Worrying is a natural tendency among children. While some worrying helps children to excel, too much worrying can lead to anxiety related disorders. From friendship woes to homework to fear of failure, there could be a lot of factors that can lead to anxiousness in a kid. This problem is mostly witnessed in school going, children. Some of the common symptoms that are portrayed include the need to be perfectionists, seeking of constant reassurance, getting sick worrying too much, scared of participating in a group event.

How to prepare your child to overcome anxiety?

Pass on the anxiety: Anxiousness has to be passed in form of something. Certain activities, therefore play great strokes in addressing anxiousness. Teach your kids to distress in the form of TV or teach them to write when they are anxious. This not only takes off anxiety from the equation, it helps a kid to relax without the fear of failure.

Reassurance: Kids suffering from anxiousness often need repeated reassurance about the task in hand. The task here for a parent is to make their kid understand that failure will not impact their relationship with their parents. Often the failure of letting someone down makes a kid anxious. Constant reassurance will curtail the tendency. This being said, parents should ensure that this doesn’t become a habit for the kid. The idea is to make them comfortable and not letting your child dependent on you.

Relaxation techniques: A study published by the Journal of School Counseling argued that kids who practice relaxation techniques are far less likely to suffer from anxiety and stress related disorders as compared to their peers. Some of the relaxation techniques that can be easily learned and practised include breathing exercises, meditation, yoga and so on. This exercise helps children to focus and concentrate more.

Air pollution is known to take a toll on the lungs of even the healthiest adults. So it comes as no surprise that the effects of this pollution on the lungs of children is deemed as a grave situation, full of health hazards including the onset of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorders and conditions like asthma. Read on to find out more about the link between air pollution and its effect on the lungs of children.

- Children's Lungs: Mostly, all the organs of a child's body are considered delicate and not fully matured until the child reaches a certain age. The main and largest part of the child's lungs will usually grow only after the child has been born - much like the arms and legs. In fact, it is a medically proven fact that about 80% of the tiniest of air sacs grow after the child's birth. These are called the alveoli and they facilitate the transfer of the oxygen into the blood stream with a life sustaining function that is built into our lungs. These alveoli continue to grow until the child becomes an adult.

- Immunity and Infections: Like the lungs of the child, the immunity of the child is also still in its growth phase, and very much unlike the immunity that an adult enjoys. This makes the child more susceptible to infections that are usually carried by air pollution in today's day and age of urban living when myriad pollutants are sent into the air every single day. Also, since children play outdoors more often and spend more time breathing in this air, they are more prone to these infections and lung or respiratory ailments due to this reason. Various studies and tests have shown inflammation in the respiratory passages caused by deposits of carbon dioxide emissions in the lungs of children.

- Symptoms: Usually, the very first symptoms that show that air pollution is affecting the child's lungs can be seen when persistent coughing and wheezing sets in, without any proper reason. Also, when the child faces bronchial infections time and time again, then this points at the hazardous effects of air pollution as well.

- Respiratory problems: Apart from respiratory problems which can lead to asthmatic attacks, hay fever and allergies as well as other COPD ailments, there are other related dangers. These can happen when constant choking and obstruction of oxygen due to pollution become a regular affair. These include strokes and brain damage which can eventually also lead to a higher risk of dementia.

The government and citizens need to ensure that there is a drop in particle air pollution so as to ensure that children do not fall prey to such health problems.

Psychological and sometimes, physical problems in children go unspoken, though they tend to yield a significant impact on the well-being of a child. In the 21st century, to have a carefree childhood may not be the privilege of every child. This is why it is important for parents to handle a sticky situation where the child may have experienced an unhappy incident and was unable to cope with it. So, here are five ways to handle some of the most common traumas in childhood.

Family Fights
If your child is traumatized by fights in the family, he may have an emotional outburst more often than not and lash out at other kids or find it difficult to make friends. The child may find it difficult to focus on a certain task at hand and find it difficult to calm down. On the other hand, the child may become meek and quiet and be more observant than talkative, doing exactly what he is told. He may find it cathartic to make everyone around him feel nice and secure.

You can resolve this situation by being compassionate and kind. Irrespective of your child’s behaviour, try to be calm and supportive. Getting your child to talk will help you to rewire the brain.

Death in the Family especially at Home
If someone in the home has died and if such an event traumatizes the child, he may seem withdrawn, reclusive, worried and anxious. He may have an unbalanced eating pattern and they may seesaw between emotions such as being quiet one moment and being agitated the next. Most children do not understand death and they assume that the person or animal that has died will spurt back to life sometime or another.

If your child has questions to ask, respond to them honestly and in a way that he understands. Checking a few days later if the child has any more questions to ask will be a responsible gesture. If your child is holding himself responsible for the death, tell him that everyone’s body gets sick sometimes and when the medicines do not work, the person may die.

Divorce
One of the most common traits that children exhibit from broken homes is visiting the absent parent. He may behave dramatically when he is with the parent with custody but behave well with the parent he visits. Sometimes, it may take weeks for the child to calm down at home. Child custody disputes tend to make things a lot worse because kids tend to interpret it as being taken away from their parent who loves them by the other.

Try not to discuss the details of separation with your child, but do let them know that you are available to them always. If the child does not express any feelings or ask questions, you may give a simple explanation.

Accidents
In children, accidents can cause complex reactions. Children may withdraw, experience a decrease in appetite or go through repeated nightmares. In certain extreme cases, the children may also develop a response to places that remind them of the tragedy.

The only way you can talk it out with your child to rectify the trauma that accidents cause is by discussing the event with them when they are ready. Doing so will offer them closure, helping them to refer to the event as something that had happened earlier and that the child is now safe. Disaster updates, as well as news reports, can make certain images to prop up in the mind. You need to help them dissociate from the imagery and detach from the event so that you can reinforce that they are safe.

Emotional Unavailability

This is the most common type of trauma that most children of the modern-age face. The pressure of not having both the parents around can mean that the parents are least concerned to the child. When children are left alone to make sense of their everyday experiences and emotions, they tend to lack inputs from responsible and reasonable adults. It is important for kids to be at the perusal of important tips and inputs from adults because it helps children to self-soothe and makes sense of relationships and the expectations that people have from them.

It is as simple as it sounds and so long as you avoid trying, you may not really be able to be the responsible parents that you want to be. So, take time every day to talk to your child. Communication is very important in helping your child to build an emotional connection with the world around.

Pregnant women are advised ample rest and there’s a good reason for it. In fact, pregnant women undergo constant blood pressure check up so that the doctor can monitor the pressure levels throughout pregnancy. Developing high blood pressure during pregnancy is not always harmful but it could also lead to several complications. “These days high BP during late pregnancies is very common. There is also a high possibility that women have hypertension as a pre-existing condition,” says Dr Anjali Talwalkar, obstetrics and gynecology, Kohinoor Hospital.

These are some of the symptoms that you need to watch out for:

Typically, most women develop high BP during the seventh month, usually after 20 or 24 weeks. This is the time that women need to be careful and lead as healthy a life as possible. “Some of the effects include protein loss in urine, which could lead to kidney damage. At the same time fluid retention (which is very common) can lead to swollen feet,” she adds. High BP could also lead to pre-eclampsia.

According to Dr Bilsi Mittal, MS (obstetrics and gynaecology), Wockhardt Hospital, “Pregnant women should watch out for symptoms like too much weight gain, blurring of vision, turbidity of urine, severe headaches.”

Here’s what high BP means for your growing baby:

Due to the increased pressure, it directly affects the placenta. “This makes the blood vessels shrink leading to reduced blood flow for your baby. The baby can also experience severe intrauterine growth retardation,” says Talwalkar.

She adds, “Accidental haemohrage is also a complication that women should be aware of. This causes the placenta to separate from the uterus and leads to bleeding.”

High BP can be a dangerous condition because sometimes it can also lead to termination of pregnancy. “This situation is rare but occurs if the pregnant woman’s BP doesn’t come under control with treatment,” says Dr Mittal.

So, what are some of the precautionary measures?

Controlling blood pressure is very important. “It is important for mothers-to-be to ensure that they opt for early detection, which helps in better prognosis. Be regular for antenatal visits. Always follow a low salt diet and continue regular intake of calcium and iron tablets,” says Dr Mittal. Most importantly, a mother-to-be should be supported at home and at work places to help her sail through the pregnancy smoothly.

One among every 10 parents blame “contaminated” meals from restaurants as the leading cause behind food-borne illnesses in their children, a survey has revealed.

While just one third of parents said their children got sick from spoiled or contaminated food eaten at home, a whopping 68 per cent named restaurants as the most common source, according to the “National Poll on Children’s Health” led by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

The poll also reported that only 25 per cent of people check health inspection ratings before dining out.

“Contaminated food can make both kids and adults sick. For young children, whose immune systems are not fully developed, this kind of illness can present a greater risk of serious complications,” said Gary L. Freed from University of Michigan.

He explained that virus Hepatitis A is being increasingly passed on through unwashed hands, causing food contamination and, thus, recommends vaccination for one-year-old children.

Other places where eating made children sick included school (21 per cent), friend’s house (14 per cent) or at a potluck (11 per cent), the report stated.

As per the World Health Organization (WHO), about one in every 10 people around the world falls ill due to food-borne disease each year. Of those 600 million people, almost 420,000 die as a result.

Food-borne illnesses are most often caused by toxins, parasites, viruses and bacteria — such as salmonella and E. coli. It can occur when germs, either certain bacteria or viruses, contaminate food or drinks, according to the report.

Once contaminated food enters the body, some germs release toxins that can cause diarrhoea, vomiting and sometimes fever or muscle aches.

“Simple precautions, like checking restaurant inspections and following food safety rules when cooking and storing food, can help keep your family safe,” Freed said.