BEIJING – More than 10,000 Chinese infants and children are still hospitalized after drinking toxic milk formulation, China said on Thursday, but suggested foreign consumers to take a “scientific” approach towards the safety profile of its products.

The country is still quarreling with tainted milk scandal that has taken four lives, made thousands ill and affected products globally.

“Every country has to ensure the food safety and the health of its domestic consumers,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular briefing.

“But we also need to find an objective, scientific approach to handle and analyze this problem,” he said, adding that foreign customers would recover their confidence in Chinese food exports as control measures are strengthened. …Click here to read more

According to Swedish scientists, adding fish to a child’s diet before nine months of age may decrease the risk of developing eczema.

Eczema is a painful skin condition that has considerably risen in European countries during the past few years. The scientists believe that diet also play a key role in this connection.

In their study, scientists from Sweden tracked the health of children in 5,000 families and found that early use of fish decreased the risk of developing the condition by a quarter.

The study has been published in Archives of Disease in Childhood. …Click here to read more

The gestational age has been set as the yard stick to predict the survival of the neonate, a long time ago. This factor is used to predict that either a very low birth weight neonate survives and thrives or not. But now four more factors have added which can help predict a preemie’s outcome have been mentioned by the National Institutes of Health Neonatal Research Network, of which Yale is a member.

The additional four factors are following. First factor is Birth Weight. Weight of baby counts, as so many under weight infants has low chances of survival. These got infections like neonatal sepsis, jaundice etc. Second factor is Gender which also effects the survival. Third one is the Twin Babies and the last factor is whether the mother was given antenatal steroid mediation to aid the infant lung development. These all factors affect survival ability and risk of being disabling, according to an article, in the New England Journal of Medicine by a group of researchers in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Neonatal Research Network. The 19-center network includes Yale School of Medicine and Yale-New Haven Hospital

These all factors are equally important as gestational age. Researcher used a statistical tool known as outcome estimator to assess survival chances. Study has shown that the babies which have low birth weight are easily attacked by the infection due to which mortality increases. Such babies have lot of chances of survival along with any disability as compare to those which has correct or high weight at birth. Researchers also found that baby girl has more chances to survive than the baby boy. It was only the observation of their study and the exact reason is still unknown. They also found that an infant’s chances of survival without disability are enhanced, if their mothers had been given antenatal steroids which help in metamorphosis and fully develop lungs.

…Click here to read more