Consider the time of surgery
Here’s some news that will make you think twice about what time of day you go under the knife.
Unexpected adverse events related to anesthesia were more likely to happen when surgery started in the late afternoon than when it started in the morning, Duke researchers report. The problems, however, were mostly minor.
“We’re mainly dealing with an increase in nausea and pain interventions,” said Dr. James S. Hicks, an associate professor of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, and chairman of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Committee on Quality Management and Departmental Administration. “It’s subtle data, but we never want to rest on our laurels,” Hicks added.
Although the study didn’t specifically look at reasons for this, anything from doctor caseload and fatigue to patients’ circadian rhythms and problematic communication could be responsible.
Shopping carts buying trouble
More than 20,000 children were treated in U.S. emergency rooms for shopping-cart-related injuries in 2005, according to a study reported in the August issue of Pediatrics. About 3 percent of these children had to be admitted to a hospital, primarily because they weren’t properly strapped in. Some deaths were reported.
Researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Columbus Children’s Hospital in Ohio said simple preventive steps appear to help. When greeters posted at store entrances encouraged the use of child restraints (and gave out $2 coupons), correct use increased to 49 percent from 15 percent. The study involved children aged 5 and younger.
In response to the study, the American Academy of Pediatrics called for better designs and stricter government regulation.
Adding his amen to that was Dr. Joseph Russell of Plainfield, who has devised a prototype shopping cart that he thinks could ease the problem by lowering the child’s center of gravity in the cart.
Nevertheless, he told the Associated Press, he has been unable to interest manufacturers so far.
Breast-fed now, unstressed later
Breast-fed babies are better able to cope with stress later in life than babies who are bottle fed, according to a British study.
Researchers analyzed data on almost 9,000 children at birth and at ages 5 and 10. The information about the children was gathered from parents, teachers, health workers and midwives.
When the children were 10, their teachers were asked to rate the children’s anxiety levels, and their parents were interviewed about disruptions, such as divorce or separation, that occurred when the child was between 5 and 10.
The study found that breast-fed children whose parents had divorced or separated were almost twice as likely to be highly anxious, while bottle-fed children where more than nine times as likely to be highly anxious than other children.
However, the results don’t actually prove that breast-feeding itself helps children cope better with stress, the study authors said. They say it may be a marker of some other maternal or parental factors, such as touching, that influence a child’s response to stress.
Men face postpartum blues
Almost as many new fathers as mothers suffer depression after the birth of a child, a new study shows. About 14 percent of mothers and 10 percent of fathers showed signs of moderate or severe postpartum depression, according to the study, which followed more than 5,000 members of two-parent families.
“There have been a few small studies in the last two years showing this, but nothing has been known on a national basis,” said study leader James F. Paulson, an assistant professor of pediatrics and psychology and behavioral sciences at the Eastern Virginia Medical School Center for Pediatric Research.
The findings are published in the August issue of Pediatrics.
Pediatricians should make a greater effort to identify postpartum depression in both mothers and fathers, Paulson said. “Pediatricians, in general, may be in the best position to catch depression, but they don’t often do it,” he said, adding that he’s now doing a study to look at patterns of screening for postpartum depression.
