Family

Gisele Bundchen, the Brazillian model, has backed down on her statements that she made saying mothers should have to breastfeed their kids for six months by law.

In her blog, the 30-year-old who became a mother in December, said she “wasn't here to judge” other mothers.

She said feeding her song Benjamin helped her lose her weight gained in pregnancy.

Health Department figures have only about 20% of mothers still breastfeeding when their babies are six months old.

With newborns, 80% of moms breastfeed.

Bundchen made her comments after supporting long-term breastfeeding in an interview with Harper's Bazaar magazine.

"I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months," she said.

"Some people here [in the US] think they don't have to breastfeed, and I think 'Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?' "

In a follow up blog post, she said, “My intention in making a comment about the importance of breastfeeding has nothing to do with the law. It comes from my passion and beliefs about children.

"Becoming a new mom has brought a lot of questions, I feel like I am in a constant search for answers on what might be the best for my child."

Gisele is the world's highest paid supermodel, and is married to American football star Tom Brady, had a natural birth at her home in Boston after meditating through her eight-hour labor.

Television star Denies van Outen said she gave up breastfeeding with her new daughter Betsy after less than a month because she did not want the press taking photos.

"I probably should have persevered a bit longer than three weeks," she said recently. "But I can't be sitting in Starbucks and breastfeeding, because they [photographers] are taking pictures.”

SINGAPORE – More and more Asian families are having trouble with the pressure of simultaneously supporting their children and aging parents, a new study released this week said.

Longer lifespans and women bearing children at a later age have raised the number of Asia's so called “sandwich generation”, said the study by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

"Across the region, many members of the sandwich generation are squeezed by the financial burden of caring for multiple generations and are concerned that their future living standards will decline," it said.

One in five working-age Asians is now a member of the group, said the EIU study, sponsored by investment product and services provider Fidelity International.

Members of this group are typically between 30 and 45 years of age, and support one or two children and two parents or parents-in-law, and their size varies across the region, according to the study.

In China, 37 percent of the working-age population cares for both children and elderly parents, while in Japan and Australia the number sits at 6%.

Due to the financial pressure, members of this group are working more, saving less and taking fewer risks with their money, the study said.

"More than one-third... have had to work harder to cover family expenses since becoming 'sandwiched', about half have reduced their savings and investments and nearly two-thirds are more cautious with their existing investments than they would otherwise be," it added.

More than a third, about 36%, say they are “struggling to cope” with the demands of supporting both children and aging parents, with the number higher in Hong Kong at 53%.

Filial piety remained strong with 78 percent agreeing that it was their responsibility to care for their aged parents, according to the study called “Feeling the Squeeze: Asia's Sandwich Generation."

While children's education is a major expense, providing for the well being of elderly parents is an additional burden, especially in a country with weak social security systems, the study claimed.

EIU said it interviewed 700 respondents in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan who are supporting both children and elderly parents. They interviews were carried out in March and April this year.

WASHINGTON – A new device may be able to automatically check young kids for autism based on how they talk, US researchers said on Monday.

The recorder fits into a child's pocket and looks at the words the child says during the day, and software evaluates how the child makes certain sound.

Kimbrough Oller of the University of Memphis lead the team that analyzed more htan 3 million syllabic utterances, gathered from about 1,500 all-day recordings from 232 kids aged 10 months to 4 years.

The program correctly found existing autism diagnosis 86% of the time. The data also predicted the age of a typically developing child, said the study that first appeared in the Journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Although clinicians have been saying for many years that they think that autistic kids sound strange when they talk, there's been no practical way to use vocalization as a part of the diagnostic or screening procedure in working with autism," said Oller, professor of audiology and speech-language pathology.

Oller identified the speech patterns the device analyzes and helped develop the screening method.

The tests were conducted in English, but Oller said the technique may apply to other languages. "It hasn't actually been tried yet, but there's every reason to think it should," he said.

Doctors diagnose autism in children by testing them for a range of behavioral and speech issues, including how much they talk by a certain age and whether they make eye contact with other people.

"Autism is a multi-factoral disorder and it has many behavioral dimensions to consider. And vocalization is clearly an important one," said Oller. "But I certainly don't think it should be used exclusively."

Oller, who studies language learning and the evolution of language, identified how the formation of different syllables metamorphose during the child's first four years.

Instead of saying “ba” as a part of a longer word, a younger child might say “ba-a” with "sort of a staccato or tremor kind of pattern,"said Oller. The development of an autistic child's language does not follow those typical patterns, the analysis shows.

The software looks at speakers and processes sounds made only by the child being studied. The day-length recordings allow scientists to look into a child's natural speech.

Parents send the recorder to the company after the child has worn it for a day, and the company then analyzes the audio for language development and autism.

Infoture Inc developed the device and software. The company dissolved in February of last year and was reconstituted LENA Foundation, a not-for-profit organization, that still funds the research. The foundation sells the device with clothing that has a pocket to house the recorder.

Oller got consultation fees from Infoture before it dissolved and several of its other workers are researchers for the LENA Foundation.

A new study has shown that kids who sit down and eat regular family meals and get plenty of vegetables in their diet tend to be in better shape than their peers who lack those eating habits.

The new study, published in the Journal of Pediatrics, may not sound like a new idea. However, not a lot of studies have looked at the relationship between kids and the relationship between their weight and eating habits, which are far more complex than just sugar and fat consumption.

While it is generally thought that sitting down with their family to dinner is healthy for children, there is little research as to how doing so helps gets stay or get thin.

In the new study, Greek researchers studied 1,138 kids from the ages of 9 to 13. They looked at their diets, physical activity, and then used that information to identify five general diet-and-lifestyle patterns withing the group.

One was called the "dinner, cooked meals and vegetables" pattern. Children with this lifestyle had a higher intake of vegetables, regularly sat down to family dinner and had more traditional “cooked” meals (hot or cold) for lunch and dinner, rather than sandwiches, snack foods, or breakfast-like meals.

Kids in this pattern typically had a lower BMI. They also had slimmer waistlines and less body fat than their peers who did not fit the diet pattern.

The other four diet-and-lifestyle patterns that were identified were associated with children's weight or body fat levels.

The others included am “unstructured eating, fast food/sugary foods and sedentary lifestyle" pattern, and "high fiber," "breakfast," and "exercise, fruits and vegetables” patterns.

It is not clear why these other categories failed to show al ink to kids' weight, while the family meal/vegetable pattern did, according to researchers, headed up by Dr. Mary Yannakoulia of Harokopio University in Athens.

They write, however, that the habit of sitting down with families to dinner and having cooked meals on a regular basis could signify kids who are sticking to the traditional mediterranean diet, which is rich in vegetables, olive oil, whole grains and fish.

A major limitation of the study is that it only looked at the kids at one point in time. Only a study that lasts over time can show whether those who have a family meal/vegetable-type pattern are less likely to be overweight.

Yannakoulia nd her colleagues, however, write that the findings suggest that an eating pattern stands as a "potential preventive approach" to facing childhood obesity. They noted, also, that a "non-restrictive" pattern is a way of eating most children can live with.