There are many stressors that a child may encounter in their life which could have a negative impact on their social, emotional and cognitive growth.  I was a Center Director for an early learning center for 10 years and unfortunately witnessed many stressors in my tenure.  There is one family that comes to mind that had the biggest impact on me. (Names are fictional)

Drew and Ryan were seemingly happy boys, ages 6 and 8 when I first met them.  They would come into the center each morning, typically dropped off by mom, and always had smiles on their faces.  The story would go that their smiles were smiles because they were finally in a happy place.  I don’t want to go into too much detail because of the fact that this is a public blog but these boys suffered from severe abuse at home, maltreatment and neglect.  We had to call CPS on this family on numerous occasions and it took almost 2 years before they were finally removed from the home.  It was a pretty serious event that finally caused removal.  Thank goodness, they were ok.

These boys came to my center every day with a smile on their face and I believe that they coped by being with us, going to school. Coming back to the center and thriving on the positive interactions that they could get throughout the day.  They knew once they went home it was going to be different.  They coped by being strong for each other, the older brother always looking out for his younger brother.  They coped by talking to us about how they wish they could live at our center (so so sad).  The coped by drawing pictures and keeping journals about all the happy things that they did have in their lives.  They coped by knowing that we were doing everything in our power, by law to make their lives better.  We lived up to our promise to them and eventually succeeded in having them removed from their home.

Nutrition in Children

This is public health topic that I could write a book about. While I do not know everything about nutrition in children, I certainly have learned a lot in the past year and continue to educate myself on it all the time. I have a 6 year old daughter that has suffered from sever tantrums, outburst and anger management issues since she was 2 years old. We as a family have suffered, her school teachers have suffered and her classmates. We have just finally, after days and nights, months and years of exhaustion, therapists and medicines, narrowed it down to food, food dyes and food preservatives! I now spend all my spare “exhaustion” that I have reading food labels instead of calming my crazed daughter out of one of her psychotic tantrums (no exaggeration here). So why am I so passionate about nutrition just because we have figured out one of the main causes of our daughter’s behavioral issues? Because did you know that the majority of food dyes, chemicals and preservatives that our in the foods we serve in the United States are banned in many other countries? How does this all relate to child development and the topics at hand that we are learning about and discussing? Because my daughter has lost so much of her childhood due to these outbursts and we have lost so much quality time with her as well. My daughter has spent 4 years of her life feeling angry, naughty and emotionally wrecked because of how these foods made her feel. We have spent endless nights crying, tired and completely broken over how to help her, feelings of guilt as parents- what did we do wrong? Her daycare teachers not being able to provide for her or figure out what was wrong. We had her tested, she passed with flying colors. We have spent thousands of dollars on therapists and we even broke down and started meds with her (just a small dose of a very minor drug). I am sharing this all with you because nutrition in the United States needs a HUGE makeover, especially for kids. While we may be a thriving nation that has plenty of food and can’t even begin to compare to the third world countries whom are lucky if they get one meal a day, we are a huge, powerful nation that has the means to fix this and we need a government that can step it up! There is tons and tons of research that has been around and continues to grow, that proves what these additives do to children developmentally from a social standpoint as well as a cognitive standpoint (http://www.cspinet.org/). Here is an entire list of chemicals and additives that cause risk to our children every time they consume them:
http://www.cspinet.org/reports/chemcuisine.htm
The other link above has all the information that one needs about the topic at hand.

While many of issues I have discussed at hand are not issues in many European countries due to higher food regulations, there are many third world countries that have an entirely different issue- no food at all or malnutrition. Most families have difficulty educating their children properly when there biggest concern is when they are going to get there next meal (www.savethechildren.org). In order for these children to thrive in a positive learning environment and to develop at a normal cognitive rate, they need to have means to get quality food as well as the means to buy it. The combination of malnutrition and infection is the leading cause of death among young children in developing countries. Malnutrition alone is estimated to account for over half of children’s deaths annually(Pelletier, 2003). While I know the United States has done a lot to help these countries, we have our own issues as well in the United States of children going with out food every day. Regardless of where we are, malnutrition will cause growth issues, lack of brain development, leading to cognitive delays and sometimes death (Berger, 2012).

Overall, in the United States or other countries, nutrition is critical and it needs to be made a priority. The priority for children with out food needs to be to make sure that all children have a means to obtain food, healthy nutrition on a daily basis. As well as we need to make sure that the foods in which we are serving to our children are SAFE to be consumed.

One thing that I want to do when I take on my next adventure as a professional/leader in the early childhood field, is try to better educate childcare providers on nutrition. I worked as a director for 10 years and money always trumped nutrition. We always purchased the cheapest, processed foods to serve to the children in our care and I know that there was a huge correlation between some of the foods that we served and some of the behaviors in certain children. Many childcare centers, as well as public schools, receive funding and reimbursements for their food costs. That money needs to be solely invested into the foods that they are serving. I know from experience that is not always the case.

Links and reference to information that I have presented:
http://www.savethechildren.org/
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/faculty/detels/ph150/Neumann_Malnutrition.pdf
http://www.cspinet.org/
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cacfp/child-and-adult-care-food-program

Child Birth and the Impact on Child Development

Anyone who has gone through the amazing process of being pregnant and giving birth can understand the vast implications on life! Pregnancy has to be the most rewarding experience that any woman/mother can go through.  However, does everyone realize what a profound effect pregnancy and the prenatal development process has on future child development is the issue at hand.  It is very much connected in such strong ways and I will talk about that in more details later but for now, I want to share my own experience with one of my children and how things could have been much different.

Nathan is a healthy, 9 year old little boy (July 7, 2005) whom 9 years ago was born almost 5 weeks early.  Seemed normal to me! My 11 year old was born almost 4 weeks early.  I didn’t know what full term pregnancy meant at this time!  I went into labor on July 4th of 2005 and just stayed home to monitor my contractions until I could see my dr on July 5th.  After some testing and monitoring they sent me home to hopefully rest and stop the labor.  On July 6th, I was back at the hospital with some serious labor pain.  They were still not convinced to want to let me just have this baby so they sent me for an ultrasound, Nathan was weighing in at 7.6 lbs (mind you 5 weeks early) and as soon as they saw that, they were convinced to let me have this baby! So, I was admitted and they let the labor take its course.  By early morning July 7th, the labor seemed to be slowing down.  Early afternoon they started to induce as they didn’t want the baby going in to stress.  After all, the labor technically started on July 4th! By 6:30 on the evening of July 7th, I was ready to go and before I knew it, there were 3 doctors, 5 nurses, and 2 interns at my bedside.  I couldn’t quite figure out why all these people were in my room.  I would later find out, after giving birth and be more aware, that they sent everyone in there because of how early Nathan was being born and they wanted to have a team in place in case he had to be swept away to the ICU or such.  Apparently, as I am told, as soon as Nathan was born and plopped onto the scale weighing in at 7lbs exactly, 5 weeks early- the doctors and nurses where gone in seconds.  He was breathing, heavy, and seemed to be just fine.  Imagine had I gone to 40 weeks??  However, with in a few hours (probably about 6-8) Nathan began to lose some weight and show signs of a premature baby.  His APGAR score was only 5.5 (7 is normal) and his weight had dropped to 6 lbs with in just a few hours.  Normally a baby will go home weighing less than when they were born, be he lost a lot of weight very quickly as well was suffering from jaundice.  We did end up in the hospital for about 4 days because he also failed what they call the car seat test.  In NY, at least at my hospital, they put premature babies in their carseat with a simulator hooked to it.  It makes the car-seat feel as if it is “traveling” in car at 60 MPH.  They monitor to see how well the baby is able to stabilize in the car seat at this speed with out being injured.  He failed twice and we couldn’t leave until he passed.  It was quite the test 🙂

How does my birth experience apply to child development and the world we live in? Although its difficult to put the entire experience into words, I just imagine this birthing experience happening somewhere in which I did not have access to the medical facility that I did, or the highly trained doctors that were so concerned about Nathan because he was 5 weeks early… Things could have turned out entirely different for me and for him.  Nathan may not be here today, may not be developing at the normal age in which he is developing and could have suffered from many more complications than he actually suffered from.  When we look back at how there were 3 doctors and 5 nurses ready to sweep him away- I think about how fortunate we were to have that access!  8 medical professionals all stopped everything they were doing at the one moment to take care of one little baby- who in the end proved them to be a strong little man that just want to enter the world with some drama! We are very fortunate in the United States to have access to the medical care that we do- for those of us who take advantage of it.  Unfortunately, many countries do not have that access and things are not always the same for those who have a pregnancy like I had.  Also, many people in other countries actually choose not to use medical facilities and still have successful birth rates.  I have included a link that I found and it is titled “Birth Customs Around the World”  I found it to be very interesting to read and to compare/contrast what we do here in the United States.

On a side note, when I was pregnant with my 3rd child, I was placed on moderate bed rest at 30 weeks so that I would not have my 3rd child any earlier than 38 weeks.  All of my children are healthy and doing well.  Although Nathan did struggle to stay up to par developmentally until he reached school, again with out the prenatal and medical care that we did receive for him, his development could have suffered immensely and it has not.

 

Click here to read about customs and traditions for birthing in other countries:

http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/vaginal/birth-customs-around-the-world/?page=1