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This last week has been among the most boring ever in pop culture. Is Pink becoming more chaste? Does Tori Spelling keep a pet chicken in her bedroom? Do I care? Heck, I have a pet chicken, and I still don’t care! But then I find a headline that warms my heart: In lieu of baby gifts, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have asked their friends and well-wishers to donate to the neonatal intensive care unit of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. What, exactly, the preemies will do with a diamond-encrusted platinum baby rattle is anyone’s guess, but the Tom Ford onesies should nicely complement the Gucci diapers.
Déjà vu
I’ve always wanted to start a charity, mainly so that I can host a black tie ball and invite celebrities to share embarrassing personal stories. Now, thanks to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN), I’d like to ask you all to be founding members of my new nonprofit. While I strongly considered the “Society to Find a Shorter Acronym for the NASPGHAN,” I settled on the Gastroesophageal Reflux Is Not a Disease Foundation (GERINADF). Our mission: to save endangered proton pump inhibitors by keeping them in their natural environment, bottles.
More than a quarter of routine 6-month pediatric wellness exams involve discussions of spitting up (the baby’s, not the doctor’s), and upwards of 2/3 of healthy infants experience some spitting. An article published in Pediatrics earlier this month demonstrated that simply calling reflux a “disease” inspired parents to seek medication, even when they were told the medicine was probably useless. Is it any wonder we overprescribe for spitting? Are you ready to give yet? Wait until I show you a video of Ana, a beautiful happy spitter who contracted pneumonia that may have been caused by excessive antacid use.
The May issue of Pediatrics includes a clinical report from the Section on Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition that strongly supports the mission of the GERINADF. It suggests that few infants who spit up require any sort of treatment, and those who do should start with a trial of feeding modifications rather than medications. Of course, our dream at GERINADF is that all pediatricians will read and comply with the suggested guidelines, but until discussing feeding modifications takes less time than dashing off an antacid script, I’ll keep looking for a D-list celebrity in need of a charity. Don’t give to GERINADF for me. Do it for Ana.
Sweet home
Those of us who grow up in the South know that wherever we go, the region will always be in our hearts. A new study suggests it also lingers in our carotids. According to Virginia Howard, Ph.D., and her team of researchers at the University of Alabama (woo woo woo), Tuscaloosa, just spending your teenage years in the South (a.k.a., “the stroke belt”) is enough to increase your risk of stroke at age 65 years, even if you live the rest of your life in a region where pork belly is not considered a vegetable.
The study looked at 24,544 older Americans who had not yet had a stroke, following them to see what differentiated those who eventually suffered cerebrovascular accidents from those who didn’t. Spending their teen years in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia increased the risk of stroke by 17%, even in patients who subsequently moved away. The risk appeared multifactorial, due in part to diet, tobacco use, and exposure to the Charlie Daniels Band. As I’ve heard all my life, the South shall rise again. Starting with our blood pressure.
Coddled or hard boiled?
As if helicopter parents needed one more thing to obsess about, they now have to worry that their kids will be bullied. A new literature review in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect confirms the conventional wisdom that children whose parents shield them too much from negative experiences are more likely to be picked on by their peers. On the flip side, children who grow up in neglectful or abusive environments are also at higher risk of bullying. Moms and dads from Park Slope to Palo Alto right now are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out how to provide their little princes and princesses just the right degree of childhood adversity.
I foresee business opportunities galore in this trend. Just at birthday parties alone, we’ll observe a spike in demand for angry clowns, underinflated bouncy houses, and double-thickness piñatas. Only the rudest kids will be invited to playdates. Creative arts programs will empty out to be replaced by boot camps with demanding-yet-supportive drill sergeants. I’d like to say I’m joking here, but seriously, bookmark this blog and check back in a year. Kim Kardashian’s baby is going to be cleaning up after Tori Spelling’s chicken, and it won’t even be news.
David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC, and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).
This last week has been among the most boring ever in pop culture. Is Pink becoming more chaste? Does Tori Spelling keep a pet chicken in her bedroom? Do I care? Heck, I have a pet chicken, and I still don’t care! But then I find a headline that warms my heart: In lieu of baby gifts, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have asked their friends and well-wishers to donate to the neonatal intensive care unit of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. What, exactly, the preemies will do with a diamond-encrusted platinum baby rattle is anyone’s guess, but the Tom Ford onesies should nicely complement the Gucci diapers.
Déjà vu
I’ve always wanted to start a charity, mainly so that I can host a black tie ball and invite celebrities to share embarrassing personal stories. Now, thanks to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN), I’d like to ask you all to be founding members of my new nonprofit. While I strongly considered the “Society to Find a Shorter Acronym for the NASPGHAN,” I settled on the Gastroesophageal Reflux Is Not a Disease Foundation (GERINADF). Our mission: to save endangered proton pump inhibitors by keeping them in their natural environment, bottles.
More than a quarter of routine 6-month pediatric wellness exams involve discussions of spitting up (the baby’s, not the doctor’s), and upwards of 2/3 of healthy infants experience some spitting. An article published in Pediatrics earlier this month demonstrated that simply calling reflux a “disease” inspired parents to seek medication, even when they were told the medicine was probably useless. Is it any wonder we overprescribe for spitting? Are you ready to give yet? Wait until I show you a video of Ana, a beautiful happy spitter who contracted pneumonia that may have been caused by excessive antacid use.
The May issue of Pediatrics includes a clinical report from the Section on Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition that strongly supports the mission of the GERINADF. It suggests that few infants who spit up require any sort of treatment, and those who do should start with a trial of feeding modifications rather than medications. Of course, our dream at GERINADF is that all pediatricians will read and comply with the suggested guidelines, but until discussing feeding modifications takes less time than dashing off an antacid script, I’ll keep looking for a D-list celebrity in need of a charity. Don’t give to GERINADF for me. Do it for Ana.
Sweet home
Those of us who grow up in the South know that wherever we go, the region will always be in our hearts. A new study suggests it also lingers in our carotids. According to Virginia Howard, Ph.D., and her team of researchers at the University of Alabama (woo woo woo), Tuscaloosa, just spending your teenage years in the South (a.k.a., “the stroke belt”) is enough to increase your risk of stroke at age 65 years, even if you live the rest of your life in a region where pork belly is not considered a vegetable.
The study looked at 24,544 older Americans who had not yet had a stroke, following them to see what differentiated those who eventually suffered cerebrovascular accidents from those who didn’t. Spending their teen years in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia increased the risk of stroke by 17%, even in patients who subsequently moved away. The risk appeared multifactorial, due in part to diet, tobacco use, and exposure to the Charlie Daniels Band. As I’ve heard all my life, the South shall rise again. Starting with our blood pressure.
Coddled or hard boiled?
As if helicopter parents needed one more thing to obsess about, they now have to worry that their kids will be bullied. A new literature review in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect confirms the conventional wisdom that children whose parents shield them too much from negative experiences are more likely to be picked on by their peers. On the flip side, children who grow up in neglectful or abusive environments are also at higher risk of bullying. Moms and dads from Park Slope to Palo Alto right now are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out how to provide their little princes and princesses just the right degree of childhood adversity.
I foresee business opportunities galore in this trend. Just at birthday parties alone, we’ll observe a spike in demand for angry clowns, underinflated bouncy houses, and double-thickness piñatas. Only the rudest kids will be invited to playdates. Creative arts programs will empty out to be replaced by boot camps with demanding-yet-supportive drill sergeants. I’d like to say I’m joking here, but seriously, bookmark this blog and check back in a year. Kim Kardashian’s baby is going to be cleaning up after Tori Spelling’s chicken, and it won’t even be news.
David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC, and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).
This last week has been among the most boring ever in pop culture. Is Pink becoming more chaste? Does Tori Spelling keep a pet chicken in her bedroom? Do I care? Heck, I have a pet chicken, and I still don’t care! But then I find a headline that warms my heart: In lieu of baby gifts, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have asked their friends and well-wishers to donate to the neonatal intensive care unit of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. What, exactly, the preemies will do with a diamond-encrusted platinum baby rattle is anyone’s guess, but the Tom Ford onesies should nicely complement the Gucci diapers.
Déjà vu
I’ve always wanted to start a charity, mainly so that I can host a black tie ball and invite celebrities to share embarrassing personal stories. Now, thanks to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition (NASPGHAN), I’d like to ask you all to be founding members of my new nonprofit. While I strongly considered the “Society to Find a Shorter Acronym for the NASPGHAN,” I settled on the Gastroesophageal Reflux Is Not a Disease Foundation (GERINADF). Our mission: to save endangered proton pump inhibitors by keeping them in their natural environment, bottles.
More than a quarter of routine 6-month pediatric wellness exams involve discussions of spitting up (the baby’s, not the doctor’s), and upwards of 2/3 of healthy infants experience some spitting. An article published in Pediatrics earlier this month demonstrated that simply calling reflux a “disease” inspired parents to seek medication, even when they were told the medicine was probably useless. Is it any wonder we overprescribe for spitting? Are you ready to give yet? Wait until I show you a video of Ana, a beautiful happy spitter who contracted pneumonia that may have been caused by excessive antacid use.
The May issue of Pediatrics includes a clinical report from the Section on Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition that strongly supports the mission of the GERINADF. It suggests that few infants who spit up require any sort of treatment, and those who do should start with a trial of feeding modifications rather than medications. Of course, our dream at GERINADF is that all pediatricians will read and comply with the suggested guidelines, but until discussing feeding modifications takes less time than dashing off an antacid script, I’ll keep looking for a D-list celebrity in need of a charity. Don’t give to GERINADF for me. Do it for Ana.
Sweet home
Those of us who grow up in the South know that wherever we go, the region will always be in our hearts. A new study suggests it also lingers in our carotids. According to Virginia Howard, Ph.D., and her team of researchers at the University of Alabama (woo woo woo), Tuscaloosa, just spending your teenage years in the South (a.k.a., “the stroke belt”) is enough to increase your risk of stroke at age 65 years, even if you live the rest of your life in a region where pork belly is not considered a vegetable.
The study looked at 24,544 older Americans who had not yet had a stroke, following them to see what differentiated those who eventually suffered cerebrovascular accidents from those who didn’t. Spending their teen years in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee or Virginia increased the risk of stroke by 17%, even in patients who subsequently moved away. The risk appeared multifactorial, due in part to diet, tobacco use, and exposure to the Charlie Daniels Band. As I’ve heard all my life, the South shall rise again. Starting with our blood pressure.
Coddled or hard boiled?
As if helicopter parents needed one more thing to obsess about, they now have to worry that their kids will be bullied. A new literature review in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect confirms the conventional wisdom that children whose parents shield them too much from negative experiences are more likely to be picked on by their peers. On the flip side, children who grow up in neglectful or abusive environments are also at higher risk of bullying. Moms and dads from Park Slope to Palo Alto right now are tying themselves in knots trying to figure out how to provide their little princes and princesses just the right degree of childhood adversity.
I foresee business opportunities galore in this trend. Just at birthday parties alone, we’ll observe a spike in demand for angry clowns, underinflated bouncy houses, and double-thickness piñatas. Only the rudest kids will be invited to playdates. Creative arts programs will empty out to be replaced by boot camps with demanding-yet-supportive drill sergeants. I’d like to say I’m joking here, but seriously, bookmark this blog and check back in a year. Kim Kardashian’s baby is going to be cleaning up after Tori Spelling’s chicken, and it won’t even be news.
David L. Hill, M.D., FAAP, is vice president of Cape Fear Pediatrics in Wilmington, NC, and is an adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is Program Director for the AAP Council on Communications and Media and an executive committee member of the North Carolina Pediatric Society. He has recorded commentaries for NPR's All Things Considered and provided content for various print, television and Internet outlets. Dr. Hill is the author of Dad to Dad: Parenting Like A Pro (AAP Publishing 2012).