COVID and Latinas
If you have not received your COVID vaccine or refuse to wear a mask in public you’re partly contributing to the striking new data indicating that roughly one in four Latina women in the U.S. have lost a family member to the virus.
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Update: Coronavirus Case Rates and Death Rates for Latinos in the United States (Salud America!)
For U.S. Latinos, COVID-19 Has Taken a Personal and Financial Toll (Pew Research Center)
Get Some Sleep
New parents are always going to face a lack of sleep. But when that sleep deprivation starts to take a toll on their long-term health shouldn’t we look for solutions to help out? Paid Family Leave may be one answer.
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New Mothers’ Sleep Loss Linked to Accelerated Aging (UCLA)
Defining Chronological and Biological Age (Very Well Health)
Paid Leave Means a Stronger Maryland (Time to Care)
COVID and the Delta Variant
For parents of very young children, the conflicting temptation to cover your child in bubble wrap while also wanting them to fully explore the world is justified. Afterall, doctors are reporting seeing more and more infants and children with COVID each day. We have tips to keep them safe.
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Breastfeeding and COVID
100 million. That’s how many lactating moms there are in the world at any given moment. So if you’re anxious about breastfeeding your baby after getting the COVID-19 vaccine, rest assured, you are far from alone. Scientists feel confident, though, that it’s safe.
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COVID-19 Vaccines While Pregnant or Breastfeeding (CDC)
No Sign of COVID-19 Vaccine in Breast Milk (University of California San Francisco)
Newborns Won't Get COVID Through Infected Mom's Breast Milk: Study (Brigham and Women's Hospital)
Breastfeeding and COVID-19 (WHO)
Child Tax Credit
The IRS has started distributing payments for the child tax credit. It’s a welcome boost to tens of millions of American families with young children.
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Advance Child Tax Credit Payments in 2021 (IRS)
The Child Tax Credit (The White House)
Up in Smoke
Vaping may seem safer than smoking cigarettes. But women who use electronic cigarettes during pregnancy are 33% more likely than those who don’t to give birth to low-birthweight infants. Quitting altogether is the best option for mother and child.
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Women Who Vape Are More Likely to Have Low-birthweight Babies, Study Shows (UCLA)
What We Know About Electronic Cigarettes (SmokeFree.gov)
Quitting Vaping? 5 Tips for Handling Nicotine Withdrawal (Truth Initiative)
Curious Pre-K
Experts at Rutgers University may have uncovered the sweet spot where children move from uncertainty to curiosity. This is big news for learning!
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Just Enough Information Will Motivate Young Children to Learn, Drive Curiosity (Rutgers Today)
8 Tips to Develop Children's Curiosity (Mayo Clinic)
The Trauma of Addiction
Why do some people develop addictions and others don’t? It’s very complicated but one reason has to do with early childhood trauma. More early interventions and supports are needed to treat addiction before it starts.
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Childhood trauma can make people like morphine more (Science Daily)
The American Rescue Plan
The American Rescue Plan is great start in helping American families recover from the financial woes caused by COVID-19. But it is just that: recovery. And recovery is always easier when you are healthy to begin with. It’s when we have underlying and preexisting conditions that recovery can be more difficult, take longer, and even be life threatening.
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The American Rescue Plan (The White House)
Child Care Relief Funding in American Rescue Plan: State-by-State Estimates (CLASP)
Coming Soon: $300 Checks for Parents (NY Times)
The Amazon Needs You
It’s hard to imagine someone less at fault for the climate crisis facing the world than a newborn baby living in the Amazon. Yet, this child is among the humans most at risk to experience the negative effects of climate change. Research out of Lancaster University in the United Kingdom explains why.