The Telegraph reports that playing music to premature babies can help them feel less pain.

The Telegraph reports that playing music to premature babies can help them feel less pain.

Folic acid supplements are associated with reduced risk of premature birth

Taking folic acid supplements for at least a year before conception is associated with reduction in the risk of premature birth.
Read article at physorg.com

Pregnant women who are depressed are twice as likely to have a premature baby compared with those who have no symptoms of depression, say scientists.

Depression can double risk of premature baby, scientists say
Report in the Telegraph

Extract:

"The most severely depressed women have the highest chance of giving birth early. The study also suggests that other risk factors, such as obesity and stress, can make the link between depression and premature labour even stronger.

Researchers interviewed 791 women in San Francisco around their 10th week of pregnancy and found that 41 per cent of the women reported significant or severe depressive symptoms.

The women with less severe depressive symptoms had a 60 per cent higher risk of a premature baby compared with women without significant depressive symptoms. Women with severe depressive symptoms had more than twice the risk."

Reducing salt intake reduces all these risk factors - obesity, depression and stress, so pregnant mothers should be strongly advised to avoid salt and salty food during their pregnancy.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Associated health conditions

More than 1,000 premature births a year could be prevented by testing pregnant women for infections, an expert has said.

Testing women for infections 'could prevent 1,000 premature births a year'
Article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Half of all early deliveries are caused by infections, according to Dr Ronnie Lamont, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at Imperial College London.

He said that screening mothers-to-be and giving them antibiotics if necessary could reduce the number of risky premature births.

His comments came after a study showed that infections are the cause of more early births than previously recognised.

In Britain around 80,000 babies a year are born before 37 weeks of age.

Of these, one in five, or around 17,000, needs intensive care to help them grow and fight off infections."

advice for pregnant mothers

Scores of premature babies may be dying unnecessarily across England because the NHS mismanaged a reform of neonatal units in 2003

Babies dying due to NHS confusion

Extract from the Guardian:

"Scores of premature babies may be dying unnecessarily across England because the NHS mismanaged a reform of neonatal units in 2003, parliament's spending watchdog reveals today.

Health ministers provided £73m over three years to link up hospital neonatal units in 23 regional networks that could provide specialist services to save premature and low birth weight babies.

But the National Audit Office finds that the Department of Health did not issue instructions for the units to be adequately staffed. As a result the service was overstretched. Its specialist nursing workforce was nearly 10% below strength. There were not enough cots to respond to every emergency and there was a lack of specialist 24-hour transport to move babies and mothers to other hospitals.

Jacqui Smith, when health minister in 2003, said she agreed with recommendations from the British Association for Perinatal Medicine for minimum staffing ratios. But the government did not order NHS trusts to implement them.

The NAO says there was "confusion" over whether staffing ratios were mandatory, making it difficult for unit managers to convince NHS trusts they needed more staff.

Half the 180 units providing neonatal services did not meet the approved ratio for high dependency care of one nurse to two babies. And only 24% met the intensive care ratio of one nurse to one baby."

Don't cut the cord too soon!

'Cutting umbilical cord early could be harmful' - Telegraph

Extracts:

"Early cutting of the umbilical cord does not benefit mother or baby and could be harmful, a doctor said yesterday.

Leaving the cord intact for a few minutes can help to increase the baby's iron levels and reduce the risk of anaemia, said Dr Andrew Weeks, a senior lecturer in obstetrics at the University of Liverpool's School of Reproductive and Developmental Medicine.

His comments, published in the British Medical Journal, add to the growing number of calls for a delay. Earlier this year, a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, said waiting two minutes cut the risk of serious blood disorders."

"Dr Weeks advocates waiting for three minutes, particularly for premature babies.""


Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
How to Lose weight!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Replacing senior staff will put babies and infants at risk, doctors and patient groups warn.

Babies 'will be put at risk' as experienced doctors are replaced by trainees - Independent on Sunday

Extract:

"A government plan to cut senior staff in paediatric wards and neonatal units and replace them with trainee doctors will put infants at risk, doctors and patient groups have warned.

Under the Government's controversial Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) programme, senior staff on some paediatric wards will be replaced by trainee doctors from August.

The move is part of a government plan to reform training for NHS doctors. Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, said recently that this was needed "not just for junior doctors themselves, the workhorses of the NHS working quite outrageously long hours, but also for the sake of patients".

Busy paediatric wards have up to seven specialist paediatric senior house officers (SHOs) - doctors with up to four years' experience. Most could be replaced under MMC.

In future, trainee doctors with one or two years' experience will spend four months in paediatrics before moving on to another specialism, and would not necessarily have any interest in that area of medicine.

The move has alarming implications for the 45,000 babies born prematurely each year. Babies born at 23 weeks have a 17 per cent chance of survival and require expert medical support, while half of all babies born before 30 weeks suffer from apnea, which causes them to stop breathing."

Shortage of nurses to care for premature babies

Premature babies 'in peril from staff shortage' - Telegraph

Extract:

"Today's report, by Bliss, the premature baby charity, and based on a survey of the 224 neonatal units in Britain, says that despite the billions of pounds being poured into the NHS, premature baby services remain severely under-resourced and overstretched.

Neonatal units are understaffed by a third, yet there was a "proven link" between staffing ratios and infant death rates.

Research from the University of Oxford's National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit showed that if the recommended level of one nurse to one baby in intensive care were reached, infant deaths could be reduced by 48 per cent. Only 3.8 per cent currently achieve the recommended staff ratios. The charity, established 27 years ago by a group of concerned parents, said that while advances in technology had resulted in more babies surviving, there were chronic shortages of specialist nurses to provide the care."

See my earlier post today about the colossal waste of NHS cash on the grandiose IT fiasco.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
Pregnant mothers eating less salt also results in healthier pregnancies and healthier babies.
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pregnant_mothers.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)