Breast-feeding:

The stress buster that lasts for years

Breast-feeding offers a host of benefits to both mother and baby, including a stronger immune system for the baby and faster weight loss for mom. There are even some known psychological benefits from breast-feeding, such as a stronger parent-child bond.

But British researchers have recently discovered another mental bonus — children who are breast-fed seem to cope with stress and anxiety more effectively when they reach school age. In a group of almost 9,000 children between the ages of 5 and 10, children who weren’t breast-fed and whose parents were getting divorced or separated were 9.4 times more likely to be highly anxious when compared to other children. But, children who were breast-fed as infants whose parents were getting divorced were only 2.2 times as likely to be highly anxious, the study found.

“Breast-feeding is associated with resilience against the psychosocial stress linked with parental divorce/separation,” the study’s authors concluded in a recent issue of the Archives of Diseases in Childhood.

The authors theorized that the physical contact between mother and child in the first few days of life could help form certain neural and hormonal pathways that affect a person’s ability to cope with stress later in life.

Breast-feeding experts have long been aware of the mother-baby bond that occurs during breast-feeding. “There’s a lot less verbal communication, but lots of tactile communication and eye contact that promotes positive physiological responses,” said Liz Maseth, an outpatient lactation consultant at Akron’s Children’s Hospital in Ohio.

“Breast-feeding does seem to suppress stress responses in babies, and it does seem that there’s a protective effect,” she said.

“In terms of the biological possibility, breast milk is pretty amazing stuff, and the tactile interaction that goes along with breast-feeding does have an influence on the development of neurons,” explained Judy Hopkinson, an associate professor of paediatrics in the section of nutrition at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Hopkinson added that babies who aren’t breast-fed may be able to reap similar benefits with lots of holding and touching. The study authors also suggested that the bond created during breast-feeding might affect the way the child and the mother interact, and that effect might be long-lasting.

Hopkinson pointed out that mothers who are successful at breast-feeding often have a supportive social network, which could also help lessen a child’s stress in times of crisis.

Whatever the reason for the association, it was clear that children who had been breast-fed were less stressed.

Both Maseth and Hopkinson said it’s very important to try to begin breast-feeding as soon as possible after birth — no more than one hour. Maseth said this is because the breasts contain glands that release the same scent as amniotic fluid, a scent that babies will recognize.

“For most mothers, breast-feeding doesn’t come naturally. If the baby doesn’t latch on, it can lead to feelings of failure and concern about whether or not the baby is getting enough milk. Women need lots of encouragement and education,” Maseth said.

“Don’t give up, though, seek help” she advised, adding that your baby’s paediatrician will likely have information on what local breast-feeding resources are available.

“Breast-feeding is something for mothers and babies to enjoy. A time for them to cherish and nurture each other,” said Hopkinson. For women who can’t breast-feed, she said, that skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby can also help build a similar bond. -Health Day News

Can music help autistic children?

It was sometime during college, when I was lucky enough to play in a swing band touring Scotland, that I first started to grasp the universal reach of music. We had unpacked the bus for an impromptu gig in a pub at the University of St. Andrews, and by the time we hit our third number-Duke Ellington’s “Perdido” - the joy-soaked crowd was dancing right into the sax section.

Here was a roomful of people living along the North Sea bouncing to African-born rhythms heard in a style forged in America. Three distant points on the globe, strung together by a song. The next day we played to a grammar school, and those little kids went totally nuts for a sound they’d never heard before.

Music began as communication and remains the ultimate means to keeping people connected. It’s a culture’s connective tissue, weaving us together regardless of race, faith, education or experience.

Researchers are now trying to harness the power of music to reach children who otherwise appear emotionally unreachable-like children suffering from autism and related disorders.. Ever since psychiatrist Leo Kanner first introduced the term “autism” in 1943 and noted that several of his subjects showed musical affinity, therapists have amassed evidence that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently respond to melody and rhythm.

Some are able to recognize, recreate or remember pitches at a skill level that matches or even exceeds neuro-typical children. In one particularly dramatic case, the blind, autistic savant Leslie Lemke shocked his mother by playing the entirety of Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No. 1” after hearing it once on television. Lemke went on to tour the world giving note-perfect performances of complex compositions.

But for all the heaps of behavioral evidence gathered over the years, no one has explored why. What’s happening in the brain of someone with ASD that allows music to make neurological connections no other emotional stimulus can? That is the mystery Dr. Istvan Molnar-Szakacs, research neuroscientist at the UCLA Semel Institute’s Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity, aims to unlock in a new study funded by the GRAMMY Foundation.

Neurologists don’t know a great deal about what, exactly, goes on in the brain of someone with ASD.

In recent years studies have focused on the brain’s mirror neuron system, which processes both how we observe emotions in others and how we “mirror” their sadness or happiness with an empathic response.

Emotional mirroring is what makes social interaction possible. But the ASD brain has trouble mirroring. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) shows less activity in the mirror neuron system of people with autism.

“The easy thing to say is that their mirror systems must be broken,” says Molnar-Szakacs, “but there are so many other interpretations. Perhaps it’s not properly connected. Or maybe that part of the brain is not getting the input it needs to function properly.” Molnar-Szakacs believes music may be a way of breaching the walls of this closed-off neural system.

A part of the brain called the limbic system is known to be involved in processing emotion.

Molnar-Szakacs and his colleague Dr. Katie Overy, co-director of the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, have speculated that this emotional hub may be linked to the mirror system, and thus involved in music perception.

As they stimulate their subjects with emotional music, they’ll try to trace whether both brain systems “activate” during an fMRI and determine how the activity and connectivity between them differs in children with ASD.

With this study of the pathway between the two systems, the pieces may come into place to use music to teach kids with ASD how to improve their recognition of everyday emotional stimuli, such as facial expressions.

“Other stimuli that neuro-typical children understand don’t make sense to autistic children-but music does,” asserts Molnar-Szakacs. “Let’s use it to shed more light on how the brain works.”

MSN Health

Are vegetarian diets healthier?

Some people follow a “vegetarian” diet, but there’s no single vegetarian eating pattern. The vegan or total vegetarian diet includes only foods from plants: fruits, vegetables, legumes (dried beans and peas), grains, seeds and nuts.

The lactovegetarian diet includes plant foods plus cheese and other dairy products. The ovo-lactovegetarian (or lacto-ovovegetarian) diet also includes eggs. Semi-vegetarians don’t eat red meat but include chicken and fish with plant foods, dairy products and eggs.

Are vegetarian diets healthful? Most vegetarian diets are low in or devoid of animal products. They’re also usually lower than nonvegetarian diets in total fat, saturated fat and cholesterol.

Many studies have shown that vegetarians seem to have a lower risk of obesity, coronary heart disease (which causes heart attack), high blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and some forms of cancer.

Vegetarian diets can be healthful and nutritionally sound if they’re carefully planned to include essential nutrients.

However, a vegetarian diet can be unhealthy if it contains too many calories and/or saturated fat and not enough important nutrients.

What are the nutrients to consider in a vegetarian diet? Protein: You don’t need to eat foods from animals to have enough protein in your diet.

Plant proteins alone can provide enough of the essential and non-essential amino acids, as long as sources of dietary protein are varied and caloric intake is high enough to meet energy needs.

Whole grains, legumes, vegetables, seeds and nuts all contain both essential and non-essential amino acids. You don’t need to consciously combine these foods (complementary proteins) within a given meal. Soy protein has been shown to be equal to proteins of animal origin. It can be your sole protein source if you choose.

Iron: Vegetarians may have a greater risk of iron deficiency than nonvegetarians. The richest sources of iron are red meat, liver and egg yolk — all high in cholesterol. However, dried beans, spinach, enriched products, brewer’s yeast and dried fruits are all good plant sources of iron.

Vitamin B-12: This comes naturally only from animal sources. Vegans need a reliable source of vitamin B-12. It can be found in some fortified (not enriched) breakfast cereals, fortified soy beverages, some brands of nutritional yeast and other foods, as well as vitamin supplements.

Vitamin D: Vegans should have a reliable source of vitamin D. Vegans who don’t get much sunlight may need a supplement.

Calcium: Studies show that vegetarians absorb and retain more calcium from foods than nonvegetarians do. Vegetable greens such as spinach, kale and broccoli, and some legumes and soybean products, are good sources of calcium from plants.

Zinc: Zinc is needed for growth and development. Good plant sources include grains, nuts and legumes.

Shellfish are an excellent source of zinc. Take care to select supplements containing no more than 15-18 mg zinc.

Supplements containing 50 mg or more may lower HDL (good) cholesterol in some people.

What meal plans are recommended? Any type of vegetarian diet should include a wide variety of foods and enough calories to meet your energy needs.

Keep your intake of sweets and fatty foods to a minimum. These foods are low in nutrients and high in calories.

Choose whole or unrefined grain products when possible, or use fortified or enriched cereal products.

Use a variety of fruits and vegetables, including foods that are good sources of vitamins A and C.

If you use milk or dairy products, choose fat-free/nonfat and low-fat varieties.

Eggs are high in cholesterol (213 mg per yolk), so monitor your use of them.

Limit your cholesterol intake to no more than 300 mg per day.

Health Day News

Have you ever experienced shyness!

Dr. R. A. R. Perera, Visiting Psychologist, Colombo.

Of a large group of people surveyed in California, 99 percent indicated that they had experienced shyness, and 42 percent of that group said that shyness was a basic part of their personality. Of those who labelled themselves as basically shy, 63 percent said that shyness posed a real problem in their day to-day-life. There was no gender difference in the intensity of the problem.

Being in a large group and being the focus of attention seem to create the most intense discomfort for many people, with strangers or members of the opposite sex posing particular difficulties. Speaking before an audience created more anxiety, outranking the anxiety about sickness or death.

Shyness can produce both physical and emotional consequences. The shy person experiences increase in heart rate, perspiration [especially on the palms], and feeling of nausea. Intellectual performances and memory for recent events may be impaired. During heterosexual interactions they converse less frequently and for a smaller percentage of the time. They allow more periods of silence to develop, and they break fewer periods. Shy people feel less comfortable about heterosexual encounters. Shyness may reflect the kind of apprehension a person has about self-evaluation. An individual may feel shy when he or she is apprehensive about failing in the view of others. Newcomers to groups may be especially vulnerable while other group members are making decisions about their acceptability. Only after some time, they shift to minority cliques or become independent.

Can anything be done to help persons suffering from shyness? Many psychologists believe that specialized training in social skills may be helpful. Such training often encourages the individual to try various techniques for getting along more effectively with others. In Sri Lanka we lack facilities for assertive training which is a specialized subject at school level in most developed countries.

This could be started at secondary school level by introducing dramas and group discussions where all the students take part in the activity at different times. A person can overcome this by switching off the external stimuli and focusing on the immediate task ahead. For example if you have to perform in front of an audience you can imagine that you are not in front of anyone and perform the task to yourself. A person who has taken a risk several times and has spoken up finds typically that shyness begins to recede. The initial try often is the most difficult.