Mom's Corner

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Need to know how to contact the local Healthy Start/Healthy Families Maternal and Child Health Assessment Center?

702 S. Ridgewood Avenue
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
Phone: (386) 947-2446 or Toll Free 1 (866) 301-2066

If you are or have been a Healthy Start participant in Flagler and Volusia Counties and want to provide us with feedback, please click here to take our Healthy Start client satisfaction survey.

If you are or have been a participant in the MomCare program in Flagler and Volusia Counties please take a moment to give us some feedback about your experience. Click here to take survey.

Click the links below for information. Also check out our Community Resources page for local resources.

Bed Sharing and SIDS Prevention and Safe Sleeping
Breast Feeding
Cancer Preventing Diet and Lifestyle
Chantrix Information
New-Car Seat Safety Guides - General
New-Car Seat Safety - Premature Babies
Child Abuse Prevention Tips for Parents
Child Health and Education Resources
Childbirth and Parenting Information
Childbirth Preparation Classes
Child Development Online Encyclopedia
Child Health and Safety Information
Colds - Alternatives for Teating Baby's Cold
Community Resources - 211 Live
Community Resources for Pregnant and Parenting Women
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Crib Safety - Checking for Crib Defects
Crying - Coping With It
New-Drowning Prevention Tools and Resources from Nova Southeastern Univeristy
Family Planning Services Available under the Medicaid Family Planning Waiver
Family Support Groups - Free
New-Fitness During Pregnancy - Exercise Tips from March of Dimes
Flu Prevention/Immunization Inforamtion - Florida Department of Health
Daytona Beach Community College Women's Center
Doctors
Health Services Inforamton - Florida Department of Health
New-Health Quiz for Women- How Healthy Are You
Heart Healthy in Baby Related to Mom's Prenatal Lifestyle Changes
Holiday Safety Tips
Immunization Scheduler from the CDC (Type in child's date of birth and get a list of immunizations and dates)
Lead Alert Network
Lead Alert Children's Jewelry - QuinCrafts
Lead Exposure and Toys
Lead Poisoning - Protect Your Child
Medications for Labor? What's right for you?
New-Mobile Phone Health Information (text4baby)
Moms' Prenatal Vitamins May Prevent Childhood Cancer
New-Newborn Development - A Parent's Guide
Nutrition
Opiates and Pregnancy
Oral Health - Importance for Pregnant Women and Young Children
Phone Service Discounts for Low Income Residents
Parenting Education Booklets FREE!
New-Parenting - Goals and Tools for Discipline
Parenting Information- American Academy of Pediatrics
Parenting Information - Florida Department of Health
Parenting Information - USAA Educational Foundation
Parenting Information - Zero to Three.org
Parenting Teens - A Legal Guide for Florida Parenting Teens from the American Civil Liberties Union
Pertussis - Protect Your Baby From It
New-Poison Information - Florida Poison Informaiton Center
Postpartum Depression - Support
Pregnancy- Changes in Baby and Mom by Week and Trimester
Pregnancy - Drinking Alcohol During Pregnancy
Pregnancy - Drug, Herb, and Dietary Supplement Use During Pregnancy
Pregnancy - False Labor (Braxton Hicks contractions)
Pregnancy - Mercury in Some Seafood Harmful to Unborn Child
Prematurity - Developmental Issues
Prenatal Medicaid - How to Apply for Prenatal Care Covered by Medicaid
Prenatal Stress Keeps Infants and Toddlers Up at Night, Study Says
Preventing Premature Births with Progesterone 17P
Product Recalls
RSV - Respiratory Syncytial Virus - a leading cause of long term pulmonary sequeale in infants
Safe Haven for Newborns
Safe Sleeping Environments for Babies
Shaken Baby Syndrome
Smoking and Pregnancy
Suboxone Addiction or Addiction to other Pain Killing Drugs
Substance Abuse Treatment Programs in Your Area
STD/STI Information
Terminally Ill Children, Infant Death
Vaccine Education Center - The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Breast Feeding

Here are two great sites for breast feeding information: http://www.4woman.gov/ and www.lalecheleague.org

Pregnant? Don’t smoke. It can hurt your baby in 6 ways.

You may bleed a lot – the blood loss can put you and your baby in danger.
Your baby may have health problems. These may cause your baby to die before birth.
Your baby may be born too soon.
Your baby may be born too small.
Your baby could die of SIDs (crib death).
Your baby may have learning problems later on.
For more information, read the CDC Fact Sheet

For more information and help on smoking cessation:

Call the Florida Department of Health Family Health Line toll free at 1-800-451-2229.
Visit the Florida Tobacco Quit-For-Life line for free, confidential, comprehensive counseling and information about how to quit. At your request, counselors will call you to follow-up with more assistance.
The National Cancer Institute has awarded the University of South Florida and the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center a grant to develop, distribute, and evaluate self-help materials to aid pregnant or postpartum women in maintaining their tobacco abstinence. Women may call the toll-free phone number (1-877-9-KICK-IT) to request the materials.

What makes a safe sleeping environment for your baby?

Place your baby on his or her back to sleep for naps and at night.
Use sleep clothing, such as a one-piece sleeper, instead of a blanket.
Do not let anyone smoke near your baby.
Use a firm mattress in a safety-approved crib covered by a fitted sheet.
Make sure nothing covers the baby’s head.
Do not use pillows, blankets, sleepskins, or pillow-like bumpers in your baby’s sleep area.
Keep soft objects, stuffed toys, and loose bedding out of your baby ’s sleep area.

For more information on Safe Sleeping:

Safe Sleep for Your Baby: Ten Ways to Reduce the Risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS)

Car Seat Safety Guides

American Association of Pediatricians Car Seat Safety Guide
PartsGeek.com Car Seat Safety Guide

Doctors

Looking for a doctor?

Click here to type in a doctor's name and get information about whether or not they accept Medicaid, their office locations, hospitals where they have privileges, their education and training, academic appointments, specialty certifications and more.

Want to file a complaint against a doctor or unlicensed person acting as a doctor?

Click here to file a complaint. The Department of Health, Division of Medical Quality Assurance is responsible for analysis of complaints and reports involving potential misconduct of a licensee and initiates investigations when appropriate. If the Department determines that your complaint is a possible violation of Florida Law, it will be investigated. A Department investigator may contact you for additional information. Following legal review, the Department will refer the complaint to the appropriate panel of the regulatory board to determine if a violation of the Florida Law has occurred.

Suboxone Addiction or Addiction to other Pain Killing Drugs

On May 18th 2007, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported a growing problem with addiction to Suboxone among people trying to quit addictions to other opiates or prescription pain killers. Drugabuse.gov also reports increasing addiction rates among women to prescription as well as illicit drugs. Suboxone and other opiate prescription drugs when abused can lower breathing rates to dangerous and even fatal levels.

Healthy Heart in Baby Related to Mom's Prenatal Lifestyle Changes

The American Heart Association published a scientific statement of 5/22/07 stating that prospective parents can take positive lifestyle steps to increase the chance that their babies will be born with a healthy heart. The “Non-inherited Risk Factors and Congenital Cardiovascular Defects: Current Knowledge” statement is published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The American Heart Association’s Congenital Cardiac Defects Committee of the Council on Cardiovascular Disease in the Young examined the latest knowledge reflected in medical/scientific literature, which shed light on modifiable risk factors for congenital heart defects.

“This is a new way of thinking and a positive vision of how prospective mothers can influence and protect a child from being born with a heart defect,” Jenkins said.

The committee had four key recommendations based on the literature review. These lifestyle recommendations range from three months before pregnancy through the first trimester of pregnancy.

The first and most important recommendation is to “talk to your doctor.” Good preconception and prenatal care is important to the birth of a heart-healthy baby. Prospective mothers should be checked for diabetes, rubella (German or three-day measles) and influenza. Women of child-bearing age need to be immunized against rubella. Otherwise, rubella infection early in gestation carries the risk of congenital rubella syndrome in offspring. Diabetes needs to be diagnosed and controlled.
A second recommendation is for women to take a daily multivitamin containing 400 micrograms (mcg) of folic acid or a folic acid supplement. Folic acid is critical to the normal growth and development of the fetus and appears to have a protective effect against the development of heart defects. Data suggest intake of folic acid is particularly important prior to conception.
Third, parents should review medication use — even over-the-counter medications — with their doctor.
The last recommendation centers on what the prospective mother should avoid, such as contact with people who have the flu or other fever-related illnesses. Any fever-related illness during the first trimester of pregnancy may carry a two-fold higher risk of offspring with heart defects.

Congenital heart defects, both simple and severe, are structural problems with the heart present at birth. They result when a mishap occurs during heart development soon after conception and often before the woman is aware she is pregnant. The American Heart Association estimates that out of 1,000 births, nine babies will have some form of congenital heart disorder. Congenital cardiovascular defects are the most common birth defects.

In the future, two major national studies — the National Birth Defect Prevention Study and National Children’s Study — are expected to further illuminate additional factors that may help reduce heart defects.

Co-authors of the statement are: Adolfo Correa, M.D., Ph.D.; Jeffrey A. Feinstein, M.D., M.P.H.; Lorenzo Botto, M.D.; Amy E. Britt, M.S.; Stephen R. Daniels, M.D., Ph.D.; Marsha Elixson, R.N., M.S. and Carole A. Warnes, M.D.

Shaken Baby Syndrome

Shaken Baby Syndrome is 100% preventable.

Previous studies have suggested that about a half of parents and adolescents are not aware of the dangers of violent infant shaking.
Men are most often the perpetrators of SBS.
It can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Shaking a child is child abuse.
When a baby is shaken, the head whips back and forth and causes the brain to slam against the skull repeatedly. The sudden impact can prompt bleeding in the brain, spinal cord injuries or damage to the retina. Shaken children suffer a variety of horrible outcomes, including severe brain damage, blindness, paralysis, seizures, fractures or death.
Caregivers should be educated on SBS, and parents should discuss ways to prevent it, i.e. offering a phone number so the caregiver can call if he or she becomes frustrated; assuring caregivers that placing a child who persistently cries in a safe place such as a crib, leaving the room, and then checking on the child periodically is acceptable (after the caregiver has exhausted all ways to relieve the child's distress).
Everyday handling of a baby, playful acts or minor household accidents do not cause the forces necessary to create SBS injuries. Shaking injuries are not caused by: bouncing a baby on your knee; tossing a baby in the air; jogging or bicycling with a baby; falling off furniture; sudden stops in a car or driving over bumps.
Parents in Florida who need help coping with their baby can call 911 or 1-800-FLA LOVE. A brochure about Shaken Baby Syndrome and ways to prevent it is available at the Florida Department of Health.

Chantrix and Pregnant or Nursing Women

The manufacturer's web site says

Who can take CHANTIX?
Tell your doctor about all of your medical conditions including if you:

have kidney problems or get kidney dialysis. Your doctor may prescribe a lower dose of CHANTIX for you.
are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. CHANTIX has not been studied in pregnant women. It is not known if CHANTIX will harm your unborn baby. It is best to stop smoking before you get pregnant.
are breast-feeding. Although it was not studied, CHANTIX may pass into breast milk. You and your doctor should discuss alternative ways to feed your baby if you take CHANTIX.

Source: http://www.chantix.com/content/Common_Questions.jsp

Nutrition

Proper nutrition is essential in combating onset and prevention of chronic disease, achieving and maintaining adequate weight as well as overall health and wellness. Look beyond the myths of nutrition and focus on facts:

Eating right doesn’t have to be complicated. Use mypyramid.gov to develop a personalized plan for lifelong health. Also consult www.5aday.gov/ and eatright.org
The best nutrition advice is based on science. Before adopting any changes to your diet, be sure the information is based on scientific fact
Get your food and nutrition facts from the expert: a registered dietitian. RD’s are uniquely qualified to translate the science of nutrition into reliable advice you can use every day
Balancing physical activity and a healthful diet is your best recipe for managing weight and promoting overall health and fitness
Think nutrient-rich rather than “good” or “bad” foods. The majority of your food choices should be packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber and other nutrients – and lower in calories
Look at the big picture: No single food or meal makes or breaks a healthful diet. Your total diet is the most important focus for healthful eating.
Prepare, handle and store food properly to keep you and your family safe from food-borne illness.
Don’t fall prey to food myths and misinformation that may harm rather than benefit your health
Read food labels to get nutrition information that can help you make smart food choices quickly and easily.
Find the healthy fats when making food choices. By choosing polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats, you can keep your saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol low.