Parenting Bulletin - April 2012 Archives

Parent diet choice knowledge doesn't prevent child obesity (4/30/2012)

A study of the families of 150 preschoolers suggests that parents of healthy-weight and overweight preschoolers are generally well aware of dietary risk factors that fuel childhood obesity. ...> Full Article

Kids get more active when given more toy choices, studies show (4/29/2012)

In an age when even preschoolers have electronic toys and devices, many parents wonder how to get their children to be more physically active. Now, two studies published by University at Buffalo researchers provide some answers. ...> Full Article

Babalung gets babies breathing again (4/28/2012)

Rice University students have developed an inexpensive, battery-powered neonatal monitor for infants that could save many lives in the developing world. ...> Full Article

Preschoolers' reading skills benefit from 1 modest change by teachers (4/27/2012)

A small change in how teachers and parents read aloud to preschoolers may provide a big boost to their reading skills later on, a new study found. That small change involves making specific references to print in books while reading to children -- such as pointing out letters and words on the pages, showing capital letters, and showing how you read from left to right and top to bottom on the page. ...> Full Article

Depression may lead mothers to wake babies (4/26/2012)

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

Peers influence adolescent drinking, but not always how you might expect (4/25/2012)

Drinking during adolescence has both short- and long-term negative health consequences. Prior research has shown that peer influence is one of the most important predictors of alcohol use in adolescence. This study used a high-school chat session to examine peer influence on adolescent drinking, finding that anti-alcohol norms seemed more influential than pro-alcohol norms, and that adolescents were more influenced by their high-status than low-status peers. ...> Full Article

Adolescents can benefit from 12-step involvement (4/24/2012)

Adolescents who misuse alcohol and other drugs to the point where they need treatment must contend with costly and limited options for youth-specific care, as well as high relapse rates following treatment. Mutual-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are widely available but little research has addressed their benefits for adolescents. An assessment of 12-step meetings and recommended activities has found that attendance, participation, and finding a sponsor promote greater abstinence among adolescents. ...> Full Article

Despite belief WIC improves infant health, new study finds no positive or negative impact (4/23/2012)

Scientific literature suggests WIC, a US government nutritional program, improves birth outcomes of children. The literature disregards that mothers underreport their WIC benefits while acknowledging WIC serves the very poor. Now a study that accounts for both was unable to find WIC has either a positive or negative impact on infant health, says economist and study author Manan Roy, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, reporting the findings at the Southern Economic Association Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. ...> Full Article

Nearly 1 in 4 grandparents store prescription medicines where children can easily find them (4/22/2012)

Two-thirds of adults support single-dose packaging to avoid accidental poisoning, according to U-M's National Poll on Children's Health. ...> Full Article

Raising the pulse to beat teenage blues (4/21/2012)

A unique study to test the effectiveness of personally tailored exercise programs on young people with depression has been launched by researchers at the University of Nottingham. ...> Full Article

Babies flick 'anti-risk switch' in women but not men (4/20/2012)

Unlike women, men don't curb certain risk-taking behaviors when a baby is present, a new psychology study at the University of Warwick suggests. ...> Full Article

Symptomatic behaviour in childhood strongly predicts psychiatric treatment as a young adult (4/19/2012)

A survey on the mental health of eight-year-old children could help identify those individuals who are highly likely to require psychiatric treatment in their teens or early adulthood. There are, however, clear differences in the predictive factors in such surveys between boys and girls, as is shown by a study conducted at the University of Helsinki. ...> Full Article

Changes in gene expression may help explain high blood pressure in pregnancy (4/18/2012)

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have discovered that changes in the gene expression of a key enzyme may contribute to high blood pressure and increase susceptibility to forming blood clots in pregnant women with preeclampsia. ...> Full Article

Listen up, parents: For toddlers (and chimps), the majority rules (4/17/2012)

A study published online on April 12 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology offers some news for parents: even toddlers have a tendency to follow the crowd. That sensitivity isn't unique to humans either; chimpanzees also appear more likely to pick up habits if "everyone else is doing it." ...> Full Article

Lose body weight before gaining baby weight (4/16/2012)

A new University of Illinois study contains a warning for obese women who are planning pregnancies. Even if they eat a healthy diet when they are pregnant, their babies will develop in an unhealthy environment that places the infants at risk for future health problems. "We can see fat sequestered in the placentas of obese mothers when it should be going to the baby to support its growth," said Yuan-Xiang Pan, a U of I professor of nutrition. ...> Full Article

Out-of-hand tree nut consumption associated with better diet quality in children and adults (4/15/2012)

In a new study published in Nutrition Research, researchers looked at the association of out-of-hand nut consumption with nutrient intake, diet quality and the prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome in both children and adults. ...> Full Article

Vitamin D does not seem to boost kids' brainpower (4/12/2012)

High levels of vitamin D do not seem to boost teens' academic performance, indicates research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. ...> Full Article

English makes adolescents less motivated to learn a new language (4/8/2012)

Swedish adolescents' desire to learn a foreign language besides English, which they start learning relatively early, has been declining for a long time. A new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that one factor behind this trend may be that English is used as a resource when students learn French, Spanish and German. ...> Full Article

Nearly half of preschool children not taken outside to play by parents on a daily basis: Study (4/7/2012)

A new study led by Pooja Tandon, M.D., M.P.H., of Seattle Children's Research Institute found that nearly half of preschoolers in a sample representing four million US children did not have even one parent-supervised outdoor play opportunity per day. ...> Full Article

Bilingual children switch tasks faster than speakers of a single language (4/6/2012)

Children who grow up learning to speak two languages are better at switching between tasks than are children who learn to speak only one language, according to a study funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. However, the study also found that bilinguals are slower to acquire vocabulary than are monolinguals, because bilinguals must divide their time between two languages while monolinguals focus on only one. ...> Full Article

Partner aggression in high-risk families affects parenting beginning at birth (4/5/2012)

Bickering spouses may need to clean up their act. New research at the University of Oregon finds that the level of aggression between partners around the time when a child is born impacts how a mom will be parenting three years later. ...> Full Article

Unnecessary induction increases risk of complications (4/4/2012)

A University of Adelaide study has revealed that inducing labor in pregnant women when it's not medically necessary is more likely to result in complications at birth. ...> Full Article

Health experts recommend you set your toddlers free (4/3/2012)

In response to an urgent call from public health, health care, child care, and fitness practitioners, the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, with assistance from multiple partners, has developed two important sets of guidelines directed at improving the health and activity levels of infants and toddlers. ...> Full Article

New analysis of premature infants' heartbeats, breathing could be cues for leaving NICU (4/2/2012)

New analysis of premature infants' heartbeats and breathing could give cues about their readiness to leave the NICU. ...> Full Article

'Coaching Boys into Men' an effective tool for stopping teen dating violence (4/1/2012)

Male high school athletes' ability to recognize and intervene to stop dating violence -- the physical, sexual and emotional aggression prevalent in adolescent romantic relationships -- is improved with the intervention of some of the most important role models in young men's lives: their coaches. ...> Full Article

Expectations, exhaustion can lead mothers to post-adoption stress (4/1/2012)

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