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Vitamin C May Help Preemies Survive

Mouse study suggests nutrient is vital to brain, lung function

New research in mice suggests that plain old vitamin C could be the key to preventing brain and lung damage in premature babies.

"It's a completely unanticipated role for vitamin C. It appears to have an important role to play in preparing a fetus for living outside the womb," says Dr. Robert Nussbaum, chief of the Genetic Disease Research Branch at the National Human Genome Research Institute and author of a study on the nutrient's impact.

The study findings appear in the May issue of the journal Nature Medicine.

Normal pregnancies last about 40 weeks. Premature babies born at 32 weeks or earlier often suffer from breathing problems and bleeding in the brain; some die while others suffer lifelong disabilities.

"They're prone to all kinds of other illnesses in childhood," Nussbaum says.

A wide variety of disorders affects premature babies. British researchers have found that half of babies born before 26 weeks suffer from mental or physical disabilities at age 2.

Nussbaum and his colleagues tinkered with mouse genes, and bred several mice that could not absorb vitamin C properly into their cells.

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A New Lullacry for Babies

'Controlled crying' helps little ones develop better sleep patterns

If your baby has trouble falling asleep, you might try some "controlled crying."

No, not you, the baby. Although new research does show that the tactic also significantly lowers post-partum depression in new mothers.

Controlled crying is an increasingly popular method in which parents let their baby cry alone for a while. Then they walk into baby's room and offer some comfort. Then they leave and allow the crying to continue a bit longer before returning with more soothing words and gestures, repeating the cycle until the crying stops and baby falls asleep.

The tactic offers a better chance of solving a baby's sleep problems than alternative methods, a carefully controlled Australian trial shows.

"What we showed is that controlled crying has a good effect for up to four months," says Dr. Harriet Hiscock, a research fellow at Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, who reports the results of the trial in tomorrow's British Medical Journal.

Of the 76 parents who were bothered enough by their babies' sleep problems to try controlled crying, 53 reported that the problem was resolved after four months. Only 36 of the 76 parents who tried different methods reported the same kind of success.

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Online Conference Transcript

Eating Disorders Recovery Strategy Chat Transcript

Have you tried recovering from Bulimia, but having great difficulty? Or maybe you just gave up completely? Or you're wondering what does it take to be successful in your recovery efforts?

When it comes to treating bulimia, there is no such thing as "it doesn't work." Yet psychotherapist and site owner of Beat Bulimia, Judith Asner, says she gets emails like that all the time from people who seem to have given up. Ms. Asner says you keep seeking, practicing, revising your plan until it works, changing this and that piece till the pieces fit.

Read the transcript from Saturday's chat with Judith Asner, MSW.

Support Groups

We have several support groups just for parents. You can access the bulletin boards for the specific groups by clicking the links below:

• Positive Thinking
  Mon. 2 p.m.
• ADD/ADHD in Kids
  Tues. 7 p.m.
• General Mental Health Chat
  Wed 7 p.m.
• Parents of Children with Eating Disorders
  Fri. 6 p.m.

If you are interested in hosting a support group for parents, please go here. Awnings

click here now

the wall A place for your parenting thoughts, and comments.

Writing Your Own Journal

Looking for parents of special children

Personal Journal writing encourages us to identify the essential ideas, make connections between our own ideas, and other people's knowledge. The discipline of writing helps us to make explicit the struggle to understand new ideas, and assists us in clarifying and refining what we think we know. The journal also serves as a record of how our perceptions, beliefs and attitudes evolve over time.

How about sharing your experiences and thoughts on parenting? Keep track of your feelings and progress. Simply fill out this short online application and send us your picture and we'll set up your own online journal here at HealthyPlace.com.

It's not only good for you, but it also helps the visitors who come by and read your journal.

NIMH

Dysfunctional Network in Brain's Left Hemisphere Linked to Dyslexia

Using a novel technique to examine how different brain regions interact during reading, National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists have found that people with dyslexia do not use the same neural networks as normal readers. For millions who struggle with dyslexia, a disorder that causes problems with reading, writing, and spelling, this controlled study shows a lack of communication between regions of the brain involved in reading.

The scientists have discovered an absence of the strong functional links between the left angular gyrus and other left hemisphere regions of the brain. Their finding suggests a functional disconnection of the left angular gyrus—part of the brain thought to play a critical role in relating letters to speech—from the occipital and temporal lobes, brain areas involved in visual and language processing. In normal readers, these regions interact strongly during reading. "These results explicitly demonstrate that the brain circuits mediating reading in dyslexia are abnormal," reports Barry Horwitz, Ph.D., of the National Institute on Aging.

Visit the NIMH website to read more about the Dysfunctional Network in Brain's Left Hemisphere Linked to Dyslexia.