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MAHA Moms Call for ‘Rigorous Transparency’ Into Health Concerns
Mothers are increasingly speaking up today about the health and well-being of their families — and many are jumping aboard the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative. Moms across the nation are now vocal about the artificial ingredients found in foods, about the importance of preventative steps for chronic illness and about other key health concerns.
Ginny Yurich, host of the parenting podcast “1000 Hours Outside,” drove from Pinckney, Michigan, to Washington, D.C., to join fellow MAHA moms in rallying behind Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 29.
“We have just noticed a precipitous decline in health among children, including allergies [and] sensory processing disorder,” Yurich, a mother of five, told Fox News Digital.
Considerable Overlap Seen for Children With Medical Complexity, Autism, Study Shows
There is considerable overlap between children with medical complexity (CMC) and autism, with significantly higher expenditures seen for those with medical complexity and autism, according to a study published online Feb. 3 in Pediatrics.
Philip H. Smith, Ph.D., from the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University in Philadelphia, and colleagues analyzed two national cross-sectional surveys: the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH; 2017 to 2018, 2019 to 2022, and 2021 to 2022) and the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS; combined 2010 to 2021) to estimate the overlapping prevalence of medical complexity and autism among U.S. children. Healthcare expenditures were compared for CMC and autism versus other children.
The researchers found that the prevalence of CMC and autism in the most recent 2021 to 2022 NSCH was 59.28% using one algorithm and 17.56% using a more stringent algorithm.
Racial Gap Widened in Deaths Among Us Moms Around the Time of Childbirth
Black women in the U.S. died at a rate nearly 3.5 times higher than white women around the time of childbirth in 2023, as maternal mortality fell below prepandemic levels overall but racial gaps widened, according to federal health data released Wednesday.
In 2021 and 2022, the maternal death rate for Black women was about 2.6 times higher than white women. The data suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic, at its peak, impacted all pregnant women. But “once we went back to ‘usual activities,’ then the impact of systemic racism and unequal access (to medical care) … came right back into place,” said Dr. Amanda Williams, interim medical director for the March of Dimes.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) report Wednesday on the 2023 deaths was drawn from death certificates. The CDC counts women who died while pregnant, during childbirth and up to 42 days after birth. Accidental deaths are excluded.
Study: Speaking Multiple Languages Could Boost Your Kid’s Brain Power
New research from the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences suggests that bilingualism at home may offer cognitive benefits, particularly for children with autism spectrum disorder.
A research team led by Celia Romero, a graduate student in clinical psychology, along with associate professor Lynn Perry, professor Michael Alessandri, and former university professor Lucina Uddin, studied 112 children aged seven to 12, including both typically developing children and those with autism. Their findings indicate that bilingual children tend to have stronger executive functioning skills. This includes better impulse control and an improved ability to switch between tasks compared to monolingual children.
“We discovered that multilingualism is associated with improvements in executive function, which in turn is associated with improvements in autism symptoms,” Perry said. “There were hints of this in the literature before, but it was exciting to see how far-reaching those differences were in this research.”
Published in the journal Autism Research, the results are significant because executive functioning skills are a key challenge for children on the spectrum but are important for all kids to thrive in school and later in the workplace. Yet, the team found the benefits of speaking more than one language were not limited to children with autism.
Study Finds No Evidence That Maternal Sickness During Pregnancy Causes Autism
While many studies have reported a link between a mother’s health condition during pregnancy and her child’s risk of autism, a new study shows that nearly all of these “associations” can otherwise be explained by factors such as genetics, exposure to pollution, and access to health care.
Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health, the study revealed that, of the few conditions truly associated with autism, all were actually complications with the fetus — leading the authors to believe that those symptoms were early signs of autism in the child and not the cause of it.
“Our study shows that there is no convincing evidence that any of these other diagnoses in the mother can cause autism,” said study senior author Magdalena Janecka, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and in the Department of Population Health, at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Publishing in the journal Nature Medicine online Jan. 31, the new study included an analysis of the medical histories of more than 1.1 million pregnancies (among 600,000 mothers) from a national registry in Denmark.
Consistent Bedtimes Improve Children’s Behavior and Emotional Control
Ever find yourself at your wit’s end dealing with your child’s constant tantrums or struggles to focus during homework time? It’s a common challenge for many parents. While there are many contributing factors behind these issues, there’s a vital element that’s often overlooked — sleep.
A good night’s sleep isn’t just about feeling rested; it’s fundamental to a child’s overall health, impacting everything from brain development and learning to mood regulation. Inconsistent sleep patterns lead to a host of problems, affecting children’s behavior, emotions and even their academic performance.
Establishing a consistent bedtime is key to ensuring your child gets the restorative sleep they need to stay focused, manage their emotions and thrive both at home and in school.
Guidelines Call for Widespread Type 1 Diabetes Screening in Children
A University of Florida (UF) Health physician-scientist led an international team of Type 1 diabetes experts who recently developed new treatment guidelines emphasizing wider screening for the disease among children and adolescents in the general population before symptoms arise.
That would include screening the young relatives of those with Type 1 diabetes, such as siblings, because they are at higher genetic risk of developing diabetes.
The effort was led by Michael Haller, M.D., chief of pediatric endocrinology in the UF College of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and a member of the UF Diabetes Institute.
The guidelines cover screening, staging, and strategies to preserve beta cell function in children and adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. They were published last month in the journal Hormone Research in Paediatrics and are issued under the umbrella of the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes, or ISPAD.
