November 23, 2010
Filed under: New Born — Alan @ 10:57 pm
The Apgar score is a point system, which can be standardized to assess the clinical condition of newborns. Using this score, it manages to describe the adjustment to life outside the womb and the release of the foetal to the neonatal condition. Next result is the effect of resuscitation measures. The score was first introduced in 1952 by the American anaesthesiologist Virginia Apgar and was named after her.
Many babies died from undiagnosed prenatal damage that worsened after birth, but also as a result of defects or injuries during the birth process, such as cerebral haemorrhage, oxygen deficiency, or a combination of such damages.
Prior to the universality of the Apgar scores, one newborn was wrapped in a blanket and studied later in the nursery. Respiratory and circulatory problems that could easily be treated if they had been detected immediately after birth, often lead to many complications with lifelong consequences or even death of the child.
Virginia Apgar wrote in her book “Is My Baby All Right?” “The birth is the most dangerous period of life. It is urgent to assess the health status of newborns and quickly diagnose symptoms occurring immediately to take appropriate action.”
Implementation
The Apgar score has five components:
Heart rate
Respiratory effort
Reflex irritability;
Muscle tone;
Skin colour.
The determination is now 1, 5 and 10 minutes after birth. For the characters there are each 0 points (features missing), 1 point (features not developed) or 2 points (features existent) and this is entered in the study protocol, the maximum achievable score being 10. “Mature” babies, i.e. after 37 weeks of gestation, have no abnormalities and have adapted well, and remain on the maternity ward with their mother.
Criterion 0 points 1 point 2 points
Heart rate over 100/min with no heartbeat
No irregular respiratory drive, child cries
No strong reflections grimacing screaming
Limp muscle tone, slight flexion of the limb, active movement of the extremities
Blue in colour, pale pink trunk, extremities blue, whole body rosy
The optimal score for newborns are 90 – 10 points. With scores between 5 – 8 the newborn is considered impaired.
The Apgar score describes the physiological and path physiological condition of the newborn within a limited period of time. It also includes subjective components. The score can be affected by drugs, infections, birth trauma, congenital abnormalities and other factors.
The maturity of the child also affects the Apgar score. Premature babies can not sufficiently assess the score, with features such as breathing, muscle tone and reflexes which are dependent on gestational age.
Thus a healthy preterm infant without signs of asphyxia may be able to get a low Apgar score, because it is immature. The frequency of low Apgar scores is inversely proportional to birth weight.
The score alone is not enough also to make the diagnosis of asphyxia. A low Apgar score therefore allows no prediction regarding morbidity and mortality. There is a clear difference between an Apgar score, which is charged during resuscitation, and a score in a spontaneously breathing newborn, because the components of the score will be influenced largely by the resuscitation.
November 17, 2010
Filed under: Celebrity babies — Alan @ 2:55 am
Celebrity pregnancies are putting undo stress on non-celebrity mothers a recent study revealed. Photos and magazine spreads on celebrity mothers who have returned to toned and trim bodies in practically no time at all are really having a negative affect on mothers attempting to recover from pregnancy weight gain. Magazines which promote 'skinny as healthy' have a severe impact on women's self confidence, especially when they are new mothers. Now, with 'airbrushing' in photo edit programs easily accessible for any publisher, there is a false idea of what models and celebrities really look like. It is really quite upsetting, one mother revealed, to see celebrities like Denise van Outen looking trim and slender a mere two weeks after her delivery, while I still struggle with being fat and dumpy, one mother intoned.
Other celebrities who seem to have set off the ire of pregnant mothers are Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, and Katie Holmes. It should be remembered, said pregnancy advocates that these women are photographed to put the best image forward and it could easily be true that in reality they have not recovered as quickly and fully as magazine shots might depict.
They also have the money to have daily trainers and food nutritionists on s scale the average contemporary woman cannot afford. Therefore, you are probably doing yourself a grave injustice when making a comparison with these super affluent, specially privileged examples.
If you believe that you are not losing your pregnancy weight quickly enough or in the right proportions, the best idea is to consult with your doctor. Your doctor will base your personal progress against the progress of your peers and not some super-entitled mom who has every imaginable expert at her beck and call. Really, why would you want to compare yourself to results that might be inflated for publicity sake?
If you are having a specific difficulty with losing bay weight, your doctor is best equipped to suggest diet and exercise that will be beneficial and have a long lasting outcome. Your desire should be to get in shape and become healthy, not to become some sort of pin up model for millions.
November 13, 2010
Filed under: Baby public health — Alan @ 12:57 pm
An inquest held at Sheffield’s Medico-Legal Centre may result in perjury charges against some members of the staff at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. Sheffield Assistant Deputy Coroner David Urpeth said he might bring in the police, after hearing testimony that a senior consultant had instructed a colleague to make a statement that was found to be untrue.
Mr. Urpeth heard testimony from doctors and nurses involved with the care of Julia Gujdanaca, a six-month-old baby who died at the hospital last October after being transferred from the intensive care ward to make room for other patients. The baby was suffering from superbug MRSA and another undiagnosed ailment.
According to testimony, ICU doctors told nurses that Julia was in stable condition, but the nurses told a different story. Senior nurse Bethany West, who was in charge of the ward that night, told the court that Julia’s condition deteriorated and she was crying so intensely that the nurses were afraid she might “crash”. However when West requested the baby be transferred back to ICU, she got the response that “it was a nursing issue” and got no help from the ICU staff.
Finally, after repeated requests and more than three hours, the baby was moved back to ICU, but she suffered a heart attack and died just minutes after the transfer.
The pathologist recorded cause of death as “a complex syndrome of genetic origin”, but Urpeth recorded a verdict of natural causes contributed to by neglect. The perjury charge would be based on a doctor telling a testifying staff member to say that the transfer was appropriate since the baby was ‘stable’. Julia’s parents have said that they may instigate legal action against the hospital.
November 6, 2010
Filed under: baby development — Alan @ 5:05 am
A recent study has revealed that babies do not learn very much from educational videos. The tests were conducted at Vanderbilt University and University of Virginia in the U.S. Four study groups were used to determine how much babies could learn from a 40-minute vocabulary video.
The first group in the study watched the presentation with a parent. The second test group observed the video with no adults present. A third group of toddlers had their parents teach them words from a list used in the educational video and in the fourth group parents didn’t make an effort to teach vocabulary words and there was no video.
The fourth group served as a control for normal vocabulary growth in comparison to the other groups.
After one month, the children were all tested on the vocabulary words used in the video. The children who had watched the video fared no better than the ones who had not, whether their parents were present or not.
An interesting by-product was that the study found that the parents who liked the video were under the impression that their children had learned from watching it.
The study seems to prove that small children who are exposed to educational videos probably learn no faster than they would in the course of normal development.
Children learn best from experiencing life. The best method of helping them is to be positive and engage with them in everyday learning experiences. There is no substitute for that kind of learning.
Accepting this, the test creators are not saying that there is anything wrong with buying your children educational videos; just do not be concerned if they don’t seem to learn much from them.
November 2, 2010
Filed under: Child Birth — Alan @ 2:15 am
To prepare for the birth pregnant women can cooperate by attending along with a partner, a childbirth class that is offered as a regular weekly appointment or as a weekend course by midwives, clinics, birth centres and hospitals.
The content of these courses include setting up a birth plan (choice of place of birth, birth positions), natural pain processing, artificial painkillers and anaesthesia techniques, pelvic floor muscle training, relaxation exercises, psychological and social aspects of family formation, breastfeeding and infant care.
Home births have been steadily declining, and today 97% of children are born in hospitals, particularly in high-risk pregnancies. In addition, there are alternatives to a standard birth
From about the 18th Week of pregnancy movements of the developing foetus are felt by the pregnant woman. The earliest point is from the 23rd Week that one can hear the heartbeat with a stethoscope. Thanks to modern medical methods (e.g. ultra-zoography) the foetus can be shown in the womb and has a highly developed sense of its external environment (mother’s voice, music, movement).
