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The Food and Drug Administration is laying out new requirements to ensure the safety of infant formula. The rules announced Thursday are designed to make sure that formula manufacturers test their products for salmonella and other pathogens before they are distributed. They would also require formula companies to include specific nutrients, including proteins, fats and vitamins.

A new analysis of federal health data shows that Medicaid paid for nearly half of all births in the United States in 2010, a rate that continues to increase. The federal health care program covered 48 percent of the 3.8 million births that year, jumping from 40 percent in 2008, say researchers from the George Washington University School of Public Health. In only two years, the government entitlement covered 90,000 more women giving birth, as states expand the federal-state health coverage plan. Medicaid coverage varied greatly state by state, ranging from a low of one-quarter of births in Hawaii to...

A doctors group that supports an Arizona law restricting non-emergency abortions after 20 weeks filed a legal brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit showing that babies feel pain during an abortion as early as the same amount of weeks into a pregnancy. The 9th Circuit ruled to temporarily prevent implementation of Arizona H.B. 2036 on Aug. 1. The passed law, which is now being considered by the court, would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy save in the event of medical emergency. A district court found that "the unborn child has developed pain sensors...

Article says newborn babies are not “actual persons” and do not have a “moral right to life”. The academics also argue that parents should be able to have their baby killed if it turns out to be disabled when it is born. " Article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics." Note: I was stunned when I read this article and post it here to show how dangerous "liberals" dabbling in morality can be. I asked myself is this proposal going to show up in academic discussions in our universities and hospitals? GC "Parents should be allowed to have their...

The path toward obesity starts at a young age - even before babies transition to a solid diet, according to a new study. Almost one-third of 9-month-olds are obese or overweight, as are 34 percent of 2-year-olds, according to the research, which looked at a nationally representative sample of children born in 2001. The study is one of the first to measure weight in the same group of very young children over time, said lead researcher Brian Moss, a sociologist at Wayne State University in Detroit. The results showed that starting out heavy puts kids on a trajectory to stay...

Michele Kalina will be charged today with 5 counts of homicide. The Berks County District Attorney will hold a news conference this afternoon. Updates to follow.

Update 17:37 01/10/10 - Reports indicate that police have shot and killed James Lee, and released the hostages.SILVER SPRING, Maryland, September 1, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Chaos erupted after at least one hostage was taken at the Silver Spring headquarters of the Discovery Channel by what appears to be a crazed radical environmentalist. The armed man has reportedly demanded that Discovery Channel executives run programming geared toward stopping the propagation of "parasitic human infants" in order to save the planet from global warming and pollution.In a document apparently authored by James J. Lee, identified by law enforcement as the gunman, Lee...

High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem. In Sweden, for instance, 6.3 percent of births were premature, compared with 12.4 percent in the United States in 2005, the latest year for which international rankings are available. Infant mortality also... --snip-- Dr. Fleischman said the smallest, earliest and most fragile babies were often born to poor and minority women who lacked health care and social support. The highest rates of infant mortality occur...

The prevailing view among parents, the general public and mental health professionals that infants as young as six months old "do not remember" traumatic events that happen to them or to their loved ones has recently been disproved, a professor of infant mental health said at a Jerusalem conference on Sunday.... [snip] ... Most professionals and parents have pooh-poohed this idea because infants and young toddlers do not have the verbal ability to describe the trauma, but it nevertheless is stored in their brains, she asserted....[snip]... People are wrong to assume that when traumatized infants grow up and don't speak...

Maj. Roger Brockbank, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, works with doctors from the Basrah Women's and Children's Hospital during neonatal resuscitation training aboard Contingency Operating Base Basrah, June 10. Photo by Sgt. Rodney Foliente, 4th Infantry Division. BASRAH — U.S. doctors and medical staff conducted neonatal resuscitation training for local doctors aboard the Contingency Operating Base here, June 10-11. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, offered the training and introduced new procedures and equipment that can help save infant lives and reduce the risk of babies suffering from cerebral palsy and mental retardation."Iraq has one of...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - A hospital in the Netherlands — the first nation to permit euthanasia — recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives. The announcement by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland on whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives — a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates. In August, the...

Blood Vessel Tumors Respond To Blueberry Extract, Study ShowsSubstances found in blueberries may inhibit the growth of blood vessel tumors in infants and children, a new study suggests. Ohio State University researchers say they found that feeding a blueberry extract to mice with blood vessel tumors safely decreased the size of the tumors and improved survival. The tumors in question are among the most common tumors in infants, according to the report in the journal Antioxidants & Redox Signaling. In infants, the tumors can be disfiguring and in some cases threaten the health of a child. Mice with blood vessel...

Three heart transplants were successfully performed with infant donors whose hearts had stopped beating, according to researchers here, but some ethicists question whether moral boundaries were crossed. The report in the Aug. 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reopened a long-simmering debate that boils down to the question of how to define death of a potential donor before organ harvesting may proceed. The three recipients, mean age 2.2 months, have survived at least 3.5 years with only one having a rejection episode during the first six months after surgery, reported Mark M. Boucek, M.D., and colleagues of...

In Sickness and In Health by: Malcolm A. Kline, September 23, 2008 Critics in both the media and academia who point to exploding costs and denial of care as maladies afflicting the U. S. health care system are getting part of the story right. “In the last seven years, we’ve had over [a] 100 percent increase in insurance premiums and only a 27 percent increase in earnings,” University of Utah economist Norman J. Waitzman said in a roundtable sponsored by Continuum, the university’s magazine. Waitzman is co-director of the Behavioral Science and Health program at the University. Unfortunately, too many...

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Three new reports challenge current guidelines on how long after cardiac death doctors must wait before taking a heart from an infant organ donor. There's no question that organ donation saves lives, and there's also no question that there aren't enough donor organs to save everyone on the transplant list. However, deciding who is a suitable organ donor, particularly when the potential donor is an infant, is not so clear-cut. Most people are familiar with the concept of organ donation after brain death, but organ donation is also permissible after cardiac death. Cardiac death...

BASRAH — “I feel blessed to be working on this important project,” said Ryan Hartwig, construction representative with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Basrah Children’s Hospital Office “Each time we go, we see more progress. I can look at the place now and actually visualize patients using this facility,” he continued. “It’s just very satisfying being part of this effort that will no doubt save or change the lives of so many Iraqi children.” Several key partners are involved in the project including Project Hope (a non-government organization), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the Iraqi Ministry of...

The Fashion world is crazy, and don't we know it. Wigs for cats, diamond necklaces for dogs, blingastic jeans, and whoa - heels for babies! The Heelarious company makes one-size shoes for infants in leopard and zebra patterns, black and hot pink patent, and hot pink matte. The tiny stilettos cost from $35 to $39.95. Buy them, and your 6 month baby will rock out to a nirvana of ga-gas and goo-goos.

Omega-3 Intake During Last Months Of Pregnancy Boosts An Infant's Cognitive And Motor Development ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2008) — A study supervised by Université Laval researchers Gina Muckle and Éric Dewailly reveals that omega-3 intake during the last months of pregnancy boosts an infant's sensory, cognitive, and motor development. The details of this finding are published in a recent edition of the Journal of Pediatrics. To come to this conclusion, researchers first measured docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) concentration--a type of omega-3 fatty acid involved in the development of neurons and retinas--in the umbilical cord blood of 109 infants. "DHA concentration in...

Infants With Birthmarks Received Less Oxygen In Womb ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — A hemangioma is a benign tumor of cells that line blood vessels, appearing during the first few weeks of life as a large birthmark or lesion. A new study reveals that a disturbance of oxygen depletion was found in placentas of babies who developed infantile hemangioma (IH). Researchers reviewed placental samples from 26 pregnancies with babies who weighed less than 3.5 pounds, 13 consisting of newborns who developed IH after birth and 13 healthy preterm infants who did not have IH. Only one of the infants without...

Infant cold medicines pulled off market WASHINGTON - Drug makers pulled cold medicines targeted for babies and toddlers off the market Thursday, leaving parents to find alternatives for hacking coughs and runny little noses just as fall sniffles get in full swing. The move represented a pre-emptive strike by over-the-counter drug manufacturers — a week before government advisers were to debate the medicines' fate. But it doesn't end concern about the safety of these remedies for youngsters. Thursday's withdrawal includes medicines aimed at children under age 2, after the Food and Drug Administration and other health groups reported deaths...