Mum Mum's Blog Report: Philadelphia Study Finds in Early Childhood, Continuous Care by One Doctor Improves Delivery of Health Screenings; Queensland Public Health Department - Breastfed Babies at Risk of Overfeeding; Senate On Lead Tainted Toys

This is a selection of recent popular blogs from Mum Mum, where parents can find information on everything to do with babies and parenting with an emphasis on health and nutrition.

Philadelphia Children’s Hospital Study Finds in Early Childhood, Continuous Care by One Doctor Improves Delivery of Health Screenings
Keeping the same pediatrician for your child can be as important, possibly more so, than those regular check ups.  The post highlights a new study that discovered that children examined by the same doctor during the first 6 months of life are more likely to receive preventative health screenings by 2 years of age.

Playing a crucial role for the children in the study was continuity of care, or being cared for by the same physician.  Conducted by the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital in conjunction with University of Philadelphia, the study examined 1,564 infants born at the children’s hospital between July 1999 and March 2001 with Medicare insurance.  All doctors’ visits were monitored while the children received care from over 120 primary care physicians.  Of particular interest to the researchers were screenings for lead poisoning, anemia, and tuberculosis.   Undetected, these conditions can cause health implications later in life.  Unfortunately, children most at risk often do not receive these preventative screenings.  Researchers note that this should be the first of many studies on how to increase the continuity of care and future attempts should focus on reducing the number of physicians a child sees.

Queensland Public Health Department Advises Breastfed Babies at Risk of Overfeeding
While breastfeeding can provide many health benefits to both mother and baby, one may notice that their breastfed baby doesn’t seem to keep up with the pediatrician’s standard growth charts.  Growth rates between breastfed and formula fed babies can very greatly, and every baby is different.  As Mum Mum’s explains, breastfed babies can run the risk of being overfed due to this difference in the rate of growth.

In a recent article, Queensland, Australia, public health researchers warn that many breastfed babies are being inaccurately diagnosed with “failure to thrive” simply because they do not measure up to formula fed babies.  The term “failure to thrive” denotes a condition, not a disease, and can be a rather ambiguous medical term for infants who not grow in accordance with standardized growth chart rates.  However, growth charts used bottle fed babies as the standard leaving breastfed mothers often encouraged to either supplement their baby’s diet with formula or discontinue breastfeeding altogether leading to overfeeding. Often times, the baby is growing normally and perfectly healthy, just misdiagnosed because they are being compared to babies who are bottle-fed. Australia currently uses US or UK growth charts, but hopes authorities will adopt the new World Health Organization’s Child Growth Standards, which are based of international studies of babies who are exclusively breastfed for the first 4 months of life.

Senate Weighs on Consumer Products Safety Commission Shakeup over Lead Tainted Toys
Following the year of toy recalls, parents have been strongly advocating for change in toy safety policies.  While it has seemed change has been slow to happen, the post explains that the Senate could vote as early as Thursday on a bill to increase funds for the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC).

The San Diego times recently posted an article highlighting the details of the new bill.  The proposed bill would increase the staff of the CPSC to 500 employees in addition to doubling their budget.  The bill would also establish a public database of injuries, illnesses, and deaths from any consumer products and ban the use of lead in children’s products.  Of course the bill will does not come without a little controversy.  The House passed a different version of a toy safety bill back in December that differs from the current one in front of the Senate.  While everyone agrees toy safety regulations need to be overhauled, attempting to fuse these 2 different bills into 1 will only slow the legislation down. 

About The Mum-Mum Blog
The Baby Mum Mum Blog discusses everything to do with Babies and Parenting with a focus on Health, Nutrition and Infant Development. Baby Mum Mum is a healthy, easy to digest baby rice snack that is enjoyed by babies and moms around the world for its portability, gluten free ingredients and great taste. Baby Mum Mum is a division of Want Want Holdings, a manufacturer of healthy snack foods, beverage and related products since 1962.