The Ultimate Back-to-School Health Checklist

NEW YORK -- The first day of school always requires preparations -- notebooks, pens and a new set of clothes. But don't forget to prepare for your child's health, says Dr. Luz Adriana-Matiz, pediatrician and medical director of Win For Asthma at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. "Children spend the majority of their days in the classroom and the first step to achieving a healthy school environment is to have healthy students."

Dr. Romina Wancier, assistant attending pediatrician in the Division of General Academic Pediatrics at the NewYork-Presbyterian Phyllis and David Komansky Center for Children's Health and instructor of pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College, adds, "Your child should be physically and mentally prepared to go back to school. By ensuring a healthy start, parents can lay the groundwork for children to achieve their highest academic and extracurricular potential."

Dr. Adriana-Matiz and Dr. Wancier provide parents and caregivers with tips to help their kids get a smart start to the academic year.

* Are your child's immunizations up-to-date? The last thing you want is for your child to be turned away from school on the first day because he or she is not properly immunized. If you have recently moved from one state to another, check to see if your child meets the new state's regulations. In addition, new immunizations, such as hepatitis B, are now required. Check with your child's pediatrician.

* Has your child been vaccinated against influenza? More than 36,000 people die every year from influenza (flu). Children, the elderly and people with chronic medical conditions such as asthma and chronic lung disease are at greater risk for contracting influenza and experiencing its complications. The influenza virus changes every season so your child needs to be immunized every year against this illness. As you prepare to send your child back to school, make an appointment to have your child immunized.

* Have you noticed your child scratching his or her scalp since camp ended? It may be a sign that a case of lice was contracted during the summer. It is important that you check your child's head yourself, and, if you are unsure, contact the school nurse or your child's pediatrician. Head lice will not go away by itself, but can be treated with over-the-counter remedies.

* Does your child receive medication on a regular basis for diabetes, asthma or another chronic problem? School nurses and teachers must be made aware of your child's needs, especially if they are the ones who administer the medicine. Be sure to speak with them about these procedures before school begins, and work out an emergency course of action in case of a problem. Make sure emergency medications are close at hand -- that your child, their teacher and the nurse know where they are.

* Have your child's vision screened. It is important for children to have an annual vision screening because young children, especially, often don't know if they can't see adequately. If your child wears glasses, be sure that the prescription is current. If your child cannot see, they cannot learn properly.

* Have your child's hearing tested. Most states now mandate hearing tests for babies. But many school-age children have not been tested. If your child is listening to the television or music at a very high volume, or tends to favor one ear over the other when listening to you speak, it may be a sign of hearing loss.

* Does your child eat breakfast? Studies show that children who eat breakfast are more alert in class. Also, be sure that your child has a balanced, nutritious lunch, whether it is one you send or one provided by the school cafeteria. If your child is allowed to bring a snack, try to avoid junk food and focus more on fruits and other healthful food.

* Be equipped for sports. For children who wear glasses, the American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends one-piece wraparound polycarbonate sports frames for all contact sports, including soccer, field hockey and basketball. All children wearing spectacles need sports frames for gym. All children are being urged to use sports frames for contact sports.

* Is your child anxious and apprehensive? Most children are naturally anxious about the new school year. It normally takes about a month for children to adjust to new situations. A new school, fear of a class bully, or taking a school bus for the first time may cause anxieties. If after a few weeks your child continues to be anxious and apprehensive, bring this to the attention of his or her teacher so that you can identify the source of his or her anxiety and work out a solution.

* Do you suspect a learning disability or dyslexia? If you suspect that your child is not processing information as he or she should, speak to the teacher or learning center in your child's school as soon as possible. A professional diagnosis usually requires two days of testing.

* Are your emergency phone numbers up-to-date? Make sure that the school and your child know how to reach you or another caregiver at all times. The school administration and teachers should always know how to reach you if there is an issue that needs to be discussed.

Looking Beyond The Public Option

The Obama administration claims its motivation for a public plan option--government insurance for all--rests on the more fundamental goal of increasing competition among health insurance providers. But we now hear rumblings that the "public option" is not necessarily a required part of the administration's reform package.

The public backlash against the public option seems to have yielded reconsideration--and no wonder. We already know a "public option" actually reduces access and choice of health insurance coverage to Americans. Public insurance expansions erode private insurance coverage, rather than provide coverage to the uninsured. They also increase the likelihood that small-business employers limit their coverage, cutting back on employees' choices to funnel them into subsidized government plans. Choice of insurance is reduced, not increased, by a public option.

We also know that the costs of a public plan would represent a massive burden to taxpayers. Look at Hawaii, our most recent failed experiment with universal government insurance. Just seven months after offering the only state-wide universal child health care insurance program in the country, Hawaii terminated the program because public funds had essentially replaced private coverage that children already had. More than 80% of those taking up the state's insurance for children were already covered by private insurance. Massive costs were shifted onto taxpayers from those who were already buying their own insurance. When this happens, costs to the American taxpayer end up dramatically increasing.

Here are five straightforward steps the government could take, right now, that would increase the competitiveness in the health insurance markets.

First, allow a national market for health insurance so people can shop for insurance they actually want to buy at competitive prices. It is ill-conceived, unnecessary and self-defeating to force Americans to restrict their purchases to in-state goods or services. Government can rapidly lower the price of health insurance by breaking down these anti-competitive barriers that result in shocking price variations--on the order of several multiples--among states for equivalent health coverage.

One specific and immediate action would be to allow small businesses to band together through trade associations to purchase coverage for their employees. If regulated by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, they would be exempt from state health insurance mandates and regulations. Just like large businesses, small businesses need this capacity now, so their employees could get coverage they actually want while saving money compared with bloated plans they don't desire. Since small-business employees make up the biggest proportion of uninsured workers, this one change would have a high impact.

Second, government can force a more transparent system, ensuring that Americans have a clear understanding of the price and quality of their doctors and hospitals. They would also have enough information about health and diseases to make informed, value-conscious decisions.

Let's leave the experts--medical scientists in their peer-reviewed literature--to determine efficacy and clinical utility. A far more important governmental role needs to be explored: to make transparent the pricing of medical procedures. Public knowledge of price will provide an impetus toward competitive pricing by both physicians and hospitals. In our current system, few patients are aware of the charges about to be incurred for their medical care, generally because patients have no reason to ask--the current third-party-payer structure makes patients believe that "someone else is paying." This has allowed hospitals and doctors to cloak their pricing methods in a shroud of mystery. The government should require posting of prices for medical procedures and services, as well as qualifications of doctors. Information is power, and price visibility is essential to coaxing competition.

Third, it is time to reduce the mandate-created distortions of health insurance markets. State-based mandates alone now number over 2,000 and are an abuse of government dictates. They increase insurance costs by anywhere from 20% to 50% and force Americans to buy policies covering massage therapy, acupuncture, chiropractors, in vitro fertilization, wigs and other services used by only a small minority of American families.

Governments can put a halt to the unending stream of mandates advocated by these special interest groups and start stripping away some of these costly and ill-advised regulations. How about letting patients themselves decide what sort of coverage and benefits they want for their families by watching what they actually purchase, rather than declaring appropriate coverage as if they are naive children or simply incompetent?

Fourth, expand the availability and simplify the rules and regulations of lower-cost health plans with health savings accounts, like high deductible plans for catastrophic coverage. This will make insurance an attractive purchase for the millions of Americans who can afford insurance but choose (arguably wisely) to forgo buying something they consider a poor value with their money.

Health savings accounts increase choice for consumers, expand individual ownership and control over health spending, promote price visibility to allow value-based purchasing, and provide incentives for savings to prepare for future health care needs. Congress should allow more flexibility in employer contributions to "disease management accounts" in lieu of traditional third-party benefits. It should also support tax reform proposals to allow HSA balances to transfer to their children's HSA tax-free and permit holders of HSA plans who relocate because of a job change to purchase health insurance across state lines without being subject to state mandates.

Fifth, government can empower the consumer by revamping the tax treatment of health care expenses, so that all Americans will truly shop for--and ultimately own--their health insurance. A national system of refundable health care tax credits--actual cash even for those who pay no income tax--would foster personal ownership and control of health plans and increase the competition for a newly engaged and expanded market of consumers.

The essential portability of insurance truly owned and designed by American consumers eliminates the fear of job loss and exposure to financial disaster and creates a new group of value-seeking shoppers for insurance. Empowerment means having control of the health care dollar. This single policy change would reduce health expenditures on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars, simultaneously eliminating the crippling burden of health costs on American businesses created by historical accident rather than intention.

We know the disastrous consequences of opening government insurance to everyone under the guise of spurring competition. And we must be wary of any administration plan that forces guaranteed issue and community rating on private insurers as a "compromise" to dropping the public plan option. According to the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, the cost of health insurance will increase 75% to 95% for most Americans who buy their own coverage in that scenario.

If Congress enacts reforms that remove artificial barriers and constructively open markets to competition, private sector creativity will generate innovative, low-cost insurance products for the tens of millions of newly empowered shoppers. In America's long history of innovation benefiting consumers with new products and services they value, that innovation has always come from the private sector, not government, and there is no reason the health insurance industry should be an exception.

Scott W. Atlas

Children's insurance helps generate funds

Life insurance plays an important role in an individual's financial planning exercise. Insurance can assist individuals in planning for their own life stages as well as provide for their children's future.

It also secures a child's future in case of any unfortunate event. Various kinds of child insurance products are available in the market.

Parents need to build a sufficient corpus for their children . They should start planning for their children at an early age.

One of the biggest financial commitments for parents is to meet the expenses incurred in bringing up and settling their children. Child insurance plans play an important role in securing a child's future. With a number of children's insurance plans available in the market, it becomes difficult for most parents to evaluate them objectively.

The factors to be kept in mind include the timeframe for building a corpus, age at which the funds would be required, approximate amount needed to build the corpus, investment avenues to be considered and the amount available to the child in case of death of parents.

As inflation rises, the first impact is on the education sector. Planning for a child's future is an important step. It is advisable that parents go for a term policy.

That will take care of the child's financial needs in case of untimely death of any of the working parents. For the child's future, one can create a specific financial plan through systematic investment planning (SIP) in mutual funds.

Health Officials Urge Immunizations

SAN ANTONIO -- As summer break comes to an end, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District and its partners are making a final push for back-to-school immunizations.

Metro Health, the University Health System and the Northside Independent School District plan events in the coming weeks before school starts to maximize opportunities for families to have access to services. The goal is to prevent potentially life-threatening diseases like whooping cough, measles and meningitis.

There will be clinics throughout the city and a major immunization event on Aug. 18 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Freeman Coliseum. NISD officials said they plan to enforce a "no shots, no school" rule, which means that children without up-to-date shot records will not be allowed to attend class.

"It is one of the big jobs that our school nurses have," Shirley Schreiber, NISD director of health services, said of making sure that students are immunized. "So that it can be a safe and healthy environment."

New state-mandated immunizations will be required, especially for those children entering kindergarten or seventh grade.

Parents are also reminded to bring their child's most current shot record and insurance card when they their child immunized. No fees will be charged for children enrolled in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. For children with private health insurance, fees will be based on level of benefits.

Health officials said the new school year will pose an even bigger challenge due to the H1N1 flu virus. They said the virus continues to affect the community and expect a significant number of cases when school begins.

Kids will also need to be vaccinated against the virus when it comes available, probably in late October.

Governor signs bill assuring kids health insurance

PORTLAND — Thousands of Oregon children without insurance can now get coverage for their medical care — and by January the same will be true for all youngsters in the state, following Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s Tuesday signing of “Healthy Kids” legislation.

The Democratic governor’s signing of House Bill 2116 into law, along with his earlier approval of a companion bill, clears the way for one of Kulongoski’s longest-sought goals: bringing all Oregon children into the ranks of the insured, especially those whose parents don’t have access to private coverage and have not met low-income standards to qualify for the state-run Oregon Health Plan.

“We will, at long last, bring health care to every Oregon child,” Kulongoski said at a gathering of lobbyists, health care bureaucrats, politicians and even a young patient at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital on the campus of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

Through a combination of increased “provider taxes” on most Oregon hospitals and a new 1 percent tax on health insurance premiums, Oregon is adding 200,000 uninsured children and poor adults to the ranks of the insured.

Combined, the two taxes will generate between $300 million and $400 million in the next two years, jumping to about $500 million in 2011-13. Hospitals eventually supported the tax, because it’s expected to be fully offset by new federal Medicaid dollars coming to Oregon by the jump in state health care spending. Insurance companies stopped short of supporting the plan, instead agreeing not to oppose it while warning that it would drive up health care costs for companies and individuals who pay for private insurance.

Kulongoski said Congress, in the midst of its own debate on overhauling health care coverage, could take a lesson from Oregon.

“Together we have set Oregon on the path to create a health care system that will be a model for the rest of the nation,” Kulongoski said.

The expansion of coverage will be phased in until it’s fully in place in January.

Dr. Bruce Goldberg, head of the state Department of Human Services, which oversees the program, encouraged all families without insurance for their children to register now, either online or by telephone. Those who aren’t immediately eligible under federal poverty level guidelines will be enrolled as soon as they are eligible, Goldberg said.

Price of immunization shots to change

A tight state budget for the new fiscal year may change the price of immunizations paid by some families in the Magic Valley. State-provided immunizations for all children, regardless if they're covered by health insurance, ended on July 1st.

To help alleviate what officials with the South-Central Public Health District are calling a considerable financial burden, they will continue to bill Blue Cross of Idaho or Regence Blue Shield of Idaho, for families with coverage.

The health district will require an initial 20 percent payment at the time of the immunizations, with the remaining 80 percent of the costs billed to the child's parent or guardian.

Families enrolled in Medicaid, those with no health insurance, or health insurance that doesn't cover immunizations will continue to receive the state-provided immunizations through the 'Vaccine For Children' Program.

Many children without coverage

Craig — Listen to health care officials, and they’ll say it hasn’t been easy persuading families to enroll their children into Medicaid or Child Health Plan insurance, even when those children are eligible and uninsured.

Evette Simmons, eligibility and outreach coordinator for the Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association, said her office tried several gimmicks, with varying effectiveness.

However, despite the fact that children’s Medicaid and CHP insurance costs nearly are nonexistent for enrolled families, some still are reluctant to sign up.

Simmons hopes a $40 million grant package for children’s health insurance — announced Monday and available through federal recovery funds — may help the VNA carry its message further.

That message is simple: Pro­viding health insurance to children is important.

“That’s a question like, ‘Why should people be insured,’” Simmons said. “To be eligible and be able to get that coverage but just not do it, is a shame.”

A widespread shame in Moffat, Routt and Rio Blanco counties, she added.

Of the children eligible for Medicaid or CHP insurance in Moffat County, an estimated 20.5 percent are uncovered, equal to 217 children.

In Rio Blanco County, that number jumps to 22.8 percent, or 99 children.

Routt County has the worst participation rate, with 38.2 percent of eligible children — or 323 children — now without insurance.

As tough as the numbers are, though, they may, in fact, be worse, Simmons said. Each of those estimates is based on 2007 data, collected before the recession forced the region’s unemployment rates to double.

Simmons said the Colorado Health Foundation recently quoted a statistic that about 19,000 people across the state lose their health insurance for every percentage point increase in statewide unemployment.

Those numbers won’t directly translate to Northwest Colorado, but Simmons said there is a correlation between fewer people with health care coverage and rising unemployment, which has struck this region, too.

From September 2008, when the stock market began to crash, until May 2009, which is the most recent data available from the state, unemployment in Moffat County went from 3.4 percent to 6.7 percent, according to the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.

During the same time period, the state recorded an increase in unemployment in Rio Blanco County from 2.3 percent to 5.5 percent.

State records also show Routt County, in addition to having the highest percentage of eligible but uninsured children, had the highest unemployment spike of the three counties, from 3.4 percent in September 2008 to 8.7 percent in May 2009.

“Those numbers of unenrolled children are really high, and they’re probably even a little higher now,” Simmons said.

The VNA is now assessing what benefit the government’s recovery grants may have.

Simmons said the grants are for “outreach,” but that’s a very broad term.

“Can we use it for staffing here, to bring people into the office, or for marketing?” she said. “And once we bring more people into the office to enroll their children, can we use any of the money for extra staffing to see those people?”

Hopefully, the money will enable the VNA to get more people to enroll their children, Simmons said, though she thinks the organization may have an uphill battle against some people’s perceptions.

“I think part of it is a stigma about Medicaid and CHP, especially in Routt County,” she said. “They don’t want to come out in public and say, ‘I need help.’ Some people say they’ll never go on Medicaid because they don’t want the government’s insurance.”

Getting people to be proactive and enroll their children in a health care plan before they need to see a doctor also can be a struggle, Simmons said.

“When you can’t pay your electricity bill, signing up for health insurance isn’t always a top priority,” she said.

The grant application will be a complicated process, and like all recovery grants, there won’t be much time before applications are due, Simmons said.

In that regard, the VNA hopes to know what grant applications it will submit by this week or early next week, she added.

However, residents don’t have to wait until then to enroll their children or see whether they’re eligible.

The VNA provides eligibility experts who can consult with families, Simmons said. VNA offices are at 745 Russell St. or 824-8233 in Craig, and 940 Central Park Dr., Suite 101, or 879-1632 in Steamboat Springs.

Medicaid and CHP eligibility is determined by family size and annual income. Simmons said a family’s cost to have a child insured under Medicaid is zero, while CHP can cost up to a one-time $25 enrollment fee for a year and $5 co-pays for office visits.

Children are eligible for both programs until age 19.

Children's bills approved by Legislature

Three House bills affecting the care and education of the state’s youngest residents sailed through the Senate late Thursday and are headed to the governor for his signature.

The bills, all sponsored by Rep. Teresa Schooley, D-Newark, passed unanimously.

House Substitute for House Bill 119, gives schools more financial flexibility to shift public dollars into the classroom and away from administrative overhead.

House Bill 139 allows parents whose income exceeds the current limits for the Children's Health Insurance Program to purchase coverage. This will cost the state nothing because parents would buy into the program at the price the state would have spent.

House Bill 199 requires insurance carriers to cover developmental screenings for infants and toddlers, which has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Early screenings, which cost about 3 cents per policy holder, will improve the detection of developmental problems and allow more effective treatment, proponents said.

The three bills were part of a package of five child-centered pieces of legislation advocated by Lt. Gov. Matt Denn, who held a rally outside Legislative Hall on Thursday to promote them. The two other bills, which both originated in the House, also passed the Senate later that day.

One replaces the Delaware Student Testing Program with a computerized test that students will take at least twice a year to benchmark their progress, with their highest results counting. The other bill creates a two-year academic achievement awards program to give financial incentives to the schools that make the most progress in educating at-risk children. The awards would be paid for using federal stimulus money.

Health insurance for all U.S. children would be a bargain, study finds

Some things make so much sense they shouldn’t need explaining. Take children’s health insurance. If it leads to better outcomes for kids, their families, their communities and the economy in general, and if it’s been shown to be substantially cheaper than the alternative, isn’t it worth serious consideration?


To most of the world, yes. But to the United States, and to Texas in particular, it’s apparently not a priority. The figures are disturbing.

Among the world’s 30 most developed countries, the United States is nosed out by only Mexico and Turkey for the highest percentage of uninsured — one in seven Americans, for a total of more than 46 million, 8 million of whom are children. Texas leads the nation in uninsured, with 5.5 million. Of these, about 1.5 million are children.

Yet studies have shown that investing in children’s health is a bargain, according to a timely report from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, “The Economic Impact of Uninsured Children on America,” by Vivian Ho, the institute’s chair in health economics and associate professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and Marah Short, a senior staff researcher in health economics.

They wrote that research provides “compelling evidence” that coverage of all American children would yield immediate health improvements as well as “long-term returns of greater health and productivity in adulthood.” And the bottom line is that while the “upfront incremental costs” are relatively modest, they will be more than offset by the value gained.

The research showed that a lack of health coverage currently costs about $15,500 per male child and $11,600 per female child in lost “health capital.” Other research suggested that insurance per child through age 18 would cost about $7,500.

We should be paying close attention: On the national front, President Barack Obama and Congress are engaging in the most drastic overhaul of health care in 40 years, in which children’s issues will play a major role.

Here in Texas, we have just witnessed the demise of bipartisan legislation that would have expanded the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover about 83,000 more Texas children, by including families who currently earn too much to qualify for the program, but still cannot afford private insurance.

It was sensible, cost-effective legislation, especially given that the federal government pays 72 cents of every dollar spent on CHIP, and state funds had already been set aside. But it fell victim to grandstanding from both parties on other issues, which ran out the clock, and to hints of a veto from Gov. Rick Perry were it to survive the session.

That’s just one example of what Obama, in a news conference Tuesday, called the “unsustainable” state of the nation’s health care. “Reform is not a luxury,” he said, “it is a necessity.”

Few would disagree. The trick will be how to effect that reform. Studies such as this one from the Baker Institute can be valuable tools in getting there.

Florida child first in state to die from swine flu

Boston (HealthKnowItAll) - Health officials in the state of Florida have announced that a 9 year old boy is the first victim of swine flu to die in the state.

The boy haled from Miami-Dade County and is one of 417 Floridians to have fallen ill with the virus.

Since the outbreak of swine flu was reported earlier this year, globally more than 28,000 cases have been reported resulting in more than 100 deaths.

The virus originated in Mexico, and it is there where the majority of deaths have been reported.

Drug makers are rushing to develop a vaccine for the flu, but they say it will not be ready for up to 6 months.

Japan lifts ban on child organ transplants

TOKYO (AFP) — Japan's lower house voted to scrap a ban on child organ donations, paving the way for patients aged under 15 to receive life-saving transplants here for the first time.

Current law bans organ transplants by children, a situation which activists say has claimed thousands of lives and forced many families to send children in need of transplants on costly overseas trips for surgery.

Under Japanese law, transplants have been rare even for adults because tough rules require donors to give prior written consent to having their organs harvested when they are brain dead, while their families must also agree.

The amended bill would scrap the age limit and the need for prior consent, unless the person explicitly opposed having their organs used, but it would still require family members of the children to agree.

The bill was approved by 263 to 167 votes and sent to the opposition controlled upper house. If it is rejected in the upper chamber, a two thirds majority in the lower house could turn it into law anyway.

The major political parties had told their legislators to vote according to their conscience. Only the Japanese Communist Party abstained, claiming that deliberations had not been sufficient.

The bill would also recognise patients who are brain dead as legally dead, long a controversial topic in Japan where many religious groups say a person is only deceased once their heart and lungs have stopped.

Japan adopted an Organ Transplant Law in 1997, but since then only 81 transplants have been carried out, compared to several thousand each year in the United States and several hundred annually in Europe.

The long-debated reform plans were fast-tracked this year after the World Health Organization signalled it would ask signatory nations in early 2010 to limit organ transplants to within their national boundaries.

In the move against so-called transplant tourism, which seeks to limit abuses, Australia, Britain and Germany have already announced they will refuse Japanese patients seeking organ transplants.

Rising cost of child care leads more women to work from home

According to the National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), there are more than 96,000 women in the workforce in Arkansas with children under the age of six. This is more than 63% of mothers in the state. The national numbers are even greater, with more than 9,000,000 mothers of small children currently employed outside the home. This translates to a huge amount of money being paid by these families each year for child care costs.


The average yearly child care cost in Arkansas is between $3,900 and $5,500. The national average is even higher with costs soaring to as much as $15,000 per year. However, these costs, or at least a significant portion of them, could be saved if just one parent could work from home or telecommute. Many companies offer telecommuting options and there are a plethora of legitimate work at home jobs out there. Many women have begun taking advantage of these opportunities and saving their families a bundle in the process.

Have You Joined the Work at Home Revolution?

If you’re one of the many women struggling to balance the cost of child care with other living expenses, there is hope. Legitimate work from home can be found with perseverance, and there are many companies that will allow you to telecommute for some or all of your work hours. If you have a job that would allow for home work, create a telecommuting proposal to present to your employer. Many employers are jumping on the telecommuting bandwagon as it cuts down on overhead costs and generally results in happier, more productive employees.

If your employer won’t allow telecommuting and you continue to struggle to pay for child care, it may be time to look elsewhere for employment. There are many different jobs which can be done from home for pay that rivals the state average income. Virtual assistants, freelance writers and graphic designers, editors, programmers, customer service representatives, and tutors are just some of the positions that can be found for the aspiring work at home mom (or dad). Taking a job with slightly lower pay that allows you to work from home could still be beneficial to your family if you consider the money saved on child care costs, gas, clothing, lunches, etc.

Work at Home Moms: The Future of Motherhood

We live in an age where data transfer and the speed of information exchange gives almost anyone the opportunity to stay at home and earn a living. The number of women who choose to work at home and remain the primary caregivers for their children has raised more than 60 percent from 1975 to 1990 according to the government’s last major population survey. These women do not pay for child care costs and are still able to contribute to, or in some cases provide all of, the family income.

The modern woman seems to want more out of her life and career than corporate jobs can provide. Professional freedoms, flexibility, and fulfillment are what many working mothers are seeking, and as such, they turn to telecommuting or work from home positions in large numbers. Not only does this choice negate the excessive costs of childcare, it also provides a way for her to be available to her family while still earning a salary.

Making it Work for You

Although not all jobs will lend themselves well to staying at home with children, some are extremely flexible. Customer service jobs often require blocks of quiet time in which to work on the phone. Mothers of young children may find this impossible. Women with little experience or technical skills may also feel that they could never work at home, but this just isn’t the case any longer.

Freelance writing from home requires no experience to get started, as well as more entrepreneurial undertakings such as becoming a content publisher or affiliate marketer. More experienced workers can also find suitable jobs which allow them to stay at home with their children, such as becoming a virtual assistant or freelance graphic designer. No matter who you are or what your background may be, in today’s world becoming a stay at home mom is no longer just a dream – it’s a reality, and child care costs may well become a thing of the past.

K-ID-napped

Identity theft is on the increase, according to the Federal Trade Commission, and ever-enterprising identity thieves are spreading their range, finding new fields to sow and new victims to reap. Some of those victims are very new: infants and children. "It's one of the ID theft areas that's growing," says Lyn Chitow-Oakes, chief marketing officer for Trusted ID (www.trustedid.com), based in Redwood City, Calif., south of San Francisco, which offers ID protection services. Chitow-Oakes says the main reason for the increase "is that people are not thinking about it. And there are lots of ways of getting access to children's information. They're easy prey." Children are also easier to prey on because most now get a Social Security number at birth. Experts say you should guard that number as closely as you would protect your own. The Social Security Administration (www.ssa.gov/pubs/10023.html) says getting a Social Security number for a newborn is voluntary, "but it is a good idea." "If your child is born in the United States or is a U.S. citizen born abroad, you need a Social Security number to claim your child as a dependent on your income tax return," the agency Web site explains. "Your child may also need a number if you plan to open a bank account for the child, buy savings bonds for the child, obtain medical coverage for the child or apply for government services for the child."

To ease the process, parents can apply for a Social Security number for their baby when they apply for a birth certificate. "The state agency that issues birth certificates will share your child's information with us and we will mail the Social Security card to you," the Social Security Administration's Web site says.

The agency does recognize the potential for abuse.

"To verify a birth certificate, Social Security will contact the office that issued it. We do this verification to prevent people from using fraudulent birth records to obtain Social Security numbers to establish false identities."

However, the agency can't protect those numbers from people hovering over the cradles, figuratively speaking, waiting to steal them, Chitow-Oakes says.

Thieves use children's Social Security numbers the same way they do those of adults and even the recently deceased - primarily to open lines of credit or for employment fraud.

Chitow-Oakes says some thieves have even used the information in doctors' offices to acquire medical benefits under a false name. That's particularly dangerous where insurance companies place a cap on the dollar amount of benefits, she says. Imagine that the child needs expensive surgery and the parents discover that somebody has been exploiting the account. In many cases, medical records become commingled and trying to separate them becomes a nightmare, she adds.

UNDISCOVERED CRIME

What makes ID theft of children all the more insidious, she says, is that it can take years to uncover.

"If your child's identity is stolen, you may not find out for many years, maybe not until the child is 18 years old and looking to buy his first car or trying to take out a student loan," opening a bank account or applying for a first credit card.

Suddenly it turns up that somebody has rung up thousands of dollars of debt in the victim's name. And straightening out the record can take years.

The Associated Press recently reported that the San Diegobased Identity Theft Resource Center (www.idtheftcenter. org) is trying to help a 3-yearold whose Social Security number is being used by someone for employment purposes and "a 5-year-old whose identity is linked to driver's licenses, arrest warrants for drunken driving and a warrant for unpaid child support."

More than 34,000 reports of identity theft that came in to the Federal Trade Commission from 2005 to 2007 concerned children under age 18, the AP reports, noting that frequently, the thief is a parent or other relative.

That was the case for Randy Waldron Jr. of Revere, Mass., now 27, the AP reports.

Waldron's father allegedly began using his Social Security number in 1982. He didn't find out until 16 years later, when he was applying for college, that his father had run up a total of $22.5 million in debt in his son's name, including myriad accounts from unpaid utility bills to defaulted credit cards and back taxes. There was even an unpaid storage facility rental that had ballooned to a $10,000 debt.

Waldron says it has taken a decade and $30,000 in legal fees to clear his name, and "I am still hounded by credit card companies [and] collection agencies."

Gabe Holmstrom, a spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, says the attorney general's Consumer Protection Division has received "a couple [of] incidences" of identity theft of children, mostly the work of estranged parents. He said the office gets very few claims involving false credit histories established by outsiders or involving employment fraud.

The office's Web site, www. arkansasag.gov/identity_ theft_more_info.html, offers tips for protection against and how to report identity theft and links to other government agencies' identity theft sites.

UNGUARDED INFORMATION

Chitow-Oakes says ID thieves can also obtain data through school or community sports programs that ask parents for children's Social Security numbers and other identifying information.

Thieves also prey on older children online, as more and more children, teens and college-age adults frequent social networking sites or reveal identifying details in instant messages.

"They pose as people with like interests," she explains. "Maybe they claim to have a pet in common." It only takes a few seemingly innocent questions to obtain "all an identity thief needs."

To defend against online ID predators, she suggests making sure your profile is more private than public; don't share personal information; and, similarly to avoiding predators in the "real" world, don't talk to strangers.

At home, parents should make sure that children's personal information is stored safely, away from the possible prying eyes of caretakers or workers. Only share information that's absolutely necessary.

"The only real need for a Social Security number is to apply for a passport, for taxes or employment," she adds. "Your child normally isn't part of those activities."

For an added layer of protection, ask the three credit reporting agencies - Equifax, (888) 766-0008; Experian, (888) 397-3742; and TransUnion, (800) 680-7289 - for a copy of your child's credit report.

"If the child has a credit report, the child should not have a credit report," she says, because minors are unable to enter into contracts. It's pretty much proof-positive that somebody has stolen your child's identity.

Here are some other tips to protect your child's identity:

Shred all papers that contain account numbers or Social Security numbers before throwing them away.

Store your child's Social Security card in a safe place at home or in a safe-deposit box. Neither you nor your child should carry the card in a wallet.

If you receive a pre-approved credit application or similarly unusual offer in the mail in your child's name, investigate. Some banks may add a child's name to a mailing list if an account has been opened in his name; it could be a red flag that your child's identity has been compromised.

If you do discover a credit report in your child's name, ask to have all accounts, applications and collection notices removed and have a security freeze put on the file. It's free and it will remain on the file until you request it be removed or temporarily lifted.

Ask if adults who work with your child who might have access to sensitive information - such as coaches, scout leaders or other activity leaders - have had a background check. Also be careful when providing documents like birth certificates to activity leaders and ask to be notified if they will be shown to other people.

Child well-being slumps along with US economy: report

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The recession has put US children at greater risk of everything from obesity, as parents substitute cheap fast food for healthy meals; to poverty, as adults lose jobs; to crime and instability, a report has found.

"We are in a period where, at least in economic well-being, we may be back where we were in 1975," Ruby Takanishi, head of the Foundation for Child Development which funded the 2009 Child Well-Being Index, told reporters at the launch of the report Wednesday in Washington.

The index, which uses US government data to assess how American children are doing in areas ranging from health to community-connectedness, shows that the welfare of US children began to decline last year as the country plunged into recession, and projected it would continue its downward slide.

"As the impact of the current recession reverberates through parents' employment and income patterns in families, as people are forced to move, lose their houses or otherwise have severe economic restrictions on what they can do, there will be impacts on child well-being," said Kenneth Land, research coordinator for the index.

Comparing current data with information from past recessions, the report predicts that child well-being will continue to sour until at least 2010, even though, said Land, economists are projecting that the economy will round the corner this year.

"The decline in child well-being will be driven most directly by the decline of material well-being," Land said.

"The number and percentage of children living below the poverty line will go up. The percentage of children living with at least one parent employed full-time, year-round will decline as the impact of job loss is felt," he said.

Median family income was projected to decline as unemployment rises, and single-parent families headed by men would be the hardest hit because more jobs are being cut in sectors like construction, dominated by male workers, than those in which women traditionally work, such as health care and education.

The decrease in family economic well-being would be felt in the short term and long term by children.

"Extreme deprivation and poverty in early childhood ... and persistent poverty really matter in terms of cognitive outcomes and later life economic outcomes," said Greg Acs, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute's Income and Benefits Policy Center.

Another danger faced by American children enduring economic hardship was "recession obesity", said Land.

"There is a concern that parents will substitute fast food, high carbohydrate and high sugar-content food, for healthy food, and that this will cause an uptick in the rate of overweight children and adolescents," he said

Nearly 32 percent of US children are overweight and 16 percent are obese, according to a study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

With obesity bringing with it a higher risk of developing heart disease, high cholesterol and diabetes, a rise in the rate of obesity would mean a fall in children's overall health, the Index predicted.

To compile the Index, researchers at Duke University analyzed dozens of indicators to to assess how American children are faring today, compare their current situation with the past, and project what they might face in the future.

"Mortality rates for children aged 1-19 in past recessions have picked up a bit and so we anticipate this may occur again," Land said.

"In past recessions, we've seen an upturn in the rate of violent crime among adolescents ... We anticipate this will occur again," he said.

A growing number of youths aged 16 to 19 were found by the researchers to be neither working nor in school, leaving them particularly vulnerable to delinquency and crime, said Land.

A unique aspect of the current recession, the housing crisis, could also add to the disruption brought to American children's lives by the economic downturn.

"Residential mobility typically slows down in recessions, allowing kids to maintain social connections with friends, peers, family and their neighborhood.

"But because this recession started with the housing crisis, there's a lot more loss of homes and mobility will be less reduced," said Land.

Top five tips to help manage your family's health

(ARA) - As kids head to summer camp or back to school this fall, moms everywhere will be digging through their files searching for immunization records and other health information. Some will find exactly what they need with just a few flips through an organized file cabinet. But many busy moms will be sifting through piles, shoe boxes, or drawers full of papers trying to find the most recent health records.

Managing health information, making appointments, keeping track of medications, and monitoring self-care recommendations are just a few of the routine tasks of today's family health advocate, a role often played by mom. In addition to managing their kids' health and their own, many moms are also in charge of managing health matters for their spouse or partner, and sometimes an elderly parent or other relative.

Taking care of yourself and your family can be overwhelming at times. Mayo Clinic suggests five tips for managing your family's health:

1. Ask yourself a few questions.
Take a few minutes to sit down and figure out the questions you'll most likely be asked in the event of an emergency or in common healthcare situations. If your child's school nurse called today and asked for his health history, what details would you be able to provide? If your mother fell in the shower, would you have access to critical information needed by emergency caregivers?

2. Get organized.
It seems that health information is never where you need it, when you need it. An online tool like the Mayo Clinic Health Manager gives you the opportunity to store and update personal health records and those of your family members. This free and secure online application gives you a place to store medical information and receive real-time individualized health guidance and recommendations based on the expertise of the Mayo Clinic. You can give access to family members or your doctor and use the tool no matter where you receive medical care. The Mayo Clinic Health Manager isn't just a place to store and organize your health information, it helps you become more active and engaged in your healthcare.

3. Make doctor visits more efficient.
The time you spend with your doctor is typically brief, but valuable. Take advantage of your time by arriving to the appointment prepared. Before you go, write down any questions you have so you don't forget to ask them. Bring a list of any medications, vitamins and supplements you're taking.

"I truly appreciate when my patients are actively engaged and informed about their health," says Dr. Sidna Tulledge-Scheitel, a primary care physician. "The Mayo Clinic Health Manager can help patients share information more easily with their doctors and manage their own health better between office visits."

4. Know and use your history to be more proactive.
Use the Mayo Clinic Health Manager to track wellness visits and immunizations for you and your family, as well as to gain control of medication schedules and chronic condition symptoms. Sharing this information with your doctor could help determine future treatment.

5. Build your health assets.
Finances, retirement savings and home equity are all viewed as long-term personal management projects, but people don't often see their health the same way. Look at your health as a long-term investment and take steps to quickly address any issues while maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Health Reform that Works for Kids

Congress has set the stage for further steps toward providing affordable coverage for all Americans with the reauthorization of the Children’s Health Insurance Program and significant investments in health care infrastructure in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. As the nation’s attention turns to systemic health reform, one challenge will be to ensure that all children enjoy stable, affordable coverage.

Leaders of the push for health reform appear committed to ensuring that all children enjoy the health benefits and enhanced financial security of health coverage. Yet proposals currently under development in Congress will not automatically achieve this goal. Current proposals pay more attention to expanding coverage for uninsured working-age adults than for uninsured children, while delivery system reforms may not necessarily benefit pediatric patients. Congress must ensure that systemic health reforms work for children. Children’s advocates will need to identify and pursue opportunities embedded within health care reform proposals to ensure that all children will have affordable, meaningful coverage that meets their unique needs.

Congress is now weighing new approaches to providing affordable coverage for all Americans. Congressional committees have not yet released initial legislation, but it is already evident from option papers and other materials that the legislation will build on the framework of “shared responsibility,” also embraced by President Barack Obama’s campaign plan. This approach seeks to expand health coverage and reform the health care delivery system through a combination of public insurance program expansions, subsidies for private coverage, restructuring the health insurance market, and investments in delivery system improvements.

How well these reforms will work for children is an open question. Policymakers must carefully consider their choices to ensure that all children can enjoy the benefits of health coverage.

Psychiatric Drug Use on the Rise

Psychiatric drug prescriptions have soared amongst Americans, with 73 percent more adults and 50 percent more children using such drugs in 2006 compared to a decade earlier.

Seniors citizen prescriptions have doubled in the same time period.

The researchers, Sherry Glied and Richard Frank, attribute the increase in prescriptions to primary care doctors becoming more familiar with psychotropic medications, not to a trend in over-prescribing medications for concerns that in the past would have been treated by other methods (or simply left untreated).

The researchers also suggest that lower-cost drugs have become more widely available and that their data reflects an overall trend in improved access to mental health care.

“Greater availability of medications to treat conditions like Alzheimer’s and increased access to prescription drugs through the Medicare Modernization Act may have also played a role in doctors’ prescribing drugs to seniors,” said Sherry Glied, Professor and Chair of Health Policy and Management, Mailman School of Public Health, at Columbia University.

The researchers examined national prescribing data from 1996 to 2006.

Rather than a trend toward overprescribing, this trend reflects improved access as more insurance companies are offering mental health services and more psychiatrists are accepting health insurance, according to the authors.

Children’s access has grown through the expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The number of children diagnosed and treated for mental health conditions during primary care visits doubled between 1996 and 2006.

In addition, more people with serious mental illnesses are imprisoned or incarcerated. The authors estimate that 7 percent of people with persistent mental illnesses are put in jail or prison every year.

In a related study, Richard Frank, Professor of Health Economics at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues found that mental health care spending grew 17 percent from 2001 to 2003, exceeding historical averages, which the authors attribute to increased spending on new prescription drugs.

Source: Health Affairs

Don’t toy with children’s health – Parents told

Mr. Justice Quansah, Project Co-ordinator of Compassion International (CI), a Non-Governmental Organization, has advised parents and guardians of beneficiary children of the child development project being implemented by the NGO to take good care of the diets of their children.

He said parents could use vegetables and other locally-produced items to prepare balanced diets for their children instead of relying on imported ingredients.

Mr. Quansah was addressing parents and guardians of beneficiary children at an orientation course at Kasoa Pentecost Child Development Centre.

He disclosed that over 200 children have been registered under the Compassion International Child Development Project since it commenced work in the area.

Mr. Mark Zutah, project health worker, reminded participants that it was only when their children were properly fed that they could absorb what their teachers impart to them.

He said whereas the NGO and the Church were doing their best to promote the spiritual and educational well-being of the children, parents and guardians of the beneficiary children must also play their part to protect their good health.

Mr. Patrick Ozor and Mr. Francis Donkor, both workers of the project, stressed the need for participants to adopt prudent financial measures in whatever business they pursue to ensure maximum returns to supplement what the NGO is providing for their children’s development.

Earlier, Mr. J. Y. Owusu-Kwarteng, Public Relations Officer of the Awutu Effutu Senya Mutual Health Insurance Scheme (AESMHIS) had taken participants through the various aspects of the health insurance policy.

Mr. Owusu-Kwarteng reminded Ghanaians who have not as yet registered with the Scheme of the need to avail themselves of the immense benefits the policy provides, and counselled such people not to waste anymore time to register with the Scheme.

He also urged all premium holders of the Scheme to ensure that their Health Insurance ID Cards were renewed in good time to avoid embarrassments during critical times.

Parenting and the high cost of autism

education, a release to adulthood. When upon this cycle is added the filter of autism, those concerns and costs easily balloon, sometimes to unmanageable levels.

Today 1 in 150 children is diagnosed with autism, with a new case diagnosed every 20 minutes and is the fastest-growing developmental disability in the United States. Autism is characterized by impaired social interaction, problems with verbal and nonverbal communication, and unusual, repetitive, or limited activities and interests.

Because autism is a neurological condition and can be triggered by multiple factors, there is neither single cause nor single therapeutic treatment for improving the lives of those with ASD. Rather, there are multiple options, various possibilities that – based on the severity of the individual’s autism – may have differing results. One thing is clear, early identification and intervention is a key component in affording a better opportunity for mainstreaming into general society. This education and these therapies, however, are often times quite costly, sometimes ruinously so.

Children, ages 5 to 11, who attend the Brooklyn Autism Center Academy which offers intensive educational instruction as one example have an annual tuition of $85,000 per year. Individual therapists can easily run $100-200 or more per hour, with a child’s needs easily requiring dozens of hours a week in therapy. While there is a general tide – slowly turning – for health insurance companies to cover some of these costs, there is no universal coverage across every state in the country, and many therapies are not covered at all. Families are often forced to choose between financial stability and going out of pocket for treating their child. It is not uncommon in this cycle for families to dig themselves into debt, sell their assets, and in some cases be forced into foreclosure or bankruptcy over the medical costs incurred in seeking to better their autistic child’s circumstances.

The costs for a child with autism only continue on as that child grows into an adult, as more social services are required for that person over his or her lifetime. According to a Harvard School of Public Health study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine in the spring of 2007, the typical American spends about $317,000 over his or her lifetime in direct medical costs, incurring 60% of those costs after age 65 years. In contrast, people with autism incur about $306,000 in additional direct medical costs, implying that people with autism spend twice as much as the typical American over their lifetimes and spend 60% of those incremental direct medical costs after age 21 years. The societal costs to support a single person with autism is $3.2 million over his or her lifetime, and as a group, upwards of $35 billion each year in direct (both medical and nonmedical) and indirect costs to care for all individuals diagnosed with ASD.

There are organizations, such as Easter Seals, that provide a variety of services and programs to help defray some of these costs, as well as new organizations such as Aid for Autistic Children Foundation, Inc. that seek to help those families who are in financial distress from helping their children. More such programs need to be created and supported to aid not only those with autism but the families that are bearing the financial burden of guiding these children into adulthood.

Schools will lose nurses as their roles become more demanding than ever

HAMPTON — A brown-haired girl muffles a constant cough as she walks into the clinic at Booker Elementary. She shows a freshly-ripped thumbnail to the nurse.

Martha Wayman bandages the thumb, listens to the girl's lungs with a stethoscope, then calls her mother to recommend cough medicine.

Next year, students may not find such quick help when they stop by their school's clinic.

Every school will open with a full-time nurse but may lose them through attrition. When nurses resign, schools with 299 or fewer students will be allotted a half-day nurse. Four schools have enrollment lower than 300 in Hampton.

The shift is a casualty of a $7.6 million shortfall in the district's budget.

Losing full-time nurses will move the 22,500-student school system at least a decade back in progress, said Linda Lawrence, the district's health services coordinator.

The responsibility for health care will fall to teachers and secretaries if a nurse isn't available, Wayman said, and staff will have to dial 911 if they can't handle a situation.

At Booker, Wayman works daily with two diabetic fourth graders. They measure their blood sugar in her clinic, count carbs after they eat lunch and calculate how much insulin they need.

Students with asthma drop by her office to puff on their inhalers. Others come in with stomach aches to lie down. A line forms after lunch time of students who need daily behavior medication.

Chronic illnesses have shot up in the past few years, Lawrence said. As of October, there were 3,300 asthmatic students and 780 received inhalers at school.

There were 149 students with documented seizure disorders, 1,612 students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. About 140 students have epi-pens at the school clinic for severe food allergies.

Without a full-time nurse on staff, the burden to treating students will cut into a teacher's day, Wayman said. She's worked at Booker for six years.

"It'll be hard for everybody," she said. "If the kids are sick, they may not be learning. I just don't think teachers should have to be nurses, they are busy, busy, busy."

Fourth-grade teacher Nancy Trimble has worked at Booker for 36 years and remembers the days when nurses weren't there full time.

"Now we much more readily send a child to the clinic because we know there's an expert there," she said. "If someone's not there, we'd have to screen them more carefully, which takes us away from instructional time."

And since she's not a triage nurse, Trimble said there's more room for error when untrained staff members treat children.

She sends children to Wayman about three times a week for everything from diabetes treatment to sore throats.

"She's very alert to every child's needs," Trimble said. "She personalizes every child."

As more parents lose jobs and insurance because of the economy, Wayman anticipates them depending even more on school nurses.

Special delivery : Pediatric dentists try to give kids the care without the scares

Raquel Gari and her husband took their son, Jacob, for his first dental visit when he was 2.

“It was traumatizing to him,” she remembers. “He got sick to his stomach, he was so nervous.”

It didn't help that she and her husband have their own fears of the dentist, “but we knew we had to do it.”

After that bad experience, the Garis started searching for another dentist. Raquel asked about 100 parents for recommendations and found that most of them had not yet taken their young children in for treatment.

“Most of them had the same fears I had about going to the dentist,” she says, and were delaying that first visit.

That's not always possible for families who can't find a dentist who will take their insurance or have no insurance at all, but the foundation is among those advocacy groups working on that, too, because the American Academic of Pediatric Dentistry recommends that children see a dentist after the first tooth appears or by age 1.
The Garis know that now, and they know that Jacob's cavity probably was the result of on-demand breast-feeding in the night, with no cleaning of his teeth afterward, leaving milk sugars to eat away at the enamel of his teeth, making him vulnerable to decay. The same is true, say dentists, for children who toddle around all day and go to bed at night, with a “sippy” cup of juice. Juice is good for kids, but the sugary liquid constantly bathing their teeth is not.

Del Fierro says the increased attention on dental health issues specific to children came about because, while the general population is enjoying a decrease in cavities, children are not.

“The main thing for earlier visits is to educate parents to prevent progression of tooth decay. I see a 3-, 4-and 5-year-olds with rampant decay – in neighborhoods where you wouldn't think of this as being a problem.”

Some of the push for earlier visits is due to the development of the pediatric dental specialty. There are about 400 of them throughout the state of California, says Cohen. His organization, pediatric dentists and others have campaigned for more public awareness of the need for even infants to get that first assessment.

“The general thought before was the kids weren't cooperative until age 3,” says Dr. Jean Chan, a pediatric dentist in El Cajon, who treats quite a number of children 2 and younger.

The first things these professionals say to do is find a dentist, one you trust and one who makes your child feel comfortable. Even if it takes visiting several offices. And determine whether, given your insurance coverage and personal preferences, whether you want a general or pediatric dentist. That, too, may take a few visits.

Make appointments early in the day when the child is well rested.
Please do not bribe your child to go to the dentist or threaten a visit as a punishment.

Del Fierro explains that “a lot of the first visit is a routine type of exam. We look at the teeth, if they have them, and make sure they look normal, sometimes we clean the teeth or do a fluoride treatment.”
And there always is a lot of talk about diet and properly brushing and flossing. So much so, say the Reis and Gari families, that their children bug them if the parents dare to forget the rituals.

Chan's office does what she calls an orientation visit.

“It's free,” she says. “The parent comes in with the child, we walk around the office; we show on a stuffed animal what to expect at the first visit; and we mimic what we're going to do. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes.”
Chan says it's all about de-sensitizing the children, helping them feel comfortable and safe.

“I taught swim lessons when I was younger, and I had to teach children to get over their fear of water,” says Chan, who takes the same approach as a dentist. “If we do our job right, we build a relationship – with the parent and the child. We work together to get the job done.”

HELPING KIDS CARE FOR THEIR TEETH

Pediatric dentists Jean Chan and Dino Del Fierro both address the importance of brushing and flossing with new patients and their parents. And they encourage parents to not only model those behaviors but also do them for their children until youngsters are able to use dental products on their own. Here are some tips on caring for kids' teeth.
After the first teeth appear, the doctors say it's crucial for parents to wipe the teeth with a washcloth after an infant drinks milk or juice to remove the sugars inherent in both.
In between meals and after brushing your teeth at night, stick with water for drinking purposes.
When it comes to brushing, use a soft-bristle brush that is the right size for the child's mouth. “If the brush is too big, it can't angle properly in a small mouth,” Chan explains. “Look at the packaging. Usually ages are printed on the package.” The dentists says electric toothbrushes, toothbrushes that play music indicating how long to brush, and those with a favorite cartoon character all are fine if they get the child to brush.
Once there are enough teeth in the mouth, they'll contact with one another, and that's time to floss. “A toothbrush can do an effective job of cleaning the teeth, but flossing is important once those back teeth are in,” says Del Fierro, who urges parents to do the flossing on their kids. “When the time does come for them to do it on their own, it will already be part of the routine, part of the process.” Once a day, at night usually, is fine for flossing, the dentists say, and there are products that help. “A floss handle, or dental floss, whatever works for a parent in a small mouth,” says Chan. The Crest Glide Floss Pick is good for smaller mouths, she says, and the Reach Access Flosser works on older children.
The best “product” is the example set by a parent. Margaret and Juan Reis' 3-year-old son, Marcanthonee, taught them that. “If I forget, he won't let me,” says Margaret. “He'll say, 'You've got to brush my teeth and floss me!' ” The dentists agree with Marcanthonee. “Parents should be responsible to brush their children's teeth until they can write their name in cursive,” says Chan. “Kids don't know how to do it well. They can't do the gumline; they can't always hold the brush at the proper angle, until they are between 7 and 9 years old. Then they have the motor skills to do a thorough job.
– JANE CLIFFORD

Dental care for needy facing uncertain future

Genevieve Allen, a fourth year dental student at UNLV, works on Joseph Guarine Saturday, as the UNLV Dental School of Medicine faculty and students put on three clinics to treat local children, veterans, and women referred by Shade Tree Shelter. The clinics are designed for people who do not qualify for Medicaid or are uninsured. The event also provides UNLV dental residents with clinical experience.

By Becky Bosshart

When Vietnam veteran Ted Mattos, who is on partial disability for post-traumatic stress disorder, needs his teeth cleaned, he goes to the UNLV School of Dental Medicine. He donated $20 for his care on Saturday, and that was optional.

When single mom Patricia McCreery needed fillings for two of her children, she took them to the UNLV Shadow Lane Clinic, which offers a monthly Saturday morning children’s clinic. About every six weeks, the clinic also brings in low-income veterans and women from the Shade Tree Shelter. About 67 patients were served Saturday morning at the free dental care clinic by 110 dental school students, staff and faculty volunteers.

“They didn’t go for five years,” McCreery said about her youngest children. “I didn’t have insurance for five years, I worked at Wal-Mart. Sure, they had Medicaid, but the wait was so long for that and things just came up. Now I want to teach them to keep their teeth right. Both my parents had dentures at the age of 25. I don’t want them to have the same.”

These Las Vegans, and about 38,000 others a year, regularly go to the UNLV programs, which offer care at reduced prices and regular free clinics for those who qualify. Could Mattos get this anyplace else? He shakes his head. He’s looked. And it would cost McCreery, who now has insurance in her job as a city bus driver, $350 in co-pays for each child to catch up on all that needed dental work.

That doesn’t add up.

But neither does the state budget. And that’s not looking so good for 2010.

Dental school officials fear that higher education budget cuts will devastate their program and the population it serves.

“We serve children whose parents can’t afford care,” said dental student Jeremy Cox. “A lot of them have cavities that are so bad, they can’t sleep at night.”

The dental school, 1001 Shadow Lane, is looking at a proposed 19 percent cut next year. It’s operating now on a $23 million budget, one-third of which comes from the state. To make state budget cuts in 2008, the school already laid off 16 full-time staff. Dr. Michael Sanders, dental professor and interim chair of clinical sciences, wonders when it’s going to end.

“If budget cuts are implemented at the level proposed, it would be devastating to this institution,” he said. “If we lose that money, faculty would have to be cut, appointments would be cut.”

Sanders would have to eliminate all his part-time employees and 10 of his full-time staff to make that proposed cut.

“And I couldn’t run it (the school and clinic) with 16,” he said. The school employs 26 full-time faculty in clinical sciences.

Sanders couldn’t teach all the classes required by the American Dental Association and run the clinic. Appointments would be reduced substantially. The school graduates about 75 dentists a year. It has 82 freshmen this year.

He wonders how putting people out of work helps the crippled economy. And he questions how cutting dentistry for the needy is a solution, since teeth can make or break an employment interview. “Someone who is being interviewed for a job, and that employer sees bad teeth, that turns people off,” Sanders said. “Right away people make assumptions about you that often aren’t true.”

Good dental care encourages self confidence and that’s integral to success in employment.

“There’s always a story I tell about a patient we had who worked in a stockroom for years, his teeth were so bad,” Sanders aid. “But we fixed him up with a pair of dentures and now he’s a salesman working in the front with customers.”

For information on registering for future clinics call the school at 774-2400. The next free children’s clinic is May 23. The free clinics are designed for people who do not qualify for Medicaid or are uninsured.

America Takes a Stand to Fight Childhood Obesity

Boston (HealthKnowItAll) - America is taking a stand when it comes to obesity and children.

Major insurance companies and health groups are joining together to provide services to help those children who are obese, and to take a proactive approach to curb obesity before it even occurs.

Under their joint efforts, initiatives will be put into place to curb obesity in children by providing access to prevention options including consultations with diatitions, multiple yearly doctor visits, and education dealing with healthy living.

More than 1 third of US children are considered overweight or obese, a fact that is ominous for their future.

Being overweight or obese as a child, can only raise health risks when that child becomes an adult.

These health risks include, but are not limited to diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertention and so on.

Moran touts health care initiative

By Bob Stuart

Published: February 14, 2009

Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Brian Moran made a Waynesboro stop Friday to unveil a health-care plan that would insure every Virginia child and assist small businesses and seniors with coverage.

Moran’s “Healthy Virginia: Cover Every Kid” plan would raise the eligibility of families for the federal state children’s health insurance program from 200 percent to 300 percent of the federal poverty level, eliminate the four-month waiting period for children who lose private insurance and qualify for the program and offer automatic enrollment at birth for all children from qualifying families.

Moran said this initiative would cut the number of uninsured Virginia children, currently estimated at more than 200,000, putting the state 32nd among the 50 states.

The candidate said the state could appropriate money to match federal funds for the insurance program.

“No parent should go to bed without access to health care,” said Moran. “It’s a moral obligation and an economic necessity. It’s a smart investment for the future.”

In addition to the health care for children, Moran’s plan calls for new financial incentives for affordable long-term care for seniors and eliminating waiting lists for home-delivered meals.

The plan also would create small business insurance pools to allow owners to insure their employees and allow young people to stay on the family insurance plan until age 26.

“In a struggling economy, creating jobs is extremely important, but health care is also important,” Moran said.

One in every seven Virginians lacks health care, Moran said.

A former Northern Virginia delegate and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, Moran is locked in a tough three-way fight for the party’s gubernatorial nomination with Bath Sen. Creigh Deeds and national Democratic insider Terry McAuliffe. The race will culminate with a June 9 statewide primary.

Deeds’ press secretary, Brooke Borkenhagen, said his campaign will roll out a health care plan in the next few weeks after he finishes this session of the General Assembly.

She said Deeds “continues to fight to make health care more accessible and affordable for all Virginians.”

Borkenhagen said Deeds “has crafted innovative legislation to ensure Virginians have the right to choose which doctor they visit and the ability to purchase prescription medicines at a reasonable cost.”

Elisabeth Smith, McAuliffe’s press secretary, said he is conducting economic roundtables across the commonwealth and will unveil policy initiatives after finishing the roundtables.

Moran made noise at last weekend’s Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Richmond, where he questioned whether the Democratic Party would be one of the people or big money.

In an obvious swipe at McAuliffe, Moran said he was a “fighter not a fundraiser.”

On Friday, Moran reinforced his ties to the last two Virginia governors, Timothy M. Kaine and Mark Warner.

“It’s one thing to talk about governing like Mark Warner and Tim Kaine. I was there in the trenches fighting with them,” he said of his legislative experience.

£194000 price tag of raising a child

Raising a child born today could cost £193,772 up to their 21st birthday.

Bringing up a child in modern times is a costly affair, getting more expensive every year and forcing parents to cut back spending significantly, according to the sixth annual Cost of a Child survey from LV= Insurance.

LV chief executive Mike Rogers said: "Every parent knows how their hard-earned savings can dip thanks to eye-watering education and childcare costs."

The cost of raising a child rose four per cent over the last year - with rises in every category of spending – except pocket money allocations.

Equally startling is the figure of £133.7 billion – the cost of raising all 690,013 children born in the UK in 2007.

This equals £9,227 a year, £769 a month or £25 a day per child.

This rising cost is compounded by the new figures which show families are cutting back on all aspects of family life – with spending on holidays, clothing, food and leisure activities all affected.

Mr Rogers said: "Our research shows that parents are being very resourceful when it comes to budgeting and cutting back on non-essential spend.”

The survey of 4,027 adults showed that 81 per cent of parents have cut down on family spending, while 79 per cent admit to buying lower cost and ‘value’ items.

A spokesperson for LV commented that these cut backs are a result of families feeling the pressure financially in the economic downturn.

Based on these statistics, the cost looks set to rise further, with LV predicting the cost of a child reaching £265,577 by the year 2012 – approximately £12,500 a year.

David White, chief executive of The Children's Mutual, said: "These headline figures may look intimidating, but when you consider that nearly a fifth of the amount being quoted is the cost of university, there is hope for parents."

He added saving – though difficult in the recession – will help to reduce the financial hit of costs such as university fees.

"While in these credit crunched times finding significant sums for saving may be difficult, we believe it will be far harder for families to find the same amount as a cash lump sum in the future.

"We’re urging parents of younger children to talk to wider family today, to ask if they would consider saving for the child’s future so that in 18 years' time, they don’t miss out."

John Ellul