Working Moms Enjoy Better Physical And Mental Health!

Moms who work full-time are healthier at age 40 than moms who stay at home, work part time, or moms who find themselves repeatedly out of work.

This was the result of a study reported on Monday, the last day of the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Denver, Colorado.

Co-author Adrianne Frech, Assistant Sociology Professor at the University of Akron in Ohio, told the press, work is good for both physical and mental health, for many reasons:

"It gives women a sense of purpose, self-efficacy, control and autonomy."

"They have a place where they are an expert on something, and they're paid a wage," she added.

Persistently Unemployed

However, Frech and co-author Sarah Damaske of Pennsylvania State University, said rather than stir up the going-out-to-work versus stay-at-home debate, their research highlights a recently identified group, whom they label the persistently unemployed.

They say this group of mothers deserves more attention because they appear to be the least healthy at around age 40.

Persistently unemployed mothers are in and out of the workforce, often not by their own choice. They repeatedly experience the highs and lows of finding rewarding work, only to lose it and have to start all over again.

This becomes a health risk because of the stress caused by work instability.

"Struggling to hold onto a job or being in constant job search mode wears on their health, especially mentally, but also physically," said Frech.

"Women with interrupted employment face more job-related barriers than other women, or cumulative disadvantages over time," she added.

The Study

For their study, Frech and Damaske analyzed longitudinal data on 2,540 women who became mothers between 1978 and 1995.

After adjusting for other factors that could influence the findings, such as prior health, employment before pregnancy, race/ethnicity, single motherhood, cognitive ability, and age at first birth, they found the choices women make early in their professional lives can influence their health later on.

Women who go back to full time work shortly after having children reported better health, both physical and mental. They have more mobility, less tendency to depression, and have more energy, at age 40.

Make Good Choices Before First Child

Frech and Damaske suggest if women are able to make good choices before they have their first child, they are more likely to enjoy better health later on.

"Examples of good choices could be delaying your first birth until you're married and done with your education, or not waiting a long time before returning to the workforce," said Frech.

Frech suggests working full time brings many benefits that part time workers rarely see: not only is the pay higher, but the chances of promotion are better, there is more job security and more fringe benefits.

In contrast, mothers who stay at home may find themselves socially isolated and financially dependent.

Work makes you healthier and gives you the opportunity to save a nest egg, says Frech.

"Also, should a divorce happen, it is harder to enter the workforce if you don't have a solid work history. Don't give up on work and education," she adds.

Frech also suggests society benefits when single mothers are offered child care and transportation, because this results in better job prospects for them.



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Mothers Who Smoke While Pregnant Increase Their Baby's Risk Of Asthma!

New research has discovered that mothers who smoke during pregnancy may cause wheeze and asthma in their children when they reach preschool, even among kids whose moms did not smoke until late pregnancy or after birth.

Asa Neuman, MD, of the Institute of Environmental Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, said:

"Epidemiological evidence suggests that exposure to maternal smoking during fetal and early life increases the risk off childhood wheezing and asthma, but earlier studies were not able to differentiate the effects of prenatal and postnatal exposure. Our study, a large pooled analysis of eight birth cohorts with data on more  than 21,000 children, included 735 children who were exposed to maternal  smoking only during pregnancy.

These children were at increased risk for wheeze and asthma at preschool age. Furthermore, the likelihood of developing  wheeze and asthma increased in a significant dose-response pattern in relation  to maternal cigarette consumption during the first trimester."

The results, published in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, came from an analysis of eight European birth cohorts, including a total of 21,600 kids. Parents were given questionnaires which authors used for exposure information and information on symptoms of wheeze and asthma.

The analysis showed that maternal smoking during pregnancy only was associated with increased risks for wheeze (odd ratio 1.39, 95 % CI 1.08-1.77) and asthma (odds ratio 1.65, 1.18-2.31) at ages 4 through 6, after adjusting for factors such as parental education, siblings, sex, and birth weight.

Moreover, maternal smoking during the first trimester of pregnancy showed to have an effect on children's development of wheeze and asthma; however, smoking during the third trimester or the first year of birth showed no increased risks.

Maternal smoking can begin to cause harm on the fetal respiratory system early in pregnancy, possibly before the mother even knows that she is pregnant, Dr. Neuman pointed out.

The research has a few limitations, such as the parents answering the questionnaires to obtain exposure and outcome information.

The author concluded:

"Our large pooled analysis confirms that maternal smoking during pregnancy, particularly during the first trimester, is associated with a greater risk of offspring developing wheeze and asthma when they reach preschool age."

Although this study focused on the increased risks of developing wheeze and asthma, there are many other harmful risks for children whose mothers smoke. A few examples include:

• stillbirth
• low birth weight
• prematurity
• sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)
• high blood pressure
• obesity in childhood and into adolescence

The expert warns, "Teens and young women should be encouraged to quit smoking before getting pregnant."

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Children's Brains Change As They Learn To Think About Others!

Researchers have shown that activity in a certain region of the brain changes as children learn to reason about what other people might be thinking.

At around the age of 4 or 5, children begin to think and reason about other people's thoughts and emotions; they start to develop a skill that scientists call "theory of mind". 

Now, a new study shows that a region of the brain that was already known to be involved in the use of this skill in adults, changes its pattern of activity in children as they begin to acquire theory of mind reasoning for themselves.

Rebecca Saxe, a neuroscientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and colleagues, suggest their findingsprovide a good basis for studying theory of mind impairments in autistic children.

They write about their work in a paper published online on 31 July in the journal Child Development.

Saxe is also an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences and associate member of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research.

In earlier research, she had already established where theory of mind sits in the adult brain: it occupies a region known as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ).

In this latest study, she and her team show that activity in the TPJ changes as children learn to employ theory of mind.

The findings suggest that as children age, the right TPJ becomes more specific to theory of mind, and over time, its patterns of activity look more like those of adults.

The researchers also found the children who did better in tasks where they needed to use theory of mind, were those whose right TPJ was particularly active when they listened to stories about other people's thoughts.

Hyowon Gweon, a graduate student in Saxe's lab and lead author of the paper, told the press this week:

"Given that we know this is what typically developing kids show, the next question to ask is how it compares to autistic children who exhibit marked impairments in their ability to think about other people's minds."

Perhaps the brains of autistic children show different patterns of activity, says Gweon.

The "Sally-Anne" False Belief Test

In the study, the researchers used a version of what is commonly known as the "Sally-Anne" False Belief Test, a classic way of studying theory of mind in young children.

Sally and Anne are dolls that the researcher uses to play out a short scene in front of the child.

In the first part of the scene, Sally takes a marble and hides it in her basket. She then leaves the room.

Anne then takes the marble and puts it in her box. Sally comes back in the room, and the scene pauses while the researcher asks the child "Where will Sally look for her marble?"

Children with a well developed theory of mind say "in the basket". Children who have not developed a theory of mind will say "in the box". That is because the former will be thinking about what Sally is thinking, even though it does not represent where the marble is in reality, while the latter will only think about what they have observed.

Previous studies have shown children usually start developing theory of mind around the age of 4: they will say Sally is going to look in the basket. But with autistic children, this happens much later, if ever.

What the Researchers Did

For the study, the researchers examined 20 children, aged from 5 to 11 years, as they took part in two experiments.

In the first experiment, the children underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans as they listened to stories. 

As each child sat in the MRI machine, he or she listened to three different types of story: the first focused on the mental states of the people in the story; the second focused only on what people looked like and what they did; and the third type of story focused on physical objects (not people).

The researchers measured the children's brain activity as they listened to all three stories. Then they compared the scans to see if any brain regions were only active when the children listened to the story about people's mental states.

In the second experiment the children took part in a version of the Sally-Anne test. The researchers also asked them questions that required the children to make moral judgements, as another way to measure their theory of mind skill.

What They Found

After the first experiment, the researchers observed that in younger children, the left and right TPJ were active when they listened to stories about people's mental states. And these two regions were also active when they listened to stories about people's appearance and behavior.

But in older children, the results were different. Both the left and right TPJ brain regions appeared to be more highly "tuned" when listening to stories about people's thoughts and feelings, and weren't active at all during the stories about what people looked like and did.

When they compared these results to those of the second experiment, they found that the extent to which activity in the right TPJ region was tuned into the story about mental states tied in closely with how the children performed in the Sally-Anne tests that measured their theory of mind skill.

Implications

An expert who was not involved with the study suggests it significantly increases our understanding of how theory of mind develops in children as they get older.

"Getting more insight into the neural basis of the behavioral development we're seeing at these ages is exciting," said Kristin Lagattuta, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California at Davis.

The researchers are also working on another study using a similar set of tests, that aims to discover more about the neural underpinning of theory of mind in children with autism.

Gweon said we know very little about the differences in neural mechanisms involved in children with such impairments, and that:

"Understanding the developmental changes in brain regions related to theory of mind is going to be critical to think of measures that can help them in the real world."

Funds from the Ellison Medical Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the John Merck Scholars Program, a National Science Foundation Career Award and an Ewha 21st Century Scholarship helped finance the study.

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Young Athletes: Injuries And Prevention!

High profile events like the Olympics bring the hope that witnessing and celebrating dedicated athletes at the top of their game, will inspire young people to take up sport and physical activities that help them develop confidence, lead more satisfying lives, and not least, secure long-term health by reducing their risk for developing chronic illness like diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases.

But unfortunately, if they don't take appropriate measures, young athletes can instead, end up in pain, on a different path to poor health, due to avoidable sport injury. 

James R. Andrews, a former president of the American Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM), said in May this year, the US has experienced a tremendous rise in the number of young people taking up sport. Estimates show 3.5 million children aged 14 and under receive medical treatment for sport-related injuries, while high-school athletes account for another 2 million a year.

"This makes sports the leading cause of adolescent injury. Along with time away from school and work, these injuries can have far-reaching effects," said Andrews.

This article looks at some of the common and less common injuries in young athletes. It then reviews a new project that is tracking injuries in Olympic athletes, introduces some ideas about avoiding and minimizing injury, and finishes with a list of tips for preventing sport injury in children.

Common Sport Injuries

According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health in the US, the most common sport injuries are due to accidents, poor training practices or using the wrong gear or equipment. People can also hurt themselves because they are not in shape, or because they don't warm up or stretch enough.

Some injury experts in the US have said they are also seeing more and more young athletes injured because of overuse and doing too much, and this may partially explain the growing numbers that drop out of sport by the eighth grade. The most common sports injuries are:

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Smiling Reduces Stress And Helps The Heart!

The age-old saying suggests smiling not only signals happiness to others, but could also be a way to help cope with life stresses.

Previous studies have shown that smiling affects emotion, and that positive emotions have an effect on stress. But Kraft and Pressman are the first to experiment with types of smile to see what effect they have on stress.

Researchers often class smiles as being of two types: standard smiles, where only the mouth shapes the smile, and genuine or Duchenne smiles, where the muscles around the mouth and the eyes shape the smile. (The latter was named after Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne, who used electrophysiology to show how truly happy smiles also use the muscles around the eyes).

For their latest study, Kraft and Pressman invited 169 volunteers from a Midwestern university to undergo an experiment in two stages: training and testing.

In the training stage, the researchers taught the volunteers how to either hold their faces in a neutral expression, hold a standard smile, or hold a Duchenne smile.

They also got some of the volunteers to hold their face in a forced smile by holding chopsticks in their mouths.

In the testing phase, the volunteers performed some multi-tasking activities, during which they held their faces in the manner instructed.

The activities were designed to increase stress levels, but the volunteers didn't know this. One test for instance, asks the participant to use their non-dominant hand to follow the path of a moving star that they observe in a mirror. The other test involves plunging a hand into a bucket of ice water.

The researchers monitored the participants' heart rates as they performed their various tasks.

They found the participants who were instructed to smile, and in particular those whose faces expressed genuine or Duchenne smiles, had lower heart rates after recovery from the stress activities than the ones who held their faces in neutral expressions.

Even the volunteers who held chopsticks in their mouths, that forced the muscles to express a smile (but they had not explicitly been instructed to smile), had lower recovery heart rates compared to the ones who held neutral facial expressions.

The researchers say their findings suggest smiling during brief periods of stress may help reduce the body's stress response, regardless of whether the person actually feels happy or not.

Pressman said this could be useful to know, for instance if you find yourself stuck in a traffic jam, try to hold your face in a smile for a few moments: it may do more than just help you "grin and bear it", it may actually help your heart health too.

this was taken from : www.medicalnewstoday.com

Kids' Exercise Interventions Show Negligible Impact!

Interventions like extra exercise classes that aim to increase physical activity levels in children as a way to tackle the rising problem of obesity and overweight in youngsters appear to be having only a small, almost negligible effect, according to a review published online in BMJ on Thursday.

We have known of the rising obesity and overweight crisis for some time, and researchers have done numerous studies that show the more physically active children are, the more likely they are to have a healthy weight (as measured by body mass index, BMI) and to stay active and maintain a healthy weight through adulthood. 

This has led to the development of interventions, or programs that deliberately aim to increase levels of physical activity in children by providing them with extra exercise sessions, for instance in school time or afterwards.

But so far, studies of those interventions show they are not successful in improving children's BMI.

Hard Measures of Total Daily Activity

In this latest study, researchers from Plymouth and Exeter Universities in the UK, carried out a systematic review, believed to be the first, of studies that did not rely on data extracted from questionnaires, but used "hard" measures of actual physical activity obtained from accelerometry devices, and also took into account whole day activity, or total bodily movement across waking hours.

For their review, the authors searched recognized databases and references lists for peer-reviewed journal studies that matched their requirements. They had to be examining interventions designed to increase activity levels in children aged 16 and under that lasted for at least four weeks, and measured results objectively, using accelerometers. 

30 randomized controlled trials that took place between January 1990 and March 2012 matched these requirements. All the studies were matched on age, ethnicity, and socio-economic status, and the results were adjusted for gender and activity levels at the start of the intervention period.

Eight of the studies had included only overweight or obese children, while the rest included children from all BMI ranges.

The researchers assessed the effect of interventions on total physical activity and time spent on moderate or vigorous physical activity.

Example Studies Reviewed

One of the studies they reviewed was of an intervention in the US that sought to increase physical activity in 729 youngsters of average age 11 by giving them three 90-minute after-school sessions per week. Each session included 60 minutes of high intensity physical activity.

But the results were disappointing: measures taken half way through the trial showed in terms of total activity, the children were only doing an extra five minutes of walking or running per day, and by the end of the trial, even these few minutes had gone down to zero.

Another study the researchers reviewed was a 24-week intervention in 268 pre-schoolers attending Scottish nursery schools who were given three 30-minute sessions per week during nursery hours.

The results here were also disappointing: the children's physical activity levels didn't rise, and if anything, went down slightly. The data showed they spent on average one minute less per day walking or running, compared to children in the control group who did not attend the intervention sessions.

Small-to-Negligle Effects

The researchers conclude that the interventions had a "small-to-negligible" impact: there was little increase in total activity volume and only a small increase in time spent in moderate or vigorous intensity activity (about the same as four minutes of walking or running per day).

Such tiny improvements in physical activity levels would not be sufficient to make significant reductions in children's BMI or body fat. Such a small effect would result in a reduction for instance of only 2mm in waist size.

Previous studies have suggested such interventions don't achieve reductions in BMI and body fat because they make children eat more calories.

The authors suggest another reason for the failure to impact BMI: the interventions could be displacing equally active periods, such as after-school clubs, which would usually take place outdoors.

While it is understandable for us to jump to the conclusion that the answer to the obesity crisis in kids is to make them do more exercise, the authors suggest we think carefully first, and urge future studies to take into account the effect of any interventions on whole day activity as well as activity-specific periods, as "small increase gained from formal interventions seems insufficient to improve the body mass / fat of children."

Focus On All Children

In an accompanying commentary, Mark Hamer and Abigail Fisher from University College London, say although the reviewers' chosen methods have "inherent limitations", their evidence is the best so far.

They ask researchers not to focus on overweight and obese children but concentrate instead on what helps to improve health in children regardless of their weight.

They also call for more studies that look at how changes to outdoor and indoor environments affect children's physical activity.

this was taken from : www.medicalnewstoday.com