Guest Expert Articles

In the rush to get your child outfitted for that first day of school, don’t overlook the value of exposing your child to the Kindergarten curriculum.  These are the 7 things that most Kindergartener’s need to know:

A new study from the journal Pediatrics finds that girls are beginning to develop breasts at
the early age of 7 or 8. These results support the findings of a 1997 study that noted puberty
beginning in girls at the age of 7 or 8. But why are our children starting puberty so much
earlier? Evidence indicates that the increasing rates of obesity play a major role.

According to current medical understanding, puberty normally begins in girls between ages
8 and 12 and in boys between ages 9 and 14. Historically, “precocious puberty” (early-onset
puberty) has been defined as before the age of 8 for a girl and before the age of 9 for a boy. The
beginning of puberty is marked by penile enlargement or pubic hair growth for boys and breast
bud formation and pubic hair growth for girls. If a child shows such signs of puberty before this
age, she is sent to a pediatric endocrinologist for a full workup.

Why does obesity lead to early-onset puberty? Adipose (fat) tissue is metabolically active; fat
tissue produces estrogen. The more fat tissue a child has, the more estrogen she is exposed to. It
is generally accepted that overweight kids begin puberty earlier for this reason.

When choosing a nutritious after school snack for your child there are many things to consider. You may ask yourself “is this snack food too high in sugar?” Does this snack contain too much fat or too many calories” or even “Will this snack help keep my child satisfied until dinner?” With so many snack choices out there, it can be hard to know what will make the best choice for you child.

Here are a few tips to help you make the best choice when choosing an after school snack:

Vaccinations have weakened, but not eradicated, many once fatal diseases.

Polio. Scarlet fever. Typhoid. Today, this list does little more than conjure up old memories of iron lungs, crutches and maybe one sad velveteen rabbit. But less than a century ago, these words were enough to make most parents go white with dread.

Thanks to advancements in medicine and vaccination, these diseases have been all but eradicated. But as powerful as modern medicine has become, there are still holes in its defenses, as proven by a recent Californian outbreak of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, that is well on its way to being the most widespread outbreak the state has seen in 50 years. So far over 900 cases of pertussis have been confirmed, with a death toll of at least five, prompting state health officials to declare it an epidemic.

The sheer volume of whooping cough cases has many parents worried and wondering how a commonly contained disease like pertussis could experience such a powerful revival.