Monsters under the Bed

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Gym Class Danger

FROM NBC: Physical activity is vital to children's health -- but new research finds more and more kids and teens are winding up in the emergency room after nasty spills or collisions in gym class. In fact -- the annual number of students sent to the ER because of a P.E. related accident increased 150-percent since 1997.

A majority of those injuries occurred while kids were running, doing gymnastics, or playing basketball, football, volleyball and soccer. Boys were most likely to suffer a head injury during collisions. Girls tended to strain or sprain their ankles and knees. Researchers analyzed data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Middle school-aged children accounted for the majority (52%) of injuries.

Personally, I don't remember anyone getting injured during gym class when I was in school. Are kids more aggressive these days? I certainly don't think it's okay to get a head injury, but I with so many school eliminating gym class lately, I hope this research isn't more ammunition.

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Is DHA in Formula necessary?

From NBC: Supplementing infant formula with an essential fatty acid may boost babies'brain power! DHA is found in breast milk, and is thought to play a role in brain development. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center compared babies given either traditional formula or formula supplemented with a high dose of DHA.

When the babies were 9 months old, they were given a test in which they had to complete a series of tasks to get a rattle. The DHA group was more likely to get the toy.

From ABC: For those mothers who choose to bottle feed their infants, new research shows that supplementing baby formula with omega-3 fatty acids can boost cognitive development for infants in their first year.

pkg: According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than a third of mothers begin feeding their child baby formula in the first week and less than half breastfeed at all after the first 6 weeks. This means that creating a baby formula that mimics the essential nutrients of breast milk is vital for infants' mental and physical development.

A new study finds that infants who are fed baby formula supplemented with DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid that occurs naturally in breast milk, perform better on cognitive tasks than those fed on regular baby formula alone. Researchers began feeding infants either regular formula or formula supplemented with DHA soon after birth, after 6 weeks of breastfeeding, or after 6 months of breastfeeding. At nine months of age, they found that those children who had been on the DHA formula after at least 6 weeks of breastfeeding were more likely than those on regular formula to be able to complete a problem-solving task.

In general, infants who display superior performance on this type of cognitive development task tend to have a superior I.Q. and vocabulary later in childhood. Though breast milk naturally contains the essential nutrients and fats needed for cognitive development, these findings suggest that supplementing with DHA is a good way to provide better nutrition for baby's being fed formula.

It makes me sad that less than half of moms breastfeed their kids after the first six weeks. I have a feeling it's because they don't have a good support system. It has always been a wonderful experience for me. I just talked to another mom today who said she tried to breastfeed, but things weren't going well and she didn't know where to turn. I felt so bad for her. I wish everyone had a great breastfeeding support network like I do. I am sure it makes things a lot easier.

It's good to know DHA in formula is helping all the babies who are formula fed. That's a big percentage of kids who need that DHA!

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Walk to school by themselves?

FROM NBC:
When are kids the right age to walk to school by themselves? It's a question millions of parents wrestle with.
It's long been a badge of being a kid...when mom and dad finally let you walk alone to the bus stop or to school.

But the recent discovery of Jaycee Dugard has some parents thinking twice about this slice of independence. Dugard was eleven when she was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her California home.

Sonia Silva/Ft. Worth parent "My daughter's only six, so I feel safer picking her up and making sure she's home safely. Rain or shine, Sonia Silva picks her up daughter every day from Fort Worth's Meadowbrook elementary and she's not alone.

Issac Cantu/Ft. Worth grandparent "I just think for safety reasons.. parents pick em up and take em home." In fact, when the bell rings.. this school is surrounded by cautious parents. "It's a lot of trouble in the street."
Those fears are not unfounded. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that nearly 40-percent of all abductions not involving a relative happened when walking to or from school.

Ernie Allen/pres. & ceo/national center for missing & exploited children
"Most of the people attempting to abduct children are white males who target kids in the afternoon in cars and it's important that kids do whatever possible to stay out of those cars." The majority of children targeted are between 12 and 15 years old and 2-thirds are girls. Ernie Allen:"It's really important that parents not be terrified or paralyzed by fear but you need to teach your child to be safe."

Allen says statistics prove kids who screamed, yelled and ran away -- those who fought for their life were most likely to save it.

We live too far away from school for my kids to walk and the bus stop is right in front of our house. Still, I have thought about taking them to school or starting a car pool. There are several moms in my son's kindergarten class who take and pick up their kids. I think they're more worried about exposure to older kids on the bus than kidnapping. I would think a ton of parents both work full-time so transporting the kids wouldn't be an option.
Do you or will you take and pick up your kids from school?Why?

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.

Start a Sleep Routine

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

Are you having an Acne Emergency? Call Soderstrom Skin Institute at 674 – SKIN… we treat acne seriously. With over 35 years of experience, Soderstrom Skin Institute will provide a personalized program to help you get your acne under control. Untreated acne can result in permanent scarring. Don’t suffer any longer! Evening and weekend appointment are available and in most cases you’ll be seen within one week.