| FDA issues warning about cold medication for children
The Federal Food and Drug Administration issued a warning Thursday that children through the age of 2 should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold medicines. The agency also is considering whether OTC cold remedies are safe and effective for children younger than 12. Parents searching for a way to treat a cold in children can use Tylenol or acetaminophen for a fever, said Ellen Schumann, pediatrician at Marshfield Clinic Weston Center. "Another thing that helps a lot is saltwater nose drops or nasal spray," Schumann said. A saltwater spray releases the congestion and can be wiped away. "A parent could use a bulb syringe to suck it out, but it's not necessary," she said. Other treatments for a cold are to sleep with the head elevated, use a humidifier next to the bed when sleeping, stay well-hydrated and keep the nose lubricated with Vaseline, Schumann said.
ODD NEWS - Baby born in driveway after mother told labor pains were ...
NORWOOD, Ohio (AP) " A woman who had been told that her pains were false labor pains gave birth in the driveway of her home. Charryse Brooks, 25, had gone to a hospital about 2 a.m. Sunday because she thought she might be in the early stages of labor. She wasn't due with her first child until Feb. 22. Hospital workers told her she was experiencing false labor and told her to go home. She tried to sleep, but the pain increased and her contractions got stronger. Finally, she insisted that she had to return to the hospital, but it was too late. By the time she got to the car, the pain was so intense, she couldn't open the car door. "She looked at me, right in the eye, so calmly, too. She said, 'Tim, the baby's here,"' said her husband, Rev.
Aids leaves Africa's grannies to raise children
Skinny and gap-toothed, her nose smudged with black dust, grandmother Kanotu Mumo sorts charcoal into small pots for sale on the stoop of her slum hut. Mumo is an "Aids granny" in Kibera, Nairobi, one of Africa's biggest slums. Like grandmothers all over Africa, they have been left to fend for orphans after their own children and husbands died. Her hut, stacked with sacks of charcoal, measures 3m by 2,5m and it is too dark inside to see more than a few centimetres, even in the middle of the day. Somehow she shelters four grandchildren, two great grandchildren and the child of a dead relative, who sleep on mattresses and two beds. There is no toilet or running water. According to United Nations figures, at least 12-million children in Africa have lost one or both parents because of Aids. This accounts for 80% of all Aids orphans in the developing world.
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