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Healthline
By TIMES WIRE
Published June 7, 2005
EXPECTING ANOTHER BABY? It's important to teach older siblings to be gentle with a newborn. Some tips from Vicki Lansky's new book, Welcoming Your Second Baby (Book Peddlers, $9.95):
Encourage your child to practice being gentle with your pet, a doll or stuffed animal. Use a doll to show your child how to hold a baby correctly, supporting the back and neck.
Talk a lot about the need for gentleness, explaining that little babies "hurt easier" than big kids.
Be gentle yourself, with both children. Your example is always the best lesson.
Speak calmly and quietly. Don't yell "Stop!" or "Careful!" however much you may be tempted.
Reinforce gentle behavior your older child does display by saying, "I like the way you hold your baby brother so gently," or "Hold her hand gently, that's right."
PRACTICING TRANSCENDENTAL MEDITATION - a technique involving intense breathing exercises and the repetition of words, or "mantras" - may have benefits beyond stress reduction. It might actually help you live longer. Researchers at five universities and medical centers tracked 202 patients with high blood pressure for up to 18 years. They found that participants who used transcendental meditation twice a day for 20 minutes had a 23 percent lower death rate from all causes and nearly one-third lower death rate from heart disease than those who did not practice the form of meditation. Researchers can't say for sure how meditation lowers death rates, but studies have shown that meditation can reduce risk factors associated with heart diseases and other chronic illnesses. The small study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, was published in the American Journal of Cardiology.
CHILDREN'S EYES SHOULD be tested before they get to kindergarten - and that's not happening in enough families, placing kids at a greater risk for vision loss as well as physical and emotional difficulties, according to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Information was collected on 12,534 children, and only 36 percent of those age 6 and under had ever received a vision test, despite proof that visual cues are important in developing children's understanding and functionality in the world around them, and impaired vision can affect cognitive and neurological development, the CDC reported. Aside from taking children for an eye exam, these warning signs should alert parents to a potential vision problem:
Squinting, closing or covering one eye, excessive blinking or rubbing of the eyes.
Dislike or avoidance of close work, a short attention span or frequent daydreaming.
Placing the head close to a book when reading or losing place while reading.
Complaints of headaches, nausea and dizziness, or excessive clumsiness.
[Last modified June 7, 2005, 11:17:25]
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