Circumcision?

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

Do a search. Go to your library and pull up medical journals (ETA; Specifically helpful is Paediatric Respiratory Reviews - they gather studies related to their specialty.) if you don`t regularly read them. Visit the open library at our local hospital. You`re also invited to speak to the countless specialists I personally know who are involved in international studies on reducing infant apnea in children who are clearly predisposed to it.
I also suggest contacting groups involved with following infants with lung and breathing difficulties after discharge.

My son suffers from these conditions, so I think that I have probably done a LOT more research into the area than the majority of parents... And likely the average pediatrician.



I can say the exact same thing in regard to not sleeping with parents. It isn`t as if the US is a shining example of successful and happy marriages - isn`t the divorce rate 50% or more these days? Isn`t the running joke in the US something along the lines of getting married means no more sex?
I don`t think that kids have much to do with things in either country.



And that is your family view, you are welcome to it. I have never intended to criticize your choices, as I have no right to comment on them. I`m not part of your family and do not know you personally.
I will say that I do not share that opinion, and I believe that sleeping with my son has certainly not hurt any relationships in our family. Marital relations have not changed. We have a big bed.



Yes they can. That doesn`t mean that sleeping with their parents is a negative thing.
Someone can go through life getting all their necessary nutrition and calories from some specific set of foods... That doesn`t mean that there is something wrong with someone who likes variety.

Point taken.

Two things. Children deffinitely do impact the romantic aspects of a marriage. Almost any couple will admit how hard it is to find the time and place let alone energy when they have children,

Also, apnia has not been accepted a s the main cause of SIDS. At least here, it is unknown completely why it happens. However, the most accepted theory is suffocation and/or heat. MY knowledge comes through casual research as a parent and training on the issue as to how to invetigate a case of SIDS which included clinical aspects. It seems the jury is still out...

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

Two things. Children deffinitely do impact the romantic aspects of a marriage. Almost any couple will admit how hard it is to find the time and place let alone energy when they have children,

I apologize - I mistyped. I intended to write "sleeping with kids" rather than just "kids". Obviously children do impact things very much. Where they are sleeping is a minor issue.

Also, apnia has not been accepted a s the main cause of SIDS. At least here, it is unknown completely why it happens. However, the most accepted theory is suffocation and/or heat. MY knowledge comes through casual research as a parent and training on the issue as to how to invetigate a case of SIDS which included clinical aspects. It seems the jury is still out...

Suffocation is not SIDS. There are distinct differences. SIDS is a spontaneous cessation of respiration. Suffocation is something directly blocking respiration. The end result is similar (death due to lack of oxygen!), but it`s not hard to tell them apart.

The jury is still out on whether it is caused by the same things as general apnea (as it appears in adults) - and whether similar treatments would help. It may not be typical apnea, but it`s much more similar to that than any other medical issue...
In other words, at this point - if a baby stops breathing and is stimulated to make it resume breathing or begins breathing again on it`s own, it`s apnea. If it stops breathing and receives no stimulation and doesn`t resume on it`s own, it`s SIDS.
It`s very hard to compare the stages as, clearly, if you`re monitoring the baby you are not going to let it die to check if apnea and SIDS are the same. And if the baby doesn`t die, you can`t be sure if it was SIDS or not...

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

I apologize - I mistyped. I intended to write "sleeping with kids" rather than just "kids". Obviously children do impact things very much. Where they are sleeping is a minor issue.



Suffocation is not SIDS. There are distinct differences. SIDS is a spontaneous cessation of respiration. Suffocation is something directly blocking respiration. The end result is similar (death due to lack of oxygen!), but it`s not hard to tell them apart.

The jury is still out on whether it is caused by the same things as general apnea (as it appears in adults) - and whether similar treatments would help. It may not be typical apnea, but it`s much more similar to that than any other medical issue...
In other words, at this point - if a baby stops breathing and is stimulated to make it resume breathing or begins breathing again on it`s own, it`s apnea. If it stops breathing and receives no stimulation and doesn`t resume on it`s own, it`s SIDS.
It`s very hard to compare the stages as, clearly, if you`re monitoring the baby you are not going to let it die to check if apnea and SIDS are the same. And if the baby doesn`t die, you can`t be sure if it was SIDS or not...

I just can't agree with the last part. SIDS is a label for any type of unexplainable sudden death that happens to occur almost always when sleeping, on the stomach or with too many blankets when it's hot. It's like a catch-all term. If they new what caused it it would be called something liek apnea and not some general unspecific term like SIDS.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

I just can't agree with the last part. SIDS is a label for any type of unexplainable sudden death that happens to occur almost always when sleeping, on the stomach or with too many blankets when it's hot. It's like a catch-all term. If they new what caused it it would be called something liek apnea and not some general unspecific term like SIDS.

But... I`m not disagreeing with what you say.
If the baby doesn`t die, it`s not considered SIDS. The direct cause of babies dying is a lack of oxygen. It`s WHAT is causing them to stop breathing that is up in the air.
Apnea is something that occurs when sleeping, and is aggravated by over heating and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the system (something common when sleeping on the stomach).

Most of the doctors I have spoken with DO refer to SIDS as apnea. The biggest difference is that apnea is considered a chronic condition, but SIDS is accepted as sudden onset... However, as I said before, you don`t know if something is chronic unless you are monitoring it - and no one is going to let a baby die who they are monitoring! Even when something is monitored and considered apnea, it doesn`t mean they know what causes it. Apnea is just a term for respiration spontaneously ceasing. There are countless possible causes. Apnea is also a catch-all term - it`s the end problem, not the cause.

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

But... I`m not disagreeing with what you say.
If the baby doesn`t die, it`s not considered SIDS. The direct cause of babies dying is a lack of oxygen. It`s WHAT is causing them to stop breathing that is up in the air.
Apnea is something that occurs when sleeping, and is aggravated by over heating and the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the system (something common when sleeping on the stomach).

Most of the doctors I have spoken with DO refer to SIDS as apnea. The biggest difference is that apnea is considered a chronic condition, but SIDS is accepted as sudden onset... However, as I said before, you don`t know if something is chronic unless you are monitoring it - and no one is going to let a baby die who they are monitoring! Even when something is monitored and considered apnea, it doesn`t mean they know what causes it. Apnea is just a term for respiration spontaneously ceasing. There are countless possible causes. Apnea is also a catch-all term - it`s the end problem, not the cause.

That makes sense. Have you talked to Dr.s on both sides of the pond? I wonder if there are differences in opinion depending on the country of education.

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

That makes sense. Have you talked to Dr.s on both sides of the pond? I wonder if there are differences in opinion depending on the country of education.

To an extent, yes. I can`t say I`ve been able to spend huge amounts of time talking to doctors in the US - I don`t really know all that many so my contact was limited. But I have talked to a few visiting Japan in depth.

The views do change depending on the education and the age of the doctor. It seems like there is a sweet spot with doctors. The older doctors are very set and completely ignore studies, saying that they don`t think it`s true because they`ve always been told one thing or another. The youngest doctors can quote the AAP from memory, but have never read any studies or thought beyond that. It`s usually those in between, who are still young enough to want to continue acquiring more information and old enough to parse it and form strong opinions of their own who are the most up to date and reliable.
But they`re a limited chunk, and are not at all immune from pressure and personal beliefs. If a doctor thinks - with no connection to medical information - that co-sleeping is something bad. They`re not going to offer up information to support it.

Doctors from the UK seem to be about the same.

We were actually advised by our doctor to sleep with my son at all costs when he first came home from the hospital. Premature infants have a higher rate of apnea and SIDS (he treated them as the same thing.) As head of the NICU, and over 10 years of working there, he told us every case of SIDS (or in his words, death by apnea) with a baby who`d been discharged from there had been when the baby was sleeping in a different room from the parents.
If there is already a risk, the differences are going to be a lot clearer... But there is no reason to think that babies who are at risk of apnea without anyone knowing about it wouldn`t also benefit from the same precautions.

Just did a search through the AAP website - it looks like they`ve finally stopped blaming SIDS on co-sleeping, and have started recognizing that a drunk parent crushing a baby should not be considered SIDS. (The last time I looked, they included those figures in the SIDS figures, counting all causes of death listed as suffocation as a case of SIDS.)

You can see some of the big differences in US opinions if you also compare breastfeeding information. AAP recently changed their tune to "breast is best" and breastfeed for 6 months to a year... But when my son was born, it was "Bottle is just as good, but try to breastfeed a little at first." A few years before that, they released pamphlets (with funding from formula companies) that said breastfeeding probably didn`t provide sufficient calories or nutrition even in the first month, and that any sign of crankiness was a sign of not getting enough milk - so you should supplement with formula. (I will try to dig that one out)
The WHO recommendations have always been 2 years of breastfeeding, at least.

Even now, AAP receives funding from countless places and tries to stay on the fence about anything and everything, regardless of the number of studies for or against something. I find it a little hard to take the opinion of an organization that has received funding from formula companies to come up with a "formula is just as good!" study every time somewhere else proves breast milk is better.

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by Nyororin

To an extent, yes. I can`t say I`ve been able to spend huge amounts of time talking to doctors in the US - I don`t really know all that many so my contact was limited. But I have talked to a few visiting Japan in depth.

The views do change depending on the education and the age of the doctor. It seems like there is a sweet spot with doctors. The older doctors are very set and completely ignore studies, saying that they don`t think it`s true because they`ve always been told one thing or another. The youngest doctors can quote the AAP from memory, but have never read any studies or thought beyond that. It`s usually those in between, who are still young enough to want to continue acquiring more information and old enough to parse it and form strong opinions of their own who are the most up to date and reliable.
But they`re a limited chunk, and are not at all immune from pressure and personal beliefs. If a doctor thinks - with no connection to medical information - that co-sleeping is something bad. They`re not going to offer up information to support it.

Doctors from the UK seem to be about the same.

We were actually advised by our doctor to sleep with my son at all costs when he first came home from the hospital. Premature infants have a higher rate of apnea and SIDS (he treated them as the same thing.) As head of the NICU, and over 10 years of working there, he told us every case of SIDS (or in his words, death by apnea) with a baby who`d been discharged from there had been when the baby was sleeping in a different room from the parents.
If there is already a risk, the differences are going to be a lot clearer... But there is no reason to think that babies who are at risk of apnea without anyone knowing about it wouldn`t also benefit from the same precautions.

Just did a search through the AAP website - it looks like they`ve finally stopped blaming SIDS on co-sleeping, and have started recognizing that a drunk parent crushing a baby should not be considered SIDS. (The last time I looked, they included those figures in the SIDS figures, counting all causes of death listed as suffocation as a case of SIDS.)

You can see some of the big differences in US opinions if you also compare breastfeeding information. AAP recently changed their tune to "breast is best" and breastfeed for 6 months to a year... But when my son was born, it was "Bottle is just as good, but try to breastfeed a little at first." A few years before that, they released pamphlets (with funding from formula companies) that said breastfeeding probably didn`t provide sufficient calories or nutrition even in the first month, and that any sign of crankiness was a sign of not getting enough milk - so you should supplement with formula. (I will try to dig that one out)
The WHO recommendations have always been 2 years of breastfeeding, at least.

Even now, AAP receives funding from countless places and tries to stay on the fence about anything and everything, regardless of the number of studies for or against something. I find it a little hard to take the opinion of an organization that has received funding from formula companies to come up with a "formula is just as good!" study every time somewhere else proves breast milk is better.

Sometimes I think there may be an emotional connection, too. Maybe some of the SIDS vicitms are neglected babies who give-up emotionally. The decline of physical health follows. Hmm.

[SunkenShip]

Nyoririn, I think I like you!

And briefly touching on the SIDS thing, I think the US is completely overzealous with it.

Now there's a mandatory policy that you can't let your babies sleep on their stomaches because of SIDS. However, my mother told me that when I was born they suggested babies sleep on their tummies. Well, when my son was born last year, he came out like me: He loved sleeping on his stomach!

He woke up in fits if you put him to sleep on his back. You think I'm going to fight what is natural for my son because of silly rule that the AAP came up with "just in case"? Hell no.

[Paul11]

Originally Posted by SunkenShip

Nyoririn, I think I like you!

And briefly touching on the SIDS thing, I think the US is completely overzealous with it.

Precisely!

[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by Paul11

Sometimes I think there may be an emotional connection, too. Maybe some of the SIDS vicitms are neglected babies who give-up emotionally. The decline of physical health follows. Hmm.

That is one I definitely can`t offer an opinion on. It`s something you would have to personally know the families to decide on.
I`m more of the opinion that some babies are predisposed to apnea, and unfortunately either die from it or come in contact with some environmental factor that triggers it. It`s been shown that smoking raises the risk quite a lot - but that just goes into the same bucket as all the other issues that aggravate respiratory conditions.

Sadly, knowing that it`s likely a respiratory condition doesn`t do anything for figuring out how to detect or prevent it.