Thursday, January 29, 2015
New rotavirus vaccine to cut death rate in babies
A new vaccine is protecting newborns from rotavirus, a common cause of severe diarrhoea which kills about 500,000 children aged under five around the world each year.
The lifesaving vaccine our children are being denied
Nine out of 10 babies showed a strong immune response to the vaccine after receiving a first dose within days of birth and subsequent doses at two and four months.(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints online)
The results, from a New Zealand trial in which 95 babies were given the vaccine, are being presented at the International Rotavirus Symposium in India on Thursday.
Lead researcher Julie Bines, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, said the results were a major step towards widespread protection against rotavirus for newborns.
"The advantage of this vaccine is the birth dose, which is the earliest opportunity to provide protection to babies from severe rotavirus gastroenteritis," she said.
"This world-first approach has enormous potential to reduce disease and dying in the most vulnerable children around the world."
Development of the vaccine is being led by academic institutions in a bid to keep it affordable for developing countries, where most rotavirus deaths occur and current vaccines are not widely available.
Australian children currently receive a rotavirus vaccine at two months, but the new vaccine has shown fewer side effects and can be given at birth, offering added protection.
In Australia, before introduction of rotavirus vaccination in 2007, about 10,000 young children were hospitalised with rotavirus gastroenteritis, and one child died each year from complications.
Now more than than 7000 hospital admissions are prevented each year, and children who are hospitalised are less severely affected.
Professor Bines said many of the babies now hospitalised in Australia were too young to have received the current vaccine, and required treatment for dehydration.
Dehydrated babies in developing countries can die without receiving the fluids they need.
Professor Bines said one of the barriers to a widespread rollout of the current rotavirus vaccine in developing countries was inadequate follow-up healthcare for babies, but providing the new vaccine at birth before families returned to their communities helped overcome the problem.
Researchers believe the vaccine offers some protection after a single dose, but they need to do further studies to establish how much.
Trials of the new vaccine are also under way in Indonesia, where about 10,000 babies die from rotavirus gastroenteritis each year.
Researchers hope the vaccine will be widely available by 2016.
A new vaccine is protecting newborns from rotavirus, a common cause of severe diarrhoea which kills about 500,000 children aged under five around the world each year.
The lifesaving vaccine our children are being denied
Nine out of 10 babies showed a strong immune response to the vaccine after receiving a first dose within days of birth and subsequent doses at two and four months.
The results, from a New Zealand trial in which 95 babies were given the vaccine, are being presented at the International Rotavirus Symposium in India on Thursday.
Lead researcher Julie Bines, of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Melbourne, said the results were a major step towards widespread protection against rotavirus for newborns.
"The advantage of this vaccine is the birth dose, which is the earliest opportunity to provide protection to babies from severe rotavirus gastroenteritis," she said.
"This world-first approach has enormous potential to reduce disease and dying in the most vulnerable children around the world."
Development of the vaccine is being led by academic institutions in a bid to keep it affordable for developing countries, where most rotavirus deaths occur and current vaccines are not widely available.
Australian children currently receive a rotavirus vaccine at two months, but the new vaccine has shown fewer side effects and can be given at birth, offering added protection.
In Australia, before introduction of rotavirus vaccination in 2007, about 10,000 young children were hospitalised with rotavirus gastroenteritis, and one child died each year from complications.
Now more than than 7000 hospital admissions are prevented each year, and children who are hospitalised are less severely affected.
Professor Bines said many of the babies now hospitalised in Australia were too young to have received the current vaccine, and required treatment for dehydration.
Dehydrated babies in developing countries can die without receiving the fluids they need.
Professor Bines said one of the barriers to a widespread rollout of the current rotavirus vaccine in developing countries was inadequate follow-up healthcare for babies, but providing the new vaccine at birth before families returned to their communities helped overcome the problem.
Researchers believe the vaccine offers some protection after a single dose, but they need to do further studies to establish how much.
Trials of the new vaccine are also under way in Indonesia, where about 10,000 babies die from rotavirus gastroenteritis each year.
Researchers hope the vaccine will be widely available by 2016.
Video: 7-week-old baby hears for the first time
Heart-warming video alert!
Baby Lachlan was diagnosed with moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears at birth. Doctors decided that fitting a hearing aid in his first few months of life would be his best bet at having a chance to hear the world around him.
So at just seven weeks of age, the baby, from Victoria, Australia, had the procedure - and his parents caught the moment on camera. (canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints online)
“When they turned the headphones on and Lachlan smiled and his face lit up, it was the most magical thing I’d ever seen in my life,” Lachlan’s mum, Michelle Lever, told Daily Mail Australia.
"I had never been more happy in my life."
"I thought Lachlan would not be able to talk, make friends and I was worried he would get teased. I now know that whilst those thoughts were completely normal, they are not true," she said.
The video shows little Lachlan start to cry as he's fitted with his hearing aid - but as the specialist finishes putting it in his ear, he stops crying and appears to listen carefully to the sounds around him for the first time ever.
Moments later he smiles towards the camera.
Throughout the video Lachlan continues to stare upwards with a confused look and smiles back at people including his mum and dad, Michelle and Toby Lever, as they talk to him.
Michelle said she was glad to share the video to give other families of hearing-impaired children hope.
“I am so happy that we can share our magic moment with the world,” she said. “I hope it can give some other families the realisation everything is going to be okay.”
Lachlan, who is now two years old (the video was taken in 2012), is doing well.
“He is the biggest chatterbox out there," Michelle said. "He's only two so there’s a lot of gibberish that you can't understand, but when he’s telling you something, he makes sure you understand."
Baby Lachlan was diagnosed with moderate to severe hearing loss in both ears at birth. Doctors decided that fitting a hearing aid in his first few months of life would be his best bet at having a chance to hear the world around him.
So at just seven weeks of age, the baby, from Victoria, Australia, had the procedure - and his parents caught the moment on camera. (canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints online)
“When they turned the headphones on and Lachlan smiled and his face lit up, it was the most magical thing I’d ever seen in my life,” Lachlan’s mum, Michelle Lever, told Daily Mail Australia.
"I had never been more happy in my life."
"I thought Lachlan would not be able to talk, make friends and I was worried he would get teased. I now know that whilst those thoughts were completely normal, they are not true," she said.
The video shows little Lachlan start to cry as he's fitted with his hearing aid - but as the specialist finishes putting it in his ear, he stops crying and appears to listen carefully to the sounds around him for the first time ever.
Moments later he smiles towards the camera.
Throughout the video Lachlan continues to stare upwards with a confused look and smiles back at people including his mum and dad, Michelle and Toby Lever, as they talk to him.
Michelle said she was glad to share the video to give other families of hearing-impaired children hope.
“I am so happy that we can share our magic moment with the world,” she said. “I hope it can give some other families the realisation everything is going to be okay.”
Lachlan, who is now two years old (the video was taken in 2012), is doing well.
“He is the biggest chatterbox out there," Michelle said. "He's only two so there’s a lot of gibberish that you can't understand, but when he’s telling you something, he makes sure you understand."
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Raising an adventurous eater
Late last year, my pregnant wife and I were out for one of our last dinners together before we became parents. As a family with a pair of preschoolers sat at the table nearby, a part of me thought, "That could be us in a few years."(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints australia)
When the waiter arrived to take their order, the mother put down the menu. "Could the kitchen make something for the kids? Maybe some buttered noodles or chicken nuggets? They won't eat anything else."
"I hope that isn't us in a few years!" I thought.
I'm a food writer, so my diet spans the globe. One day I might be eating Ghanaian stew on a ball of fufu for lunch, then sushi for dinner; the next might include dim sum in the morning and roasted duck breast at night. Don't get me wrong: chicken nuggets and buttered noodles aren't inherently bad and I've enjoyed both. However, the thought of my child exclusively eating the so-called "beige diet" - fried foods and carbs - made my stomach churn.
So what could my wife, Indira, and I do to help raise an adventurous eater?
As it turns out, my wife's dinner that night (anchovy crostini, prosciutto-topped Neapolitan pizza) was already shaping our child's tastes. So was the vegetable burrito with hot sauce she’d eaten for lunch.
"Learning about food occurs long before the first taste of food," says Julie Mennella, a bio psychologist at the Monell Center in Philadelphia. "The flavours of the mother's diet get into the amniotic fluid."
The same thing happens when the mother breastfeeds, she said – and because my wife’s diet is nearly as varied as my own, she'd expose our child to a panoply of cuisines.
Born in early January, Zephyr was a healthy boy with a ravenous hunger. The next few months were a happy blur, and it wasn't long before we were talking about adding solid foods to his diet.
But I'm no culinary maestro and I needed help crafting the purees. After asking our paediatrician a flurry of questions, I reached out to Tucker Yoder, executive chef of the Clifton Inn in Charlottesville, and a father of four. He agreed to teach me a few tricks.
Yoder and his wife have a few simple rules for feeding their children. "We try to give them what we're having," he says, "and we'll try giving them anything." His children enjoy a wide variety of food, including kale-fortified breakfast smoothies and omelettes filled with freshly foraged mushrooms.
His next rule sounds identical to one my mother enforced. "If it's on your plate, you've got to try it," he says.
The couple shop seasonally and locally as much as possible, and they draw on their garden for tomatoes, leafy greens and herbs.
We ended up making five purees, lightly spicing them to add depth of flavour: curried carrots, minted pineapple mango, basiled beets and strawberries, sweet potatoes with a dash of crushed red pepper flakes, and cauliflower accented with cumin. I would have enjoyed eating any of them.
Placing Zephyr in his high chair that evening, I mentally crossed my fingers as I dipped the spoon into the pineapple-mango mixture. I then fed him solids for the first time.
He looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes lit up, he worked his jaw, and he swallowed. He pulled the spoon toward his mouth for seconds.
Trying the strawberry-beet puree the next evening, I experienced similarly gratifying success. Two days later, however, when I picked Zephyr up from day care, his carer said: "He didn't like the sweet potatoes. He spat them out."
I shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe we got too cocky putting crushed red pepper flakes in there, though it was just a few specks. Indira has an insatiable appetite for spicy food, and I thought Zephyr might have inherited it.
"They're not going to eat everything," warned Jenny Carenco, author of Bebe Gourmet: 100 French-Inspired Baby Food Recipes for Raising an Adventurous Eater. "My kids don't eat everything. My daughter hates zucchini."
Repetition is the key to winning children over to new tastes, says Carenco. "Just keep serving it and make it a positive experience," she says. "The mistake is to stop serving it. If they don't like peas, it's not going to kill you to cook up and throw away a spoonful of peas after every meal. Serve them at every meal. And if they have one, it's a victory. Then they'll have two."
Michael Harr, executive chef at Food, Wine & Co in Bethesda, had another piece of simple advice: "Think of simple dishes that you like, then puree them." He created a play on peaches and cream (and celery!) for his son Benjamin, and when he shared the recipe, it became a favourite in my household. Zephyr grinned broadly as he devoured his first portion.
As my wife and I laughed over his reaction while eating our own dinner, I thought back on something his paediatrician had said: "Make eating enjoyable, and do it as a family as much as you can." This was just the beginning of Zephyr's appreciation for food, but so far, so good.
I was still smiling as I went to store the remainder of the peaches and cream. When I opened our refrigerator, the second shelf was filled with a rainbow of purees - not one of them beige.
When the waiter arrived to take their order, the mother put down the menu. "Could the kitchen make something for the kids? Maybe some buttered noodles or chicken nuggets? They won't eat anything else."
"I hope that isn't us in a few years!" I thought.
I'm a food writer, so my diet spans the globe. One day I might be eating Ghanaian stew on a ball of fufu for lunch, then sushi for dinner; the next might include dim sum in the morning and roasted duck breast at night. Don't get me wrong: chicken nuggets and buttered noodles aren't inherently bad and I've enjoyed both. However, the thought of my child exclusively eating the so-called "beige diet" - fried foods and carbs - made my stomach churn.
So what could my wife, Indira, and I do to help raise an adventurous eater?
As it turns out, my wife's dinner that night (anchovy crostini, prosciutto-topped Neapolitan pizza) was already shaping our child's tastes. So was the vegetable burrito with hot sauce she’d eaten for lunch.
"Learning about food occurs long before the first taste of food," says Julie Mennella, a bio psychologist at the Monell Center in Philadelphia. "The flavours of the mother's diet get into the amniotic fluid."
The same thing happens when the mother breastfeeds, she said – and because my wife’s diet is nearly as varied as my own, she'd expose our child to a panoply of cuisines.
Born in early January, Zephyr was a healthy boy with a ravenous hunger. The next few months were a happy blur, and it wasn't long before we were talking about adding solid foods to his diet.
But I'm no culinary maestro and I needed help crafting the purees. After asking our paediatrician a flurry of questions, I reached out to Tucker Yoder, executive chef of the Clifton Inn in Charlottesville, and a father of four. He agreed to teach me a few tricks.
Yoder and his wife have a few simple rules for feeding their children. "We try to give them what we're having," he says, "and we'll try giving them anything." His children enjoy a wide variety of food, including kale-fortified breakfast smoothies and omelettes filled with freshly foraged mushrooms.
His next rule sounds identical to one my mother enforced. "If it's on your plate, you've got to try it," he says.
The couple shop seasonally and locally as much as possible, and they draw on their garden for tomatoes, leafy greens and herbs.
We ended up making five purees, lightly spicing them to add depth of flavour: curried carrots, minted pineapple mango, basiled beets and strawberries, sweet potatoes with a dash of crushed red pepper flakes, and cauliflower accented with cumin. I would have enjoyed eating any of them.
Placing Zephyr in his high chair that evening, I mentally crossed my fingers as I dipped the spoon into the pineapple-mango mixture. I then fed him solids for the first time.
He looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes lit up, he worked his jaw, and he swallowed. He pulled the spoon toward his mouth for seconds.
Trying the strawberry-beet puree the next evening, I experienced similarly gratifying success. Two days later, however, when I picked Zephyr up from day care, his carer said: "He didn't like the sweet potatoes. He spat them out."
I shouldn't have been surprised. Maybe we got too cocky putting crushed red pepper flakes in there, though it was just a few specks. Indira has an insatiable appetite for spicy food, and I thought Zephyr might have inherited it.
"They're not going to eat everything," warned Jenny Carenco, author of Bebe Gourmet: 100 French-Inspired Baby Food Recipes for Raising an Adventurous Eater. "My kids don't eat everything. My daughter hates zucchini."
Repetition is the key to winning children over to new tastes, says Carenco. "Just keep serving it and make it a positive experience," she says. "The mistake is to stop serving it. If they don't like peas, it's not going to kill you to cook up and throw away a spoonful of peas after every meal. Serve them at every meal. And if they have one, it's a victory. Then they'll have two."
Michael Harr, executive chef at Food, Wine & Co in Bethesda, had another piece of simple advice: "Think of simple dishes that you like, then puree them." He created a play on peaches and cream (and celery!) for his son Benjamin, and when he shared the recipe, it became a favourite in my household. Zephyr grinned broadly as he devoured his first portion.
As my wife and I laughed over his reaction while eating our own dinner, I thought back on something his paediatrician had said: "Make eating enjoyable, and do it as a family as much as you can." This was just the beginning of Zephyr's appreciation for food, but so far, so good.
I was still smiling as I went to store the remainder of the peaches and cream. When I opened our refrigerator, the second shelf was filled with a rainbow of purees - not one of them beige.
Pineapple and mango puree
This summery puree can be refrigerated in individual containers for up to one week, or frozen for up to six months. It makes 1 cup (6 servings).
Ingredients
1 cup chunked mango
1/2 cup fresh chunked pineapple
6 mint leaves, coarsely chopped
Water (optional)
Method
• Combine the mango, pineapple and mint in a deep mixing cup. Use a stick blender to puree until smooth.
• If desired, add water a teaspoon or two of at a time to achieve the desired consistency.
• Transfer to airtight containers for storing.(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints online)
Ingredients
1 cup chunked mango
1/2 cup fresh chunked pineapple
6 mint leaves, coarsely chopped
Water (optional)
Method
• Combine the mango, pineapple and mint in a deep mixing cup. Use a stick blender to puree until smooth.
• If desired, add water a teaspoon or two of at a time to achieve the desired consistency.
• Transfer to airtight containers for storing.(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints online)
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Peaches and cream puree
Think of this as a pureed parfait for baby. Celery adds body to the mix; feel free to incorporate more if the puree gets too soupy.(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints australia)
The puree can be refrigerated for up to one week in airtight containers, or frozen for up to six months. Makes six cups (36 servings); the recipe can be cut in half.
Ingredients
6 peaches (unpeeled), pitted then cut into large dice
2 to 3 sticks celery, diced, or more as needed
3 strawberries, hulled then coarsely chopped
Water
1 cup organic vanilla yogurt
Method
• Combine the peaches, two celery sticks and all the strawberries in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Add enough water to cover, then place over medium heat.
• Once the water begins to bubble, cover and cook for about 15 minutes, until tender. Remove from the heat.
• Working in batches, use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked fruit and celery to a blender, along with about 1/4 cup total of the cooking liquid and all the yogurt. Puree until smooth and creamy, then transfer to a mixing bowl.
• If the consistency is too loose for your liking, dice the remaining celery stick and puree along with some of already-pureed mixture until smooth. Stir into the bowl.
• If the mixture's still too loose, serve it as soup.
• Transfer to airtight containers for storing.
The puree can be refrigerated for up to one week in airtight containers, or frozen for up to six months. Makes six cups (36 servings); the recipe can be cut in half.
Ingredients
6 peaches (unpeeled), pitted then cut into large dice
2 to 3 sticks celery, diced, or more as needed
3 strawberries, hulled then coarsely chopped
Water
1 cup organic vanilla yogurt
Method
• Combine the peaches, two celery sticks and all the strawberries in a large, heavy-bottomed pot. Add enough water to cover, then place over medium heat.
• Once the water begins to bubble, cover and cook for about 15 minutes, until tender. Remove from the heat.
• Working in batches, use a slotted spoon to transfer the cooked fruit and celery to a blender, along with about 1/4 cup total of the cooking liquid and all the yogurt. Puree until smooth and creamy, then transfer to a mixing bowl.
• If the consistency is too loose for your liking, dice the remaining celery stick and puree along with some of already-pureed mixture until smooth. Stir into the bowl.
• If the mixture's still too loose, serve it as soup.
• Transfer to airtight containers for storing.
Macro Organic baby food pouches recalled
Woolworths has issued a recall on a popular brand of baby food pouches which may cause illness if consumed.(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints online)
The supermarket giant has recalled Macro Organic Baby Food Puree in three varieties, Lamb and Sweet Potato Puree, Beef with Vegetable and Rice Puree and Chicken with Sweetcorn and Pasta Puree.
The products were sold at from Woolworths Supermarkets, Safeway Food for Less and Flemings Supermarkets nationally.
Recall: Macro Organic baby food pouches.
Recall: Macro Organic baby food pouches.
The recall is due to a packaging fault resulting in the potential to cause spoilage and possible illness if consumed.
Parents should not give this product to their children to eat, and should return the products to the place of purchase for a full refund.
Product name and date marking is as follows:
• Macro Organic Lamb and Sweet Potato Puree, best before 11/SEP/14 and 13/SEP/14
• Macro Organic Beef with Vegetable and Rice Puree best before, 12/SEP/14
• Macro Organic Chicken with Sweetcorn and Pasta Puree, best before 13/SEP/14
Woolworths acquired the Macro Wholefoods brand in 2009.
The supermarket giant has recalled Macro Organic Baby Food Puree in three varieties, Lamb and Sweet Potato Puree, Beef with Vegetable and Rice Puree and Chicken with Sweetcorn and Pasta Puree.
The products were sold at from Woolworths Supermarkets, Safeway Food for Less and Flemings Supermarkets nationally.
Recall: Macro Organic baby food pouches.
Recall: Macro Organic baby food pouches.
The recall is due to a packaging fault resulting in the potential to cause spoilage and possible illness if consumed.
Parents should not give this product to their children to eat, and should return the products to the place of purchase for a full refund.
Product name and date marking is as follows:
• Macro Organic Lamb and Sweet Potato Puree, best before 11/SEP/14 and 13/SEP/14
• Macro Organic Beef with Vegetable and Rice Puree best before, 12/SEP/14
• Macro Organic Chicken with Sweetcorn and Pasta Puree, best before 13/SEP/14
Woolworths acquired the Macro Wholefoods brand in 2009.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)