Health related information and news from around the world.

Moles are discrete and small areas of dark pigment (or colour) on the skin. They vary in colour from flesh-coloured to brown or black. Some are hairy and raised, others are smooth and flat. They are very common and start to appear soon after the child’s first year. Some children may only have a few moles scattered around their body, while others may have more than thirty. They mostly occur on the face and neck or on the back. It is extremely rare for a mole in a child to turn cancerous.

When to see your doctor

• if you notice the mole growing rapidly;

• if the mole has become itchy or sore;

• if the mole has been bleeding or has developed a crust;

• if the mole has changed colour, especially if it becomes darker;

• if the mole has become raised and lumpy;

• if your child would like the mole removed for cosmetic reasons.

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There are a number of positive steps, all of equal importance, that you can take as parents to improve your lot with a new baby:

Organise a support system. Enlist the help of parents, relatives, friends, or neighbours who are willing to assist with the sheer physical work that has to be done (e.g. cleaning, washing, preparing meals). They often provide psychological support and reassurance as well. Reliable and trustworthy paid help, if you are able to afford it, can be invaluable.

Ask for your partner’s help. Explain your needs clearly to each other. Try to have realistic expectations of one another. The preparation of gourmet meals should be put on hold, and simple or easy to prepare food or take-aways become the order of the day. You may also have to turn a blind eye to the housework for a while.

Find a sympathetic maternal and child nurse and enlist her support. She is likely to have a wealth of experience to draw on and her guidance may prove invaluable. Talk to other parents and help each other out. Others may have some good tips. Organise a baby-minding club with other parents so that you can have a couple of hours to yourself every few days. Use this time to do something for yourself that you enjoy — go swimming, go to the hairdresser, or go and visit a friend.

Make sure you own needs are met. Don’t be a martyr. Take time out whenever possible for relaxation, catching up on sleep, or just going down the street. You need this time alone.

Don’t try to be a superman or superwoman. Be realistic about what can be achieved. If the time you would spend making the bed and doing the dishes means the difference between coping and collapsing, forget the housework!

Organise a schedule for essential activities but remember that it needs to be flexible in case of unexpected events.

Acknowledge that all babies are different and that your baby’s temperament may well be the reason for all that grizzling or unpredictability.

Know that all parents experience frustration and despair with their new baby at some stage. Remember it is only a phase and things will improve.

Ask for help! Turn to your partner, doctor, nurse, mother-in-law — anyone! Don’t try to go it alone.

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I mentioned the importance of walking together as a couple every day. For this “sexual sig wisdom walk,” one person talks, the other listens on the entire walk. Next walk, change roles. The listener uses the L.O. V.E. technique while the talker discusses anything at all. There is a wisdom in all of us, and, as Buckminster Fuller once said, “All of us are geniuses. Some of us are just less damaged than most.”

One wife reported, “I had a hard time at first getting used to being the talker and then just a listener, but it was something. I looked forward to both roles, but hearing him talk while we walked, talk about trees, work, kids, neighbors, whatever, without reacting to me was a real trip.”

“I realized how much I interrupt and control the conversation. While we walked, it seemed easier to listen and not take over. We kind of got in a rhythm,” said her husband.

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The third-date phenomenon, sex on the third date, is universally known. Due to the AIDS issue and fear of other sexually transmissible diseases, the third-date phenomenon is becoming the tenth-date phenomenon, but the timing is irrelevant. Sex is nowhere near as important as everyone says it is, and probably very important to those people who tell you it does not matter at all.

Remember, the rules are that the whole game changes after the sex act takes place. It is the turning point. For men, the conquest may be complete, and they may disappear. For women, emotional involvement may intensify now, but they must be courageous and not let the man know they take this sex thing too seriously. No research supports this sexist view, but these rules have little to do with fact.

Some people cheat on this rule flagrantly. Men and women may become close, feelings may get involved, honesty, caring, and vulnerability may follow. When this involvement happens, start discussing philosophical issues of recreational sex, short life spans, limited life pleasures, and the value of extensive sexual training prior to any real commitment. Even though there is no data to show that amount or frequency of sex relates to fulfilling sex, this argument can protect you from any real involvement related to sex.

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The spine consists of many small bones; the vertebrae, which are separated from each other by a cushion of cartilage known as the inter-vertebral disc.

Projections from the back of the vertebra enclose a canal through which passes the spinal cord consisting of nerve cells and fibres.

These projections from the back of the vertebra connect with the ones above and below by means of small joints.

Viewed from the side the spine has two S curves, one above the other. The end result, functionally, results in a vertical position and viewed from the front or back the spine is straight.

In the condition known as scoliosis there is a sideways curve of the spine which is complicated by a rotational deformity. In the chest this rotation can affect the ribs and distort the chest cavity.

Once a kink develops in the spine a corresponding tilt must also develop the other way at some other level so as to enable the person to stand upright.

Sometimes scoliosis may be secondary to muscle weakness or paralysis, such as may occur with poliomyelitis.

Sometimes the condition is due to poor posture in the child, but under this condition it is always mild.

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Iatrogenic disease is caused by medical treatment and the more potent and effective remedies we have, the more complications and side effects we get.

Every doctor who prescribes for a patient has to weigh the good effects from his treatment against the likely bad effects.

In most cases, the side effects are rare, so he can prescribe with little risk to his patient.

Sometimes the doctor may be aware of the risks of side effects, yet his patient may be blissfully unaware.

I do not advocate telling every patient about every side effect or the secondary anxiety we cause may be worse than the complaint for which the patient originally consulted us or he might refuse to take the medication and suffer severely from the disease because of fear of rare side effects.

Potent cortisone creams and ointments are freely prescribed for many skin conditions and, if not emptied, the tubes lie around in the cupboard and are often self-prescribed for any subsequent rash.

These strong cortisones should not be used on the face. It has been known since 1972 that they can convert a minor facial rash into a separate condition known as peri-oral dermatitis.

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For the normal emotional development of a child, certain requisites in his formative years should be met by the parents or a readily identifiable mother or father substitute.

The developing child needs: love and affection, given freely and without qualification; security; acceptance of himself as an individual; self respect; a sense of achievement; recognition of himself and his achievements; independence, the absence of prolonged dependence on mother or mother-substitute; and authority, knowing the limits of his ego and the limits that will be imposed upon him by the authoritative figure; not only by the parent but also by the teacher.

Adults often forget that children have anxieties, fears, hopes and desires. Children may suffer depression or frustration. These emotional problems may show themselves differently from that in adults due to the child’s limited experience and limited powers of expression.

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In the United States, it is illegal to sell “vitamin B15″(pangamic acid, calcium pangamate), and according to the Journal ofthe American Medical Association (243:2473), the FDA is prosecuting distributors who handle it and are seizing it from health food stores. Furthermore, the courts are backing up FDA’s right to destroy the materials they have seized.

Not just playing cops and robbers, the FDA is truly worried by the fact that two of the most widely available brands of this “vitamin” were found to contain substances which, after being swallowed, turn into some of the most potent cancer-producing chemicals known.

Even worse, different brands have been found to have completely different compositions so that the terms vitamin B15 and pangamate are meaningless. Pangamate, incidentally, is derived from the Greek words pan, meaning all, and gamete, meaning seed, and has been applied to mixtures of substances extracted from all kinds of seeds.

Furthermore, it is not a “vitamin” in the usual sense of the word since it has never been shown to be an essential dietary ingredient and there has been no definition of its chemical nature.

“Producers can throw anything they want into a bottle and label it vitamin B15 or pangamic acid,” reports the Journal, and producers have alleged that it helps heart disease, aging, diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma, alcoholism, hepatitis, jaundice, allergies, neuralgia, and neuritis.

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