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Married women in late 30s increasingly freezing their eggs as ‘insurance policy’ – in case they cannot persuade their reluctant husbands to have kids, experts have claimed.

Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services in Aldridge, near Birmingham. She says women in middle age, rather than single women, are freezing eggs, so they can have babies if they decide to split with husbands later.
Dr Lockwood said women were “deliberately and quite bravely trying to buy a bit of biological time.
Research shows that success rates for IVF pregnancies involving frozen eggs are far higher among women who underwent the procedure in their twenties.

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Under-16s would be stopped from having cosmetic piercings without their parents’ permission under a proposal from the Welsh government.

It will consult on whether there should be a legal age of consent for piercings, including to ears.

Ministers fear young people being exposed to problems after being pierced, such as infections.

Health Minister Lesley Griffiths said there had been tragic cases when people had died after being pierced.

There is no minimum age of consent in England, Wales and Northern Ireland for piercing. Under-16s in Scotland need parental consent.

The Welsh consultation will ask whether new restrictions are needed and, if so, how they should be implemented.

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Single women who want a family later in life are being warned they are leaving it too late to freeze their eggs.

They are waiting until their late-30s to have the procedure carried out and by then the eggs are deteriorating rapidly.

Researchers in the U.S. found that those getting eggs frozen for social reasons are, on average, waiting until they are aged between 37 and 39.

Evidence suggests the pattern in the UK is similar which has concerned researchers because fertility declines swiftly after the age of 35.

In the UK, the success rate of a live birth for each IVF cycle falls to about 5 per cent for women over 42, compared to about 30 per cent for a woman under 35.

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Three-year-olds should be made to walk on short trips out rather than being strapped into buggies, the public health minister has urged.

Nationally almost one in five 10 and 11-year-olds are obese, and the problem frequently starts before school age.
Politicians yesterday said parents should take responsibility for their children’s weight and fitness, with Anne Milton, the public health minister, saying: “Encouraging children to walk is one way of getting the whole family to take more exercise.”
She was speaking after Nickie Aiken, Westminster Council’s cabinet member for children, and a fellow Conservative, told a newspaper that parents who relied too much on the buggy to ferry their young children from A to B risked damaging their charges’ long-term health.
She said: “We have to acknowledge childhood obesity is a growing problem.

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‘Educational’ television programmes aimed at the under-twos do nothing to stimulate them and could actually stunt their development, according to new guidelines on the subject.

Paediatricians say there is “no evidence” that television programmes for the under-twos, marketed as educational, actually help them intellectually or socially, because they simply cannot understand them.
Watching television merely gets in the way of activities that such young children do understand, and do benefit them – most notably free play and engagement with other people.
DVD products such as Baby Einstein are marketed squarely on the premiss of educating babies and toddlers, while there are numerous British-made programmes, such as In the Night Garden, aimed at the age range.

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Three cases of E. coli have been confirmed in an outbreak at a children’s nursery on Anglesey.

Tri Ceffyl Bach Nursery in Amlwch was closed as a precaution last Thursday.

Testing has been offered to children and adults, and so far three cases of E. coli O157 have been detected in children.

Public health officers and environmental health teams from Betsi Cadwaladr university health board and Anglesey council are investigating.

Health officials warned that there could be further cases.

Nursery staff, and those in “at-risk” groups who are close contacts of people who are unwell, are also being tested.

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Tongue-tie occurs in up to 10% of newborns and can affect breastfeeding and even speech. So should you cut the frenulum?

What is it?

For a relatively minor congenital problem, there is some controversy about tongue-ties.

Tongue-ties affect 3%-10% of newborns and are diagnosed when the baby is checked over by the midwife or doctor. The tongue is usually only loosely connected to the floor of our mouths, but in tongue-tie the tissue connecting the two (called the frenulum) is shorter and tighter. It can vary from a thin membrane that can break naturally, to a thick and fibrous tissue that restricts normal movement. Most tongue-tie is mild and stretches as the baby grows.

Professor Mitch Blair, a consultant and officer for health promotion at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says tongue-ties used to be routinely snipped, but some doctors now think the risk of infection and tongue damage means babies should be watched, not automatically cut.

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Services slashed affect patients on frontline such as pregnant women and elderly despite assurances they would be protected

Birth centres are closing, patients are being denied pain-relieving drugs and leaflets advising parents how to prevent cot death have been scrapped because of NHS cuts which are increasingly restricting services to patients, evidence gathered by the Guardian reveals.

The NHS’s £20bn savings drive also means new mothers receive fewer visits from health visitors, support for problem drinkers is being reduced and families are no longer being given an NHS advice book on bringing up their baby.

People with diabetes and leg ulcers are seeing less of the district nurses who help them manage their condition; specialists delivering psychological therapies are under threat and a growing number of hospitals are reducing the number of nurses and midwives to balance their books.

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Premature babies are five times more likely to suffer from autism

Study is the first to link the condition to low birth weight . Premature babies are five times more likely to suffer from autism, a study suggests.

Researchers say they have established a link between low birth weight and the condition.

Medical advances could also explain the rise in autism as survival rates have greatly improved for babies born too early.

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The Duchess of Cambridge has written a moving letter of support to a nine-year-old cancer patient she met last month.

Kate sent the heartfelt note to Fabian Bate, who suffers from leukaemia, following their meeting at the Royal Marsden Hospital in what is believed to be her first personal act of charity since marrying into the royal family.

In her signed letter, the Duchess said she had been touched by his “strength of character”.

“This must be a troubling time for you, your parents and your sisters, but I know I left the Royal Marsden assured by how incredibly talented, kind and clever the team at the hospital are,” she wrote. “Combined with your belief and positive energy, you couldn’t be in better hands.”

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Security group G4S is to start dishing up school dinners and cleaning hotel rooms following a £5.2 billion takeover deal unveiled today.

The group – better known for running prisons and transferring cash – has snapped up Denmark’s ISS in a deal creating a business with a vast workforce of around 1.2 million people.

West Sussex-based G4S currently makes 80% of its revenues from security work but after the deal around 45% will come from services such as cleaning offices and washrooms, portering and catering.

ISS, which dates back to 1901 and launched in the UK in 1968, boasts high-profile contracts with Citigroup and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

It also provides catering services in schools, hospitals and colleges, cleans over 2.5 million hotel bedrooms a year and runs switchboards, reception and mailrooms for businesses.

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Special care baby charity Bliss warns about qualifications of some nurses and midwives in hospital neonatal units

More than half of England’s specialist baby care units do not meet the government’s minimum standards and are putting the most vulnerable babies at risk, a charity warned on Monday.

Bliss, a special care baby charity, said staff cuts in a third of England’s 172 neonatal units were “significantly affecting the care of premature and sick babies”.

Minimum standards set by the Department of Health require 70% of nurses and midwives in neonatal units to be qualified in specialist care, Bliss said, but more than half had failed to meet this target. Last year, the charity said 1,150 extra nurses would be needed to reach minimum standards, but a recent freedom of information request by the charity found 140 posts had been cut.

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How a new lung for cystic fibrosis sufferer has given her a new start

Stuart Tancock turned to watch his beautiful, fragile bride Kirstie Mills walk down the aisle knowing that every step could be her last. Just days before, she had been rushed to hospital, close to death. As a sufferer of the incurable genetic disease cystic fibrosis, her lungs had finally given up after years of recurrent infections.

Alongside the wedding rings in Stuart’s pocket was a letter stipulating that if the worst happened, and the woman he loved stopped breathing, it was her wish not to be resuscitated. ‘We had a plan for every scenario. If Kirstie collapsed, I’d take her to the room we’d booked for our wedding night to die. I felt incredibly helpless. I was marrying Kirstie and vowing to protect her, yet there was nothing I could do to keep her alive,’ says Stuart, 26.

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Prospective parents hoping to have a son and heir should just relax, according to research that suggests worried women are less likely to give birth to baby boys.

Scientists who monitored women in the months before they became pregnant found that those who were suffering from long-term stress had more girls.
Those who had short-term anxieties also took longer to conceive.
It is the latest study to suggest that the circumstances in which babies are conceived, such as their parents’ diet and lifestyle, plays an important role in their development.
Experts say it could mean women being told to watch their stress levels as well as their diet and lifestyle when trying for a baby.

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Some 50,000 families are to be given free parenting lessons as part of the coalition’s drive to make society more responsible.

The classes are being piloted for mothers and fathers with children aged under five in Middlesbrough, High Peak in Derbyshire, and Camden.

They will be offered £100 vouchers to pay for the sessions, and organisations will bid for contracts to provide them.

Issues covered are likely to include communication, managing conflict, discipline, and creating routine and boundaries.

Children’s minister Sarah Teather said the trials would start next summer and run for two years. The scheme will cost £5 million for the vouchers plus set-up costs.

“The overwhelming evidence from all the experts is that a child’s development in the first five years of their life is the single biggest factor influencing their future life chances, health and educational attainment,” she said.

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High school cheerleaders’ breast cancer shirts banned

A High school cheer leading squad have been banned from wearing breast cancer awareness t-shirts with a controversial slogan.

Administrators at Gilbert High School in Arizona objected to the pink shirts that say ‘Gilbert cheer’ on the front and ‘Feel for lumps, save your bumps’ on the back.

The cheer squad planned on wearing the shirts at Today’s football game and one other game before walking into the crowd to collect donations. Talking to the Arizona Republic cheer booster-club president Gayleen Skowronek said the shirts were brought for 56 freshman, junior varsity and varsity cheerleaders at a cost of $470.

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From beets and figs to violet-hued potatoes and cauliflowers…

Why do children so prize the purple one when they squabble over sweets? It’s not an obvious choice; the colour of pomp and ceremony is a grown-up and formal hue, rarely cited as anyone’s favourite colour and hardly a staple of the average wardrobe or home-decor palette.

Yet children are instinctive; perhaps they make a link at an early age between the flamboyant colour of regal robes and indulgence. Or maybe they just know inherently what scientists have only recently discovered – that foods which are naturally purple are very good for you. Blueberries have long been touted as a superfood, but now it’s been found that resveratrol, a property of purple grapes and their juice, inhibits the growth of cancer cells, while the phenols in plums actually kill them.

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Children should “feel the grass under their feet” rather than play addictive computer games which can harm their mental development, a leading scientist has said.

aroness Greenfield, the former director of the Royal Institution, said spending too much time staring at computer screens can cause physical changes in the brain that lead to attention and behaviour problems.
Technology that plays strongly on the senses – like video games – can literally “blow the mind” by temporarily or permanently deactivating certain nerve connections in the brain, the Baroness said.
She told the Daily Telegraph last night: “The human brain has evolved to adapt to the environment. It therefore follows that if the environment is changing, it will have an impact on your brain.

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Mistakes caused by difficulty in reading the complex scans, old equipment and human error

‘Worst possible outcome for any woman,’ say researchers. Hundreds of mothers-to-be a year are being wrongly told they have lost their baby because of mistakes in reading ultrasound scans, doctors fear.

Some of the 400 women given a wrong diagnosis each year will choose to wait to see if they go on to miscarry naturally but others will take the option of terminating the pregnancy.

Last night the researchers said that the possibility of an ‘inadvertent termination’ was the ‘worst possible outcome for any woman’ and called for the guidelines used to determine miscarriages to be changed immediately.

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Testing is being offered to youngsters at an Anglesey nursery after a case of E. coli O157 was confirmed in a child.

The child fell ill last week but is said to be recovering well at home.

Three other children who attend the nursery, which has not been named, and two adults linked to it have also been unwell, said health officials.

Nobody has been taken to hospital. Children and staff at the nursery, which closed as a precaution, will be tested for E. coli O157.

Dr Chris Whiteside, of Public Health Wales, said: “E. coli O157 can have severe consequences for small children and, as the illness can spread easily in nurseries and schools, it is important that all children attending the nursery are tested.

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A selfless fire fighter cancelled her birthday celebrations to donate bone marrow to save the life of a man she did not know – on the other side of the Atlantic.

Heroine Joanne Wilkie, 34, spent her 29th birthday travelling alone from her home in Scotland to London to have her bone marrow extracted a shipped to Washington.

She made the life-saving trip after discovering a genetic fluke meant her DNA and that of a dying father-of-two in America were so similar the pair could be siblings. The fire fighter, from Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, is now preparing to fly out to the US to meet the grateful recipient, Ryan Kibury, 40, and his family.

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Women who fail to take folic acid in early pregnancy could be threatening their child’s ability to speak according to scientists.

A study has revealed that mothers who don’t take the vitamin supplement are twice as likely to have children with severe speech delays.

Experts at Columbia University in New York, say that the results highlight the health benefits of folic acid which is already known to reduce the risk of certain types of birth defects.

Around 40,000 Norwegian women were questioned during the first stage of pregnancy on what supplements they were taking four weeks before and eight weeks after conception.

Three years later researchers revisited the women investigating their children’s language skills, including how many words they could string together in a phrase.

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A coroner has ruled a verdict of natural causes by neglect contributed to a Somerset toddler’s death.

An inquest found neglect at Weston General Hospital led to the death of two-year-old Lucas Wellstead, from Weston-super-Mare.

The toddler died from septicaemia and pneumonia the day after being assessed at the hospital on 20 January 2010.

A hospital spokesman said it has since changed its procedures and that patient safety was its “highest priority”.

Lucas had had been sent to the hospital after his GP noticed a meningitis-type facial rash. But hospital doctors diagnosed a minor viral infection and sent him home.

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A nurse is facing jail after killing her baby by force-feeding her in the first case of its kind in Britain.

Social workers and health professionals apologised for not saving 10-month-old Diamond, the latest in a line of children let down by carers.

Now, an investigation is being launched into feeding methods used by mothers, particularly those from cultures where bigger babies are considered to be healthier.

A serious case review reported 18 key findings, including the lack of understanding on the issues which should have caused alarm bells to ring.

Gloria Dwomoh was found guilty at the Old Bailey of causing or allowing the death of Diamond. She was said to be obsessed with Diamond’s weight and poured liquidised food into her mouth when she was weaning her.

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This English teatime cake is found in every museum and gallery café for good reason. It is a wonderful pick-me-up in the afternoon.

Serves 8
Ingredients
Cake
200g walnut halves
200g unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
200g caster sugar
4 eggs
3 tbsp instant coffee granules, dissolved in 2 tbsp boiling water
200g self-raising flour
Icing
600g full-fat soft cream cheese
100g light brown sugar
Icing sugar for dusting.

Preheat oven to 170C/325F /Gas 3. Butter a 20cm springform or loose-bottomed cake tin that’s about 7cm deep and line the bottom with baking paper.
Spread the walnuts out on a baking tray and place in the oven to very gently toast. They want to just barely begin to turn golden, about 7 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and allow the nuts to cool. Roughly crush half of the walnuts with the side of a large chef’s knife and set aside. Reserve the remaining nuts for decoration.

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A paramedic has been struck off after failing to perform advanced life-saving techniques on a seven-year-old girl who then died.

Izabelle Easen died at her home in Thorne, South Yorkshire, in April 2008 after an asthma attack brought on a cardiac arrest.
James McKenna was struck off last year after being brought before a panel of the Health Professions Council (HPC) Conduct and Competence Committee for a number of incidents.
But Izabelle’s family has only just found out that he was struck off – a situation her mother Lorna Easen, 29, described on Tuesday as “morally wrong”.
She found out after Sky News looked at anonymised transcripts of HPC hearings, released under the Freedom of Information Act, and subsequently contacted her.

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Nagging children to eat greens is one of the few ways most parents ensure they get some healthy food inside them.

But it turns out that constantly pressurising defiant youngsters to finish foods they do not like has the opposite effect.

Toddlers are more likely to eat nutritious but unappealing foods if they are not repeatedly told to eat them up, research shows.

In tests, four-year-olds who were nagged to finish their food consumed less than those who were left to get on with it. American psychologists from Pennsylvania State University and the Appalachian State University told the journal Appetite: ‘The use of pressure contributes to lower intake and can foster negative responses to foods.

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British Dental Journal paper finds products contain acidic additives that can lead to the erosion of tooth enamel

Sugar-free gum, sweets and soft drinks, marketed as healthy alternatives to sugary products, can damage teeth, cause gastric problems and are unlikely to promote weight loss, research claims.

A study review in the British Dental Journal (BDJ) found that sugar-free foods and drinks contain acidic additives that may cause dental problems by eroding the enamel on consumers’ teeth.

Disclosure of what the authors call a “hidden risk” could affect sales of sugar-free products, especially given what the paper describes as consumers’ blind confidence in such products as a good thing.

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A child that is born neither male or female is a rare occurrence but babies born with some form of Disorder of Sex Development (DSD) happens in one in every 1,500 births, according to the support group Accord Alliance.

For some born with a DSD it can mean growing up in a world of shame and secrecy, but many people are working to foster openness about it.

After Janet was born, it was difficult to tell if she was a boy or a girl. “When my grandfather learned there was a question of my sex, it was suggested by him that they just let me die,” she says.

Now in her 50s and a mother of two, she was born with a womb, ovaries and female genes but her genitals and hormones were partly masculine. She was diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a DSD where her body makes too much testosterone.

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Hospital wards that care for some of the sickest children in the country have an inadequate number of staff, a report has warned.

Two-thirds of paediatric intensive care units across Britain and Ireland do not have the recommended number of qualified nurses caring for ill children, according to the Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network. Just 13 of the 34 units surveyed are meeting the recommended standards. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds and the University of Leicester, also found that the mortality rate for children suffering from asthma, who required help with their breathing when they were admitted to the units, is relatively high compared with other developed countries.

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Some children can face a wait of up to three and a half years before receiving treatment for mental health problems, an MSP has revealed.

The details were discovered by Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon through a freedom of information request.

She also learned that the top waiting times for adult psychology, psychiatric treatment and cognitive behavioural therapies could also run into years.

The Scottish government said it was committed to improving access times. A spokesman said: “No child should have to wait more than 26 weeks to begin treatment by March 2013.”

The NHS figures revealed that child psychology waiting times ranged from 16 weeks in Dumfries and Galloway to 182 weeks in Tayside.

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The law legalising abortions in Britain should never have been passed, the Queen’s first cousin says today as he launches a campaign against “subversive” attempts to make the procedure a human right.

Lord Nicholas Windsor, who is the youngest child of the Duke of Kent, describes his “visceral” opposition to the termination of pregnancies and compares the destruction of embryos to “eugenics”.
In a critique of the 1967 Abortion Act in The Daily Telegraph, he states that “the cost is too high because the cost is paid in innocent life.”
Describing the origins of his opposition, he writes: “It hit me in the stomach that terminating a pregnancy equalled none other than the destruction of a human being.
“It knocked the wind out of me the first time, as it does every single time I think about it.”

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Tributes have been paid to an 11-year-old boy who has died from a brain tumour after raising thousands of pounds for charity.

Harry Moseley, from Birmingham, became well-known through his presence on Twitter after being diagnosed with the tumour after becoming ill in 2007.

Many celebrities have paid tribute to him on the site while Cancer Research UK said he was an “inspiration”.

Harry made and sold bracelets for his Help Harry Help Others campaign.

He had been in a coma since August and died on Saturday night.

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A growing number of UK parents are paying private firms thousands of pounds to store stem cells taken from their new-born baby’s umbilical cord in the hope it could cure future illnesses, but experts warn they could be wasting their money.

“You think you’ve done everything correct. You’ve taken out all the insurances you think you need.

“You’ve ticked all the boxes and then despite all of that, a non-sterile sample has ended up meaning that it’s not going to be able to be used.”

San Sanghera and his partner Parmjit paid a UK-based company £1,900 ($3,000) to store stem cells taken from the blood of the umbilical cord of their young son, Rowan. Mr and Mrs Sanghera hoped that these stem cells could be used to help their son if he became ill in the future.

They were told the sample was contaminated, but were given the option for it to remain in storage, which they accepted.

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For toddler Freyah Rose Lyons things really are black and white – because she has a rare condition that means she cannot see any colours.

Doctors believe her colour blindness could have been caused by her mother Cassie contracting a cold or flu virus while she was pregnant. Cassie, 20, said: ‘She is a really bright baby and what she lacks with her vision she makes up for with her other senses.

‘She might only ever be able to see in black and white but it is better than not seeing at all. She takes it all in her stride and is the happiest child you will ever meet.

‘She will talk to anyone and people stop to tell her she has lovely curly hair.’

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Cabbage patch kid grows giant vegetable

A grandfather has come up with a novel way of getting his five-year old to eat her greens – by helping her grow a giant cabbage that weighs more than her.

Paris Vowles, helped her grandfather Philip Vowles, 62, to grow the enormous vegetable that weighed in at almost eight stone – over twice her body weight.

Paris said she loves helping her grandfather, a retired farmer, to grow large lettuces, and massive marrows at his allotment in Llanharry near Cardiff.

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It is often thought of as one of the qualities which distinguishes humans from animals.

And a new study has shown that the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong is a skill which even babies can possess.

Infants who show a good understanding of what is fair and unfair are also more like to share their possessions with others. Babies in the study were able to differentiate between the equal and unequal distribution of food, showing an early awareness of fairness, scientists said.

There was also seen to be a link between how sensitive the babies were to fair behaviour and whether they would be willing to share a favourite toy.

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We need to teach children to cook and eat fish sensibly, the old-fashioned way .

We were at an aquarium while on holiday this summer, part of a group of tourists crowding around a dramatically lit tank. Delicate, translucent shrimps pranced like miniature Arab horses, glowing magically in the darkened room.
“Aren’t they pretty?” I breathed to my four-year-old daughter. “Oh yes, Mummy,” she lisped, her face pressed against the glass. “I wish I could eat them.”
The tourists threw horrified glances and beat a hasty retreat to the shark tank. But I glowed with maternal pride. One, at least, of my children combined a proper respect for sea life with a healthy appetite.

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Every autumn for countless generations, sticky-fingered children have delighted in hunting blackberries but the traditional ritual has come under threat from council officials.

Alan Gibson, 47, who organises “foraging picnics” to collect wild fruit and nuts, says he was ordered to stop by officials because it was bad for the environment.
When he questioned further, he said he was told that the activity posed a risk to newts.
As well as blackberries, he was told hazelnuts, apples and chestnuts were also out of bounds.
Mr Gibson, who writes an internet blog on collecting wild food, was organising a “foraging picnic” on Southampton Common as part of an autumn harvest festival event.

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Boy who survived meningitis FIVE TIMES regains hearing thanks to implants

A boy who survived five bouts of meningitis has heard his mother’s voice for the first time in years – after he was fitted with cochlear implants.

Troy Probert, seven, lost his hearing as a toddler following his first battle with the potentially fatal disease.

But in July this year doctors at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children ‘switched on’ cochlear implants they had put in Troy’s ears – allowing him to hear.

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Every visually impaired child tested was ‘enthralled’ by the device, say scientists

Children living with severe vision problems could transform the way they communicate simply by using an iPad, researchers say.

A team from the University of Kansas gave the tablet computers to a group of children with a cortical visual impairment (CVI).

The severe neurological disorder results from brain damage which prevents them from interpreting visual information, making them essentially ‘blind.’

‘We tested 15 children and were absolutely shocked,’ said lead researcher Muriel Saunders.

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A farmer has grown a second crop of strawberries in October for the first time in more than 30 years due to the autumn heatwave.

Paddy Ivens, 48, normally turns his attention to pumpkins at this time of year, but he was shocked to see an incredible two acres of his strawberry plants suddenly bearing fruit again this week.

He has now seen a rush from pick your own customers to harvest the late strawberries, which have made an autumn comeback for the first time ever at his farm in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

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Girl, 4, whose skin falls off if knocked is barred from lessons as no one to supervise her at playtime

A four-year-old girl has been barred from lessons because of a rare condition which means her delicate skin can fall off at the slightest touch.

Akeelah Sorhaindo suffers from epidermolysis bullosa a rare condition affecting just one in 17,000 births. The slightest contact with the skin causes it to blister and bruise.

She had been attending morning lessons at her primary school in Bristol, but staff have now refused to teach her for the whole day because they have no one to supervise her at break times.

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‘Incredible Edibles Fright Factory’ will allow kids to ‘slurp brains,’ ‘drink alien blood’ and ‘lick gooey guts’

While parents have been known to deter kids from playing with their food and eating bugs – or brains for that matter – one toy is expected to be a holiday hit for encouraging just that.

Incredible Edibles Fright Factory will allow kids to ‘slurp brains,’ ‘drink alien blood’ and ‘lick gooey guts’, according to manufacturer JAKKS Pacific.

And parents may be frightened themselves to know – the game tops Toys’R'Us’ list of top holiday trends.

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Today is Stem Cell Awareness Day, a day dedicated to providing accurate information about stem cell therapy for treating or curing incurable diseases and injuries

Even as we celebrate the scientific advances that are being honoured by the Nobel Prizes, let’s not forget current research that will be winning the Nobel Prizes a few short years. One of those research areas could be stem cell research and technology.

Millions of people around the world suffer from incurable diseases, like cancer, and injuries, such as spinal injuries. Stem cell research is providing ground-breaking advances in science and medicine — advances that represent the best hope for healing treatments that people have who are suffering from these diseases or injuries.

This video provides a brief glimpse into one of the many illnesses that stem cell technology is being developed to address:

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Scientists have created autistic mice that could help unlock the riddle of the increasingly common condition.

Autism and related conditions such as Asperger’s syndrome affect more than one in 100 British children – ten times more than just 30 years ago.

But despite the rise, the condition is still little understood.

It is hoped that the mice – which like many autistic children are reserved and uncommunicative and repeat the same mannerism over and over again – will shed light on what goes wrong the brain.

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It is not just grown-ups who cannot resist the smell of food.

Babies sniff out their mothers’ milk, it seems.

Research suggests that newborns are guided to their food supply by their noses.

This is because tiny glands on the breast produce a fluid with a smell that hungry babies find irresistible, scientists say.

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Scientists have for the first time used a cloning technique to get tailor-made embryonic stem cells to grow in human egg cells.

The development in New York marks a landmark in stem cell research, according to experts in the field, but also represents a potential new flashpoint for opponents of such controversial cell research.
The researchers were trying to prove it is possible to use a cloning technology called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT, to make embryonic stem cells that match a patient’s DNA.
The achievement, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is significant because such patient-specific cells potentially can be transplanted to replace damaged cells in people with diabetes and other diseases without rejection by the immune system.

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Mother-of-five allegedly kept up pretence for two years

A mother claimed £100,000 in benefits by pretending her young son was suffering from cancer, a court heard today.

She even convinced the boy himself that he had the disease, and shaved his head to make it look like he was undergoing chemotherapy, it is alleged.

The woman, who is from Berkeley, Gloucestershire, removed the hair from his eyebrows and made him wear a bandana as part of the deception, a hearing was told.

It is claimed she then pocketed cash from a carers’ allowance, tax exemptions and disability benefits.

The court heard that the mother of five, aged 36, who cannot be named for legal reasons, forged medical notes from doctors for her fraudulent claims.

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Parents who were advised by doctors to terminate a pregnancy because their unborn daughter’s tumour would make it impossible for her to survive birth have celebrated her first steps.

Scans showed a large tumour covering the entire left chamber of Charley-Marie Skinner’s heart that was restricting blood flow.
Specialists were convinced she would die in the womb and instructed Heather and Andy, from Darwen, Lancashire, to terminate their baby.
But the parents refused, saying they would rather let her die naturally than go through the trauma of an abortion.
So certain were the doctors that she wouldn’t survive, her parents were told to start making funeral arrangements.

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