Happy Labor Day

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe Labor Day. Our office will be open for SICK patients only on Monday September 1st.  You may start calling at 8:30 am and we will be there for urgent sick patients for a few hours. We will resume our regular office hours Tuesday starting at 8:00 am. Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day!

How much digital media are your kids getting?

Digital media may lower children's sensitivity to emotional cues
When children were restricted from using electronic devices such as smartphones and TV for five days, their ability to identify facial expressions and emotional cues improved, according to a study to be published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. Replacing in-person interactions with screen interactions may contribute to the reduced sensitivity to emotional cues, the lead author said

To read the full article CLICK HERE

Warning about soft drinks, fruit juice and sport beverages

Dr Jopling wanted to share this great article about your kids about soft drinks, fruit juice and sport beverages.

 (HealthDay News) -- High acidity levels in soft drinks, fruit juice and sports beverages pose a threat to youngsters' teeth, a new study reports.
"Our research has shown that permanent damage to the tooth enamel will occur within the first 30 seconds of high acidity coming into contact with the teeth. This is an important finding and it suggests that such drinks are best avoided," study corresponding author Dr. Sarbin Ranjitkar, of the Craniofacial Biology Research Group at the University of Adelaide in Australia, said in a university news release.
"If high acidity drinks are consumed, it is not simply a matter of having a child clean their teeth an hour or 30 minutes later and hoping they'll be OK -- the damage is already done," he added.
The findings were recently published in the Journal of Dentistry.
Normally, Ranjitkar said, there's a balance between acids and protective mechanisms in a healthy mouth. But, "once that balance is shifted in favor of the acids, regardless of the type of acid, teeth become damaged," he explained.
High acidity drinks also can combine with other factors to cause major, irreversible damage to youngsters' teeth, according to Ranjitkar.
"Often, children and adolescents grind their teeth at night, and they can have undiagnosed regurgitation or reflux, which brings with it acidity from the stomach. Combined with drinks high in acidity, this creates a triple threat to young people's teeth which can cause long-term damage," he said.
Tooth erosion caused by acidic beverages is on the rise in children and young adults, according to Ranjitkar.
"Dental erosion is an issue of growing concern in developed countries, and it is often only detected clinically after extensive tooth wear has occurred," he said. "Such erosion can lead to a lifetime of compromised dental health that may require complex and extensive rehabilitation -- but it is also preventable with minimal intervention."
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about child dental health.

SOURCE: University of Adelaide, news release, Aug. 5, 2014

What's on the screen affects baby and toddler language‏

Dr Jopling found this great article. It makes you really think what your child is watching. Check it out!

MAILMOREWASHINGTON — Researchers are increasingly looking at how much time babies and toddlers spend in front of TV, laptops or iPads, but now some are saying the debate needs to shift to what's on the screen.
"It's never so simple as it's bad or good. It's content based," says Deborah Linebarger, director of the Children's Media Lab at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, who presented her most recent study over the weekend at the American Psychological Association's annual convention, which ends Sunday.
"There's a lot of research now that shows when you design infant and toddler-directed media in ways infants and toddlers can learn, they can learn from it," she says. "If you use screen media and pick the right stuff, it can be another tool."
Linebarger's study of 498 children, ages 8 months to 36 months, isn't an endorsement of those baby-focused videos. Rather, her research shows that some types of programs help babies and toddlers with their language skills and increase vocabulary, while others do not.
Prior research has shown that 74% of infants are exposed to TV before the age of 2, despite a 2011 statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics that viewing by infants and toddlers is not recommended and likely harmful.
"The average infant or toddler spends about an hour and half per day watching or interacting with screen media directly and, perhaps more distressing, they're exposed to 5.5 hours of TV that's on in the background," Linebarger says.
Babies and toddlers learn best from interacting with humans, which is why screen content that mimics real persons in real situations is best, Linebarger says.
Her study's focus is content, with programs that have characters telling a simple story, such as Clifford the Big Red Dog on PBS or Blue's Clues on Nickelodeon.
"When you have a show like Blue's Clues specifically where a character talks directly to the child through the screen, that is exactly how you do language intervention. That models how to have a conversation," she says.
Babies and toddlers exposed to other types of programming have smaller vocabularies, her research finds. Those programs include what's been labeled "educational," such as Sesame Street on PBS or those baby videos such as Brainy Baby or Baby Einstein, Linebarger says.
She says Sesame Street isn't appropriate for those under age 2 because it doesn't tell a narrative tale and is filled with "an enormous amount of information coming at them quickly."
"It keeps their attention, but they're less effective at making sense of it. To an older child, it's a fantastic program, but for kids under 2, it is not appropriate," she says.
Baby videos have the same problem, she says, because they don't really have characters telling a story.
"They'll show a picture of an apple. There's a lot of content and it's quickly changing. There's too much information for an infant — too much production features, with lots of cuts and it's fast-paced. It shows objects, but they are not really in context and there are no real characters."
What she calls "entertainment television" is either directed at kids or adults. Young children watching these programs also have smaller vocabularies. Such programs include cartoons, such as SpongeBob SquarePants on Nickelodeon.
Background television "wasn't good and wasn't bad," she says. "It's not associated with vocabulary."