- The ARC - California Edition -

Food for Preventive Thought

Hearing Test for Newborns – A study reported early this year in the journal Pediatrics urged that infants be checked right after their birth for hearing problems, and if needed, fitted with hearing aids before the age of six months. The researchers involved based their recommend-ations on their analysis of more than 10,000 infants whom they had screened within the first 3 days of life.

Of this group of 10,000 infants, the researchers had found 415 who failed the initial hearing test. Fifteen of these were eventually fitted with hearing aids and reportedly had normal speech and language development. The current medical practice is to wait until the hearing loss is reported by the parent. By this time, the average hard-of-hearing child is about 2 years old.

Cool the Newborn's Brain? – A New Zealand pediatrician presented a paper at a recent Washington DC conference where she described using a special "cooling cap" to selectively cool the head of full-term infants who showed signs of oxygen deprivation before birth. Her study has been limited to 22 such infants, but she opined that the treatment is safe and ready to be tested on a larger trial.

When a full-term baby emerges after a difficult labor and develops seizures and has signs of neurological damage, doctors are often powerless to prevent the resulting death of brain cells. The result may be mental retardation or cerebral palsy. This kind of brain injury occurs in about 12,000 full-term infants each year in the US alone.

The New Zealand study is attempting to evaluate if cooling the baby down (3 to 5 degrees) will reduce the extent of brain damage.

Tap Water Miscarriage Link? -- Closer to home comes a California study published in the February 18 issue of Epidemiology which reports finding that women consuming more than 5 glasses of tap water per day had an "increased risk of miscarriage". The department of Health Services researchers had examined the records of over 5,000 pregnant women from Fontana, Santa Clara and Walnut Creek and compared the chlorine content of the water they drank.

Chlorine is added to most of the public water sources in order to kill germs usually found in water. Chlorination is considered to be extremely important and is credited with preventing untold illnesses and saving lives. All of the women in the study drank water that met state and federal drinking standards.

The study isolated the cause of the miscarriage increases to consumption of ordinary tap water which had formed Trihalomethanes when the decomposing plant material in the water reacted with the chlorine.

The threshold for increased risk was reported to occur when the Trihalomethanes contained in the water rose above 75 micrograms per liter. Trihalomethane levels are monitored by all public water suppliers and varies widely from region to region.

New Safety Standard for Bike Helmets Issued – Beginning February 1999, all bike helmets sold in the United States will have to meet a new federal safety standard.

The new standard is designed to ensure that the chin straps will be strong enough to prevent the helmet from coming off in a crash, and to ensure the helmet will protect the head.

About a half million people are treated annually in hospital emergency rooms for bicycle-related injuries. An average of 900 per year are killed, and of these, over 500 had a head injury.

Researchers have reported that only 18% of all bicycle riders in the US currently wear bike helmets all or most of the time. In California, it is a state law that all persons under 18-years-old must wear a helmet while riding a bike.