US news

Woman gives birth in New York street

Talk about a surprise delivery.

A New York woman in labor left her home to make her way to the hospital but the baby couldn’t wait.

The woman got down on the ground on East 68th Street and 3rd Avenue and gave birth in a Manhattan crosswalk

The news crew happened to be in the area and covered the birth

One witness told that the woman said, “the baby’s coming.” The witness then said the baby’s head appeared. Police and medics arrived and the woman was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital

Source: USA today

 

Fewer U.S. children dying in car crashes: CDC

Fewer U.S. children are dying in car crashes, with death rates falling by 43 percent from 2002 to 2011, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.

But one in three of the children who died in a car crash in 2011 was not using a seat belt or child safety seat, suggesting many more deaths could be prevented, the CDC said. The results were based on a study in the Morbidity and Mortality report, the agency’s weekly report on death and disease.

According to the report, more than 9,000 children age 12 and younger died in a car crash from 2002 to 2011.

“The good news is motor vehicle deaths decreased by 43 percent over the past decade for children age 12 and younger. The tragic news is still with that decrease, more than 9,000 kids were killed on the road in this period,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told reporters in a telephone news conference.

“Thousands of children are at risk on the road because they are not buckled up,” he said.

The study found that of the children who died between 2009 to 2010, a much higher proportion of black and Hispanic children were not buckled, compared with white kids.

“The difference was nearly half (45 percent for blacks and 46 percent for Hispanics) versus a quarter (26 percent) for white kids,” Frieden said.

The study did not investigate why racial differences played such a big role in seat belt use, but it did suggest socio-economic factors may play a role.

For the study, CDC researchers analyzed data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to find the number of deaths among occupants in cars from 2002 to 2011 for all children aged up to the age of 12.

Overall, 9,182 children died in car crashes during the period. But deaths dropped sharply, from 2.2 deaths per 100,000 people in 2002, to 1.2 deaths per 100,000 in 2011, a 43 percent decline.

According to the report, seat belt use increased from 88 percent in 2002 to 91 percent in 2011 among all children age 7 and under. The study also confirmed earlier findings that older children are less likely to be wearing seat belts than younger children.

To prevent future deaths from car crashes, Frieden said parents should make sure their children use appropriate-sized car seats, booster seats and seat belts on every trip.

The CDC recommends that children from birth to age 2 should be in a rear-facing car seat.

Starting at age 2, children should be in a forward-facing car seat until at least age 5, or when they reach the upper weight or height limit of that seat.

Children age 5 and older should use a booster seat until the adult seat belt fits them properly, generally when the lap belt lays across the upper thighs and the shoulder belt slays across the chest, but not the neck.

More information on proper use of child safety seats can be found at www.safekids.org or other websites.

Source: Reuters

As U.S. waistlines expand, seatbelt use falls

Obese drivers may be at a strikingly higher risk of dying in car crashes than normal-weight drivers because they frequently fail to buckle up, a new study finds.

Based on analysis of a U.S. database of nearly 200,000 fatal passenger vehicle crashes, researchers found that normal-weight Americans involved in those accidents were 66 percent more likely to have been wearing a seatbelt than those who were severely obese.

“Cars should be designed so it’s easier to put a seatbelt on if you’re obese,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Dietrich Jehle, told Reuters Health.

“It’s very important to increase seatbelt use in heavier individuals to best prevent deaths on the highways,” said Jehle, who is director of emergency services at Erie County Medical Center and vice chairman of Emergency Medicine at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Federal safety standards set in the 1960s, when Americans tended to be lighter, require seatbelts to accommodate men up to 215 pounds. Some automakers provide larger belts or extenders, Jehle said, but heavier people frequently struggle to fasten their belts, feel squeezed once strapped in and drive unbelted.

An earlier study found that individuals considered morbidly obese were 56 percent more likely to die in vehicle crashes than people of normal weight.

Other research has shown that combined lap and shoulder belts reduce crash deaths by 45 percent, Jehle and his colleagues point out.

To see whether weight is linked to seatbelt use, Jehle’s group examined nearly 194,120 drivers involved in auto crashes in which there was at least one fatality between 2003 and 2009.

It is the largest investigation to date of a connection between seatbelt use and obesity, the researchers note in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Obesity is typically defined by body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight relative to height. People with a BMI between 18.5 and 25 are considered normal weight. A BMI between 25 and 30 is considered overweight, between 30 and 40 is obese, and above 40 is morbidly obese.

A 5-foot-10-inch tall man who weighed 300 pounds would have a BMI of 43, for example.

One-third of Americans are considered overweight and another third are considered obese, according to 2009 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new study relied on police reports and direct observations about whether drivers involved in fatal traffic accidents wore seatbelts.

Jehle’s team found that the closer to morbid obesity a person was, the less likely he or she was to have been wearing a seat belt.

Compared to the morbidly obese drivers, moderately obese people were 23 percent more likely to have been buckled up. The slightly obese were 39 percent more likely and the overweight were 60 percent more likely than the morbidly obese to have been wearing a seatbelt.

“Not buckling up is a deadly decision,” Jehle and his colleagues write. “Obese drivers are far less likely to wear seatbelts than are drivers of normal weight, which puts them at a greater risk of being subjected to higher impact forces and being ejected from the vehicle, both of which lead to more severe injury and/or death.”

Peggy Howell, a spokeswoman for the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, agreed that seatbelt use is important and told Reuters Health she obeys the seatbelt law despite difficulty.

“As a woman who’s busty, the seatbelt rides up and strangles me. But I wear my seatbelt, as does my sister, and we’re both clinically obese women,” said Howell, who described herself as close to 300 pounds.

Deb Burgard, California psychologist who specializes in eating disorders, praised the study for calling attention to the need for seatbelts that work for heavy drivers.

Burgard and Howell expressed concern, however, that the findings could shift blame for not wearing seatbelts to obese people.

“I’m just wondering if this is going to lead to insurance companies trying to charge fat people more,” Howell said. “Are police going to start profiling? What are the long-term ramifications of a study like this?”

Jehle said he would like the study to prompt car manufacturers to make longer belts and for safety regulators to use larger dummies in crash tests.

“A lot of the crash studies are done on dummies that do not fit in with our current population, which is one-third overweight and one-third obese,” he said. “When they sell you a vehicle, they should sell it with all the equipment you need to wear a seatbelt.”

Source; Reuters

Young girl saves her 3 brothers with bone marrow donations

At 13, Julia Jenkins doesn’t always see eye-to-eye with her three little brothers. They can be rowdy and more than a little competitive. But the Jenkins kids share a connection that runs deep.

Julia Jenkins watched one brother get sick and then another and then another. Then she learned that she was the one person who might be able to help save them.

It started in 2008 when Will, then 2, developed a swollen lymph node in his neck. The diagnosis: Burkitt’s lymphoma, a rare cancer of the lymphatic system.

Will started chemotherapy, but then John, who was 6, began having severe stomach problems. “They diagnosed John with Burkitt’s lymphoma two years to the exact day later,” said (mother) Christy  Jenkins.

Doctors at the Aflac Cancer Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta started looking for answers. Burkitt’s doesn’t usually run in families, but a specialist remembered hearing about a rare, genetic immune disorder called XLP carried by boys that could cause very similar symptoms. Blood tests showed both Will and John had XLP, as did 2-year-old Matthew.

“Here I was approached with the plate of, ‘All three boys need a bone marrow transplant to possibly survive,'” said Christy Jenkins.

That’s where Julia comes in.

“I remember getting my blood tested, like sticking a needle in my arm,” Julia Jenkins said.

Julia was a perfect bone marrow donor match for both John and Matthew, but she was so young that she
didn’t even know what being a donor meant.

“But, I said yes, because they’re my brothers,” said Julia Jenkins.

Source: USA news

Road Crashes Found to be Americans Biggest Killers While Abroad

Americans traveling abroad are faced with larger health threats including road crashes, a new study finds.

Between 2003 and 2009, more Americans have died abroad from crashes that involved cars or motorcycles than from homicide and other terrorist events, the researchers involved in the study wrote in the journal Injury Prevention. “Money spent on public health interventions related to homicides has apparently been spent successfully,” said Dr. David Bishai, lead author of the study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“But there is a gap in funding now,” he added. “What gets travelers abroad isn’t so much infectious disease or homicide – it’s road safety. The U.S. Department of State spends approximately $51.6 billion annually to protect its citizens both abroad and at home, but health risks during international travel can be very tricky. Bishai and his team measured deaths per one million visits to a country by American travelers. During the six-year study period, the U.S. Department of State data showed a total of $5.417 unnatural deaths among Americans while traveling abroad.

The top-five countries for international deaths were Colombia, with 13.7 international deaths per million American visits, the Dominican Republic with 11 deaths per million; Thailand and Morocco, each with 5.5 international deaths per million visits and the Philippines, with a rate of 21 per million visits. With the exception of the Philippines, more Americans died from road crashes in all of the 160 countries surveyed than from homicide.

Thailand has the most number of traffic fatalities with 16.5 deaths per million visits, followed by Vietnam with 15 fatal road accidents per million visits. “People will go to Vietnam and ride on a motorcycle because it’s the way to get around,” Bishai said.

Source: parent herald