(HealthDay News) – It may not qualify as a baby boom, but U.S. births were up in 2021 for the first time in years. New federal government data show a 1% increase in births from 2020, with more than 3.6 million births last year. It was the first increase in seven years. The general fertility… read on > read on >
All Mommy:
A Child’s Pet Dog May Shield Them From Crohn’s Disease
Add a lower risk of Crohn’s disease to the many benefits of having a dog during childhood, a new study suggests. Sorry, cat lovers, researchers didn’t find a similar benefit for you. “We did not see the same results with cats, though we are still trying to determine why,” said senior author Williams Turpin, a… read on > read on >
Annual Health Care Costs Rise by $2,000 for Americans Who Vape
Think vaping is cheap? A study from the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing reports that annual health care costs for users of electronic cigarettes were $2,024 more per person than for those who use no tobacco products. That adds up to about $15 billion a year in the United States. “Health care… read on > read on >
Gay Community Most Vulnerable to Monkeypox Threat, Vaccines Available Soon: CDC
At a Monday media briefing, U.S. public health officials said they are tracking a handful of travel-related monkeypox cases that have been reported across the country. Anyone can catch monkeypox, but at this time it appears to be “circulating globally in some parts of the gay community,” Dr. John Brooks, a medical epidemiologist with the… read on > read on >
1 Dirty Pool, Many Cases of E. Coli: Summer’s Swimming Danger
As the weather warms and families flock to pools, dirty water may dampen the fun. Swimmers at a Pennsylvania community pool learned that the hard way when in June 2021 more than a dozen kids were seriously sickened by two types of bacteria, E. coli and C. difficile. “These are pathogens that can cause pretty… read on > read on >
Emergency Shipment of Baby Formula Arrives From Europe
A 35-ton shipment of hypoallergenic baby formula from Switzerland arrived in the United States on Sunday, the first delivery in what the Biden administration is calling “Operation Fly Formula” to deal with a nationwide shortage. The 132 pallets of formula arrived in Indianapolis on a military C-17 cargo plane from Germany, and will be fed… read on > read on >
3-Dose Pfizer COVID Vaccine Spurs Strong Response in Youngest Kids
Pfizer/BioNTech says a three-dose regimen of its COVID-19 vaccine appears to provoke a strong immune response in the youngest age group of children — those aged 6 months to 5 years. This is the only age group not yet approved for COVID-19 vaccination by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to CNN, Pfizer said… read on > read on >
What Is Monkeypox, and How Worried Should Americans Be?
A worrisome international outbreak of monkeypox, a less harmful cousin of the smallpox virus, has now reached the United States and Canada. As of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases of the illness, and 28 more suspected cases, have been reported across 12 countries, according to the World Health Organization. Between 1 and 5 confirmed cases are… read on > read on >
Repeat Infections With COVID-19 May Become the Norm
COVID-19 might be easing into a new status as a widely circulating and somewhat harsher version of the common cold, experts say — a virus that folks could contract repeatedly, even if they were recently infected. “[SARS-CoV-2] is destined to join four of its family members and become an endemic coronavirus that will repeatedly infect… read on > read on >
U.S. Maternal Mortality Crisis Hits Black Women Hardest
With Roe v. Wade hanging in the balance and nearly half of all American states ready to practically ban abortion if the leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court stands, the realities of giving birth in this country are being put under a microscope, and for good reason. “Today, [America] is considered the most dangerous… read on > read on >