Archive for March, 2008

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) occurs in babies between the ages of 2 and 6 months. Sudden infant deaths mostly occur from midnight to 8 A.M. Most of the deaths occur due to unsafe sleep practice and unsafe surroundings.

Stomach sleeping: If your baby is placed to sleep on his/her stomach, it puts pressure on the jaws of your baby, therefore narrowing the airways and obstructing the breathing.

Another risk factor of stomach sleeping is it increases the risk of infant’s re-breathing his/her own exhaled air. As your infant breathes the exhaled air, there is a drop of oxygen levels in the body and accumulation of carbon dioxide takes place. Therefore, lack of oxygen can cause SIDS.

Americans are working over time than the average work per day. As the productivity and competition are increasing, the work burden on each individual is increasing. Deadlines are given to complete that work.

To meet these deadlines, many people take the work to home apart from working full time at the job. After working fulltime at the job, you reach home. After reaching home, you have to look after your children, cook for all of them and make the home clean.

Snoring is thought to be disturbing the partner or other family members or it can cause lack of sleep. But, according to the new Research by Hungarian scientists, snoring can damage your arteries, which can result in stroke.

When you suffer from snoring, your tongue falls back into the throat. If your throat is completely blocked, you cannot be able to breathe for few seconds. Your blood pressure rises when you struggle to breathe. Elevated blood pressure can damage your carotid arteries that line the sides of the neck.

Calcium and cholesterol are attracted by injured areas, which stick to them and gather into calcified plaques. These plaques block flow of blood to the brain, resulting in stroke.

Sleep problems are common among children. As a parent, you will always worry how to make your child sleep all the night. Some children have chronic sleep problems, which makes them, sleep deprived.

Some of the signs to identify child’s sleep problem

• If your child wakes up frequently during night
• If your child snores loudly or face difficulty in breathing while asleep
• If you spend too much time to help your child in falling asleep
• If your child’s mood, behavior and school performance varies
• If you are losing sleep due to your child’s sleeping patterns
• If your child begins to wet the bed

In REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, children wake up crying. You feel that they need help and attend your child. You try to help your child sleep by rocking, feeding, holding or lying down with your child. Therefore, this becomes a habit and your child depends on you to fall asleep.