Parenting

...now browsing by category

 

Apgar Scores May Predict ADHD

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

As you’re nearing the end of your pregnancy, you’ll probably be relieved in some ways. You’ll be able to lift your own ban on caffeine, start working back towards your normal body weight, and say goodbye to the relentless back pain. At the same time, you might be nervous about entering motherhood. There are many questions you’ll need to know the answers to upon your baby’s birth, and motherhood will become your new unpaid – albeit wonderful – full time job. One concern many mothers have as their baby starts to develop is the risk for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Many kids are prescribed with different medications for ADHD, and there is endless controversy surrounding it. Unfortunately, the disorder affects many children and their ability to learn in a classroom setting, so it can be detrimental if left untreated. The worst part is that we as physicians are unable to find the cause for the condition. However, one recent study suggests that you might get a clue about your child’s susceptibility to ADHD right after birth.

After you’ve given birth, your doctor will perform an Apgar examination. The test measures your baby’s vital signs such as his or her heart rate, muscle tone, and breathing. Essentially, it is a score that measures the health of your baby immediately after birth at 1 and 5 minutes.   It tells the pediatrician whether or not your newborn needs to be resuscitated because it doesn’t demonstrate the essential hallmarks.  Your baby will be ranked on a scale of 1-10, and babies with a score under 7 need additional medical attention. Amazingly, the results of the recent ADHD study show that children with a low Apgar score immediately after birth are more likely to develop the disorder later in life. Even in children with a score of five or six, their risk was 63% higher than those with a score above seven.

If your baby is born with an Apgar score below seven, you shouldn’t immediately assume that he or she will suffer from ADHD. Instead, you should be prepared and look for signs as your child grows up that he or she might need some assistance in school. Being a good mom is tough, but knowing in advance that your child is at risk makes your job a little easier. The low Apgar score could be a sign that there were some developmental problems in the womb, and you should assist your child accordingly should any learning disabilities present themselves.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

Posted in Parenting, Pregnancy | No Responses »
Tags: , ,

What Does Your Baby Bump Tell You about Gender?

Monday, September 17th, 2012

We’ve all heard a few old wives’ tales concerning the prediction of gender in a developing fetus.  Some say that the position of your belly is an indicator of the gender.  If your belly is protruding on the lower side, then it’s a boy, and if it has settled fairly high, then it’s probably a girl.  If only it were this easy to tell.  Unfortunately, it is not this easy, and now there is proof.  When I was pregnant with my two children, I was carrying “high” both times and yet, I have a son and a daughter.   If looking at a pregnant woman’s belly forecasts the gender, then we could do away with prenatal studies.

Some people rely on the lunar calendar and still others have come up with the curious baking soda test.  While these supposed gender predictors might be fun and grandma might claim to be absolutely sure of their accuracy, these and the location of your belly simply have no correlation with the gender of your baby.  Researchers in Australia who had been testing various methods for gender prediction decided to take on the baby bump test.  Their test would try to correlate the position of the placenta with gender prediction.  Using ultrasound to identify and record the location of the placenta, they observed 277 pregnant women.  They found that the rate of males and females born was almost 50-50 and that there seemed to be no connection between the location of the placenta, and gender.  Instead, they found that the assessment of the baby’s genital tubercle at 12-14 weeks as a prediction technique was much more useful, with an accuracy rate of more than 85%.  This is the tiny little nub that starts to protrude as your baby develops.  Doctors have found that the angle of this nub can tell them a great deal about the resulting genitalia.

Although it may be tempting to quote this study to grandma, it is a sad commentary on our culture when we seem to have an insatiable need to identify gender.  There really shouldn’t be any need to identify the gender if we are going to treat little girls the same as little boys.  But, we don’t.  This obsession with trying to identify gender (often leading to feticide in many countries) only underscores the lingering sex discrimination that still exists in the 21st century.  What difference does it make whether the growing fetus is a boy or a girl——unless they are going to be treated differently?   When someone asks, “Is it a boy or a girl?” They are  knowingly or unknowingly perpetuating the idea that one gender is better or worse than the other.  We should be asking, “Is the baby healthy?”

The next time people try to tell you that your belly looks like it’s holding a boy or girl, you can simply smile and nod and let them have their fun.  Instead, rely on your doctor and hope you have a healthy baby.  Even better, leave it up to fate and wait for the surprise.

 

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

Posted in Parenting, Pregnancy, Women's health news | No Responses »
Tags: , ,

Don’t Forget to Ask

Monday, August 6th, 2012

When you are pregnant, there are a lot of things running through your mind at once, most of them being questions.  As the date of delivery approaches, those questions become all the more important and all the more difficult to remember to ask.  Here are a few important ones that you should add to your list.

What if My Doctor’s Unavailable?

Although your physician may have set a due date, that is only a best guess as to when you will actually deliver.  Normally, your doctor will try to be available for a delivery in the week before and after that date.  However, extenuating circumstances or a very early delivery could cause them to be unavailable when you need them.  Instead of panicking when the time comes and taking whoever happens to be available, plan for this situation ahead of time.  Speak with your doctor about potential back-ups.  Ask who they recommend and if you can get their numbers for your on-call list.  It might also be a good idea to meet them, so if they do end up delivering your baby, you will have already established a relationship with them, making for a more comfortable experience.

 Who Can Come with Me?

Back in the day, women would bear their pain alone but for the doctors and nurses in the delivery room, but now, most moms want to bring in the father, or at least some trusted family member or friend.  For a standard delivery, this shouldn’t be a problem, but if there are complications, they may be asked to leave so that doctors have more room to work.  Normally, they will ask you to restrict access to the delivery room to one or two people and with all the chaos birth can bring, you’ll appreciate not having too many people around.  If you will be having a C-Section surgery though, having someone in the delivery room may or may not be possible.  Be sure to ask before promising access to anyone.

 Will Someone Be There to Show Me?

Some women panic a bit after going through delivery and finally getting the chance to be alone with their new baby.  They suddenly realize that they don’t know how to change a diaper or that breastfeeding is harder than it looks.  Luckily, there are people on staff at the hospital who can guide you through your first attempts at these tasks.  They can give you tips to help you get your baby to latch for breastfeeding and show you the proper way to take care of their sanitary needs as well.  Ask your chosen hospital about who they have available to go through these questions with you once you have delivered.

If you have more questions, be sure to join me for my live webcast, Inside Information for Women, every Thursday at 1pm Eastern.  I can take your call and do my best to answer any burning questions you might have regarding your pregnancy, delivery, or women’s health in general.  In the meantime, if your due date is approaching, be sure to write down the questions you have, so you will remember to ask each one at your next pregnancy check-up.  That way, when your baby and body are ready to deliver, your mind will be ready too.

 

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

 

Posted in Childbirth & delivery, Fertility & Infertility, Parenting, Pregnancy, Women's health issues | No Responses »
Tags: , , ,

Pregnancy and Power? It’s About Time!

Thursday, July 26th, 2012

Although many of us have gone through a pregnancy and maintained a rigorous career at the same time, it’s not something you often see when it comes to Fortune 500 positions.  Really, you don’t see many women in Fortune 500 leadership positions at all.  With Yahoo’s hiring of Marissa Mayer as their new CEO though, they now have both and she’s getting a lot of media attention as a result.

When Yahoo made the controversial move to snag Mayer away from Google, it wasn’t her intelligence and obvious experience that made the media pounce on the story.  Instead, it was her pregnancy.  People just couldn’t understand why Yahoo would take on a pregnant woman to save their downward sliding company.  Obviously, their process for selection has been long and they’ve done their research regarding who has the ideas and skills necessary to turn their company around.  When their first pick got caught lying on his resume, they didn’t take long to convince Mayer to leave Google, their main competitor.

Some say that Mayer will not be able to devote the kind of time and energy needed to revive the company as she gets further into her pregnancy and especially during maternity leave.  It seems that these people have never met a modern woman.  Most American mom’s work 40 hour plus weeks and take care of two or three kids, all while performing well at their positions.  In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seventy percent of American women with children under the age of eighteen are earning a paycheck while raising their children.  It’s shocking to realize that Mayer is the first pregnant Fortune 500 CEO ever.  Why can’t a woman use her uterus and her brain at the same time?  Has it really taken us this long to get over female stereotypes, particularly those concerning pregnancy?  This is the ultimate in multi-tasking. I know for a fact that both career and family can be balanced in a successful way.  In fact, I feel that it is my family who gave me the strength to achieve success in the first place.  My second memoir, Something to Prove, chronicles that journey.  I’m sure the arrival of Mayer’s baby will only drive her even harder to realize her career goals and those of Yahoo as well.  As far as seeing a pregnant woman in such a powerful position, I’d say it’s about time!

 

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

Posted in Parenting, Pregnancy, Something to Prove: Memoirs of a Ditchdigger's Daughter, Women's health issues | No Responses »
Tags: , , ,

Reversing the Biological Clock with Someone Else’s

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

Because so many women hold giving birth as one of their ultimate lifetime experiences, they don’t want to miss out on it because of infertility or the aging process.  Unfortunately though, as women get older, their ability to reproduce decreases.  With so many American women waiting until later in life to start their families, these upwardly mobile women are finding problems with fertility issues to be more common than they had expected.  For this reason, doctors have been working on adding to their various fertility treatments to help these older women give birth.  In vitro fertilization is one method that has gained a new strategy that seems to be reversing the biological clock of women over 40 years of age.

For women who are 43 years or older, the likelihood of getting pregnant, even with the help of three cycles of in vitro fertilization, is only 10 percent.  This is because a woman is born with all the eggs she will ever have and over time, the number of eggs of a woman significantly decreases from 1 million at her birth down to 34,000 at 36 years of age.  Not only are there less in numbers but the likelihood of the remaining eggs to function normally in the reproductive process becomes less.  However, researchers have found that when one uses a “donor” egg, i.e.,  when a young woman’s eggs are donated and in vitro fertilization is used in combination with these younger eggs, the chances of pregnancy increase to 60 or even 80%.   Nearly 250,000 women participated in this reproductive study by researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine and what they found was quite promising.  Even infertile, older women using donated eggs and in vitro fertilization had the same chances of getting pregnant as fertile young women using natural means.

Although these findings are exciting for those desperate to have a baby later in life, the process is not as easy as it sounds.  It is an expensive, unpleasant process, and not without its drawbacks.  It’s important to remember that the baby is not genetically related to the mother.  Some women find that less appealing (to be carrying a child that does not have her DNA).  Moreover, sometimes infertility is a sign of other reproductive problems that can cause issues during a pregnancy and long-term concerns for a child born in this manner.  For this reason, it is extremely important to consult with your OB/GYN before proceeding with such a program.  Many “older” celebrities have become mothers in this fashion.  But, keep in mind, healthy babies come from healthy mothers, so one should consider all other options before traveling down this path to motherhood.

You can read more about infertility in the chapter, “I’m not pregnant—and I want to be” in my health book, “INSIDE INFORMATION FOR WOMEN”.

 

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

 

Posted in Fertility & Infertility, Parenting, Pregnancy | No Responses »
Tags: , , ,

WWDD?!!!

Sunday, June 17th, 2012

Daddy—Donald E. Thornton (1925-1983)

Happy Father’s Day!   It has been 30 years since my Dad passed away at 57 years of age.  He was too young to die, but there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him.  There are so many instances in which I say to myself, “What Would Daddy Do?”.  The answer to that question often solves the problem immediately!!  He was a humble man, an honorable man, and a person who saw the future for his five daughters (when no one else did).  With his prescience, he guided me and my sisters to careers virtually unheard of when I was a child.  Women as doctors?!  Black women as doctors?!  What a hoot!  Impossible!!

Yet, with his vision, persistence, love and determination, we realized his dream for all of his daughters becoming physicians (doctors).  That lofty goal was achieved over and over again in my family and is chronicled in my two memoirs, “The Ditchdigger’s Daughters” and “Something to Prove”.  Long before his dream for us to become doctors, he took it upon himself to get us out of the housing projects of New Jersey and build our home (with our Mom serving as his hod carrier).  He was a genius.  Daddy was a cross between Bill Cosby and Rocky. His indomitable spirit has lived on in each one of his daughters.  Although, we did not all become physicians, in one generation, he spawned two MDs, one oral surgeon (DDS), and one attorney (JD) and PhD., and the remaining living daughters of Donald and Itasker Thornton are all doctors.

He and my mother were a formidable team and great parents, as well.  I have fashioned my parenting skills after both of them.  Because they were lovingly strict, I have benefited from their life lessons and have taught my children those same lessons.  Education was revered in our family and it was our only way to get out of poverty and enjoy the mainstream world of privilege and success.  My son, is a physician and my daughter is a well-educated woman with Columbia and Stanford degrees.

I owe it all to my Dad (and Mom) who supported us, loved us, sacrificed for us and gave us a chance to succeed.

— Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

May You Rest In Peace

Posted in Parenting | No Responses »
Tags: , ,

Sleep Yourself Thin

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

When you are a parent, you do not always get a lot of opportunity for sleeping.  You do not get a lot of time for yourself in general really.  You have work to take care of, children to manage, and somewhere in there, a body to consider.  The fact is though, with our busy American lifestyles, the health of our bodies simply seems to take a back seat.  Unfortunately, this has caused many of us to become overweight, or even worse, obese and diabetic.  A recent study shows though, that if we could all just find enough regular time to sleep, we might be able to stay slimmer and healthier in general.

Right now, nearly two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.  Even more concerning is how many of these people are progressing into diabetes.  The CDC cites diabetes as a health issue for 8.3% of Americans and a whopping 79 million show signs of prediabetes.  While poor diet and little to no exercise are obvious causes for such an epidemic, stress and sleep schedules also play a role.   A recent study by researchers at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard Medical School in Boston found that “lack of sleep or disrupted sleep patterns…may lead to an increased risk of diabetes and obesity.”  The study involved tracking the effects of disrupted sleep routines in participants by shifting their sleeping time from 10 hours a night, to just 5.6 hours per 24 hour period.  This sleep restriction and pattern disruption caused 32% of participants to have decreased insulin secretion when they ate and lower metabolic rates, which led to high blood sugar levels bordering on pre-diabetic.  If they had continued the study for a year, they estimated that these levels could have caused them to gain about 12.5 additional pounds of body weight in one year.  When you add these conclusions to the hectic lifestyle of working American parents, it is no wonder so many are struggling with their weight.

When we are young, we spend a lot of time fighting our parents over daily naps and early bed times, but once we grow up, we find it even harder to put ourselves to bed.  Perhaps this study will help us hardworking adults realize that it is no use staying up all night stressing about our busy lives, if it only gives us fewer nights to live.

 

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

Posted in General health news, Parenting, Women's health issues, Women's health news | No Responses »
Tags: , ,

Jobs Should Provide Health Insurance, Not Moral Judgment

Thursday, May 17th, 2012

The debate over health insurance has certainly been heated over the past few years, and most of those arguments stemmed from concerns over financing and constitutional rights.  More recently though, it seems they have decided to narrow their focus to something a little more personal for women, and that’s contraception.  Although employers rarely want to know what you’re using your health insurance for due to privacy concerns, some would like to prevent their female employees from using their insurance for birth control.

The arguments behind this have been few.  Some claim that cutting birth control out of their health insurance plans would save money.  While this is somewhat true, in the grand scheme of things, it’s a bit ridiculous.  Birth control is easy to produce and access, and with so many competing contraception options and companies, the price is affordable.  Additionally, when female employees take birth control, they prevent pregnancies, which are much more costly for health insurance plans in the way of prenatal check-ups, hospital stays, maternity leave, and eventually, another family member to add to the plan.  In the long run, employers would actually save money by giving their employees access to contraception.

Money isn’t the only argument though.  There are religious organizations that don’t want to provide birth control to their employees out of religious, or moral, concerns.  Although the foundation of their organization stems from a particular religion, they employ people who are not necessarily a part of that faith.  There are religious hospitals, private schools, and nonprofit organizations for example, who have hundreds of staff members from all walks of life.  They feel that they have a right to impose their moral judgment on all of their employees. If they must abide by the same antidiscrimination laws that prevent them from firing someone because of their religion, race, or sexual orientation, then why should they be allowed to discriminate when it comes to health insurance?

Obviously, as a physician, I believe that the gift of life is precious.  That’s also why I believe though, that women need to be ready to receive that gift.  It takes a huge commitment to raise a child, and even more to develop that child into an intelligent, caring, and well-balanced person.  Our jobs are there to give us the opportunity to provide for our families, both in terms of money and health insurance and in terms of allowing a woman, mother or not, to feel as if she is self-sufficient, contributing and using the talents that she has developed over a lifetime. Mothers especially need an outlet other than their children.  Our jobs have no right to decide when we start that family though and by no means do they have the authority to judge the morality of our decisions.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

Posted in Childbirth & delivery, Contraception (birth control), Parenting, Pregnancy, Women's health news | No Responses »
Tags: , , , ,

Happy Mother’s Day!

Sunday, May 13th, 2012

 

Itasker F. Thornton 1915-1977

I want to take this opportunity to wish all the Moms and the Moms-to-be a very Happy Mother’s Day.  I have delivered 5,542 babies as an obstetrician over the past 40 years and I can’t imagine a better specialty in medicine to practice.  My life has been to share the joy of so many couples who have started a new chapter in their lives by starting a family.

My mother, Itasker Frances Edmonds Thornton, died in 1977 at 61 years of age.  She was too young to die, but she raised five daughters (with the addition of our foster sister, Betty) and encouraged us to be the best.  We started out living in the housing projects of New Jersey. However, my Dad built our home in Long Branch, New Jersey with my Mom serving as his hod carrier in order for me and my sisters to go to a better school and have a chance at succeeding in life.  As teenagers, our mom was the bass player in our all-girl family R&B band known as “The Thornton Sisters”.  We went on to win six consecutive weeks in the Amateur Night contest held at the famed Apollo Theatre, recorded for Atlantic Records and performed at the Brooklyn Fox with Murray the K and his Swingin’ Soireé.   Watch Your Step

My Mom: Top Row - third from the left next to me with the sax

My mom had three years of college at Bluefield State Teachers College back in the 1940s, but the credits were not accepted in the northern colleges when she left West Virginia to come to New York City.  My mother always regretted not getting her college diploma and, I believe, she was the true driving force behind all of her daughters excelling in academics.

Although she had to leave college without a diploma, working with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, I secured her that elusive “sheepskin” and, in 2005, she was posthumously awarded a Doctorate of Humanities from Bluefield State College.  On her diploma it states: “She dared to dream great things and, through those whose lives she touched, great things were achieved.”

Her daughters, with her love and guidance, became successful, independent and accomplished women: an obstetrician, a psychiatrist, a prosthodontic oral surgeon, a Ph. D. and an attorney.  Mom, all I can say is “thank you” for your love and your vision.  I wouldn’t be where I am and who I am if it weren’t for you.  May you rest in peace.  I love you.

- Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., M. P. H.

Posted in Parenting | No Responses »
Tags: , , , ,