As your baby becomes a toddler, chances are they will give you some sleepless nights. In this week’s post I’ve got your solution.

But first a little fun fact.

Strange but true: whether or not your toddler awakens you, each night you’re almost certainly waking up about every hour or so – nearly everybody does. The difference is that most of the time you go right back to sleep.

Why, oh why, doesn’t your baby do the same?

A couple of things are at play here: The first is that your baby is just about to learn to walk, and secondly, separation anxiety generally peaks around this time.

Since your baby is just about to enter toddlerhood, they eagerly want to try walking at every opportunity. This includes when they stir at 4am. And when they do wake up, they become frightened because they realize that for the first time in their life, you aren’t there with them.

It’s a growing pain for the whole family.

Lots of my patients have rediscovered the bliss of a good night’s sleep using my simple method. Watch the video below where I talk about how to do exactly that (spoiler alert: you don’t even have to pick them up or feed them).

This is a simple, effective solution to help everyone get a sound night’s sleep (yourself included). Give it a try with your child, and I’ll bet that in just 3-4 days you’ll find it works for your family as well.

If you do decide to give it a shot, leave me a comment telling me how this method has worked for you.

Or, do you have a method that’s been particularly helpful share it with the community!

You probably already know that our kids are growing up in a pretty tough world, and part of the challenge is being certain what to feed your young ones.

Since the mid-1990s, food allergies have gone from a relative rarity to becoming increasingly commonplace.

What is responsible? Well, it just so happens that in 1996 GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) were introduced into our food supply. In 2000, 1% of the corn planted in the US had been genetically engineered; today it’s 90% – and 93% of all soy. These show up as ingredients in an enormous number of foods and sodas, under one name or another (think high fructose corn syrup or dextrose, for instance).

Does this mean GMOs are to blame? There is research indicates that this may be the case, but it’s not conclusive (details in the video below).

Of course, GMOs aren’t the only thing that has changed in our diets over the last 15-20 years. Many of our food choices these days are pretty questionable.

In fact, lots of our food practices are downright backward!

For instance, one nutrient widely known for its health benefits in adults has been all but eradicated from children’s diets, even though it is tremendously for helping kids to build healthy immune systems.

Watch the video below to learn which foods are best to avoid during your child’s first year of life – and what foods your kids should be getting more of.

What do you think – are GMOs to blame for the increase in food allergies?

Or could these allergies be part of a broad shift in our culture towards less healthy lifestyles?

And perhaps most importantly, what steps can you take to keep yourself and your family eating right? Leave us a comment with your thoughts!

Did you know that much of your baby’s blood is outside of it’s body at the moment of birth? And, that in the United States and Europe, this blood will never make it to your child?

You read that right, the umbilical cord in most births in 1st-world nations is cut before all of your baby has received all of its blood.

In fact, one third of a newborn’s blood is still in the placenta and umbilical cord for about 90 seconds longer than modern medical practice allows for. The result is that your baby is deprived of precious early-life resources that could allow your child to flourish.

If the cord is clamped too soon, before it stops pumping, your child misses out on 60% of its red blood cells, additional iron, stem cells, white blood cells and much more. These are the ingredients that support your bundle of joy developing healthy bodily functions, intelligence, resistance to infection – the list goes on.

Even more incredible is how remarkably simple it is to prevent the loss of this biological gold mine for your new baby. Watch the video below, where I talk about exactly how our generation can tackle this problem – starting today.

TICC TOCC

We’ve started a campaign to spread this message, called TICC TOCC – Transitioning Immediate Cord Clamping to Optimal Cord Clamping. To learn more about it, watch my talk at TEDxBrussels (scroll that page for video).

If you know someone who is pregnant, please share this message with them. It will make a world of difference in the life of their young ones.

In the comments below, share with us some ideas you have about how we can spread this message.

This is super powerful stuff, and the best part is it’s amazingly simple.

How can you help make optimal cord clamping a reality?

What does mother goose have to do with getting kids to eat right?

Researcher Konrad Lorentz showed that by replacing a mother goose with something else as the first thing a baby goose encountered, he could alter the behavior of the baby goose to view that thing (even a toy train!!) as ‘mama’.

This phenomenon is referred to as “imprinting,” and it works just as well for “what’s for dinner?” as it does for “who’s mama?”

But there’s a catch – it only works for a short while.

If you want your children to make healthy food choices almost instinctually, you have just a couple of years to give your kids the right message about what to eat to keep them healthy.

Watch this video where I discuss the impact of ‘food imprinting’ and getting kids to fall in love with real food

Make sure that your kids smell the aromas of the foods you want them to learn to like early in life. AND you want them to see you eating healthy food as well.

We’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Tell me what you can do to put this in to practice in your family.

Or do you have some habits that you use in your family that already have them loving nutritious food?

Talk with you soon!

- Dr. Alan Greene

Note: Dr. Greene works with Scanadu, a participatory medical device company that is currently running an exciting Indiegogo campaign for Scanadu Scout, the first Medical Tricorder.

The first generation of medical students that went to medical school with smartphones in their pockets is still in training. They’ve just finished their second year of residency and they’re accustomed to having the world’s medical literature at their fingertips. So are their patients.

Access to information about medical conditions is now so easily available that it’s hard to remember that this is a new phenomenon. In the early 1990’s neither clinicians nor patients could easily look up a condition online. And many medical libraries wouldn’t even allow patients to visit.

Today this would be unthinkable. And I’ve met people on the streets of Kolkata with access to more medical information than the US Surgeon General used to have just a few years ago.

But…

Most people today do not yet have easy access to their own body’s specific health information. Much of this valuable stream of health data is never collected nor recorded. And most clinical data that is recorded ends up in clinical labs or medical records – not in people’s hands, not in people’s pockets. Tomorrow this will be unthinkable. A tectonic change is afoot.

Access to one’s own bank accounts and credit card statements allows better managing of personal finance. Access to the body’s changing parameters allows a new level of engagement in one’s health.

Three examples:

1)     The temperature fingerprint

People often think the normal human body temperature is 98.6⁰F. But 98.6 is a population average – and not even an accurate average. Each person has their own average temperature and their temperature cycles throughout the day. For me, 99⁰F at 4 o’clock in the afternoon is normal; the exact same temperature at 4 o’clock in the morning is a fever (>two standard deviations from my normal).

Easy access to one’s own temperature curves and how they change over time provides early information about the onset of illnesses, the progress of illness, fertility, changes in cardiovascular fitness, and changes in the circadian rhythm and sleep quality.

2)     The flu window

The big decisions about flu are best made in the first 48 hours of illness. Anti-viral treatment is most effective if started early. Stopping the spread of influenza is easiest if people with who have it are identified early.

But today, people must still engage the medical system to learn if they have the flu. A test requires a clinician’s orders and a visit to an office or a lab. Many people with flu are never diagnosed; many of those that are, miss the 48-hour window. What would the world be like if barriers to access to data about one’s own body were eliminated?

3)     The blood pressure bonanza

Over a billion people have high blood pressure. For those who do, controlling it could be the single most important thing they do to add healthy years to their lives. A healthy blood pressure adds brain-years (through reduced risk of stroke and dementia), adds heart-years (through reduced risk of heart attacks and heart failure), and adds years of sexual pleasure (through reduced risk of erectile dysfunction).

But today, perhaps 20 percent of people with high blood pressure don’t even know this basic data about their own body. And for those who do? Most don’t have it under control. They know they have hypertension, but don’t know how their own body responds to various everyday activities. Does having a drink raise or lower their blood pressure? How about 3 drinks? How does exercise affect their numbers? Or a massage? What does their blood pressure look like the afternoon after a fast-food lunch? A fresh salad? What’s the impact of medications?

Health-saving data is squandered because it is too cumbersome to collect and analyze.

Soon it will be hard to remember navigating life with so little information about our own bodies (like life before MapQuest). Data in hand is worth far more than data locked in the system.

Kids jump and fall and run and climb and play – and it’s not unusual for me to get called when one of their tongues happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught between chomping teeth. Ouch!

A tongue bite can bleed a lot and look terrible, but still heal on its own fast – or it may need emergency repair.

Things to Consider

The rich blood supply to the tongue enables it’s activity and rapid healing when damaged. Certain bites are most likely to need stitches:

• Goes through tongue from the top to the bottom
• Rips an edge of the tongue
• Splits the front of the tongue
• Gash longer than 1 cm
• Missing chunk of tongue
• Ongoing bleeding

Also be aware of possible problems apart from the bite:

• A possible foreign body in the mouth
• Damaged or loose teeth
• Injured jaw
• Swelling of the tongue

7 Things to Do

1. Consider it an emergency if tongue swelling or bleeding might get in the way of breathing or swallowing.
2. Contact your doctor or dentist right away if it’s a bite that might need stitches, or of the tetanus shots might not be up to date. If you’re not certain about either, get in touch. I would absolutely want my own patients to do this.
3. I scream for ice cream! Avoid eating or drinking just before or after anesthesia (if needed), but otherwise, a soft diet for the next few days feels better and allows for easier healing. And go for the cold! Sucking on ice chips, popsicles or ice cream can be soothing.
4. Drink water or rinse with water after eating while there is an open wound.
5. Consider an oral pain reliever if the child seems uncomfortable.
6. Revisit within 24-48 hours to reassess.
7. In the meantime, be alert for signs of infections or other complications, such as fever, swelling, or increasing pain.

Things to Learn

Parents are often amazed to watch how fast a bitten tongue heals. It’s a sped-up, time-lapse, visible example of an important underlying principle: Kids’ bodies are designed to repair damage.

Our job as parents (and doctors) is to remove obstacles to healing, support the healing process as needed, and to provide comfort along the way.

This is true even with emergency care. And remember, it’s not the stitches that heal the tongue; they just hold it in position so it can heal itself.

Many parents still hear the advice that it’s better to wait to introduce fish to babies until their first birthdays, or even their second. I disagree! And a growing body of evidence suggests that starting fish between 6 and 12 months results in fewer allergies – both in the short run and by the time they become teens.

Giving babies and toddlers fish a couple of times a week, or even a couple of times a month, may be one of the best tips for preventing allergies.

And perhaps today’s babies and toddlers eating less fish is even one of the reasons allergies have been going up in kids overall, potentially from a decrease of omega-3 fats in the diet. This includes food allergies, pet allergies, and pollen allergies.

Babies’ regularly eating fish before the first birthday could also result in less eczema at age 4. Who doesn’t want better skin?

Another study last year found a window from 6-12 months (earlier or later wasn’t as good), where if babies were introduced to eating fish, they were less likely to have asthma or wheezing symptoms later in preschool. Who doesn’t want to breathe easier?

The longest study I’ve seen yet followed thousands of children from their first birthdays all the way until they were 12 years old. It will appear in the June 2013 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Those kids who were already enjoying fish at least twice a month by the first birthday were less likely to have allergies every year thereafter.

My favorite fish for kids is wild (or sockeye, or Alaska, or Pacific) salmon, fresh or even canned, twice a week. You can prepare the pouched or canned salmon as if it were tuna. But check out the NRDC pocket seafood guide for lots of great suggestions. And here are some some DrGreene.com recipes.

• Scrumptious Coconut-Crusted Salmon Recipe
• Quick and Easy Roasted Salmon with Pesto Recipe
• Quick and Easy Chipotle Lime Salmon Recipe
• Broiled Wild Salmon Recipe
• Orange Glazed Salmon Kabobs with Yogurt Garlic Dip

Bon appetit!

Bonus tip: Reduced tobacco exposure and increased eating of oily fish during pregnancy and early childhood are all linked to fewer allergies.

Jarvinen KM and Sicherer SH. Prediction, Prevention, and the “Hygiene Hypothesis”: Fish Consumption during the First Year of Life and Development of Allergic Diseases during Childhood. Pediatrics. Nov 2007; 120:S109.

Kiefte-de Jong JC, de Vries JH, Franco OH, Jaddoe VW, Hofman A, Raat H, de Jongste JC and Moll HA. Fish Consumption in Infancy and Asthma-like Symptoms at Preschool Age. Pediatrics. Dec 2012; 130(6):1060-8.

Magnusson J, Kull I, Rosenlund H, Hakansson N, Wolk A, Melen E, Wickman M, and Bergstrom A. Fish Cosumption in Infancy and Development of Allergic Disease up to Age 12Y. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Jun 2013. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.112.045377

Oien T, Storro O, and Johnsen R. Do Early Intake of Fish and Fish Oil Protect Against Eczema and Doctor-Diagnosed Asthma at 2 Years of Age? A Doctor Cohort Study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. Feb 2010; 64(2):124-9.

How much does your family spend on groceries? Could you live on $3 a person each day?

For many Americans, that’s what you might spend on a coffee. But, for the nearly 50 million Americans on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, $3 a day is all they have for food. Yes, in the wealthiest country in the world, this is the reality.

According to the Participant Media’s compelling new documentary, “A Place at the Table,” the picture in America is grim:

One in five families with children is food insecure (which means they expect to run out of food before they get more money or food stamps). One out of every two children will be on food assistance at some point in their life.

The U.S. ranks worst on food security among advanced economy countries. And, it’s not that there’s insufficient food. It’s poverty and politics. A combination leading to outrageous injustice and health effects in our most precious resource: our children. And, it’s not just that our children are needlessly hungry, it’s a driving cause of our obesity epidemic.

How does hunger lead to obesity? I agree it appears a paradox. But, due to our twisted Farm Bill, more tax subsidies are going to agribusiness for basic ingredients for processed foods (wheat, soy, corn) than to farmers who grow whole, healthy foods like apples and carrots. Less than one percent of our Farm Bill investment goes to vegetables and fruits combined. This irrational corporate welfare has lead to fruit and vegetable prices increasing 40% since 1980 and processed foods decreasing 40%. Chips are cheaper than fruit.

So, if you have $3 a day for meals, you’re likely buying fast food, soda, chips, and other (subsidized) empty calories. Empty calories that lead to malnutrition and obesity. These kids are overfed, undernourished, and hungry. And today 2/3 of of middle school and high school students in the US already have middle age health problems — related to what they eat.

We can do so much better.

We almost eliminated hunger in the 1970’s. We can do it again.

I’m proud to be the pediatric advisor for Plum Organics. Together we created a Super Smoothie specifically designed to be donated to food insecure babies and toddlers in the U.S. The Super Smoothie tastes great and is packed with accessible super foods including spinach, carrots, apples, white beans, and whole grain oats, providing a nutritionally dense, produce-based alternative to the white flour, sugar, sodium, and fat filled foods most commonly found in a food insecure diet. Plum has committed to donate at least 500,000 of these smoothies in 2013.

We’re asking all of you to get involved by using your personal social platforms to raise awareness about the food insecurity issue in an effort to galvanize industry leaders, policy makers, and society into action. Starting April 10th, you can get involved by visiting PlumOrganics.com/TheFullEffect to receive locally-specific messages for use on Twitter and Facebook powered by Participant’s social action platform, Take Your Place. And watch or read A Place at the Table. You’ll be glad you did. And Plum will donate a smoothie for every movie download or book purchased.

Please help us make a place at the table for every American.

Sometimes in the hubbub of today, we miss simple things that can have a lasting impact. This is true for parents and for doctors. As part of my ongoing board certification as a pediatrician, I was thrilled recently to see an important nutrition question:

“A 5-year-old boy is brought to the physician for a health care supervision visit. The parents have no particular concerns. Which of the following interventions would be most likely to lead to a predicted decrease in mortality in a population of healthy 5-year-old children?”

1. Decreased potassium intake
2. Decreased sodium intake
3. Increased caffeine intake
4. Increased fluoride intake
5. Increased magnesium intake

Decreasing sodium in healthy kids’ diets is a tangible way to set them on a course for a longer, healthier life.

Most American kids get far too much sodium in what they eat every day. It’s not from the saltshaker: it’s an ingredient used to make processed foods and restaurant foods more compelling.

The Top Sources

Potato chips? French fries? Fritos? Sodium lurks in unseen places. McDonald’s shakes can have more sodium than their fries! Surprisingly, the top sources of sodium in the American diet are, in order:

1. Bread
2. Chicken and chicken dishes (Think nuggets)
3. Pizza
4. Pasta and pasta dishes (Mac and sodium)
5. Cold cuts

The amount of sodium in bread is low, but kids eat a whole lot of it. But a single small box of Mac and Cheese, prepared, can have 2130 mg of sodium on its own.

How to Do It 

So what’s a busy parent with a finicky child to do?

1. Know your numbers. The USDA says the most sodium anyone should get for a healthy life is 2300 mg per day. The American Heart Association says 1500 mg. For kids, I’d aim for only 1200 mg on average (1000 mg for kids under 4). The average American age 2 and above currently gets about 3400 mg per day!
2. Do it together. Lowering sodium is good for the whole family (1200 mg would be healthier for all of us) – and far easier to do for kids if you do it together.
3. Choose fresh. Fresh fruits and vegetables and lean meats and poultry are naturally low in sodium. Frozen, canned and processed foods and condiments tend to be the biggest culprits.
4. Pay attention to poultry. Poultry is naturally low in sodium, but some providers like to plump your poultry with saltwater, increasing the sodium by as much as 700%, usually without parents knowing. You are paying for saltwater weight. Learn about plumping and choose alternatives. Maddeningly, plumped poultry can still carry the “All-Natural” or “100% Natural” label.
5. Choose “one-to-one.” Check every label for sodium. Aim for the sodium number per serving to be the same as the calorie number, or less. For extra credit, half the calorie number is even better – but I’d be happy if we just got to one-to-one.
6. Spice it up. Learn to make good food tastier with other herbs and spices, sauces and marinades. Squeeze a lemon. Food without the added salt can taste far better than just relying on salt for flavor.
7. Be patient. Tastes change – dramatically. As you become used to less added sodium, that food will taste better – and when you taste the old, super high sodium Mac and Cheese, it will taste just too salty. It’s worth the wait, to help your family live longer and happier.

Alan If-I-Had-a-Magic-Wand-Sodium-Would-be-on-Restaurant-Menus Greene

A 2012 analysis estimates that today’s children age 0-5 in the US have lost more than 16 million IQ points from exposure to organophosphate pesticides. They’re exposed to these pesticides almost entirely from our food.

Organic foods are grown without the use of toxic synthetic pesticides, antibiotics, artificial hormones, or genetic engineering. They depend on cultivating healthy soil to grow healthy plants to produce healthy animals.

But not long ago, headlines blared that a new study had found that organic food isn’t any healthier. Let’s look behind the headlines, causing many parents to wonder whether organic was really worth it.

The study in question wasn’t new science, but a compilation and analysis of some of the existing studies comparing organic to conventional food. What did this paper find?

1) Pesticides

Conventional produce is more than five times more likely than organic to come with any pesticide residues. (38% of samples versus 7%).  The study didn’t go a step further and consider that when pesticides are found on conventional produce, the pesticides are often more toxic, present at higher levels, and come as mixtures of different chemicals.

The study also didn’t include the large body of literature about the toxic effects of some of these pesticides.

The authors concluded that this five-fold difference in pesticides couldn’t matter because the total amounts are so small. I strongly disagree. Pharmaceutical drugs are powerful, refined chemicals designed to improve health. They can have desired health effects on our brain function, sexual function, and fertility at concentrations in our bodies of only parts per billion. Synthetic pesticides are also powerful, refined chemicals, but designed to destroy or inhibit life. Why couldn’t they have undesirable health effects on our brain function, sexual function, and fertility when present in our bodies at similar concentrations?

If everyone in the country smoked a pack of cigarettes a day, it would be very difficult to tell that cigarettes caused lung cancer in a small, but significant, percentage of those who smoke. Today, almost all of us carry synthetic pesticides in our blood – pesticides that get there from our food. This is true even in babies at the moment of birth. I participated in a study with the Environmental Working Group where we analyzed umbilical cord blood and found pesticides in every baby tested. We found 21 different synthetic pesticides in babies’ blood.

One group of pesticides, the organophosphates, were originally produced as nerve agents during World War II. We still have much to learn about their health effects, but higher levels of exposure (in real world conditions) have been linked to lower IQ, memory problems, developmental problems, and ADHD.

The 16 million IQ points lost in young children from organophosphates carries a price tag of more than $169 billion in lost productivity when they grow up. And we take out a new debt of $28-30 billion every year – about the same amount as the total amount of money spent on organic food each year in the US.

Choosing organic food can drop a child’s organophosphate pesticide exposure almost overnight. In another study, suburban Seattle children had their urine tested multiple times for evidence of organophosphate pesticides and it was present in all samples, suggesting exposure above what the EPA set as a safe level. Then the children were switched to mostly organic food. The pesticides disappeared. They were virtually undetectable in morning and evening urine samples for five days. Then the children were switched back to their typical suburban diet and the levels found in their urine shot back up.

We can decrease pesticide exposure on the very next shopping trip.

The EPA says, “Protecting children from the potential effects of pesticides is one of EPA’s most important responsibilities. Pesticides have widespread uses and may affect children’s health in a variety of settings. We recognize that children are at greater risk from pesticide exposure.”

Choosing organic is a choice for decreasing toxic pesticides in our air, water, and farmers – as well as on our plates and in our children.

2) Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria

When you buy conventional food you are three times more likely to bring multidrug resistant bacteria into your home than when buying organic. (48.4% of samples versus 15.9%).

The authors found this difference, but concluded it was unimportant because they thought bacterial resistance is fueled primarily by human antibiotic use.

Resistant bacteria are emerging as a major health threat.

According to the FDA, “Today, almost all important bacterial infections in the United States and throughout the world are becoming resistant to antibiotics. Antibiotic resistance has been called one of the world’s most pressing public health problems. The smart use of antibiotics is the key to controlling the spread of resistance.”

We know what causes resistance. When bacteria are exposed to antibiotics they develop ways to survive, making them more resistant to antibiotics.

We also know that the routine use of antibiotics in our conventional livestock to fatten them up dwarfs the amount of antibiotics used to treat all human diseases. The FDA recognizes the problem and has asked for drug companies to voluntarily remove agricultural production from their antibiotic product labels, but widespread antibiotic use continues in conventional agriculture. Four fifths of all antibiotics used in the US are used in our agricultural animals.

The most highly resistant bacteria discovered so far were found not in hospitals or clinics, but in the soil.

Organic food, which doesn’t allow the use of antibiotics, is part of the solution to resistant bacteria – in our environment and in our own homes.

Behind the Headlines

The headlines trumpeted that organic isn’t worth extra money. The study in question found a five-fold difference in pesticides and a three-fold difference in multidrug resistant bacteria (plus significantly higher healthy omega-3 fats in organic). It didn’t even look at differences related to the use of artificial hormones or genetic engineering – or of artificial colorings, preservatives, and sweeteners in processed foods.

Every bite of food is an investment in our bodies or a debt of some kind we are taking out that we will have to pay back. Good food, organic food, is a delicious investment.