All September long, Baby Safety Month highlights the importance of providing babies and families with safe, quality products.
Children are a precious commodity. Parents and caregivers strive to provide the safest environment for children. Putting children’s safety first is a high priority. That not only means protecting them where they live but also protecting them from dangerous products.
For babies, every room in the home poses safety concerns. The paint on the walls, the temperature of the water, cleaners under the sink all present risk factors. But there are actions parents and caregivers can take to protect babies. These are just a few:
13 Baby Safety Tips
Anchor large pieces of furniture and televisions.
Place gates at the tops and bottoms of stairs.
Cover outlets.
Remove blinds and curtains with long or looped cords.
Install smoke detectors and test twice a year.
Add a fire extinguisher to every level of the home.
Put safety latches on cabinet doors and the toilet.
Check the thermostat on the hot water heater; install a temperature guard.
Remove toys with pieces small enough to swallow. Throw away broken toys.
Test old paint for lead. Have it removed or sealed.
Place bumpers on sharp corners.
Remove poisonous plants.
Complete the registration cards that come with baby furniture, supplies, and toys. If there is a recall, you’ll be notified.
Babies keep parents and caregivers busy, but these are just a few steps to help make their jobs less stressful and keep their small humans safe.
BABY SAFETY MONTH HISTORY
The Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association founded Baby Safety Month in 1983 as Expectant Mother’s Day. Over the years the celebration has grown into a full month of information, education, and focus on infant safety.
Explore More…
National Safe Toys and Gifts Month
National Seat Check Saturday
National Bath Safety Month
HOW TO OBSERVE #BabySafetyMonth
Visit the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) website for more Baby Safety Tips. Take the time to explore your home and car from a baby’s eye view. Crawl around on the floor and see what your baby sees. You might discover some safety hazards that need immediate attention.
Make sure your baby is safe and use #BabySafetyMonth to post on social media.
National Caffeine Awareness Month in March reminds us that our fifth cup of java may be harmful to our health.
While sticking to just one cup still has its benefits. When our blood pressure is up, or stomach acid bothers us, sometimes we need to give up the morning pick-me-up. But do we?
This stimulant that provides jolts of energy throughout the day may not be offering the perk it once did. We can build up a tolerance and require more to feel the same boost.
Consider your sources and how much it takes to derive a benefit from the good ol’ bean these days. Take a daily tally of your total caffeine intake from all sources. Do you only have two cups? Or after careful consideration, is your caffeine intake substantially higher?
Possible sources:
Sodas
Tea
Chocolate/cocoa
Guarana/energy drinks
Coffee
Remember, to include caffeine incorporated into our foods. Caffeine isn’t taken out of the coffee ice cream we enjoy before bed. If you wonder why you can’t sleep, that might be why. Don’t be surprised when you order an extra large sweet tea at lunch and get the jitters and sweats during a meeting with the boss.
All these circumstances add up to our total caffeine intake and contribute to sleepless nights, increased blood pressure and stomach acid. However, studies show caffeine in moderation can be beneficial.
Gain benefits from caffeine by consuming it in moderation. Track your intake and see how much you really consume. Use #NationalCaffeineAwarenessMonth to share on social media.
National Fasting February reminds us that our metabolic health underlies many of the diseases that we associate with aging, from diabetes to cancer to Alzheimer’s disease. Regularly switching from burning sugars to burning stored fats can reduce our risk of metabolic disorders such as diabetes and other conditions of aging.
February is a month for transforming new health resolutions into healthy habits and lifestyles. Since 1964, February has been American Heart Month to help raise awareness of preventable risk factors of cardiovascular disease including obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Diet heavily influences many of these risk factors. But there is a growing consensus among healthcare professionals that a healthy diet depends not just on what we eat but also when we eat.
National Fasting February celebrates the benefits of intermittent fasting on metabolic health. Practicing intermittent fasting is as simple as changing the timing of your meals. It gives your body at least a 10-12 hour break from metabolizing sugar every night.
Intermittent fasting does not require any change in the content of your diet, but rather merely a shift in the timing of your food and sweetened beverage intake. Regularly refraining from consuming any calories for just 10-12 or more hours can increase levels of brain-fueling ketones. It also:
Science-backed ways to practice fasting for metabolic health include:
Time-restricted eating: 10-16 hours of overnight fasting every day or several days per week
Alternate day fasting: Eating fewer than 500 calories every other day
The 5:2 diet: Two consecutive or non-consecutive days per week of eating fewer than 500 calories
NATIONAL FASTING FEBRUARY HISTORY
Intermittent fasting was developed as an alternative to calorie restriction interventions for studies of human aging and chronic disease prevention. Calorie restriction has long been considered by researchers to be a gold standard in prolonging lifespan in many animal species. But calorie restriction, which in humans typically involves eating fewer than 1,200 calories per day, is incredibly difficult for humans to practice. Researchers including Dr. Valter Longo, Dr. Mark Mattson, and Dr. Satchidananda Panda, and others are now finding that intermittent fasting may be just as effective or even more effective than calorie restriction in terms of delaying and preventing diseases of aging.
Fasting for 12-16 hours and exercising while fasted are safe practices for most individuals, except for pregnant women and individuals diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. However, you should consult your primary care physician to make sure that you don’t have a health condition for which fasting is contraindicated.
Prolonged fasting or going more than 24-36 hours without calories is the subject of early clinical trials. However, it isn’t necessary to glean the metabolic health benefits of fasting. You should drink plenty of water while fasting. You may need to supplement your water with a blend of electrolytes if you are practicing prolonged fasting. Zero-calorie beverages (unsweetened tea and coffee) will also not break your fast. You can consume artificially sweetened beverages while fasting in a pinch, but your gut microbes can break down some artificial sweeteners, and these sweeteners tend to increase your sweet cravings.
Intermittent fasting will not turn an unhealthy diet into a healthy one. You should try to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables when you aren’t fasting. It’s also best practice to break a fast with a relatively low glycemic index (low carbohydrate) meal to avoid spiking your blood sugar.
Visit lifeapps.io/fasting-february/ to learn more about how to participate in National Fasting February and to read about the health benefits of intermittent fasting.
Choose a fasting schedule that works best for you. Practice it all month long. Intermittent fasting is not a fad diet, but rather a lifestyle for metabolic health. If you’ve never fasted before, start with time-restricted eating. This involves fasting for at least 10-12 hours every night, ideally starting in the early evenings. Don’t worry if you can’t make it to 12 hours at first – work up slowly. Throughout the month, you may work your way up to a 16-hour or an occasional 24-hour fast.
Download the LIFE Fasting Tracker app to track your fasts. Create a fasting Circle, invite family members or join a public LIFE Circle to fast in a supportive social environment.
Share your experiences with intermittent fasting and post photos of how you break your fasts on social media with the hashtag #NationalFastingFebruary.
If you are an experienced faster or looking to achieve weight loss, you may try practicing alternate day fasting or a 5:2 weekly fasting schedule this month.
About Life Fasting Tracker
The LIFE Fasting Tracker app was created by LifeOmic, a precision health software company headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. LifeOmic works with healthcare providers and academic institutions, including the Indiana School of Medicine, to power precision medicine and personalized treatments for cancer and other diseases using ultra-secure cloud technologies. LifeOmic’s LIFE apps provide the missing link to patient engagement in precision healthcare.
The LIFE Fasting Tracker app, free to download for both iOS and Android, is the easiest and most social way to fast. Launched in late 2018, the app makes it easy and fun to harness lifestyle changes to improve metabolic health. With the app, you can track your progress on any fasting schedule, see when you start burning fats for fuel, and intuitively log how you are feeling. You can share your fasts and give and receive encouragement within custom Circles of people you care about, from friends to coworkers to healthcare providers. Join hundreds of thousands of users in their journey to better health.
