined love through poetry, painting, music and countless other arts.  In the past few years, scientists supported by NIH have begun to understand the chemistry and biology of love.

At the center of how our bodies respond to love and affection is a hormone called oxytocin.  Most of our oxytocin is made in the area of the brain called the hypothalamus.  Some is released into our bloodstream, but much of its effect is thought to reside in the brain.

Oxytocin makes us feel good when we’re close to family and other loved ones, including pets.  It does this by acting through what scientists call the dopamine reward system.  Dopamine is a brain chemical that plays a crucial part in how we perceive pleasure.  Many drugs of abuse act through this system.  Problems with the system can lead to serious depression and other mental illness.

Oxytocin does more than make us feel good.  It lowers the levels of stress hormones in the body, reducing blood pressure, improving mood, increasing tolerance for pain and perhaps even speeding how fast wounds heal.  It also seems to play an important role in our relationships.  It’s been linked, for example, to how much we trust others.

Dr. Kathleen C. Light of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studies oxytocin in married couples and those permanently living together.  She and her colleagues invite couples into the laboratory and ask them to spend at least 10 minutes holding hands and talking together about a happy memory, usually about how they met and fell in love.

“What we’re trying to do in a lab situation,” Light explains, “is recreate some of the experiences in real life where they felt close.”

The couples then get their blood drawn and fill out a questionnaire about the quality of their relationship.  When the researchers compared their responses to the levels of oxytocin in their blood, they found that people who have a more positive relationship with their partner have higher levels of oxytocin.

Light and her colleagues are now trying to understand how conflict and other factors in relationships affect a couple’s oxytocin levels.  The results of those studies aren’t yet in.

One thing researchers can say with certainty is that physical contact affects oxytocin levels.  Light says that the people who get lots of hugs and other warm contact at home tend to have the highest levels of oxytocin in the laboratory.  She believes that frequent warm contact may somehow prime the oxytocin system and make it quicker to turn on whenever there’s warm contact, even in a laboratory.

The same holds true for mothers and infants:  they both produce higher levels of oxytocin when they have lots of warm contact with each other.  “Those women who hold their babies more at home have higher responses when they hold their baby in the lab,” Light says.

Much of what we know about oxytocin has come from research in animals.  Mother rats, for instance, can stimulate oxytocin in their pups by licking and grooming them.  This loving care has long-term effects.

When researchers separate pups from their mothers for 10-15 minutes a day and then reunite them, many mothers are so glad to see their pups that they lick and groom them intensively.  If the separation lasts for several hours, however, it can have the opposite effect; the mother won’t lick and groom her pups.  Some mothers just never lick and groom their pups when they come back.

Pups that are groomed a lot when they’re reunited with their mothers become more comfortable exploring new environments.  The ignored ones develop more anxiety disorders, produce higher levels of stress hormones and have higher blood pressure.

Research from other animals, including monkeys, confirms that the quality of care a mother gives her offspring can have long-term effects on their personality characteristics and mental health as well as physical problems like heart disease.

Animal research is also shedding light on oxytocin’s role in other social bonds.  Mice that lack oxytocin can’t recognize other mice, even after repeated encounters.  When they’re given oxytocin, however, they can recognize other mice again.

Dr. C. Sue Carter, co-director of the Brain Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, has been studying oxytocin in prairie voles, which form strong bonds with their mates.  When the researchers block oxytocin, the voles don’t form such bonds.  Oxytocin is especially important for females to form bonds with their mates.  In males, a related hormone called vasopressin also plays a role.

Oxytocin and vasopressin aren’t miracle compounds, however.  Giving these hormones to other animals—even other types of voles that don’t normally form social bonds—doesn’t suddenly cause them to form loving bonds.  Animals must have the proper genes to respond to these hormones in the first place.

“Most of us are genetically programmed to form social bonds,” Carter explains, relating the results back to people.  But the ability to form close bonds, she says, is shaped by early experiences.  In the end, a complex interaction of genes and experience makes some people form social bonds more easily than others.

We may not yet fully understand how love and affection develop between people—or how love affects our health—but research is giving us some guidance.  Give those you love all the affection you can.  It can’t hurt, and it may bring a bounty of health benefits.

Information taken from www.nih.gov