Nutrisi dan Pola Makan yang Benar Saat Menyusui

informastips.com – Pada masa menyusui, Ibu harus tetap memerhatikan kondisi kesehatan dan kecukupan gizinya. Bayi usia 0-6 bulan (masa ASI ekslusif) hanya akan mengandalkan ASI ibu sebagai makanan utamanya, sehingga ibu sangat perlu mempertahankan diet sehat untuk menjamin pasokan nutrisi yang terbaik bagi bayinya. Ibu perlu selektif dan benar-benar memerhatikan pola makan yang dikonsumsi karena ibu tidak hanya makan untuk diri sendiri, melainkan juga untuk bayi. Lalu, seperti apa sih pola makan yang benar saat menyusui? Berikut informasinya untuk Moms & Dads semua.
Pola makan (diet) ibu menyusui biasanya membutuhkan diet kalori tinggi, bergizi tinggi dan seimbang, yang harus sudah mulai disiapkan ibu sejak masa sebelum dan selama kehamilannya. Ibu menyusui perlu makan lebih banyak dibandingkan pada saat hamil. Dalam sehari, umumnya ibu menyusui akan memproduksi 800 ml ASI dan membakar 1000 kalori. Untuk menjamin produksi ASI, Ibu memerlukan makanan tinggi kalori dengan tambahan 500 – 800 kalori per harinya. Pada kondisi dimana seorang ibu memiliki bayi kembar, maka tambahan kalori yang diperlukan akan jauh lebih banyak lagi.
Sama seperti orang lain pada umumnya, ibu menyusui memerlukan asupan karbohidrat, protein, berbagai vitamin dan mineral, serta lemak. Perbanyaklah konsumsi biji-bijian, buah-buahan, sayur-sayuran (daun katuk, bayam, kangkung yang diyakini dapat meningkatkan produksi ASI), makanan yang kaya protein, kalsium dan zat besi. Namun, patut diingat sebaiknya Anda menghindari sayuran yang banyak mengandung gas seperti kol, bunga kol atau lobak karena dapat membuat perut bayi kembung.
Asupan protein yang diperlukan selama menyusui yaitu kurang lebih 64 gram per harinya yang bisa diperoleh dari ikan, daging, telur, tempe, dan tahu. Selain itu, pada masa menyusui ibu perlu juga mengonsumsi kalsium paling tidak 1200-1500 mg. Jumlah ini lebih banyak 200 mg dibandingkan saat ibu tidak menyusui. Kebutuhan kalsium yang meningkat amat penting mengingat selama proses menyusui simpanan kalsium dalam tubuh ibu akan berkurang 300 mg per harinya. Beberapa riset menunjukkan bahwa pada ibu yang menyusui terjadi proses pengurangan masa tulang. Untuk itu, agar tulang ibu tetap sehat dan kuat diperlukan asupan kalsium yang cukup.
Selain untuk ibu, kalsium juga amat penting bagi bayi. Karena kekurangan kalsium secara terus-menerus pada bayi, selain akan mempengaruhi pertumbuhan tulang dan giginya, juga berpengaruh terhadap kesehatannya kelak saat dewasa. Contoh makanan yang kaya kalsium adalah yoghurt (1 cangkir = 414 mg kalsium), susu (1 gelas = 302 mg kalsium), tahu (60 gr = 304 mg kalsium), ikan laut (2 potong = 200 mg kalsiium), produk olahan susu, kacang-kacangan, sayuran hijau (misalnya bayam 100 gr = 129 mg kalsium, buah-buahan (2 buah jeruk = 36 mg kalsium), dan lain sebagainya.

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Sebenarnya meskipun dalam kondisi kelaparan, ibu tetap dapat menghasilkan susu. Namun, seorang ibu yang kekurangan gizi akan menghasilkan ASI yang kualitas gizinya rendah. Bukankah kualitas ASI amat bergantung pada kualitas gizi yang ibu makan? Jika dibiarkan, ini tentu akan sangat berbahaya karena dapat memengaruhi pertumbuhan dan perkembangan bayi. Di sisi lain, ibu yang kurang gizi biasanya cenderung lebih mudah sakit. Kondisi kesehatan yang kurang baik tersebut akan menghambat aktivitas ibu dalam menyusui bayinya.
Ibu menyusui biasanya mudah merasa haus akibat oksitosin yang dilepaskan selama proses menyusui. Oleh karena itu, perbanyaklah minum air putih sekitar 8-12 gelas per hari atau bisa juga dikombinasikan dengan minuman lain seperti jus buah, untuk membantu menjaga persediaan ASI dan mencegah dehidrasi.
Hindari kafein, alcohol, nikotin dalam rokok, obat-obatan keras, dan zat-zat berbahaya lainnya karena dapat ikut termakan oleh bayi lewat ASI yang Ibu berikan. Jika ibu adalah seorang perokok, tentu harus lebih berhati-hati. Merokok lebih dari 20 batang sehari terbukti akan mengurangi pasokan susu dan menyebabkan bayi mengalami gangguan kesehatan seperti muntah, keracunan, diare, denyut jantung cepat, dan kegelisahan pada bayi. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) lebih sering terjadi pada bayi yang sering terkena asap rokok. Selain itu, zat nikotin yang terdapat dalam rokok akan sangat berbahaya bagi bayi karena zat ini dapat tertimbun dalam hati dan ginjal bayi. Amat sangat direkomendasikan ibu perokok untuk berhenti merokok selama masa menyusui bahkan semenjak sebelum kehamilan terjadi.
Ibu juga perlu menghindari atau mengurangi alcohol, karena konsumsi alkohol yang berlebihan oleh ibu menyusui dapat menyebabkan bayi menjadi mudah marah, sulit tidur, dan selalu ingin makan dalam jumlah yang berlebihan. Kafein juga sebaiknya dihindari dan dikurangi karena kafein dapat menyebabkan bayi menjadi rewel dan susah tidur.
Dengan mengikuti pola makan (diet)yang benar dan sehat saat menyusui, Anda akan memastikan bahwa bayi Anda mendapatkan nutrisi yang baik dan tepat selama masa menyusui. Tahap menyusui ini sangat penting, karena ASI adalah makanan yang terbaik untuk bayi. Anda tentu menginginkan segala yang terbaik untuk bayi Anda, bukan? Jika tidak ada sesuatu yang menghalangi, usahakan sedapat mungkin untuk memberikan ASI dengan jumlah yang cukup (sesuai permintaan bayi) dan kualitas gizi yang baik. (ST)

Omega-3, Bayi dan Ibu

Tahukah Anda? Ada program edukasi khusus di Colorado, Amerika Serikat, yang isinya mengenai pengunaan suplemen Omega-3, judul program itu adalah “Omega-3 for Baby and Me”. Sasaran program itu adalah para ibu, bayi, dan anak-anak. Dalam postingan kali ini saya tidak akan bercerita mengenai program tersebut, yang ingin saya uraikan adalah manfaat Omega-3 terutama untuk ibu dan bayi.

Omega-3 atau asam lemak dokosaheksanoat (DHA) adalah komponen yang esensial untuk pertumbuhan dan perkembangan janin selama masa kehamilan dan sesudah kelahiran buah hati kita. Janin sangat membutuhkan DHA pada masa kehamilan trimester ketiga dan menurut perhitungan membutuhkan 50-70 mg per hari. Untuk mencapai angka tersebut setidaknya ibu harus mengkonsumsi DHA sebanyak 300 mg per hari. DHA sendiri disintesis oleh tubuh dari asam alfa-linolenat (LnA). Banyak sumber makanan yang mengandung LnA, diantaranya adalah kedelai, buah kiwi, dan sayur-sayuran ataupun hewan yang memakan tumbuhan hijau juga merupakan salah satu sumber LnA.

Konsumsi DHA pada ibu hamil terutama bertujuan untuk menghindari lahirnya bayi prematur dan mencegah bayi lahir dengan berat badan (BB) rendah, lingkar kepala kecil, serta panjang bayi yang juga kecil. Para ibu hamil yang melahirkan secara prematur merupakan indikasi adanya kondisi kekurangan DHA. Sebaliknya, konsentrasi asam dokosapentaenoat (DPA) malah tinggi (indicator defisiensi Omega-3). Kondisi tersebut tidak dijumpai pada ibu hamil yang cukup mendapatkan DHA. Bagi ibu, DHA dapat diperoleh dengan mengkonsumsi ikan, terutama ikan salmon, sumber lainnya adalah minyak ikan dan telur. Berkaitan dengan minyak ikan, pemberian suplemen minyak ikan yang banyak mengandung DHA dan asam eikosapentanoat (EPA)pada ibu hamil telah terbukti mengurangi resiko lahirnya bayi prematur dan bayi dengan BB rendah.

Kembali ke program “Omega-3 for Baby and Me” seperti yang telah saya sebutkan di atas, program tersebut menunjukkan hasil yang menggembirakan. Para ibu hamil yang mengikuti program itu menyadari betapa pentingnya mengkonsumsi DHA bagi janin yang tengah dikandungnya.

Ok Bunda, praktekkan ya untuk buah hatimu. Semoga artikel ini membantu....

Salam hangat.....

Baby-Bouncer: A Report

Para ibu dan ayah yang memiliki bayi mungkin mengenal salah satu produk bayi yang cukup popular, yaitu baby-bouncer. Baby-bouncer sering dijadikan hadiah dalam merayakan lahirnya sang buah hati, baik itu oleh kerabat keluarga ataupun oleh para kolega. Dengan pemberian baby-bouncer tersebut diharapkan bayi akan mendapatkan pengalaman yang menyenangkan saat menggunakannya. Tetapi produk baby-bouncer ini tidak sepenuhnya menjamin keamanan bagi bayi. Kita sebagai orang tua harus selalu waspada dengan kemungkinan terjadinya kecelakaan yang tidak kita inginkan, terutama insiden jatuh dari baby-bouncer.

Dalam postingan kali ini saya ingin menyajikan data mengenai kecelakaan yang terjadi akibat penggunaan baby-bouncer yang kurang hati-hati terutama dari pihak orang tua. Saya tidak bermaksud untuk memprovokasi para orang tua untuk tidak menggunakan baby-bouncer. Saya hanya ingin memberikan informasi mengenai kondisi yang sebenarnya terjadi di luar sana agar dari peristiwa ini dapat diambil pelajaran yang berguna untuk orang tua dan juga buah tercinta.

Data ini diambil dari kejadian yang terjadi di daratan Eropa. Farmakakis dkk mengumpulkan data yang berhubungan dengan kecelakaan yang berkaitan dengan baby-bouncer. Dari hasil pengumpulan data diketahui bahwa sebagian besar kecelakan terjadi pada bayi dengan usia kurang dari 7 bulan (78%) dan 58% diantaranya adalah berjenis kelamin laki-laki. Kecelakaan juga bisa terjadi ketika kita membawa baby-bouncer dengan bayi tercinta kita di atasnya. Di dalam rumah kecelakaan biasa terjadi pada waktu siang hari, terutama di dapur dan di ruang tamu (58%). Biasanya kecelakaan yang terjadi pada baby-bouncer adalah bayi jatuh dari ketinggian, persentasi kejadian ini sebesar lebih dari 70%. Sekitar 50% bayi yang mengalami kecelakaan, terjatuh ketika mereka diletakkan di atas furniture (biasanya meja) atau furniture lain yang memiliki permukaan yang rata. Beberapa kecelakaan terkadang sampai parah, 11% mengalami gegar dan 12% patah (sungguh mengerikan ya, jangan sampai bayi kita mengalami hal itu ya…), 14% di antaranya sampai harus dirawat di rumah sakit selama 2 hari.

Hal di atas menunjukkan bahwa baby-bouncer tidak sepenuhnya bebas dari resiko kecelakaan, terutama jika dalam penggunaannya tidak mengikuti aturan yang telah ditetapkan oleh produsen. Berkaitan dengan kecelakaan ketika kita membawa baby-bouncer dapat dicegah dengan cara membuat modifikasi pada produk dengan menambahkan pengikat tambahan. Hal lain yang perlu diperhatikan adalah bahwa baby-bouncer harus diletakkan di lantai dan bayi harus dalam keadaan terikat. Sebaiknya baby-bouncer digunakan pada bayi yang sudah bisa mengontrol penuh kepalanya, biasanya pada usia lebih dari 3 bulan.

Saya berharap bayi tercinta kita tidak mengalami kecelakaan akibat penggunaan baby-bouncer. Sungguh mengerikan jika bayi kita yang masih rapuh bagian-bagian tubuhnya harus menderita akibat keteledoran kita. Kewaspadaan kita sebagai orang tua terhadap buah hati tercinta mutlak diperlukan, sehingga tingkat kecelakaan bias ditekan menjadi 0%. Amin

Ordering Wedding Invitation and Wedding Dress Online

Wedding is the most special moment in your life. For that reason, you want to inform this happiest moment to your best friends, families, and colleagues. Wedding invitation has an important role to determine your wedding party because the invitation is the way for you to make the guests come to your wedding party.

In this case, you can make an interesting wedding invitation. Actually, you can use internet service to support this kind of need. For example, you can visit VponSale.Com because they are offering you with various wedding invitations to order. At least, you can save more time because you need to order it online. The second important thing is the wedding dress. Of course, you also need to wear an elegant and glamour wedding dress to attract your couple and the guests who come to your wedding party.

This online service is also offer you with several cheap bridesmaid dresses to purchase. It becomes a good alternative because you are too busy to prepare your wedding so there will be only a limited time to purchase such kind of thing. Just find the best one, order it, and wait for the delivery order come to your house. Soon, you can spread the wedding invitation as well as trying the wedding dress.

The Best Ideal Car for Indonesian Family

Talking about an ideal family car, then we should have thought about the comfort and safe car that can accommodate all of the family members. In Indonesian language we called it with “Mobil Keluarga Ideal Terbaik Indonesia”. It is not only about its performance, but also about the price. If it is a family car, then the car should be has affordable price for every family. Family car is expected to have high functionality, so we can rely on the car in every time we have a trip using that car. In order to choose the right car, a family should be sharp and smart in determining what type of car that meets their criterion and what brand of car that is suit for their purposing.

For Indonesian family, the ideal family car should be Toyota Kijang Innova. Kijang Innova is the best quality of family car since it is supported with the tough engine of Euro 2 technology which makes the fuel consumption more economic and also environment friendly. Toyota shows their caring about the environmental issues, such as global warming and air pollution, they want to contribute in overcoming Earth’s problem. It is important for a company to show their supportive action to the global issue, it would be beneficial for them since consumers now are also caring to the environment global issue. Toyota Kijang Innova is the best ideal car (Mobil Keluarga) for Indonesian family.

Barry Humphries: My family values

My father was a builder and architect. He used to take me to building sites as a child, so I've always been interested in houses. He also drew, and I was always interested in drawing. My father didn't actually encourage me in painting because he was concerned it wasn't a real profession. It was my mother who arranged for me to go to a small art school in Melbourne on Saturday mornings. Most of my activities were drawing nude models because it was a life class. When they said, "Can we see what you've been doing today?" I always used to pretend that I had to leave my drawings behind.
My mother would concentrate on the negative. She was very good at that. So if, in later years, I said: "Oh, I got a wonderful review in the paper this morning" she said, "Oh, the other one didn't like you." I'd like to have told her how damaging that was. On the other hand, I had a new bicycle and we had rather a steep driveway to the house – one day, my mother and some friends were standing at the gate when I lost control of the bike. I couldn't work the brake and the bike was gathering speed. I called out, and my mother stepped in front of the bike and injured her leg, permanently.
I have two brothers and a sister. I was the first and completely spoiled. Anything I wanted I could have. It's damaged my character. I think one tries to learn lessons from one's parents and in the end one behaves in exactly the same way. I had a heavenly life until my sister arrived. I resented her at first but we're very best friends now. My brother Christopher is an architect. And my other brother Michael is a historian. Barbara was a schoolteacher, she's retired now. They all live in Melbourne.
I had a favourite uncle. He and I got on really well. His name was Wilf. He had been in the first world war and so had a bit of a history to him. He and my father built a house outside of Melbourne during the war. It was thought, naively, that if the Japanese took over Melbourne, they wouldn't travel more than 30 miles out of town. Unfortunately, my uncle died of a brain tumour when I was 10. He was deeply mourned by me.
Otherwise it was mostly aunties. An army of women. I still prefer the company of women to men. One of my aunts had a little shop which sold wool. So knitters would visit. I sometimes would help in that shop and listen to conversations between the women. I became interested in the preoccupations of Melbourne housewives, which could have been the genesis of someone like Dame Edna.
I have four children. Tessa is an actress, my other daughter Emily is a painter. My son Oscar does many things – he edits Apollo, an upmarket art magazine. Rupert works for a video game company. He co-wrote Grand Theft Auto.
Like most children, I had the experience of my parents saying [when I got in late] "Do you realise what time it is?" So I vowed I wouldn't place these restrictions on my children. Oscar was staying in New York with me in a very nice hotel and wanted to go out. I said, "Fine, but I'm rehearsing and working – come home no later than 1.30am." So at 1.30am I was awake; 2am I was awake; 3am I was woken up by him coming home. Before I knew it, I said: "Do you realise what time it is?" And then I said, "This is not a hotel!" And he said, "But it is."

Everything will be better next year!

At this point in the happily peri-menopausal-and-elasticated-waistband years of my alleged "middle"-aged single parenthood, why would I make another list of things I'll obviously fail to achieve when I already have several previous decades' worth of seasonal self-flagellation stuffed down the back of my old drawers? Exactly – New Year's resolutions are pointless.
Yet although I personally have less-than-zero expectation of achieving anything in 2012 (except maybe getting to the end of it), this total not-botheredness means I am free to offer up a few resolutions on behalf of those families who may be too busy to bother making their own. I really am all heart.
The John Lewis ad family
Look, the big box actually contained lots of smaller boxes, Russian matryoshka style … and the last one contained a Swiss army knife the kid had bought for himself, thanks to mum's handy one-click Amazon account. So this year mum and dad resolve to: a) open a John Lewis account, b) install much needed parental controls on the PC, and c) leave a couple of sachets of Resolve on their bedside tables on 24 December.
The Beckham family
Resolve to carry on being absolutely fabulous in every conceivable way (and perhaps some inconceivable ones), not to mention an inspiration to all – because, let's face it, there's nothing better than making a resolution you know you can keep.
The Crawley family
Now that they are practically empty-nesters, Downton Abbey's Earl and Countess of Grantham resolve to take a leaf out of that nice Sarah Beeny's book and convert their pile into a wedding/conference-venue-and-upscale-B&B. Unfortunately, being about 80 years ahead of their time, it's doomed to fail. The Crawleys sack all the staff (including Julian Fellowes) and call in the Hotel Inspector, who suggests they move into a bungalow on the edge of the estate and convert the stables into an organic fromagerie. Can't wait to see the outcome: all day, 25 December 2012, on Five.
The Moore/Willis/Kutcher family
Resolve to cut down on their Tweetage. Because, y'know, less @mrskutcher is, like, Moore.
The Ecclestone family
Bernie resolves to increase his daughters' allowance – just because. Slavica resolves to invest €15m in developing a new wedding planner iPad app. In order to let us "see who she really is", Tamara resolves to appear on Question Time, and Petra resolves to pretend not to be bothered that her married name ends in "unt". Meanwhile, the nation collectively resolves not to invest in a guillotine. Yet.
The McPanda family
So, Tian Tian and Yang Guang, you're exceptionally cute, madly expensive and statistically less likely to reproduce than would a pair of iPads. One kind of bamboo? My arse. Enough with the cute, get with the programme and develop libidos and a taste for neeps and tatties. You're obviously "meant" to be extinct, and if you looked less like you'd been designed by Pixar, you already would be.
The 2012 Team UK Olympic "family"
Resolve to clean up. And that resolution is kind of an order, really. Yup, we'll all resolve to shrug off our enervating Olympics-related cynicism if you lot promise to deliver 75 feel-gold golds. Top tip for wannabe Olympians? Always believe in your soul / You've got the power to know / You're indestructible.
The Outnumbered family
Resolve to start thinking about the fact that a remortgage could potentially = boarding school for the kids. Or, given the unlikelihood of anybody getting a mortgage in 2012, there's always Care.
Your family
Your kids resolve to stop demanding more Deadly 60 cards every single bloody day, to cut down on the chilli Doritos, to watch fewer incredibly scary documentaries on Discovery just before bedtime, to remove their plates at least as far from the table as, maybe, a bit further down the table? To feed the guinea pigs perhaps once a month? To reduce the number of WWE re-enactments and increase the nice quiet hours of colouring-in, to stop being so grumpy on Wednesdays after karate, to stop calling their brother "gay" (because though of course he might well be – and that's obviously fine – he is still only five, so let's give him a few years to make up his mind, shall we, hmm?). Oh, and to stop calling your mother a "total loser-idiot" while you're at it, because otherwise she'll write something horrible about you.
What, your kids don't actually do any of that stuff? I could have sworn they did. But obviously that was some other poor sod's kids. Whatever. Happy New Year.

UK adoption overhaul planned

The government is overhauling the way prospective parents who want to adopt a child are selected to try and speed up the assessment process. Tim Loughton, the Children’s Minister, has asked a group of experts including representatives from the sector, local government and adoption experts to draw up a new process to recruit, train and select adoptive parents.
The present system is criticised because it is slow and unnecessarily bureaucratic with the risk that potential adoptive parents are put off by the delays and procedures. Potentially suitable parents are often turned away because they are not the right ethnic match, are overweight or have smoke

Also, despite the increasing number of children waiting in care to be adopted, those seeking to adopt can wait up to a year or more to be approved as adoptive parents.
The panel that has been drawn together will work with Martin Narey, the government’s adoption advisor, and new recommendations are expected in March on a new system to be introduced next year.
The panel will include the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, the British Association of Adoption and Fostering, Adoption UK and the Association of Directors of Children's Services.
Loughton said: “The assessment process for people wanting to adopt is painfully slow, repetitive and ineffective. Dedicated social workers are spending too long filling out forms instead of making sound, common-sense judgements about someone's suitability to adopt.
"Children are waiting too long because we are losing many potentially suitable adoptive parents to a system which doesn't welcome them and often turns them away at the door. I am determined to change this.”
Among the areas the panel will be looking at are better recruitment processes; streamlining the training; reducing the bureaucracy on information collected about prospective adopters; introducing set timetables for training and looking at whether new monitoring or evaluation mechanisms are needed.
Narey added: “The more I have visited local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies over the past few months, the more exercised I have become about a parental assessment process which is not fit for purpose.
"It meanders along, it is failing to keep pace with the number of children cleared for adoption, and it drives many outstanding couples to adopt from abroad.”

Stress lowers chances of having baby

But yoga and meditation can help

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Taking it easy may be the offhand advice doctors give to women who cannot conceive, but new scientific evidence confirms that stress does indeed play a role in conception.
Researchers at Oxford University and the US National Institutes of Health measured stress in women trying to get pregnant and found that those who were most stressed were least likely to conceive.
Stress joins other well known pregnancy risk factors such as excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and obesity.
The study measured two stress hormones in healthy women between the ages of 18 and 40 who were trying to conceive. It found that women with high levels of adrenalin had a 12 per cent lower chance of conceiving when fertile as compared to those who were less stressed.
"Irrespective of the day or frequency of sexual intercourse during the fertile window, women with higher concentrations of alpha-amylase were less likely to conceive than women with lower concentrations," the study said, referring to the enzyme that is an indicator of adrenalin levels.
However, women who were found to have a higher level of cortisol, which is a measure of chronic stress, were no less likely to conceive than women with lower levels of the stress hormone.
Dr Cecilia Pyper, of the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit at the University of Oxford, said: "The findings support the idea that couples should aim to stay as relaxed as they can about trying for a baby.
"In some people's cases, it might be relevant to look at relaxation techniques, counselling and even approaches like yoga and meditation."
The findings are published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Giving birth makes mother's brain grow

Increases in areas linked to motivation and behaviour

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Popular wisdom has it that when a woman gives birth her brain shrinks - but new research has found that the opposite appears to be true.
In the study the brains of 19 women were measured using magnetic-resonance imaging just after they had given birth, and again 4 months later.
A comparison of the two images showed that grey matter volume increased by a small but significant amount in various parts of the brain. This is an unusual result as in adults the brain rarely changes over such a short period without significant learning, brain injury, illness, or major environmental change.
Brain areas affected by the change support maternal motivation (hypothalamus), reward and emotion processing (substantia nigra and amygdala), sensory integration (parietal lobe), and reasoning and judgement (prefrontal cortex).
Interestingly, those mothers who were the most enthusiastic about their new born baby were significantly more likely to develop bigger mid-brains than the less awestruck mothers in key areas linked to maternal motivation, rewards and the regulation of emotions.
The authors of the study speculated that the intense interactive nature of the mother-baby bond may itself trigger these growth patterns - expansion in the brain's "motivation" area in particular could lead to more nurturing, which would help babies survive and thrive physically, emotionally and mentally.
These results may also provide some insight into the causes of post-natal depression, and perhaps suggest a possible avenue for treatment of the condition.
The study is published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience.

Babies born to smokers have abnormal blood pressure

Condition persists in first year

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Babies born to mothers who smoked during pregnancy have been found to have abnormal blood pressure control which persists throughout the first year of life, according to a new study.
Scientists from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden measured the blood pressure and heart rates in 36 babies during their first weeks, at three months, and when one year old. All were of normal weight at birth and were breast fed.
Seventeen of the babies were born to mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day.
Blood pressure and heart rates were measured while the babies were asleep and tilted up at a 60 degree angle, before being laid down again.
Normally, when someone stands, the heart rate increases and blood vessels tighten to keep blood flow to the heart and brain. This causes an increase in blood pressure which then returns to normal when lying down.
However, this blood pressure response to tilting the babies upright during sleep was found to be "dramatically different" in babies born to smoking mothers compared to those born to non-smoking parents.
At a few weeks old, the babies born to non-smokers had a 2% increase in blood pressure when tilted upright at one week of age compared with a 10% increase in babies born to smokers.
When a year old, the findings were reversed. Babies born to non-smokers had a 10% increase in blood pressure when tilted compared with a 4% increase in the babies born to smokers.
At aged three months and one year, the heart rate response to tilting in the babies born to smokers was found to be "abnormal and highly exaggerated", the researchers reported.
“Infants of smokers have a hyper-reactive system in the first weeks of life because the blood pressure increases too much when they are tilted up, but at one year they under-react and are less effective in adapting to an upright position,” said Dr Gary Cohen, the senior research scientist who led the study.
The researchers plan to track the infants further to find out whether the problems continue when they become older.
“The seeds of many diseases probably are sown very early in life,” Dr. Cohen said.
“Babies of smokers may already be showing signs that they are more likely to develop high blood pressure later in life.”
The study is published in the January 25 online version of the Journal Hypertension.

Mozart does not boost IQ

Another myth debunked

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Listening to Mozart will not boost your intelligence, new research has found. So if you have been playing Eine Kleine Nachtmusic around the clock hoping to improve your child's performance at school, take a break and listen to something else.
The so called "Mozart effect" first came to the public's attention in 1993, when a study published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature reported that listening to Mozart's 1781 sonata for two pianos in D major (KV 488) improved college students cognitive abilities compared with students who listed to other music or none at all.
Since then sales of Mozart CDs for children have become popular, and in 1998 the state of Georgia even gave every mother of a newborn baby a free classical music CD.
However, the findings of the study met with scepticism in the scientific community and other studies failed to achieve the same results.
To determine once and for all whether the Mozart effect really exists, psychologists from the University of Vienna analysed the results of 40 different studies involving over 3000 people worldwide.
The researchers say the findings are clear cut: the Mozart effect is no more than a myth.
"I recommend listening to Mozart to everyone, but it will not meet expectations of boosting cognitive abilities," says Dr Jakob Pietschnig, who led the study.
The Mozart effect was recently ranked sixth in the book '50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology', authored by psychologist Scott E. Lilienfield.
The findings are published in the journal Intelligence.