Thursday, February 19, 2009

LOOK WHO’S TALKING


An Australian lady has discovered that certain baby sounds mean something.
I have written down the list of words and their meanings for any interested mothers with their newborns.
They suggest to print out the words & sticky-tape/blue-tack to your cot or bassinet for when you are sleepy during the night and can't remember what the sounds mean.


Listening to your babys sounds.


Neh
• I’m hungry
• The baby will respond well to your breast/bottle
• Mother’s body will respond to Neh (produce milk, feel a let down)
• If you hear any other sounds & you put baby on the breast, they won’t latch on properly, unless it is the ‘Neh’ sound
• The baby’s tongue goes in a sucking motion on the roof of their mouth

Owh
• I’m tired
• Put me to bed straight away (before I get too tired & will be harder to settle)
• Parent’s choose how to settle (Eg: put them to bed awake, use dummy, put on breast)

Eh
• Burp me
• Pick me up
• Reflex in their chest
• It’s trying to get the air out
• Baby can make this sound when they are asleep (pick up & burp & put straight back to bed before they properly wake)
• Can burp in between feeds, before or after.

Eairh
• I’ve got lower wind pain
• Listening for the “Air” sound or the “R”
• A reflex in the lower intestine pushing down
• A very upset sound
• The baby has no hope of going to sleep if they are making this sound
• Try using the bicycle leg movement or laying them on their tummy
• If this happens often, you ‘know’ it is a bad colic sound & can act upon it & get medication at the doctors.

Heh
• I’m uncomfortable
• Sign of discomfort
• A skin reflex
• Too hot
• Too cold
• Needs their nappy changed
• Clothes are too tight or wrap is too tight/constricting

Neh and Owh
• Is tired, but wants to go to sleep sucking on something (breast or dummy)


If baby is making several of these sounds at once, find the sound that is the clearest & respond to that 1st.
One sound should be clearer than the other/other’s.

1)List on Cot/Bassinet/in Hospital
2)Listen and Look
Eg: jerky movements = tired.




NEH – I’m hungry

OWH – I’m tired

EH – Burp me

EAIRH
– Lower wind pain (bicycle legs, tummy)

HEH
– I’m uncomfortable (nappy, temp, clothes)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Are Ultrasounds safe?



Worried professionals

We know that Professor Stuart Campbell (the most vociferous ultrasound propagandist) attended the same Medical Research Council conference in 1985 as we did, where a number of experts made their anxieties clear. Yet, Professor Campbell persists in his claims of safety:

"Some 100 million people throughout the world are walking around having had scans before they were born, and there has never been a shred of evidence that it does any harm."1

No one then - or since - has thought to ask whether that statement was based on any research evidence. The press was (and still is) happy to accept without challenge a statement made by a medical man who, as one of the most enthusiastic promoters of ultrasound, can hardly be unbiased.

A number of private companies have been quick to set up these money-making services even though exposure to high intensity ultrasound has never been properly researched for any possible risks to either fetus or mother. This proved to be too much for some members of the medical profession. Martin Whittle, professor of fetal medicine and chair of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' working party on ultrasound was quoted in The Sunday Times as saying:
"We don't know the effects of repeated ultrasound".

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declared that ultrasound is a form of energy that can't be considered harmless, even at low levels, and is considering regulatory action against the commercial companies that are offering ultrasound videos in the US.

Dr John Steed, head of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine said that, although there is no proof that ultrasound is damaging, "We used to think that about X-rays". (Indeed, X-rays were vigorously promoted for viewing the baby in the womb, and it was many years later that research showed that X-ray exposure in utero caused cancer in the children who were exposed as babies).

Nevertheless, there appear to be no such concerns in Professor Campbell's mind. Having created a company to offer these keepsake videos (at a cost of £200 a time), he was asked for his views: "A great deal of research has been done over the past 30 years to investigate if fetal ultrasound has any effect on the baby and there is no evidence whatsoever of harm."

However, as a professor of obstetrics and the leading protagonist for ultrasound, it is astonishing that he seems not to have considered the following studies.
Obstetricians in Michigan3 studied 57 women who were at risk of giving birth prematurely. Half were given a weekly ultrasound examination; the rest received pelvic examinations to assess the state of their cervix. Preterm labour was more than doubled in the ultrasound group - 52 per cent - compared with 25 per cent in the controls. Although this was a small-scale study, this statistical difference was unlikely to have emerged by chance.

In a large randomised controlled trial from Helsinki,4 9000 women were randomly divided into two groups. The women in one group were scanned at 16-20 weeks whereas the women in the other group were not. Comparing the results from these groups revealed 20 miscarriages in the scanned group and none in the controls.

A later study carried out in London5 randomised 2475 women to receive routine Doppler ultrasound examination of the umbilical and uterine arteries at 19-22 weeks and at 32 weeks of pregnancy compared with women who received standard care without Doppler ultrasound. There were 16 perinatal deaths of normally formed infants in the Doppler group compared with four in the standard-care group.

It is not only pregnant women receiving antenatal care who are at risk. Physiotherapists use ultrasound to treat a number of conditions. A study done in Helsinki6 found that, if the physiotherapist was pregnant, handling ultrasound equipment for at least 20 hours a week significantly increased the risk of a spontaneous abortion.

Also, the risk of spontaneous abortions in practitioners after the tenth week of pregnancy was significantly increased when they gave deep-heat treatments (for strain injuries or as mobilization therapy) for more than five hours a week, and ultrasound for more than 10 hours a week.
One can only wonder what exactly is Professor Campbell's definition of harm?

Mouse study shows ultrasound affecting brain development

by Nicole Yannoulatos

SYDNEY, 9 August 2006 - The impact of ultrasounds on embryonic brains may be more damaging that was previously thought, according to U.S. researchers.
A study conducted by Pasko Rakic and colleagues at Yale University in New Haven, Conneticutt, has found that a significant number of nerve cells in the brain of embryonic mice do not migrate to the appropriate location following exposure to ultrasound.

"Proper migration of neurons during development is essential for normal development of the brain's cerebral cortex, and its function can be impaired if neuronal migration is disrupted," said Rakic, chairman of the Department of Neurobiology at the university.

His team analysed how effectively neurons in the brains of one 146 mouse embryos migrated to the brain's cerebral cortex once exposed to ultrasound waves.
They found that after several prolonged exposures, a small number of neurons did not migrate to their necessary position in the upper layers of the cerebral cortex, and instead moved to the lower layers or became embedded in supporting white matter in the brain.

In an accompanying commentary, Verne Caviness of Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital and Ellen Grant of Harvard Medical School, explain how the implications of this research for the developing brain is unknown.

They argued that since the number of misplaced cells is so small, their effect may be little more than minimal background noise. The cells also appear to retain their intended cell characteristics, despite migrating to the wrong position.

Caviness and Grant describe how after the neurons have migrated, a large proportion of them are naturally eliminated as cells die from the development of new tissues in the brain as the embryo grows. Essentially, all of the misplaced cells in the mouse's brain may be eliminated and will be of no consequence for the organisation of the cortex.

This study does not necessarily suggest that ultrasound will have the same affect on human foetuses. Rakic and his colleagues said there were clear differences between their research and the average pre-natal ultrasound women would undergo during pregnancy.

The brains of the embryonic mice were exposed with a larger volume of ultrasound waves and more frequently than a human foetus would be, they said. The authors also highlighted the differences in the biology of mice and humans, making it difficult to predict what affect the ultrasounds may have on humans.

"It is not known whether or to what extent ultrasound waves affect migrating neurons in developing humans," said Rakic.
He highlighted the difficulties in identifying the position of neurons, since it requires researchers to label the DNA replication, a procedure that cannot be used in humans. This means that the misplaced cells in the embryonic brain could be missed totally when tests are taking place.

However, they said the study serves as a reminder that we can't always take routine medical procedures for granted. While the research does not suggest ultrasounds are anything to be concerned about, it does highlight an area of embryonic development that calls for more study.
Rakic and his colleagues intend to extend the study to non-human primates to see if similar effects occur.

Links to similar articles:
Excessive Ultrasound May Harm Embryonic Neurons
Ultrasound Scans May Harm Unborn Babies
Ultrasound scans 'safe for baby'
What is Ultrasound?
Who says ultrasound is safe?

Saturday, February 7, 2009

CellAdam Is Successful, Natural, Ethical


A Believe-It-or-Not Cancer Drug
By Edward Pentin

ROME, JAN. 22, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Imagine a medicine that has a staggering 75% success rate in treating cancer, and yet is a natural and ethical product, owned by a nonprofit company headed by devout Catholics.

Too good to be true? That's what I thought. The medical world is not short of bogus cancer "cures."
Treatment for the disease is a multi-billion dollar industry that has led to questionable or unproven methods springing up throughout the world.
Yet this little-known product, which works by rebuilding the body's own adult stem cells and destroying tumour cells, already has a 25-year track record as a highly effective cancer treatment.

Called CellAdam, it is most effective in preventing the early stages of cancer.
But it also impedes the malignant process, and has an analgesic effect in the hopeless stage of an advanced tumour.

Because of its natural composition, it has none of the hallucinogenic effects you get with morphine.
The ingredients simply include a fatty acid complex extracted from soy and sunflower.

"This is a totally unusual and huge breakthrough," says Dr. Thomas Janossy, president of Biostemworld, the company producing the drug internationally.
"In the next two to three years, it will become the first anti-cancer prescription drug in the world that is nature-based."

So why has hardly anyone heard of it?
According to Biostemworld, the reason is because it was developed in Hungary during the country's Communist era.
CellAdam was discovered, by chance, by Adam Kovacs, a Christian Hungarian researcher, who put his whole life into finding a cure for cancer.
Imre Beke, Biostemworld's chairman, calls it a "diamond in disguise" because of the numerous obstacles that have prevented this drug from reaching a wider market.
The first hindrance has been the Hungarian language.
"As the researchers of this drug only speak Hungarian, it's not been widely published in international media and so nobody really knows about it," says Beke.
Then there was the country's Communist past and personal rivalries that remained even after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Nonprofit

Once any cancer drug hits the market, it can generate revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Biostemworld is expecting CellAdam will generate over a billion dollars once it becomes fully viable in about two to three years.
"It's huge," says Janossy, "but we want the profit to be shared or managed by a Catholic interest where the hope is that the profit will help the people in need. It's a very unusual approach."

So what evidence is there that this drug really works?
Apparently, there is no shortage of testimonies, in addition to the company's claim that it has a 75% success rate.
There is a bus driver in Hamilton, Canada, who has just found out that after taking CellAdam for less than a month, a 5-centimeter tumour has been reduced to the size of pea and now he doesn't have to worry about having chemotherapy.

There is the case of a woman with lung cancer -- the hardest kind to treat -- which had become so bad that she had gone home to die.
"She started to take CellAdam and within two months she was practically clear," says Janossy.

"Constantly, every couple of days, there are these dramatic cases." Janossy says an ongoing 10-year study in Hungary is currently focusing on two groups of cancer sufferers.
One group, who all went through chemotherapy, have since died, but those who have been taking CellAdam are still alive.

CellAdam works by breaking down a shield that is preventing cancer cells from communicating with the body's natural immune system, allowing it to kill the cancer cells.
"It is putting back your immune system into balance," explains Beke, "assisting your immune system to cure the cancer, enhancing your own system to be natural and letting a natural process take over a sick body."
Certain cells react better than others to the drug, such as breast, lung and large intestinal cancer cells, melanoma malignum and certain types of obstetric tumours. But even large tumours can be blocked by CellAdam, claims Biostemworld.

Prevention

It's best track record, however, is as a cancer prevention therapy.
When used as a dietary supplement, it works by building up the body's adult stem cell count.
Stem cells can decrease by as much as 80% in the course of a lifetime, leading to signs of ageing, a weakened immune system, and diseases such as cancer.
With CellAdam and its other nature-based drugs, Biostemworld claims it can restore that count by as much as 75%, exceeding a similar product in California by 50%.
Not only do they prevent cancer, but other diseases too.

Furthermore, Biostemworld argues its products are without the dangers associated with synthetic drugs because they are less toxic.
Janossy says pharmaceutical companies prefer synthetic drugs because they are easier to patent and so make more money.
But he adds that synthetic drugs tend to mimic what is already available in natural drugs, some of which have been used in countries such as China for over 4,000 years.

She pointed to the growth of euthanasia, which is gaining popularity in the West as demand for health care for the elderly increases.
"My first thought when this company was forming was: bingo, this had to come because the medical establishment is saying: 'What are we going to do with all these old people?'"
Dalgarno felt it was "truly God's work," not only because it could help counter the push toward euthanasia, but also because their products are less expensive, less dangerous and more ethical.
Embryonic stem cell research plays no part in this medicine.

More details on CellAdam and Biostemworld's other nature-based disease prevention products can be found at: http://biostemworld.com/portal/

Edward Pentin is a freelance writer living in Rome.
He can be reached at: epentin@zenit.org.

Read more HERE.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Why am I Catholic?

Pope Benedict XVI quote










“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation.”