First, Do No Harm: How Routine Interventions, Common Restrictions, and the Organization of Our Health-Care System Affect the Health of Mothers and Newborns

For the last article of the semester I decided to read a writing about our health care system titled First, Do No Harm: How Routine Interventions, Common Restrictions, and the Organization of Our Health-Care System Affect the Health of Mothers and Newborns written by Amy M. Romano.  This article focused its attention on the realities of mothers that are about to deliver a child and our health care system and it’s affects on mothers and babies during the delivery process.  The article went into detail about the different types of deliveries that women may go through when delivering their child, but noted that because of certain health care restrictions, some women deliver differently because of their health care coverage.  The article also covered that women that have great health care plans enable a doctor and a medical staff to do everything possible in delivering a child may actually affect the mother and the newborn because of the many different opportunities that health care could let a woman do while delivering their child.

            The first section of the article focused its attention on a woman having too much health care when it came to delivering their child.  It talked about that women may actually be doing themselves harm and their child with many medical procedures that are done while delivering that are ultimately unnecessary for everyone.  The article also went into detail that in fact when a woman is entering labor and about to deliver their child that sometimes doing nothing is the best way to go about delivering a child because of the chance of better health outcomes of the mother and the baby are likely.  For the critics on this claim that sometimes doing nothing enhances health for everyone, the author talked about how if something does go wrong when a child is being delivered that there is obviously medical personal right by you if problems arise.

            My opinion on this matter was that while I was reading about having the medical staff do nothing and just let everything be natural seemed a bit odd to me.  I guess that because I’ve never really heard of that before, except for people that have emergency deliveries that in fact nothing can truly be done.  But after I read it, it seemed to me that the less doctors and medical professionals do the better chance that a healthy baby will be delivered and that the mother will be healthy also.  This definitely surprised me quite a bit.  But then again back in the old days nothing was probably done when women delivered their children.  Definitely women died from doing it but they did not die as much as people think.  I also thought that it was ironic that in fact too much health care can actually affect the health of the woman and their child more because of the amount of procedures that can be done to deliver the child.  I was also a bit surprised at this because we never hear that having too much health care can actually be somewhat harmful to us in certain situations like child birth.

            The last part of the article talked somewhat about how women when delivering their child actually prefer to have no IV’s attached to them, and also they prefer to be able to move around more than what they are told.  The article also talked about that because of certain health care packages that women have they almost have to follow certain guidelines by the provider in case of other problems that may arise.  The author also talked about how IV’s and such treatment are usually not even necessary and actually provide more of a health risk than a health reward as strange as that sounds.  According to the author IV’s are basically in place during childbirth in case something terrible happens.

            My opinion of this section was also somewhat surprising because of the many women that go through the delivering process that want to deliver their child a certain way but their health care or doctors will not allow that.  I also thought that the IV section of the article also seemed a bit weird too.  I figured that IV’s were always beneficial, but evidently when a woman is about to deliver their child it can be less healthy for them.  I was also somewhat surprised by the entire article.  I liked that I picked this article because we often hear about how great it is to have a certain health care plan, instead of hearing what this article talks about and how almost having too much health care when it comes to delivering a child could actually be more harmful than beneficial.  It was good to hear about childbirth and what some women actually prefer instead of the typical ways that children are delivered.

http://0-web.ebscohost.com.millennium.matc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=7&sid=d6e8ae88-7fb8-4a17-b308-17ae62069887%40sessionmgr4

Joe Stevens

Childhood obesity and schools: evidence from the National Survey of Children's Health

I decided to read an article titled Childhood obesity and schools: evidence from the National Survey of Children’s Health by Li J. Hooker.  This article talked a lot about childhood obesity and the problems that are arising in schools and the issues that it are ultimately causing them.  The article also talked about obesity and it’s relation to school type and a school’s breakfast and lunch programs that might be playing an important factor in childhood obesity, even though most schools are trying to prevent it.  The article then later went on to show the relation to children who are active and participate in sports and children who are not active and are non-athletes and how these two either lessen obesity or contribute to obesity and how they relate to success in the classroom. But lastly the main focus of the article was really to figure out if public or private school children had a lower body mass index meaning which schools were ultimately less obese.

            Basically the first part of the article covered the importance of obesity, especially childhood obesity and what it could do to that individual later on in life in regards to health issues.  Numerous studies that have been conducted over time and recently have shown an alarming jump in childhood obesity and it’s continuance on the rise.  The article also mentioned that obesity is truly a major problem and health issue in our country because of the fact that it leads to other life-threatening diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes.  Schools have also been looked at in a greater context to ultimately see if they were doing the right things when it came to childhood obesity.

            Obviously childhood obesity is a major problem in our world, specifically the United States.  I did not realize that childhood obesity led to so many other health problems besides the two big ones of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.  Schools definitely need to clean up this issue and really get a hold of it because we cannot continue on this trend.  The fact that some school districts are even thinking about cutting physical education class are obviously crazy, if that were to happen this problem would get enormously worse.

            The next part of the article talked about public school children versus private school children and their relationship to being physically active.  Not surprisingly both public and private school students have a positive relationship between being physically fit and active which led to better academic achievement.  The article also mentioned that breakfast and lunch programs in schools really did not provide children a benefit in being healthier but showed a little decline in health.  Studies showed that what children eat when they are at home has an influence on their health status and their obesity too.  The studies also showed that a family’s socio-economic status also plays a big role in children if they were eating healthy or not.

            This part of the article surprised me a little but also showed some positive sides to it also. The positive aspect of this part was that children showed a positive relationship between physical active and being active that translated into positive school success.  That was good to see because it showed that being physically active not only helps children health wise and lower obesity rates, but also enables children to work even better in a typical classroom setting.  The part about the breakfast and lunch in schools also surprised me a bit because of how school breakfast and lunch programs were probably unhealthier and contributed to childhood obesity.

            The last part of the article went over some results and findings through studies that schools had conducted to see and learn more about childhood obesity.  The results showed that regardless of socio-economic status, children attending public schools have a higher BMI than those attending private schools.  The breakfast and lunch programs at public schools also contribute to a child’s BMI.  Children attending public schools are more likely to be overweight.

            This article definitely made me realize just how big of an issue childhood obesity really is in not only our school system but also a school’s breakfast and lunch programs.  I did however like that students showed a positive relationship with physical activity and being in shape which contributed to their success in a normal classroom.  I also found it amazing that we constantly talk about childhood obesity and what schools need to do in order to prevent it, and yet it’s our own school’s breakfast and lunch programs that contribute to this problem.  Hopefully everyone can work together and have public schools look at how private schools have less obesity rates and try to enhance their own programs with private schools ideas, because private school are definitely doing some things right that public schools need to pick up on.

http://0-web.ebscohost.com.millennium.matc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=17&sid=6fb3fbf2-6b8d-424e-8980-51426ebc6e09%40sessionmgr14

Joe Stevens

Sources of drug information: FDA-approved labeling and other official FDA sources

For this week’s topic on the FDA I decided to read an article titled Sources of drug information: FDA-approved labeling and other official FDA sources written by Jill A. Lindstrom.  This article basically covered the FDA and how it protects the public’s health from harmful or toxic foods and drugs.  The article also mentioned that the FDA regulates drugs so that they are also safe and fine for the public to use and also how a product is labeled.  Labeling was the main point of the article. 

            The first phase of the article examined the history of the FDA and pretty much how it came to be, and how it regulates our foods and other products along with drugs.  The FDA basically started because of a product that was used in the 1930’s that killed over a hundred people because of chemicals that were mixed improperly for a drug.  Once this occurred the article made it clear that at that time President Roosevelt signed on for labeling awareness that mandated that all labels needed to be properly labeled for safety reasons so another tragedy would not occur again.

            The article then described the importance of labeling on products such as foods and drugs and how important labeling really is for everyone.  The article mentioned that labeling in our society today needs to be informative and accurate and neither promotional in tone nor false or misleading in any way.  The FDA has regulated that pharmaceutical manufactures are required to provide professional labeling that is complete, unbiased, and evidence-based on their drug products.

            I never realized that drugs that are in pharmacies had to have all these rules that the FDA mentioned.  I think it’s pretty amazing that the FDA needed to do this to insure that these drugs were correct and accurate for the people in our society.  These drugs are what doctors and millions of people depend on in order to live a healthy life or to help treat a problem or disease that might kill them.  I cannot even believe that a company for a drug would ever lie on a label, just because of the risk of killing people if that drug was inaccurate.

            Later in the article the author talked about how the FDA has also made pharmaceutical manufactures include patient labeling with their drugs that they produce.  Meaning that manufactures have to include almost a medication guide to prevent any mix ups or questions that may arise once the produce is actually in the hands of an individual.  This labeling includes that it could prevent a serious effect from the drug, patient knowledge of a serious potential risk essential to the patient’s decision making process about whether or not to use the drug, it allows for people to read frequently asked questions with answers that is also on the labeling.  Important refill information is also present that could avoid any confusion for anyone that is associated with the product. 

            I was again surprised that the FDA felt the need to make this rule just because I would like to think that these companies that produce these drugs would make this labeling on their own for the benefit of their produce and for the benefit of their company.  I honestly do not believe that a drug company would risk that just because of what’s at stake.  I would imagine that most companies would do everything they could to ensure the safety of everyone using their product because of the possibilities of being recognized as a superior supplier and a company that helps people live normal or better lives.

            In conclusion the FDA uses numerous ways to speak information to people about food and drug products.  New and better information is always being approached by the FDA to ensure the safety of all its products to make sure that people like us are safe and healthy also.  Without the FDA I’m sure that many problems would arise from products because of the manufacturing companies and how they would label and try to sell their products, meaning they would just about say anything in order to sell.  As I have learned from in class people will believe just about anything that is advertised or told to them or whatever is on a label.  That is why I believe that the FDA is extremely important to the well-being in society because I think a few companies might try to take advantage of people just to make a quick buck, and not even care about what the consequences might be for that individual.  This way with the FDA around most of these things cannot happen especially on important products.  Hopefully the FDA will gain more power and find even better ways to allow for people to stay healthy and not to fall into the trap that some labels on products mention that are not accurate. 

http://0-web.ebscohost.com.millennium.matc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&hid=111&sid=1d1667e9-4412-4f68-a1c9-884238b83105%40sessionmgr110

Joe Stevens