From way back when I was in graduate school until today I have advocated for good prenatal maternal health as it does help reduce premature births!

Being born prematurely is, in itself, the cause of many developmental problems through life.

But some politicians and other policy makers have always said:  Nope – no care for pregnant women – not on our dime!!  Which is an odd stance since prenatal care is less expensive than a newborn's intensive care. 

I will keep advocating for better health and better nutrition for everyone for the rest of my life – because I care about human development! 

And because these many many years later – we still have statistics like this:

The world's developed countries have seen their average rate of premature births double to 6 percent since 1995, despite efforts to reduce the phenomenon…

And the United States? Were we think we have superior health care? We rank 130th out of the 184 countries in the study!

What starts labor is still an unknown. What we do know is that keeping a fetus inside for the duration or a normal pregnancy – about 40 weeks is the best for the baby. 

As this study says:

The ultimate solution — keeping every baby in the womb for 40 weeks – is a challenge. Improving maternal health by treating high blood pressure and infections would help, as would changing obstetrical practices so labor is not induced early for non-medical reasons.

"We still don't know a lot about how to prevent preterm birth," Howson said. "We need vigorous, targeted research into its causes."

 

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you!

I've written about parenting and about TV.

Here's a short post about all 3 topics.

Parents! You and the TV have an impact on what your child chooses to eat.

If you let your child know your opinion [and we hope it's to choose healthier food] your child is more likely to chose healthier food – even after seeing a TV ad for less healthy food.

BUT – if you are neutral – your child is more likely to choose the less healthy food.

Moral of the study? TV is powerful in influencing children's choices of foods – but – and this is important – parents – you have more clout than the TV if you give your  kids your own input.

So watch that TV with your kids and let them know what YOU think about the commercials.

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you.

 First we must recognize that it is an epidemic – a major health problem.

 This is important because many people do not or will not see obesity, especially in children. But almost 1/3 of our kids are obese. It's why I wrote a book called: It’s Not Always Baby Fat!  [Available for your Kindle or for your Nook]

In my book, I write about some of these suggestions in more detail. I know that for some families my suggested strategies may not be easy – but parents – these are your children and no one ever said child rearing was easy [especially me!!]

Here are some simple strategies for YOU – as the parent you can:

•  set a good role model
•  learn about nutrition
•  talk about nutrition
•  discuss the effects of obesity
•  get more exercise

Here is an easy-to-do strategy – plan, cook and eat meals together with your kids.

Kids like to cook. Have chats about what meals they can make – with your help and without! Work out the menus; plan fancy meals, quick meals and meals to freeze. Plan this out before shopping. Make a list of the meals and needed ingredients and then go to the store.

Cook up a storm together with your kids one day a week and freeze the foods you are not eating that night. It makes it very easy then to have good, healthy and fast meals all week. Microwaves are good defrosters – but if you do not have one, take out the frozen meals in the morning and they will defrost by dinnertime.

Cook or warm up the meals or let the kids do that. Have the kids set the table and maybe let them decorate it as well. A festive table makes for a nicer meal.

Turn off the TV, the radio and the "whatever-your-kids-own" stuff.

Sit down. Eat. Converse. Laugh. Enjoy a meal together!

Comments? Thoughts? Thank you.

I  finished and published an e-book on childhood obesity!

The title of the book is: It's Not Always Baby Fat!

Now  that one-year-old I wrote about, and I,  can go forth and get on with our other development

I am not a nutritionist. I am a Developmental Psychologist who, for all my professional life, has advocated for good nutrition – because I want all humans to develop as optimally as they can. And they do that best when they have good fuel [nutritious food] for their development!

This is especially true for the youngest among us who are at the start of a long process of developing – and who will ultimately become the adults of our culture.

In this book I give you information about obesity in general and about childhood obesity in particular – and let you know what this is doing to our children and to us as adults.

I write about food – what we eat, how much we eat, what’s in it and how to read labels so that you become a more intelligent consumer.

I add information about the importance of good nutrition for our development – especially cognitive development.

I offer suggestions to help you with your kids and family regarding weight and nutrition – all while doing things that may also encourage your child's cognitive development!

The book is available for Kindle and they have apps that you can download for free to read e-books on your computer or other device!

You don't need to own the Kindle!

I don't own one either device and still I write books for it

Get the book for Kindle

Here is the link for free Kindle apps

As I write much about nutrition, I have been asked: In terms of healthier children, what is the best time for a female to start eating well?

Answer: BEFORE you even consider getting pregnant! Preferably when still in your teens!

So – BIG OOPS!!  What happens if you did not? We all know teen diets outside the home are not usually nutritious and that adult women may not eat well either. 

What to do?

If getting pregnant is in your future – start eating well NOW!  Or as soon as you think you are pregnant – start getting good nutrition Immediately.

In the USA we have a long history of not taking care of pregnant women; especially poorer pregnant women – while knowing that good nutrition during pregnancy would help solve many of the problems that newborns come into the world with.

Decades ago I saw a film about the high costs associated with early prenatal care of infants born to malnourished mothers. Intensive care nurseries are very expensive – yet the cost of feeding a pregnant woman with good food is minimal. Over those decades, the cost of food has not risen to the levels of the costs for the newborn intensive care – so why do we still not feed pregnant women?  Answer: Politics…..[and that's for another day and another eBook or blog: http://lynnsrants.com]

A growing fetus needs protein – so the mother must eat that protein or the fetus does not get it. A long held myth is that babies will take what they need from the mother's body.  Not true. The mother needs to ingest the nourishment while she is pregnant or it is not there for the fetus.

Long term effects of poor nutrition during pregnancy are problematic births, delayed physical and cognitive growth and ongoing illnesses. This is worsened if the child continues to be malnourished after it is born. And malnourishment, while found more often in poorer homes, is not absent from homes of the wealthy.  Just having money does not create common sense!

What is good nourishment? Protein is important as is a balanced diet. Junk food is not nutritious for anyone! Diet sodas and chemically doctored food that supposedly tastes good is not nourishing….Prepackaged "stuff" [I dare not call it food] is not nourishing.

Look at the labels on the food you are buying next time you in a store. You might find words there that you cannot pronounce. One of my mantras is that if I can't read the small print or I can't even pronounce the name of the ingredient – I don't want it in my body…and I'm well past child bearing age

I wrote a post about some of my concerns with IQ testing but I did not get into ALL the factors that influence IQ scores.

Let me amend the concept of IQ testing to be the concept of cognitive testing – or for an IQ to be a measure of cognitive development – because cognition is what IQ testing is all about!

It turns out, as many have long argued, that what you eat affects your cognition – and in turn, your IQ score. In a study of food and IQ results, it was found that eating processed foods when 3  years of age led to a decrease in IQ scores at 8 1/2.  Eating healthier foods such as salads, pasta and fruit at 3 – led to an increase in IQ scores at 8 1/2.  The decreases and increases were not huge – they were in effect small – but it is the direction of the trend that is important

The authors of the study on food and cognition conclude:

There is evidence that a poor diet associated with high fat, sugar and processed food content in early childhood may be associated with small reductions in IQ in later childhood, while a healthy diet, associated with high intakes of nutrient rich foods described at about the time of IQ assessment may be associated with small increases in IQ.

Some of us old-timers were warning in the 1960's that colorings, additives and processing of foods were not good for a child's development!  It's sad but we were right – back then we were laughed at for suggesting that what we ingested affected our brains! Especially a growing child's brain!

I still argue for good nutrition – even as our food supply is less nutritious than it was when I was growing up.

Now I suggest that if you want your child's brain [and yours also by the way] to function as optimally as it can – that you use real food supplements.

Below are links to real food supplements that I use and DISCLAIMER sell! If you buy any – i do make some $$ [but so can you]

helping your children

powering your brain [and immune systems]

This has been a week of "bad" food news. Bad peanut butter, bad cooked packaged chicken breasts, tainted cantaloupe and recalled bad baby food are all in the news this week.

I'm glad I am older and eat my supplements … food is undergoing a serious challenge these years. We have few family farms and the big conglomerates own the farm land, mass produce unhealthy "stuff" by over using fertilizer, pick the "stuff" before it is ripe, ship it off to far away places…and then tell us it's good for us…

Field ripened food is the food that contains the good things we need – ripening with chemicals or in the truck does not make for good nutrition. Have you ever noticed what the birds and bugs eat from your garden? It's the ripened things – the unripened stuff is not even attractive to the pests. My dog awaits ripe strawberries before he goes to the plants – only then do I have to put up a barricade to keep him away…he knows…

Today's fruit has so little nutrition value we would need to eat 53 peaches today to get the nutritional value of what we got from 2 peaches back in 1951!

The more we process the farms and the food, the less nutritious the food, or the more contaminated it is…and "they" want us to eat genetically modified food? Trust the big food corporations? Not me….